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

RESHID INVESTS MISSOLONGHI 183
fishermen defied for months the whole power
of the
Ottoman Empire.
Sultan Mahmoud remembered with bitterness the
failure of his troops before Missolonghi three years
before.
He determined now to make another attempt
to reduce the stubborn rebels;
and to make sure that
this time there should be no failure, he entrusted the
task to Reshid '
Kiutayeh,' Pasha of Janina, who had
commanded the Ottoman army at the battle of Peta,
and who was at once an able general and a man of
singular determination of character. At the same
time he thought
it
expedient to warn him that either
Missolonghi or his head must fall.
Reshid set about the task with great thoroughness.
The wild Albanian tribes were won over by
the usual presents; and on the 6th of April he led an
army of twenty thousand men through the pass
Makrynoros, the Thermopylae of Western Hellas,
which the Greeks had, as usual, left undefended.
the 27th of April he reached Missolonghi,
of
On
and on the
7th of May formally commenced the siege by opening
the first parallel.
The town was now in a far better state of defence
than during the former investment.
The earth wall
had, mainly owing to the exertions of Lord Byron, been
strengthened by a couple of bastions and other defen-