Chapter 26: Crete, Chios, and the Cesme Incident
As the Powers worked to bring peace between the Ottoman Empire and Greece on the mainland, the war had only intensified across much of the Aegean since their arrival in the region. In the South, the island of Crete roared to life after the evacuation of the Egyptian garrison in late December 1827. Though the island had been a hotbed of rebel activity against the Ottomans for much of the war, it had fallen silent in recent years following the Egyptian conquest of Crete in the Summer of 1824. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Cretans were slain in the process and tens of thousands fled to the mainland seeking refuge. Even still, the Greeks continued to retain a hold on the island of Gramvousa to the Northwest and the castle of Kissamos on Crete itself against heavy Egyptian and Ottoman opposition. Cretan partisans also continued to operate in the hills and mountains of Crete, striking against vulnerable patrols and striking out where they could. Still they required a better opportunity if they wished to free all of Crete from the Ottomans and Egyptians.
That opportunity came in the Fall of 1827 with the exit of Muhammad Ali and the soldiers from the war. In the ensuing weeks, Crete quickly became a vacuum as the Egyptians left the island in droves, a vacuum that was soon filled by the local Cretans who once more rose in revolt against the few remaining Ottoman forces on the island. The Ottomans managed to reinforce the island with 1,000 soldiers in late December, but the Greek Navy soon joined by the British, French, and Russian expeditionary fleet, became dominant on the seas and prohibited the further transport of men and war materials to Greece. While this wasn’t so much of an issue for the Ottoman strongholds on the mainland, for the Ottoman outposts on Crete it was a death knell. Despite being heavily outnumbered and now isolated from resupply and reinforcements, the Ottomans managed to retain control of several cities along the northern and Southern coasts of Crete, namely Heraklion, Agios Nikolaos, Lerapetra, Sitia and a few smaller villages in the Northeast corner of the island nearest Anatolia, albeit just barely.
Rather than wait passively for the Powers to pacify the region in their stead, Kapodistrias took the initiative and dispatched a force of men and ships under the command of the Epirote Hatzimichalis Dalianis to liberate Crete from the remaining Egyptian and Ottoman soldiers on the island. Arriving at the newly liberated port city of Chania on the 11th of January, the Greeks, numbering about three battalions of infantry and two companies of cavalry, roughly 1,400 men on foot and 200 plus on horses and mules in total, immediately moved to East along the Northern coast towards Heraklion. Heraklion was the largest city remaining under Ottoman control on the island. Its defenses were also the toughest, with large stout walls, and the mighty Venetian citadel Castello a Mare sitting amid the city’s silted in harbor. The garrison at Heraklion was also the strongest on the island with slightly over 2,000 regular Ottoman, Albanian, and Egyptian soldiers, along with several hundred armed civilians. Lastly, they were led the ambitious Albanian commander Mustafa Naili Pasha.
Hatzimichalis Dalianis (Left) and Mustafa Naili Pasha (Right)
Despite being a subordinate of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Mustafa Naili had remained behind on Crete following the withdraw of Egypt from the War. The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II, upon learning of the Treaty of Alexandria, reached out to the various Egyptian commanders in Greece in an attempt to retain their services for the Porte, or at least delay their departure long enough until his own forces could become available in their stead. Though his efforts generally bore little fruit in the Morea, they were relatively successful in Crete as Mustafa Naili and members of the Egyptian garrison agreed to stay on Crete. The price for his continued service to the Porte, however, was the Vilayet of Crete which had recently become vacant following the betrayal of Muhammad Ali.
[1] As the Sultan had no means of transporting troops to Crete thanks in large part to the Powers strict prohibition of it, Mahmud was forced to agree.
As such, a substantial portion of the Egyptian garrison, roughly 2,500 men, chose to remain behind on the island following the Treaty of Alexandria. Even still, the total Ottoman force on the island amounted to little more than 6,100 soldiers scattered across a dozen towns and cities along the Eastern half of Crete which paled in comparison to the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Greek regular and irregular combatants believed to be on the island. Still, their continued presence on Crete helped to bolster the flagging Ottoman defenses, prolonging the conflict on Crete for several months to come as the Greeks were forced to starve them out one by one. By the end of June though only Heraklion remained.
With their supplies running out and no rescue in sight, Mustafa Naili Pasha attempted a desperate sortie attempt against the smattering of Greeks outside his walls. The gamble succeeded in causing mass casualties among the Greek besiegers, Dalianis himself was severely injured in the attack, but it ultimately failed to break the siege and he was forced to surrender several days later on the 12th of June. The fall of Heraklion completed the liberation of Crete and under the mediation of the Powers, the Turkish and Egyptian soldiers and civilians on the island were given safe passage to Asia Minor or Alexandria and they were generally permitted to bring their personal affects and weapons with them. However, events to the North complicated this planned exodus of the Turks and Egyptians from the island.
Over the previous Fall and Winter, Governor Kapodistrias had dispatched another force to liberate the islands of Chios and Psara from the Ottomans. In recent years, Nafplion had become inundated with refugees from the islands lost since the war began nearly seven years before. Their kin scattered across the country had also formed a large community of expats with some sway over the local politics by they used their wealth and influence to organize efforts to liberate their homes from the Ottomans. In 1825 the Chios Committee emerged from among the Chian community in Syros, with Ambrosios Skaramangas, Loukas Rallis, and Georgios Psychas as its leaders and representatives to the Kapodistrias Government. The Committee in the ensuing months gathered arms, funding, and political support from their supporters abroad and their friends at home for the liberation of Chios. Kapodistrias himself was a prominent supporter of the endeavor and used his position as Governor of Greece to help their cause. By the Fall of 1827, the final approval for the endeavor had been received and the expedition was launched in late October with the Frenchman Charles Fabvier tasked as the operation’s leader.
Instead of traveling directly to Chios, the Greek force landed first at Psara, which had been abandoned since the island’s fall to the Turks in July of 1824. The Greek forces numbered 1,100 infantry from the regular army, 350 cavalrymen under the command of the Portuguese Philhellene Antonio Figueira d'Almeida, and a corps of artillery numbering 10 siege guns, 8 field guns, and 6 mortars under the command of the Epirote Engineer Konstantinos Lagoumitzis. They were also assisted by nearly 1,200 irregular units comprised mostly of Chian and Psarian refugees. After reestablishing a Greek presence on Psara, Fabvier and his force finally departed for Chios on the 10th of October. Landing at the town of Mavrolimana, Fabvier and the Greeks managed within the span of two days to liberate the entirety of the island, except for the city of Chios itself on the island’s east coast. Efforts to besiege the city and its castle proved more difficult as the Ottomans still possessed a significant garrison behind their walls and reinforcement also proved to be an issue as Ottoman transports continued to bring more men and arms into the city. If they were to take the city and fully secure the island they would need control of the strait.
To that end, the British Philhellenes Lord Cochrane and Captain Hastings, along with the Psariot Admiral Kanaris and a fleet of 20 Greek ships blockaded the city of Chios from the sea. With their route of supply cut off, Fabvier finally began to make progress against the Ottoman defenses at Chios. The Frenchman did not stop there however, and in conjuncture with Cochrane and Kanaris had launched a raid against the coast of Asia Minor near Smyrna which met with some success and planned another assault against the port city of Cesme to be carried out near the beginning of February. Unfortunately, bad weather proved to be an issue forcing the raid to be delayed until the end of the month when the wind and rain finally began to clear. Cesme, located across the Chios strait from Chios had developed into quite the military port over the years, where Ottoman soldiers would gather for operations against the Greek islands. By late February, a small fleet of ships and transports had steadily built up in an attempt to break the Greek blockade of Chios city. If Fabvier and the Greeks were to finally free Chios, then the Ottoman fleet at Cesme would need to be destroyed. Unfortunately, news of this operation leaked out from the Greek camp making its way not only to the Ottomans at Cesme, but it also came to the attention of the Great Powers.
When word reached them of the coming attack against the Turks at Cesme, the British, French, and Russians moved to intervene. The reasoning for their actions in February 1828 are not hard to understand. While it was no secret that the Powers favored the Greeks, they still wished to present at least a semblance of neutrality and impartiality in the conflict which would be in doubt if they solely limited the Ottomans endeavors while ignoring those of the Greeks. More importantly however, they felt slighted. The Powers had agreed to support Greece in establishing itself in all territories which had taken an active part in the revolt, this territory was generally defined as all land south of a line from Volos in the East to Arta in the West in addition to the neighboring islands, Chios was however noticeably absent from this territory. Since Chios had fallen to the Ottomans in the Summer of 1822 the island had been relatively quiet and had been left out of the Power’s design for Greece for this reason. Efforts to real in Fabvier and Cochrane had met with little success on the part of Codrington and de Rigny and so the Allied Fleet was forced to remind the Greeks of their place.
Arriving off the coast of Cesme on the 23rd of February, the British, French, and Russian ships arrived off the coast of Cesme. They were soon joined by the Greek fleet under Kanaris leading to a tense, but polite meeting between the two. After some pleasantries, Kanaris was told under no uncertain terms that the Powers would prohibit further acts by the Greeks against Asia Minor. With no other choice, Kanaris, rather than risk a confrontation with the Powers, agreed to withdraw his ships from Cesme and turned for Chios. As soon as he began to leave though, cannon fire began to erupt far to the East.
Codrington having dealt with the Greeks turned his fleet into Cesme bay to meet with the Ottomans in an attempt to alleviate their concerns. The entrance of the Allied Fleet into the harbor had been carried out without the express permission of the Ottoman commander Amir Tahir, however, bringing the Ottomans into a state of alert. Mistaking the Allied Fleet’s presence as a show of support for the Greeks who were still present outside the bay, the captain an Ottoman ship opened fire on a Russian and French delegation that had come come up alongside to treat with them, striking several Russian sailors and their interpreters dead. The aggrieved Russian ship in return opened fire on the offending Ottoman ship with rifles and light guns killing six Turkish sailors before they ceased their attack.
Further bloodshed between the Ottomans and the Powers could have been avoided had an Ottoman fireship not been broken free of its moorings and drifted into the midst of the Allied fleet. Believing it was the precursor to an attack, Codrington had the fireship blown out of the water killing all aboard it. This act set off a chain reaction of fighting all across the bay that resulted in the battle of Cesme or the Cesme Incident was it was later known.
[2] The “battle” for all intents and purposes was a massacre as the 20 Allied Ships made short work of the 52 Ottoman ships assembled in Cesme Bay. Of the 20 British, French, and Russian ships at Cesme, 10 were Third Rate Ships of the Line all of which were equipped with 74 to 84 guns. The remaining 10 ships in their fleet included 7 Fifth Rate ships of the line with 36 to 50 guns, one Sixth Rate with 28 guns, and a pair of Frigates with 60 and 44 guns respectively.
The Ottomans in comparison only had 3 Third Rate Ships of the Line at Cesme in addition to 6 Frigates of varying sizes, 14 corvettes, and 20 brigs, in addition to 3 more fireships and nearly 40 transports that did not take part in the ensuing battle. Despite their numbers, the smaller Ottoman ships could not withstand the blistering firepower of the Great Power’s Ships of the Line which made short work of the Ottoman fleet. The deafening roar of the cannons left combatants on both sides incapable of hearing for several days after the battle. The gun smoke also proved problematic for the combatants as it quickly filled the bay impairing vision and it difficult for the commanders to communicate with their ships and crews. Codrington is reported as shouting his orders to neighboring ships through a loudhailer. Flying debris and shrapnel filled the air killing or maiming dozens including Codrington’s young son Henry who was struck by a piece of planking which ripped into the boy’s leg. If any attempts had been made to stop the fighting before its conclusion they were likely hindered by the heavy smoke and the constant crack of cannon fire.
The HMS Asia Destroys the Burj Zafer and the Ghiuh Rewan
The destructive power of the Allied Fleet was immense. Within three hours’ time, the Ottoman fleet had lost nearly half of their number, with twenty warships sent to the bottom of the bay and nearly 1,500 soldiers and sailors had been killed in the fighting and another 2,352 were recorded as wounded. Another twenty ships received varying degrees of damage ranging from very light to very heavy. Of the 4 ships which were damaged beyond repair, 3 were later destroyed by their Turkish commanders to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Allies as their honor demanded they not strike their colors and the last was run aground. The Allies for their part lost 211 sailors and marines in the engagement with several hundred wounded, four ships were heavily damaged along with nine others receiving moderate to light damage.
The immediate response to the Battle of Cesme was jubiliation in the cities of Europe and great concern by the Ministers in their courts. Codrington, upon his return to Britain the following year, received a hero’s welcome by the British populace, but a slap on the wrist by Parliament and a refusal by the Admiralty to pay the basic rewards to his crew for the capture of Ottoman spoils and riches. It quickly became apparent that Codrington was to be the sacrificial lamb blamed by the Britain for overstepping his prerogative in the Aegean and provoking the confrontation with the Ottoman Navy at Cesme in the first place. Codrington, the Greeks and the Russians for their part place the blame for the battle squarely on the shoulders of the Ottomans for responding with force to the initial entreats of the Powers at Cesme. Canning for his part quietly praised Codrington behind closed doors and publicly shielded him from any further humiliation or punishment while working to meet the needs of his sailors. The more immediate impact of the battle of Cesme was in Chios city, without the support of the relief force at Cesme, the Ottoman garrison was forced to capitulate in early May when the walls of the Castle were finally brought down by Greek sappers.
More important than the final fall of Chios to the Greeks was the Sublime Porte’s reaction to the Cesme Incident. In retaliation for the blatant and seemingly unprovoked attack on his ships, Sultan Mahmud II broke off diplomatic relations with the Powers, he ordered the Dardanelles closed to Russian shipping, and he rescinded the Akkerman Convention Treaty effectively throwing down the gauntlet to the Powers in general and Russia in particular. Attempts by both Britain and France to calm the situation with the Ottomans fell on deaf ears as the Porte continued to reject any and all calls for peace with the Greeks and the Powers. Britain's efforts for peace were finally foiled when Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on the 1st of May 1828.
Greece in June 1828
Purple – Greece
Green – Ottoman Empire
Pink – United States of the Ionian Islands
Part of Muhammad Ali’s prerequisites for joining the war in 1822 were the cessation of Cyprus and Crete to his rule. In OTL, Muhammad Ali held these islands until 1841 when the Great Powers forced him to relinquish them following the Oriental Crisis. In TTL, as part of the Treaty of Alexandria, Muhammad Ali was forced to abandon the islands, leaving them without a central authority. Mustafa Naili was the OTL Pasha of Crete following the Oriental Crisis, in which he was forced to shift his allegiance from Alexandria to Constantinople, here he does it a bit sooner.
[2] This is essentially an analog to the Battle of Navarino.
