Chios massacre
The massacre of Chios was perpetrated by the Ottomans in April 1822 on the Greek population of the island of Chios . It was one of the most famous episodes of the Greek War of Independence .
After thousands of Greek fighters landed, the Porte sent about 45,000 men to the island to restore order and kill all men over the age of twelve, all women over forty and all children under two. The others were enslaved. A total of 25,000 dead are estimated while 45,000 Greeks were sold as slaves. 10,000 to 15,000 people were able to flee and find refuge on other islands in the Aegean. This massacre of civilians by the Ottoman forces greatly influenced international public opinion and contributed to the development of philhellenism .
background
Chios, a wealthy island
Since the Middle Ages, Chios has been a rich trading town, which attracted the interest of Italian merchants in particular: it was ruled by Venice from 1272 and Genoa from 1346 . In 1566 it came under the rule of the Ottomans. Due to its economic strength, which was related in particular to the cultivation and trade of mastic , it enjoyed relative freedom. The Ottoman presence was limited to a governor or mouteselim , a Qadi and some soldiers in the former Genoese fortress in the capital Chora. Real power was exercised by a council of Greek demogeronts (made up of sixteen Orthodox and two Catholics) who ruled their fellow Greek citizens on behalf of the Turks.
As in the rest of Greece, after the peace treaty of Kutchuk-Kaïnardji in 1774, Chios grew prosperous. The island's merchants had trading establishments in all the important ports of the Mediterranean from Marseille to Alexandria, but also in Odessa and Moscow. Mastic was primarily produced in the south of the island, in about twenty villages ( mastichochória , called "mastic villages"). Chios exported fifty tons of mastic a year. The tax income on this product was due to the Sultan's sister as an allowance. Chios also produced silk, cotton and citrus fruits.
The taxes were by no means oppressive. The wealthier paid eleven piastres a year (it is estimated that two piastres a day were needed to support themselves). The island had a school and hospital, the services of which were free thanks to donations from wealthy citizens. A Greek proverb said that you would meet a poor Chioten as often as a green horse. The beauty of the island's women was proverbial and was regularly confirmed by western visitors. The wealth of Chios also aroused desires.
The Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence was an uprising against the Ottoman rule as well as against those Greeks who dominated their communities with Turkish help. Even if the biggest clashes took place in the Peloponnese and around Athens, other regions such as the Aegean islands were also affected.
Ali Pasha of Janina had tried to achieve the final independence of his possessions in Epirus and rose against Sultan Mahmud II in 1820. The Sublime Porte then gathered a large army around Ioannina. For the Greek patriots, who had banded together in the Filiki Eteria since the end of the 18th century and prepared the national uprising, this offered a favorable opportunity as fewer Turkish soldiers were available to suppress their uprising. The revolt was sparked in the Peloponnese. It began between March 15 and March 20, 1821, and on March 25, Theodoros Kolokotronis , one of the leaders of the uprising, and Archbishop Germanos of Patras proclaimed the war of national liberation. At the same time, Alexander Ypsilantis, at the head of a force formed in Russia made up of members of the Filiki Eteria , advanced into Moldova and Wallachia , the second source of the uprising. The Ottoman Empire put down the revolt in the Danube principalities within nine months; in Greece itself the insurgents were victorious.
The Tripoli massacre
In October 1821 the Greek troops under Kolokotronis conquered Tripoli , the capital of the Ottoman Peloponnese, after five months of siege . The Turks living on the peninsula and their families - an estimated 30,000 people, men, women and children - had fled there before the first shots of the uprising. In October the population fell to 15,000 as a result of numerous deaths due to fighting, hunger or epidemics, but also due to evacuations. A series of agreements between besieged and besiegers had allowed the Albanian soldiers, women and children to return home. In early October, when the city was still being held, the Greeks massacred 2,000 women and children who left Tripoli, despite the agreements. When the citadel fell, the Greeks disregarded the existing military conventions, according to which the garrison could be disarmed and the city looted, but the civilian population should be spared. Almost 8,000 people were murdered.
In early 1822, the National Assembly of Epidaurus unilaterally proclaimed the country's independence. The Sublime Porte wanted to make an example to urge their subjects to obey. The Chios massacre was the culmination of this repression. It also came as revenge for the Tripoli massacre.
The Chios massacre
First problems
In May 1821, Admiral Iakovos Tombazis of Hydra came to the island with part of the insurgent fleet in order to win the Chioten over to the movement. However, only a few weeks earlier they had sent a delegation to Psara , a neighboring rebellious island, with the express request that they did not want to be involved in the uprising. Because they feared that the Chiots, which were scattered in all the ports of the Ottoman Empire, could become victims of reprisals from the Ottoman rulers. The men from Tombazis traveled to the island to address the villagers directly, but were unsuccessful and withdrew after eleven days.
The reaction of the Ottomans was not long in coming. The Dīwān sent the governor Vehid-Pacha. He settled in the fortress of Chora. To ensure that the Chioten kept calm, he requested 40 hostages (including Archbishop Platon Franghiadi, the Demogeronts and members of the island's most important families, the Argenti, Mavrokordatos and Rallis). The hostages were locked in the fortress. Three were sent to Constantinople - by land, for fear of ships from Greece . The "mastichochória" held twelve hostages. The weapons of the Greek population were confiscated. At the governor's request for help, the Sublime Porte sent him a thousand men from Çeşme on the opposite side of the continent . The soldiers in question were undisciplined and attracted by the possibility of looting. They controlled the rural areas of the island and spread terror there. Looting, assaults and executions are reported. Trade to Chios began to slacken and supplies were barely secure. The supply system established in times of prosperity, however, still worked and was able to avoid famine. New, more disciplined troops came. In the spring of 1822 the garrison at the castle consisted of 4,500 men. A new governor, Bachet-Pacha, imposed an extraordinary tax on the Chioten for the maintenance of his men. The granaries were also emptied.
The "liberation" of the island by the Greek insurgents
The rumor reached Chios that Samos was forming a force to come to the aid of the Chiots. The Demogeronten and the Archbishop sent envoys to the island to advise the residents not to react to their landing in order not to arouse the ire of the Ottomans.
On February 27th, Jul. / March 11, 1822 greg. Lykourgos Logothetis came from Samos with 2,500 men and met on Chios the captain Antonios Bournias, a former officer of the French army during the Egypt campaign , and his 150 Klephten . They forced the six hundred Ottomans to retreat to the fortress of the island's capital (Chora). An artillery duel between the citadel and cannons of the Greeks on the coast and in the hills of Tourloti and Asomati began. The city was captured and sacked. The Klephts burned down the customs buildings and melted the lead from the roofs of the two mosques to pour new ammunition from them. The houses of the Muslims were looted, and those of the rich Greek merchants were not spared either. The booty was sent to Samos.
But the forces sent from Samos were neither sufficiently nor sufficiently well armed to storm the citadel. The Greek cannons fell silent for lack of bullets. Logothetis asked for support from rebellious Greece. Psara promised 20 powder kegs and two cannons (but no bullets) and six warships. The government just established in Corinth promised two mortars, five siege batteries and Philhellenes to handle them. The organization and transport of aid took a long time and came too late to fend off the Ottoman counterattack.
The archbishop was freed and the demogeronts deposed in the name of the insurgent Greek government by Dimitrios Ypsilanti and replaced by a revolutionary council of seven ephors. Logothetis and Bournias, however, both wanted to be proclaimed "Saviors of Chios". They finally agreed to divide the island into two areas: the north for Bournias and the south (with Chora) for Logothetis. The military and administration were divided, reducing the possibility of concerted action in the event of a counterattack by the Ottomans.
The island's population did not behave as their notables had asked. Peasants, incited by some priests, obtained weapons and property and marched from the villages in the interior of the island to the Chora. They managed to get some of the poor population in the capital on their side. They marched through the streets with crosses and icons, singing patriotic songs. But as soon as the Ottoman troops made a sortie from the citadel, they dispersed. Bournias distrusted the island's wealthy families, whom he suspected of wanting to flee. He used the crowd to monitor them and had house searches carried out to see if they were still on the island.
The Ottoman reconquest and its consequences
In addition to the hostages who had already been arrested, the High Porte had seven wealthy Chiots who lived in Constantinople arrested. The Kapudan Pasha (the commander of the Ottoman fleet) Kara-Ali received the order to bring 15,000 men to Çeşme , who had to join the 30,000 men who had already gathered there. Most were volunteers, attracted by the expectation of the riches of Chios being plundered. A regiment was composed entirely of Muslims. This composition of the troops made Western diplomats in Smyrna and Constantinople fear the worst.
On Thursday March 30th, Jul. / April 11, 1822 greg. Shortly before Easter, the Kara-Ali fleet, consisting of 46 ships with 7,000 men, appeared off Chios. The Greek resistance was short-lived: an Ottoman ship with eighty people on board ran aground. The passengers who did not drown were killed by gunfire by the Greeks. However, the landing of the Ottomans could not be prevented. It was supported by a failure of the Ottoman troops from the citadel. Logothetis and his Sami withdrew. They reunited in Aghios Georgios, 9 km southwest of Chora, and resisted until the arrival of the ships from Psara, which they evacuated. The chora was looted and its inhabitants killed: the head and ears were sent to the sultan, who had them displayed in front of the seraglio .
The Ottomans continued to advance from Cesme on the mainland to Chios. They began to penetrate the rural areas of the island. The Greeks sought refuge in the island's monasteries, which mostly had walls, wells or cisterns and food reserves. They hoped to be able to wait safely there until the storm had subsided. Nea Moni Monastery , an 11th century monastery in the hills in the center of the island, welcomed 2,000 people. They were killed when the Ottomans invaded there.
On Easter Sunday, April 2nd, Jul. / April 14, 1822 greg. , a force of 15,000 Ottoman soldiers, after securing the fortress of Chora, advanced to the monastery of Agios Minas south of the Chora, where 3,000 Greeks had found refuge. Since the besieged did not surrender, the monastery was burned down. All the refugees died. The next day, the Ottomans attacked the village of Agios Georgios and massacred the 2,300 Sami and Chiots who had fled there. A comprehensive amnesty was announced for the other residents of the island; however, when they left their hiding places, they were murdered.
The island's celebrities selected as hostages were executed in the Chora on May 5th. Only the lives of Catholics could be saved. French diplomats (the consul in Chios, the vice-consul in Smyrna and the ambassador in Constantinople) obtained their release. The 49 others were hanged by order of the Sultan: eight on the masts of the Capudana (the flagship of the Kapudan Pasha), the others on the trees along the road by the city wall to the west of the fortress. The hostages in Constantinople were beheaded two weeks later. The islanders of Constantinople were also executed.
The slaves
Selling the Chiots as slaves was more profitable than killing them. Kara-Ali had initially forbidden this, but he had to make a different choice when he found that his men were executing their prisoners. The enslavement seemed a little more "human".
At the end of May 1822, two months after the troops had landed, almost 45,000 men, women and children were taken to the slave markets of Smyrna, Constantinople, but also to Egypt and “barbarism” (Ottoman North Africa), regardless of who they were. Western diplomats such as the British Ambassador Stangford protested in vain.
Some slaves could be bought back, especially from wealthy Chiot merchants from Smyrna. They paid what was actually a "ransom" and sent their newly acquired property mainly to Trieste or the rest of Western Europe, where they were released. But it was not possible to buy all of them mainly because of the cost. A woman of good Chiot society and her two daughters were bought back for 15,000 piasters. The British Vice Consul in Chios, Giudici, alone bought hundreds of slaves and spent a fortune on them. The Ottoman soldiers turned to him when the large number of slaves made it impossible to take them to the mainland for sale.
At the end of June, an imperial decree prohibited the sale of Chioten in the slave market in Constantinople. The sultan's sister wanted to first check whether people from her mastic villages were not there. But by that time most of the Chiot slaves had already been sold and their "source of income" had dried up.
The survivors
The escape from the island offered the best chance of survival. The bay of Mesta in the west was practically the only possibility of embarkation, as it was far from the coast of Turkey. The medieval village of Mesta, about three kilometers from the sea, took in around 5,000 refugees who longed for the appearance of friendly sails on the sea. Ships from Psara, Samos, Hydra and Spetses finally brought the refugees to safety. The Psariotes, however, asked the refugees to pay for the passage. Psara was the closest island, but it was only an intermediate destination. Because of its small size, it could not accommodate the refugees. The main destination for the emigration was the Cycladic island of Syros . Some survivors also pledged themselves to the mainland during the War of Independence.
The "mastichochória" ("mastic villages") were initially spared. After the last Sami had left the island - a week after landing - Kara-Ali had three Western consular officers deliver an offer of amnesty and a letter from the hostages asking them to accept the offer. The villages submitted, and Kara-Ali sent a lieutenant to protect them.
Kara-Ali also respected the consulates of the Western powers. 1,200 Greeks found refuge in the French consulate and all Catholics in the Austrian consulate.
consequences
The Greek answer and its consequences for Chios
At the beginning of May, the Greek fleet, under the command of Andreas Miaoulis , set sail with 56 warships and eight fires from Hydra, Spetses and Psara to Chios. As was so often the case during the War of Independence, she could not come earlier because of problems with leadership, financing and inconsistencies in the chain of command. Many skirmishes ensued for a month without a decision being reached.
On May 25 jul. / June 6, 1822 greg. "Admiral" Konstantinos Kanaris sank the Ottoman flagship with a fire, killing Admiral Kara-Ali and 2,000 Turkish sailors. This action is seen by Greek historiography as retaliation for the Chios massacre. The Ottoman fleet anchored in the bay of Chora. The attack occurred in the evening, at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. The whole day two Greek ships - apparently fleeing - had fought against strong winds in the north by passing through the north cape of the island with great difficulty against the wind. In fact, there were two fires that got into attack position. The fire had been further developed since the sea battles of the previous summer and autumn. They had been reinforced with copper so that the flames couldn't completely destroy them before they had done their job. At sunset they changed course and accelerated with a tailwind. The Ottoman fleet was illuminated for the religious celebrations, the capudana and the vice-admiral's ship the brightest . The Kanaris fire rammed the Ottoman flagship around midnight. The bowsprit wedged itself in the loading port of the bow and set it on fire. Kanaris and his men left their brander while the admiral's ship went up in flames in a few minutes. The Turkish seafarers tried to escape with lifeboats, two of which sank due to overloading. The Chiot slaves in the holds of the abandoned ship were left to their fate. When Kara-Ali got into a boat, he was hit in the head by a burning log. He was taken to the mainland, where he died the next day and was buried in the citadel of Chora. His ship exploded after three quarters of an hour when the fire reached the powder store. The other fire under the command of Andreas Pipinos was able to set fire to the Vice-Admiral's ship. This was able to break free and drove to the coast of Asia Minor, where it burned all night: The team had time to leave it. The flames could be seen as far as Smyrna, about 75 km away .
The death of Kapudan Pasha and the destruction of the two largest ships in the Ottoman fleet were quickly avenged. The “mastichochória” have been protected since April. They were the last unsuppressed places on the island. Many Chiots from all over the island had taken refuge there. A force of 20,000 Turkish soldiers devastated the region, which suffered the same fate as Chios two months earlier: villages burned and people murdered or sold as slaves.
Balance sheet and sources
The population of the island was between 100,000 and 120,000 people at the beginning of 1822, 30,000 of them in Chora. There were also about 2,000 Muslims on the island. For the time after the massacres, the population of 20,000 is usually mentioned. The Scottish historian and philhellene Thomas Gordon gives only 1,800 survivors, the most populous village had only housed 12 people. The most common estimates give 25,000 dead and 45,000 enslaved people. 10,000 to 20,000 managed to escape. The island also had one of the largest libraries in the Aegean (70,000 volumes), which was completely destroyed.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when the island had become Greek again, a teacher from Chios collected testimony from survivors and those who had fled to other parts of Greece or from their descendants. The resulting collection of stories is inconsistent. There are legends that have been portrayed as true by the narrators, such as the fact that Turks went blind when they killed a priest. It also contains descriptions of the cruelty or generosity of the Ottomans, which shows that not all Turks were bloodthirsty monsters. Above all, the survival conditions in the country, in the mountains or in caves are addressed: the problem of hunger, thirst or crying babies, who threatened to reveal the hiding places to the soldiers searching the island.
The massacre of almost the entire population of Chios raises a number of questions and problems of a historiographical nature. The Ottoman response seems disproportionate. Indeed, Logothetis and his men posed no threat to the Chora garrison, which was at least twice as numerous. The local Ottoman authorities also knew that the Samians were not really supported by the island's population. The thousands of men that the Sublime Porte sent to Chios would not have been required to drive the Sami from Chios. Their indiscipline could only lead to disaster, while a simple "maintenance of law and order" would have allowed them to maintain the loyalty and income of Chios. One explanation could come in part from the political problems in the Ottoman government. The main proponent of the execution of the hostages in Constantinople was the minister Helez Effendi, who wanted to forget some of the political mistakes that had made him unpopular. The Chios massacre may also have served to divert the attention of the empire. Probably the Porte wanted to set an example for her subjects who were tempted to join the Greek revolt or to take advantage of the difficulties it created.
The reaction of the west
The first reaction was purely material and financial. Chios was a trading town, involved in trade throughout Europe. The massacre and looting not only ruined Chiot trading houses, but also affected their business partners, who no longer received payments from them. On June 17, 1822, the British Consul in Smyrna assessed the loss to merchants in the United Kingdom from unpaid bills of exchange at 195 million piasters.
Then the excitement about the atrocities committed pushed to the fore. The British Foreign Minister Castlereagh threatened the Ottoman Empire with breaking off diplomatic relations. The British government stopped viewing the Greek insurgents as rebels and granted them combatant status. The rules applicable to a nation at war could therefore apply to Greece. For example, the blockade by the Greek fleet along the Turkish coast was viewed as a legal act of war.
In France, Eugène Delacroix exhibited the painting “The Chios Massacre” in the 1824 Salon. The French King Charles X immediately acquired it for the Louvre collections . At “Exhibitions in favor of the Greeks” in the summer of 1827 in the Lebrun Gallery, David's pupil, Henri Decaisne, exhibited the painting “Greek guard finds the corpse of a young girl from Chios on the bank”. In Russia, Prince Golitsyn organized a fundraising campaign for the victims of the massacres. In Berlin, a fireworks display in the Tiergarten was announced for Whitsun 1825, "during which a Turkish warship will be blown up by a Greek fire".
Numerous writers also dealt with the Chios massacre in their works. The volume of poetry “Die Orientalen” by Victor Hugo contains a poem “The Greek Child” dedicated to the massacre of Chios and a poem dedicated to Kanaris. Adelbert von Chamisso wrote a cycle of poems “Chios” in 1829. In one of his songs dedicated to the later Psara massacre, Pierre-Jean de Béranger wrote: “Could you not, Chios, save a single living being so that it might come here, all your sufferings to tell?"
The independence of the island
When, after the signing of the Treaty of London on June 6, 1827, it became clear that Chios should not belong to the territory of independent Greece, an attempt was made to exploit the goodwill of the European powers and to present them with a fait accompli. Chiot refugees decided to fund an expedition to "regain" the island. The command was entrusted to Colonel Charles Nicolas Fabvier . A committee made up of Chioten was formed on Syros to administer the funds and coordinate the company with the new demogeronts who ruled the island. It is unclear whether the Greek government at the time supported the project. The fact is that the subsequent government of Ioannis Kapodistrias disapproved of the company. The attempt failed. The expeditionary force consisted of pallikares , irregular soldiers whom Fabvier distrusted. He could not prevent them from pillaging the Western embassies or Greek houses. The payout was often delayed. The Greek ships were unable to prevent Ottoman troops from landing from Cesme. However, by their mere presence, the fleets of the Western powers were able to prevent another massacre of the order of 1822 from taking place. At the end of November 1827, after the Battle of Navarino , the expeditionary force besieged and bombed the castle of Chora.
Greece gained independence in 1830, but Chios was not united with the motherland until 1912.
literature
- An Index of events in the military history of the Greek Nation. General Staff of the Greek Army, Military History Directorate, Athens 1998, ISBN 960-7897-27-7
- Ὶστορία τοῦ Ὲλληνικοῦ Ἔθνους , Volume 1. Volume 2: Η Ὲλληνικὴ Ἐπανάσταση. Athens 1975, ISBN 960-213-108-X
- Philip Pandely Argenti : The Massacre of Chios described in contemporary Diplomatic Reports. London 1932
- Philip Pandely Argenti: The Expedition of Colonel Fabvier to Chios described in contemporary Diplomatic Reports. London 1933
- Stylianos G. Bios: H Σφαγή της Χίου. 1921
- David Brewer: The Greek War of Independence. The Struggle for Freedom from Ottoman Oppression and the Birth of the Modern Greek Nation. New York 2001, ISBN 1-58567-395-1
- Wladimir Brunet de Presle , Alexandre Blanchet: Grèce depuis la conquête romaine jusqu'à nos jours. 1860
- Richard Clogg : A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge U. P., 1992, ISBN 0-521-37830-3
- Georges Contogeorgis: Histoire de la Grèce. 1992, ISBN 2-218-03841-2
- Edward Mead Earle: American Interest in the Greek Cause, 1821-1827. The American Historical Review , Vol. 33, No. 1 (October 1927)
- Louis Lacroix: Iles de la Grèce. 1853, ISBN 2-7196-0012-1 (facsimile)
- Helen Long: Greek Fire: Massacres of Chios. London 1992, ISBN 0-902920-76-6
- Apostolos Vacalopoulos: Histoire de la Grèce modern. 1975, ISBN 2-7171-0057-1
- Dimítrios Vikélas: Loukis Laras. 1879
- Charles Greenstreet Addison: Damascus and Palmyra. London 1838
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jiminez Berk: Dictionary of Artists' Models, Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 465 [1]
- ↑ Andrea Polascheg: The other orientalism. P. 249
- ^ Victor Hugo: L'enfant. In: Les Orientales. (Full text, French)
- ↑ Victor Hugo: Canaris. In: Les Orientales. (Full text, French)
- ^ Adelbert von Chamisso : Chios in the Gutenberg-DE project