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

102 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
footsteps
Vengeance in this case followed hard upon the
of crime. The advance of Dramali was facilitated
by the quarrels among the Greek chiefs;
and
at the head of twenty-four thousand infantry and six
thousand cavalry he marched through Bceotia and
Attica, without encountering serious opposition.
Athens and the Acropolis next fell into his hands,
and the Ottomans wreaked their vengeance
for the
slaughter of their co-religionists.
Rumour exaggerated the numbers of the Turkish
host;
no such display of military pomp had been seen
since, in 1715, Ali Kummargee had crossed the Spercheios
to reconquer the Morea from the Venetians;
and at the terror of its
approach all opposition vanished.
The Isthmus was passed ;
and the impregnable
rock of Acrocorinthos fell, abandoned by its cowardly
garrison without a blow. Had Dramali proceeded
with ordinary caution, the Greek revolt would have
been at an end ;
and already Metternich and his allies
were beginning to rejoice at the prospect of its speedy
collapse. But his undisturbed march led the Turkish
commander, very naturally but no less fatally, to underrate
his enemy. He expected to meet everywhere
with as little opposition as he had hitherto experi
.
g-eurs
. . ! Mon mouvement les deconcerta," &c. Cf.
also Gordon, i. 412.