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

MASSACEE AT NAVAEINO 59
valuables of the Turks were being carried on board a
Greek ship in the harbour, a dispute
arose as to the
way in which the women were being searched. 1
general massacre ensued. Phrantzes, 2 a Greek ecclesiastic
who was present, describes the scene with horror
'
and indignation. Women, wounded with musket
balls, rushed into the sea, seeking to escape, and were
deliberately shot. Mothers, robbed of their clothes,
with infants in their arms, plunged in the water to conceal
themselves from shame, and were then made a
mark for inhuman riflemen.
A
Greeks seized infants
from their mothers' breasts, and dashed them against
the rocks. Children, three or four years old, were
hurled living into the sea, and left to drown.'
be just.
Let us
The awful massacre of Chios, which roused
the public opinion of Europe against Turkey, and
made the independence of Greece a possibility, was a
great crime, as it was a great mistake;
but it was not
without its motive, or its justification, according to the
wild code of barbarous peoples.
The other atrocities of the Greeks, however, paled
before the awful scenes which followed the storming
of Tripolitza. Throughout the summer and early autumn
of 1821, the town had held out against the be-
1 Leiuaitre, p. 76, is inore explicit.
2
Quoted in Finlay,
i. 263.