Naval Battle of Andros
Portrait of Lambros Katsonis
| date | 17./18. May 1790 |
|---|---|
| place | Road between Andros and Cape Kafireas 
|
| output | Ottoman victory |
| Peace treaty | Peace of Jassy |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Commander | |
|
Said Ali |
|
| Troop strength | |
| 7 or 9 ships | 19 Ottoman ships 11 to 13 Algerian ships |
| losses | |
|
565 dead and 53 astonished; 44 prisoners of war who were later executed |
more than 3,000 dead; unknown number of damaged and / or sunken ships |
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The naval battle of Andros took place during the Russo-Austrian Turkish War on May 17th and 18th, 1790 in the strait between Cape Kafireas and the island of Andros . The ships of the Greek-Russian officer Lambros Katsonis and an Ottoman-Algerian fleet of 30 to 32 ships faced each other. The battle ended in a victory for the Ottoman Navy . Katsonis lost almost all of his ships and was badly hit. However, he managed to escape and build a new fleet.
background
Katsonis took part in the Orlov revolt in 1770 and joined the Imperial Russian Army after the collapse of the Greek uprising against the Ottoman rule under Catherine the Great . After the outbreak of war he went to Trieste in the spring of 1789 . There, wealthy Greek merchants made three ships available to him and he hired a Greek crew to attack the Ottoman Navy in the Ionian and Aegean Sea . After arriving in the Aegean Sea in the summer of 1789, he confiscated the island of Kea as his base and built fortifications. From here Katsonis undertook several raids on Ottoman ships in the North Aegean from Chalkidiki to the Dardanelles , and he even managed to briefly block the strait. Katsonis was an aggressive commander who did not hesitate to attack the Ottoman Navy wherever he could. In June 1789 he defeated a Turkish flotilla with 14 ships between Syros and Mykonos and in the following month he won again between Syros and Delos . For his actions, Katherina promoted him to lieutenant colonel on July 24, 1789. He expanded his fleet in a very short time by capturing twelve ships.
Katsonis worked occasionally with another Russian flotilla of five state-funded and four Greek private ships under the Maltese captain Guglielmo Lorenzo, which also operated in the Aegean Sea. The attempt to put the private ships under Katsonis' command was rejected by Katsonis, who insisted on independence. In fact, relations with Lorenzo were so bad that Katsonis forbade the islanders to support Lorenzo's fleet. Many of the crew members of the other ships also switched to Katsonis because the latter paid a significantly higher wage . On the other hand, even if a merger would have resulted in a far more powerful fleet, it cannot be denied, as the Russian historian Yuri Pryakhin notes, that the Katsonis fleet was far more effective and experienced than the other ships, and Katsonis as the Greeks were very popular with the Greek population Aegean Sea, who revered him as a hero. Lorenzo, on the other hand, left the Aegean Sea in August despite a larger fleet of 36 ships that had been granted to him and returned to Sicily because he felt the operations against the Ottomans were too risky.
On August 4, Katsonis again defeated a fleet of Ottoman and Algerian ships at Eleni ( Makronisos ), so that the Ottoman Sublime Porte felt compelled to have the dragoman of the fleet, Alexander Mavrogenes , make him an offer, and not just a full one Pardon, but also the right to settle with his followers on an island of his choice, to take over hereditary rule, and 200,000 gold coins.
course
In September 1789, Katsonis sailed with his fleet to the Ionian Islands under Venetian control, to have his ships overtaken there and to replenish supplies. In late August, the Ottoman fleet reached Kea and sacked the island. The men on the island were killed and the buildings destroyed. In the spring of 1790, after the repairs, Katsonis returned to the Aegean with nine ships. On board were the Klephte Androutsos and 800 of his men. Together they attacked Ottoman ships in the Aegean Sea and advanced as far as Tenedos in the hope of raising the Ottoman fleet. On April 15th, they reached Kea and rebuilt the site.
There Katsonis received the news that an Ottoman squadron with 19 ships, including frigates and ships of the line , had passed the Dardanelles and by Sultan Selim III. had received the order to hunt and sink him. Katsonis sailed towards them immediately, but adverse winds slowed his speed. On May 17, his fleet met the Ottoman ships in the strait between Euboea and the island of Andros. Contemporary sources report a different number of seven or nine ships at Katsonis, but the Greek writer P. Magiakos reported in his biography published in 1930 that two of the nine ships could not take part in the battle because of the unfavorable wind conditions.
The fighting began around noon and lasted all day. The fight initially went in favor of the Greeks, but during the night the wind subsided and Katsonis' ships could no longer maneuver adequately. Early the next day an Algerian squadron (11 ships according to the Russian historian Pryakhin, 12 to Magiakos, and 13 according to a recently discovered letter from one of Katsonis' men) came to the aid of the Ottomans. Magiakos reported that the Algerians had been informed by the Spetsen Anargyros Hatzianargyros, who was a cousin of one of Katsonis' officers, and was named Bey of Spetses as a reward . The Greek flotilla got into serious trouble because it was attacked from two sides with over 30 ships. When the Greeks ran out of ammunition, they reduced the rate of fire. Katsonis' ships were now exposed to a devastating fire, the ship's superstructure soon riddled with holes and many officers dead, so that the opponents could board the ships. The Algerians took over three ships, which later sank due to the severe damage. Ultimately, Katsonis had to set fire to his own flagship Athina tis Arktou ( Greek Αθηνά της Άρκτου ) due to the damage and was only able to narrowly escape with a few close friends.
Katsonis had 565 dead and 53 injured. With the two remaining ships he sailed to Kythira . But the Ottoman-Algerian fleet had also suffered heavy losses: 3,000 men had been killed or injured. Many ships had to be towed home and some reports say some sank on the way home. Yet it had destroyed Katsonis' fleet. The Ottoman-Algerian flotilla received a triumphant welcome in Constantinople. The Greek captain Yegor Palatino, who had recently joined the Greek fleet and arrested, reported that 17 prisoners had been hanged immediately, six were beheaded in front of the sultan and another 21 were killed the next day. Palatino himself escaped death only because the Seraskan knew him, because Katsonis had appointed him as a courier. Other Katsonis crew members who were able to reach nearby Andros were hunted down and executed by the Algerians and some locals. Few of them, including the future admiral of the Greek War of Independence, Nikolis Apostolis , have been hidden from the locals and smuggled into Kythira by fishermen. The Ottomans also recaptured Kea and destroyed the island's buildings.
consequences
With the remaining ships, Katsonis fled to the Ionian island of Ithaca , where he rebuilt his flotilla and was able to acquire some new ships. Despite his defeat, Catherine II rewarded him on the recommendation of Grigory Alexandrovich Potjomkin with a promotion to colonel and the Georgskreuz 4th class. Katsonis and his fleet remained active in the Aegean and continued to attack Ottoman ships. In the summer of 1791, Katsonis had 21 ships. In the meantime, the victories of the Russians in the battle of Măcin and the sea battle at Cape Kaliakra led to the end of the war. On August 11, 1791, an armistice was signed, which was followed by the Peace of Jassy .
Katsonis were ordered to stop fighting. But Katsonis refused and collected his ships at Porto Kagio on Cape Tainaron . There he was attacked by an Ottoman-French naval unit and defeated. Katsonis was able to flee and went to Russia with some loyal followers, where he settled in Liwadija on the Crimean peninsula.
literature
- Yuri D. Prjachin: Ламброс Кацонис в истории Греции и России . ( Lambros Katsonis in the history of Greece and Russia ), Aletheia, St. Petersburg 2004, ISBN 5-89329-731-8
- Apostolos Vakalopoulos: Η στροφή των Ελλήνων προς τους Ρώσους: Ο Ρωσοτουρκικός πόλεμος του 1787–1792 και οι Έλληνες. Οι αγώνες των Σουλιωτών και η δράση του Λάμπρου Κατσώνη . ( The Greeks turn to the Russians: The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 and the Greeks. The struggles of the Souliots and the actions of Lambros Katsonis ), 85–97 | In: Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, Τόμος ΙΑ ′: Ο ελληνισμός υπό ξένη κυριαρχία, 1669-1821 ( History of the Greek Nation , Athens, Volume XI: Hellenism under foreign21, p. 97
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vakalopoulos (1975), pp. 89, 92
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 35
- ↑ Vakalopoulos (1975), p. 92
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 35 f.
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 36 f.
- ^ Friedrich Karl Kienitz: Katsonis, Lampros . In: Mathias Bernath, Felix von Schroeder (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 2. Munich 1976, p. 384 f. ( Online edition )
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), pp. 36-38
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), pp. 38-41
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 38
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 41 f.
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 42
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 43
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 43
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 43 f.
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 44
- ↑ a b c d Panois Stamou: Ο Λάμπρος Κατσώνης και η Άνδρος. ( Memento from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Lambros Katsonis Society of the Livadians
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 44 f.
- ↑ Vakalopoulos (1975), p. 92
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 45
- ↑ Pryakhin (2004), p. 45 f.
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 46
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 46
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 46 f.
- ↑ Pryakhin (2004), pp. 47-58
- ↑ Vakalopoulos (1975), p. 92 f.
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 58
- ↑ Vakalopoulos (1975), pp. 93-95
- ↑ Prjachin (2004), p. 59 ff.