LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

the day. From this position, the leaders were to try to communicate, by signals or otherwise, with the garrison, and in concert with it, act as circumstances might dictate. Should the garrison resolve to make a sortie, the main body of the Greek army advancing simultaneously from the Phalerum, it was confidently hoped that the combined attack on the enemy would prove victorious; or, at least, would be so far successful, as to enable the Greeks to save the garrison and bring away the families. The great characteristic of the plan was, that nothing should be risked in reference to the enemy's cavalry, and that if the detachment should find they could accomplish nothing, they should, on the following night, return as they went, in safety, and be embarked for the Phalerum."

      Unfortunately, the two main points on which Lord Cochrane had insisted were neglected, and thereby what must otherwise have been a brilliant victory was turned into a miserable defeat. He had insisted upon the movement from Cape Colias being aided by the march of the main body of the army direct from the Piræus to the hills, thus diverting the attention of many of the Turks while the advancing party and the garrison were uniting; but Zavella, to whom this part of the work had been entrusted, never moved at all. He had urged yet more strongly that the preparations for the advance should be so hastened as that all the ground should be travelled over during the night-time, while the Turks were in ignorance of it; but instead of that, the Greeks, though they were embarked at Phalerum by midnight, and landed at Cape Colias before two o'clock in the morning, loitered near the shore till daylight, so that their whole enterprise was exposed to the enemy. The critics who have laid the blame of the disaster on Lord Cochrane have neglected to show how these circumstances caused the failure of the enterprise.

      The story of the disaster of the 6th of May will be best told in the words of an eye-witness. "About three thousand soldiers," said Dr. Gosse, in a letter written to M. Eynard on the 23rd, "were embarked in the night between the 5th and the 6th of May, in a clear moonlight, and in the most perfect order, and promptly landed on the other shore. Up to that time everything favoured our enterprise; but the treason and negligence of the chiefs, and the indolence of some of the soldiers, altogether destroyed it. Instead of marching directly to Athens during the night, they employed themselves in constructing redoubt after redoubt, as bad as they were useless, of the sort called by them tambourias. We counted a dozen. Only the Suliots, the Candiots, commanded by Demetrius Kalerdji, two hundred regular troops, under the orders of Inglesi and D'aujourd'hui, and twenty-two Philhellenes, went in advance. Without any hindrance, they reached within cannon-shot of the Acropolis, towards Philippapus, so that, as I have heard, they could even speak with the besieged; but, having received no orders to enter, they waited until the day rendered their position hazardous. The enemy thus had time to ascertain their weakness and to send against them eight hundred horsemen. Thrice these troops were repulsed. Vasso and Notaras, however, who covered the right flank, abandoned their posts, as they had done in the affair of the unfortunate Bourbakes, and thereby they caused confusion among the troops in the centre. The latter defended themselves with renewed valour, but yielded at last to the sabres of the Dehli cavalry. Then was exhibited such a panic as cannot be described. The soldiers who occupied the redoubts in the rear, and near to the place of debarkation, began to flee almost at the same time as those of Vasso, and threw themselves into the sea at the risk of being drowned. I was at this time with Lord Cochrane, who did not wish to mix himself up with the affair, when the sudden flight forced us at once to rejoin our boat, and even this was not done without great difficulty. General Church was also on the shore, and he too was only saved by the sloop which was waiting for him. The Turkish cavalry, after having killed or captured all the advanced party, rushed into the plain and made terrible havoc among the Greeks. Seven hundred of them were killed; and two hundred and forty were taken prisoners. The rest, numbering about two thousand, rushed down towards the sea, and would soon have been all destroyed by the Turkish guns placed on the hills if the fire from the vessels off the coast had not kept the enemy at a respectful distance. They passed the day in a terrible uncertainty, but were sustained by the courage of certain chiefs, especially of Nicolo Serva, a Suliot captain; and in the following night they were embarked and carried back to Phalerum. While this portion of the army was being thus troubled, the Greeks, under the orders of Kisso Zavella, remained inactive. That chief quietly smoked his pipe, and when implored to march, was content to answer coldly, 'When they pay me I will go.' The troops of Kolokotrones the younger, and of Sessinis, deserted in the direction of Livonia. The Turks, taking advantage of the disorganized condition of the Greeks, attacked the Phalerum on the night of the 6th, but were repulsed."

      Lord Cochrane's account of the battle sent to the Government on the 7th of May, though more general, supplies some other details. "The plan concocted previous to the death of General Karaïskakes," he said, "was carried into effect on the 6th, by his excellency General Church, with this difference in the execution of the service, that his excellency and myself were anxious that a rapid march should be made from the place of debarkation direct to Athens, by a body of four thousand men, in order to return with the women and children and the wounded, whereas the officers of the army insisted upon entrenchments being made in the line of their progress – an operation which required so much time as to preclude the possibility of effecting the object surprised and unopposed. The redoubts were in progress of construction, and the work continued with unremitting labour until about nine o'clock in the morning, when the enemy's cavalry, having collected from all quarters, broke in upon the unfinished redoubts and vigorously attacked those who had advanced the furthest, and who, from the number of subdivisions left, according to the custom of the country, in these redoubts during their progress, had become so weakened as to be incapable of making effectual resistance. The loss on our side has been very considerable. I had to lament this day that the Greeks still continue their aversion to that regularity of movement and honesty of action which constitute the strength of armies, and I grieve to see great bravery rendered useless to their country and dangerous to themselves, and wasted in desultory and unsupported personal efforts. The use of the bayonet and very slight military instruction would have saved most of those who fell on this occasion, and would have rendered unnecessary those redoubts which delay the progress of your arms, and destroy more men in insignificant enterprises which tend to no result, than would be required for the deliverance of your country. The affairs of Greece require energy, and that remedy be at once applied to whatever impedes the progress of affairs."

      Lord Cochrane testified to the excellent soldiership of the Turkish horsemen. With sabres and short muskets, they dashed in and out of the crowd of retreating Greeks, who, having no bayonets and no weapons adapted for close fighting, were utterly defenceless. He himself, having landed with Dr. Gosse to watch the operations from the shore, was so hard pressed by these formidable antagonists that he was only rescued by his own bravery and the daring of Dr. Gosse, who retained possession of the boat which was waiting for him on the shore until his chief had time to force his way back to it through the crowd of fighting Turks and Greeks and through the waves beating up to his neck. It was only when he was again on board the Hellas, and able to direct the firing of the guns, that the Turks were driven back, and the remnant of the Greek force was allowed to collect and prepare for the return to Phalerum.

      The fall of the Acropolis soon followed this terrible defeat. By it the Greeks were utterly disorganized. Lord Cochrane, finding it impossible to persuade them to another attempt, returned to Poros with the fleet on the 10th of May. Sir Richard Church remained at Munychia, his army being every hour reduced by desertions, till the 27th, when he and the two thousand starving men who were left to him abandoned their position. Fabvier and the garrison, through the intervention of the French Captain Le Blanc and Admiral De Rigny, capitulated on the 5th of June. It was then found that the Acropolis still contained stores of food and ammunition sufficient for four months' use, and that their reports of destitution had been deliberate falsehoods, intended only to force their friends outside to come speedily to their relief.

      Those falsehoods had been particularly mischievous. By them, as has been shown, Lord Cochrane was induced to listen to the entreaties of Karaïskakes and the Government, and take his ships to Phalerum, instead of carrying out his plan of stopping the Turkish supplies in the Negropont and at Oropos. Had that plan been adhered to, it seems as if a very different issue might easily have been brought about.

      The work on which he had been engaged having terminated so unfortunately, Lord Cochrane was much blamed for it by critics who had private reasons for being jealous. We

Скачать книгу