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

GREEK VICTORY AT VASILIKA 63
ginning a regular advance into the Morea, for the purpose
of raising the siege of Tripolitza. The supineness
of the Turks allowed the Greeks to form their plans
without interruption; and the passes of Oeta and Parnassus
were occupied by Odysseus and other Rumeliot
captains of renown. At the end of August an Ottoman
army of some five thousand men, under the three
Pashas, Bayram, Memish, and Shahin Ali, advanced
through the pass of Thermopylae, and on the 4th of
September attacked the Greeks at Vasilika, on the
road to Levadia. The latter waited until the Turks
had entered a defile
of Mount Oeta, when they fell
upon them on either flank, pouring a hail of bullets
into their ranks, embarrassed as they were with cavalry,
baggage, and a train of artillery. The victory of
the Greeks was complete. Encouraged by a rumour
of the arrival of Odysseus, the Armatoli charged the
broken ranks of the Ottomans, sword in hand, and
routed them, with the loss of 1
eight hundred men.
After this defeat, and the news of the fall of
Tripolitza, Omer Yrioni commenced his retreat from
Attica; and the Turks withdrew across the mountains
into Thessaly.
In West Hellas and Epirus, during the same period,
the interest of the war had centred round the last stand
i
Gordon,
i. 279.