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

ATTEMPTS AT MILITARY EEFOEM 291
that of the simoon, which overthrows cities, buries the
inhabitants in the ruins, and dries up the trees to the
roots! '
Had he carried out this threat, the armies of
Greece would have been in no condition to resist.
It became a matter of urgent necessity
them to some degree of military efficiency;
to restore
and the
time was not unpropitious for such an undertaking.
The wild soldiery were tamed by hunger, and hastened
to obey, when the President ordered them to
assemble under the command of the newly-appointed
Commander-in-Chief, Prince Demetrius Hypsilanti,
at Damala. Controlling as he did the only available
food supplies, it would not have been difficult for the
President to have compelled the Armatoli to submit
to some sort of European discipline. He was, however,
quite imversed in military science himself, and
the only man who could have carried out the reform
successfully, the French Colonel Fabvier, he had recently,
in the true spirit of autocratic jealousy, forced
out of the Greek service. He contented himself then
with dividing the army into unwieldy bodies of a thousand
men, called chiliarchies,
each under a colonel.
Drill and discipline were allowed to take care of
themselves.
At sea the condition of the Hellenic forces cried