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

DESTRUCTION OF DRAMALl's ARMY 105
Dramali was soon persuaded of the necessity of
falling back by the way he had come, before his supplies
were utterly exhausted, and on the 6th of August
began his retreat. But in the meantime Kolokotrones
and hurried with a small
had realised the situation,
force to occupy the defile of Devernaki; and, when
the Turkish army reached the pass, they found it already
in the possession of the Greeks. The vanguard,
consisting of some thousand Albanian mountaineers,
succeeded in evading the Greeks by following difficult
and circuitous paths; but the main body of the
Ottomans attempted to force their way through the
narrow defile; and here they were overwhelmed by
a murderous fire, which soon choked the road with the
bodies of men and horses, and made it
impossible for
them to advance. It was a massacre rather than a
battle; and nothing but the plundering instincts of
the Greeks saved the Ottoman army from absolute
annihilation. A few of the better mounted delhis succeeded
in spurring over the heaps of dead and dying,
and cutting their way through to Corinth ;
but the rest
of the army, with the loss of some four thousand men,
and of all its baggage, was forced to return into the
plain of Argolis, with less chance than ever of being
able to force its
way out.
Dramali seemed as though stunned by this blow;