THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

MASSACRE AT ATHENS 101
many parallels during the course of this horrible war.
For a whole day the streets of Athens resounded with
the shrieks and cries of tortured women and children.
The leaders, who had sworn, by all they
held most
sacred, to see the capitulation carried out, did not care,
or were afraid, to interfere. The foreign consuls did
what they could;
but the mob had tasted blood, and
their interference all but proved fatal to themselves.
At last the arrival of two French ships of war in the
Piraeus put a stop to the slaughter.
Under a strong escort
of marines, some three hundred and ninety of the
Mussulmans, who had sought refuge in the French,
Austrian, and Dutch consulates, were conducted to the
harbour through a mob of wild tribesmen and Athenian
citizens, who brandished their weapons, and yelled
like demoniacs at the sight of their escaping prey. 1
i The account given by Finlay (i. 348) of this horrible
affair differs from that of M. Lemaitre (p. 108). The former
gives the Greeks credit for having been ashamed of themselves.
After the departure of the refugees in the French
Consulate, * shame operated, and all the Turks who remained
in the Austrian and Dutch consulates were allowed
to depart unmolested.' But M. de Reverseaux, commanding
the Active (quoted verbatim by M. Lemaitre), states
that he only succeeded in rescuing the latter with the utmost
difficulty from the mob * of assassins ' *
: Je criai que
c'etait sur moi qu'ils devaient tirer, et non sur les restes
infortunes d'une population desarmee; mais que s'ils
avaient 1'audace, je trouverais promtement
des ven-