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

104 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
and Demetrius Hypsilanti, refused to join in the
stampede.
A small band of Greeks, under the Mainote Kariyanni,
had seized Larissa, the mediaeval castle which
crowns the Acropolis of ancient Argos; and here they
were joined by Hypsilanti, who, with a band of seven
hundred men, threw himself into the fortress.
Illprovisioned
and insufficiently supplied with arms, they
could not hope to hold out long; but they achieved
their purpose of holding the Turks in check until Kolokotrones
had had time to collect an army. Their
desperate courage placed Dramali in an awkward position
;
for he was unable to advance to Nauplia, leaving
an unreduced fortress in his rear;
and his neglect of
the question of supplies and communications now began
to tell. The Ottoman fleet, under Mehmet Pasha,
was to have kept pace with him along the coast, and
But Mehmet, with true
served as his base of supplies.
Turkish inconsequence, had preferred to cruise on his
own account round the Peloponnese; and the army
of Dramali was, therefore, left without a base, and
The very folly of the Greeks had
without supplies.
turned to their advantage; for, between the mountains
and the sea, the Ottomans were now fairly caught
in a trap, and it seemed almost as though the Greeks
had purposely left the door open in order to lure them
to destruction.