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

RECALL OF KOLOKOTRONES 177
Nauplia was followed by a wild outburst of rage and
alarm. The incapacity of Konduriottes was violently
denounced; and the primates and chiefs clamoured
for the recall of Kolokotrones, as the only leader capable
of organising
an effective
resistance to the invader.
Konduriottes was compelled to yield; for the
Rumeliot Armatoli, upon whose support his power had
mainly rested, had now been drawn from the Morea
by the report of Eeshid Pasha's advance into West
Hellas. The Archimandrite Dikaios (Pappa Phlesas)
also, who was now Minister of the Interior, joined in
the popular outcry, and in the meantime asked that
he himself should be allowed to march against the
enemy, the recall of Kolokotrones to be the reward of
victory. The harassed Government was not unwilling
to let the turbulent ecclesiastic go; in the same
spirit as that in which the Athenians had once allowed
Cleon to have a command, in the hope that they would
thus rid themselves either of the enemy
or of their
general.
With a body of 3,000 troops,
Dikaios marched
southward, and at Maniaki, on a spur of Mount Malia,
took up a position commanding a view of the plain
towards Navarino, and there awaited the arrival of
the Egyptians. Presently the plain below them
seemed to be covered with marching battalions;
12
and,