Many of the local Muslims of Morias, who knew no other language than Greek, would come out at night from the walls begging for their lives. They shouted to the Greek soldiers in their mother tongue, reminding them of old friendships, commercial relationships, and common ancestry. They even held makeshift crosses and asked to be baptized immediately. However, the anger of the rebels was such that they considered these displays as late hypocrisy for the salvation of their lives, since those same people had led the pillaging of Christian villages just a few months earlier... This, among other things, is what Maxime Raybaud, a French military man and eyewitness to the siege of Tripolitsa, tells us. In his memoirs (Mémoires sur la Grèce), he powerfully describes how the common Greek language was used as a lifeline and why it failed. "That is," someone asked me at one point, "did we slaughter our own blood?" If I want to say that I serve the truth, the answer is "yes"! Yet, each action of the 1821 Revolution hides within it shocking and "silenced" chapters, both from historiography and, of course, from the systematic propaganda of the neighbors. We will start with the fairy tale of the population count and the 30,000 and 40,000 dead that we read about. I should also add the "Turks" who were supposedly another fictional construct. When we say Muslims in Tripolitsa in 1821, we must know that it did not refer to a homogenous ethnic group from Anatolia. The population of the city at the time of the capture (September 23, 1821) had artificially doubled. Under normal circumstances, the city had about 15,000–20,000 inhabitants, but due to the advance of the rebels, Muslims and Jews from all over Morias fled there (from Kalavryta, Karytaina, Leonidari, etc.). On the day of the capture, the population within the walls is documented to have been between 30,000 and 35,000 people. Of these, the armed (let's call it the army) numbered about 10,000 to 12,000. The largest percentage of the city's Muslims (as well as Morias's) was approximately 55% - 60%, made up of local, Islamized populations of Greek descent (Moraites Muslims). These people spoke Greek as their mother tongue (many did not even know Turkish!). They shared common cultural elements, even common surnames or familial ties with the Christian inhabitants of the countryside. They were primarily farmers, landowners, townspeople, and civil servants who had changed their faith in previous centuries for reasons of tax and social privileges. Another demographic segment consisted of the so-called Turk Albanians, about 10%. They were, one might say, the military "backbone" of the city's defense. They had come as reinforcements (about 2,500-3,500 men) under the leadership of Elmas Bey, sent by Hursit Pasha. They were experienced warriors, Muslims by faith. And we also had the Ottoman officials, around 15% - 20%, i.e., the ruling class of the city (governors, judges/qadis, senior military officers). They came from Constantinople or Anatolia. They were the minority of the population but held all the political power and wealth of the city. Along with them were also their families (harems, servants). We should now add about 1,000-2,000 Jews, who were primarily Sephardic merchants, and some Christians, around 5%, very few (most were expelled due to famine) who spoke Greek. The 1821 Revolution did not start as a typical war between two modern states with international rules. As we have said many times, the millet system was in place in the Ottoman Empire. There was no distinction based on DNA or language, but on faith. A Muslim was a "Turk" (as the rebels called him), and a Christian was a "Roman/Greek." When the Revolution broke out in the spring of 1821, the Muslims of the countryside sought refuge in the castles. In their retreat, as well as during the exits they made from Tripolitsa (such as in the first battle of Tripolitsa), they burned Christian villages, looted properties, and committed massacres of civilians to terrorize the rebels. Although the base, I repeat, was Greek-speaking farmers, their leadership (the agas and beys of Morias) were the ones who ordered and actively participated in the oppression and executions of Christians. In the eyes of the insurgents, the distinction between "simple believer" and "oppressor" had been lost in the blood of the first months. And here you may well ask me... why did they give "honor" to the guard of Elmas Bey (the Turk Albanians, that is) and not give the chance for the return to our "blood"? The agreement of Kolokotronis with the armed Turk Albanians was not made out of humanitarianism, but from pure military strategy. He wanted to break the defense. This "group" was the toughest and best-trained military force within the castle. Kolokotronis knew that if they fought "to the death," the losses for the Greeks would be enormous and the fall would be delayed. By removing them from the equation, the city's defense collapsed from within. Moreover, these men had no emotional or proprietary ties to Morias. They were mercenaries, and all they wanted was to return alive to their homeland with their weapons. Now why we did not ask our own blood to change their faith, we must seek in the psychology of 1821 itself. The Greeks remembered well that half a century earlier, during the Orlov affair, many local Muslims had led the brutal massacres of Christians. The suspicion was absolute. The fall of Tripolitsa was not an organized surrender of a state but a disordered invasion of thousands of angry and hungry rebels seeking revenge for 400 years of slavery. When the gate broke, there was no central viral authority to "select" or offer religious conversion. In other words, for the rebel of 1821, "blood" (if you will, biological descent) meant nothing if the other wore a turban and worshipped Allah. The identity was religious: "For the Holy Faith of Christ." The Greek-speaking Muslim was considered a "Turk" and, therefore, an enemy! The truth, however, is that before the final assault, hundreds of unarmed Muslims were secretly coming out at night from the walls and going to the Greek positions. They were seeking specific Greek chieftains or notable figures with whom they had trade relations or familial ties before the war. In fluent Greek (the only language they knew), they were shouting to the rebels: "We are your brothers, we are Moraites, we are not Turks from the East." In some early phases, some chieftains (like Giatrakos or Petrompeis) accepted them and kept them as prisoners for ransom. However, in the last days, the volume of hungry people coming out was so large that the Greek soldiers, fearing they would run out of food themselves, began to execute them outside the walls. The French philhellene Maxime Raybaud (from whom I provided the excerpt at the beginning) and historian Ioannis Philimon report that entire Muslim families fell to their knees before the Greeks, holding makeshift wooden crosses, and begged to be baptized as Christians right then and there. In the majority of cases, amidst the chaos of battle, the rebels considered these conversions "hypocritical" in order to save their lives and rejected them. There were, however, exceptions for women and children. Many Muslim women who spoke Greek ultimately assimilated into Greek families, were baptized, and married Greek fighters after the war ended. It should be noted, however, that although biologically native, the Moraites Muslims had adopted the psychology of the ruling class. When in 1770 or 1821 it was necessary to defend their privileges, they acted with the same cruelty as the Ottomans of Constantinople. Kolokotronis’s aide noted that the local agas of Tripolitsa were the most ruthless persecutors of the Christians of Arcadia. The Greeks remembered who had stolen their land, who had imprisoned their children, and who had burned their villages just months before... When the Muslims then remembered their "Greekness" due to the impending slaughter, for the rebels it was already too late. Religious hatred and thirst for revenge had blinded any logic of common descent! "The majority of the Ottoman inhabitants of Tripolitsa were indigenous Peloponnesians, whose ancestors had been Islamized. They spoke Greek as their mother tongue and knew very little Turkish. Despite this, their involvement in the oppressions and recent excesses against Christians rendered their Greekness powerless before the religious hatred" (Ioannis Philimon, in his work Historical Essay on the Greek Revolution). ------------------------ Modern historical studies estimate that the dead during the capture of Tripolitsa range between 10,000 and 15,000 people, including those who lost their lives from famine and disease in the last months of the siege. The number of 30,000 or 32,000 dead mentioned in some contemporary sources (such as Kolokotronis's memoirs) is considered statistically inflated by modern historians. This inflation served the psychology of war. The rebels wanted to emphasize the magnitude of their success against the strongest stronghold of Morias, while the Ottoman side wanted to exaggerate the magnitude of its own destruction! Good morning, everyone! P.S. I will also post it in English as soon as I find some time! (translated)
