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

CAMPAIGN OF KONDURIOTTES 171
regular lines, there was none. The
English loans, or
such part of them as had not been spent in buying
rotten hulks from the Hydriot shipowners for the use
of the navy, or embezzled by the members of the Government,
had been squandered in maintaining a host
of greedy adventurers, whose only
title
to be considered
soldiers lay in the fact that they swaggered about
in the streets of Nauplia, resplendent in gold-embroidered
Albanian costumes and silver-mounted arms.
Even so, of the 30,000 soldiers whom the Government
had in its pay, only some 8,000 could be mustered
when at last the President, Konduriottes, determined
to march against the invader.
The brief career of Konduriottes as a general
is
strongly reminiscent of comic '
opera. As he passed
under the lofty arched gateway of !N"auplia on the 28th
of March, the cannon from the ramparts and from the
fortress above pealed out their loud salutations, and
were answered by the batteries on the shore and the
1
shipping in the harbour.' He was habited with barbaric
magnificence, and followed by a long train
secretaries, guards, grooms, and pipe-bearers;
of
but the
dignity of his appearance was somewhat compromised
by the fact that, as an islander, he was unaccustomed
i Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution, by Dr. S. G.
Home, who was present at this scene (p. 226).