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October 20, 2005
October 20, 1827
Another Good Day for the West
I have not come to take orders, I have come to give orders. - Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington to Turkish Commander Moharem Bey at Navarino upon being "ordered" to withdraw his ships from Navarino Bay
The Battle of Navarino may not have been as historically significant as Lepanto, but there is something about Greece, the cradle of our civilization, in the hands of the Turk that just won't do.
When the battle took place, the Greek revolt against the Turks had been underway since 1821. While the war had seen some significant Greek victories, the Turks had waged it with horrendous brutality, routinely slaughtering civilians by the thousands.
A series of Turkish gains, including the recapture of Athens by the Turks in May, 1827, brought about the intervention of Great Britain, France and Russia. It is probable that the dispatch of the European naval forces was meant more to intimidate the Turks than to actually destroy their navy:
Clearly the whole endeavor was meant as a bluff and the British expected the Egyptian-Turkish fleet to either pull up anchor and leave or sit down and sign some kind of non-aggression treaty. But when the Turks shot Lieutenant GWH Fitzroy and some of his crew as they sailed towards them in a small boat to give a message, the frigate Dartmouth opened fire as did every British, French and Russian ship. By evening sixty of the seventy-two enemy ships were sunk and over 6000 Egyptians and Turks were dead. The British, French and Russian's combined losses were 177 dead, 515 wounded and only a few ships damaged....
You can still see the wrecks of the sunken ships on a clear and calm day. - From GreeceTravel.com
The battle broke the back of the Turkish resistance to Greek independence, which was finally achieved in 1829 and was a major factor in the long, slow expulsion of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans.
The 100 years from the defeat of Napoleon to the outbreak of WWI is full of unfortunate events and disagreeable developments. To me though, one of the most lamentable is the failure of the West to push the Turks completely out of Europe and to restore Constantinople to Christendom. Anglophile though I may be, I still cannot forgive "perfidious Albion" her role in maintaining the Ottoman Empire and its control of the Bosphorous in an effort to secure India and the east against her Russian rival.
(On March 25th 1821 Bishop Germanos of Patras raises the flag of revolution at the monastery of Agia Lavra near Kalavrita and the battle cry of "Freedom or Death" becomes the motto of the revolution. - A History of Greece)
Navarino Trivia
From Stories from English History, Part Third by Alfred J. Church (to be found on the excellent web site The Baldwin Project - Bringing Yesterday's Classics to Today's Children
Strange stories are told of the carelessness of the Turks about their own men. When the battle was over, the English admiral sent to the Turkish commander offering him any help that he might want. There had been terrible slaughter among his men. Hundreds of corpses had been thrown overboard, and the deck was strewed with wounded. Some Turkish officers were smoking and drinking coffee. "We don't want any help," said one of them to our admiral's messenger. "But," said the Englishman, "shall not our surgeon attend to your wounded?"
"No," replied the Turk, "wounded men want no help; they soon die."
From Wikipedia:
The engagement took place on the anniversary of the memorable Battle of Salamis, 480 B.C. when the invading army of Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks; and on the same day Euripides, the Greek tragic poet, was born.
According to The History of Naval Design and Purpose: An Introduction for Beginners, Navarino was the major battle between fleets of "wooden wall" war ships.
Posted by John at October 20, 2005 08:32 AM
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