Chapter 4

Ali Pasha’s Life: The Fall

Ali’s early life gives no indication that he was seeking kingly power at the outset. With hindsight the chroniclers played up or invented moments of good fortune to mark out Ali as a fated man and rather like Macbeth and the witches, the idea of ascending to the ‘throne’ was nurtured by mystics and fortune-tellers. In the same manner, much is made of him cynically removing rivals one by one by murder and intrigue. If Ali had a moment when it became clear the path was opening for him to be more than a provincial ruler it was with the acquisition of the pashalik of Ioannina and the control of the mountain passes. His fortunes were enhanced by the fact that he achieved this at a time when there was a momentous shift in the international political situation that put Epirus at the centre of diplomatic intrigue. The likelihood is that Ali, like any opportunist, took each step as it came, taking advantage of the new realities to play one party off against another and as his power increased his ambition merely increased with it until the realization dawned that he could carve out a little empire for himself, chipping away a bit at a time without directly threatening the Sultan. A priority was the neutralization of the various disruptive factions competing with one another, the klephts, the armatoli, the Albanian beys and agas, the Christian notables, so as to bring the whole region under a centralized government system. He could achieve this with the apparent blessing of the Sultan on the pretext that he was weakening the arbitrary actions of the armatoli and the ayans (powerful Muslim landowners) that caused distress amongst the peasant population. Ali was the master of utilizing petty rivalries and the art of divide and rule. Under the cloak of bringing justice to all he could attack the rich and powerful, earning a reputation amongst the poor farmers of being, in Finlay’s words, ‘a hard man but a just pasha’ while lining his own pockets. Rather than the random acts of previous Muslims defending the Empire he would be systematic and justified, seen as doing his duty as the Sultan’s vassal.

An extreme example of Ali’s ruthless opportunism and exploitation of a situation was how he dealt with Moscopole in modern Albania, a once wealthy mountain city near Konitza. Said to be the largest town in the Balkans, it was a leading Aromanian (Vlach) and Greek intellectual centre, well endowed with schools, a hospital, an orphanage and numerous churches. It was such an important centre of culture that it possessed the first printing press in the region outside Constantinople from which progressive, and to the authorities dangerous, ideas were disseminated. When the inhabitants learnt of the Russian intention to aid a Greek uprising in the Morea they made the mistake of letting their support for the Orlov Revolt be known, and in consequence they were raided by Albanian irregulars in 1769. After a series of attacks at the hands of brigands, the town was already in a reduced state when Ali delivered the coup de grâce in 1788. Given their past sympathies and with Turkey at war with Russia it was perhaps a convenient time to deliver such a destructive blow to the town that it could never regain its former position. Referred to as Bossigrad in many of the sources, the reason for Ali’s attack, carried out with his usual trickery and with the aid of the armatoli, Palaiopoulos and Kanavos, was that he was ridding the passes of bandits. Kir Petros, a native of Konitza, informed Leake that Moscopole and Konitza previously contained 5,000 to 6,000 houses, but after the ‘tyranny of the pashas’ they were reduced to 800. Petros, who worked in the service of Ali, put much of the present distress of the local Christian population down to the avarice of the Bishop of Ioannina. Whether this was a factor or not, with their town destroyed the population of Moscopole moved elsewhere, many of the elite fleeing to Thessaly and Macedonia, or even further afield to Vienna, Budapest and on to Transylvania where they were influential in awakening the national consciousness of the Romanians. Berat and Konitza were the main beneficiaries from Moscopole’s commercial collapse. The presence of many disposed artisans and merchants from Epirus in towns out of Ali’s reach indicates that these actions were part of a policy to ruin economic rivals in order to enrich his capital at Ioannina. One beneficiary was Monastir, along with its neighbouring villages. Monastir was enriched to such an extent by fleeing Christian Aromanian craftsmen and tradesmen that it would eventually supersede Ioannina as the regional centre after Ali’s fall.

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Fig. 26: Ioannina and Corfu.

The pashalik of Ioannina included Thesprotia, which was home to the semi-autonomous Muslim Tsamides and the Christian Suliotes, a situation Ali would not be prepared to endure. Theoretically the Suliotes paid their dues to an official based in Ioannina, the spahi, at this time Bekir Bey. Leake tells us that Ali wanted to take this directly into his own hands, and when Bekir refused he was promptly put in prison. Up till then the Suliotes had been dutiful subjects paying their taxes. This seems rather at odds with the fact that various pashas and armies had made several attempts to subdue them over the course of the century and they were renowned terrorizers of the surrounding villages. Their recourse to armed resistance appears something of a chicken and egg situation, Leake apologizing for their behaviour as their only recourse to Turkish intimidation. To shore up their position the Suliotes had formed a confederacy that dominated a large number of neighbouring villages. Only thirty miles south-west of Ali’s capital at Ioannina Suli posed a constant threat, because within its romantic and precipitous mountain stronghold it was so remote that even in the Second World War the British were able to set up an airbase there from where they could operate virtually undisturbed by the Germans. With a population of no more than 450 families divided into 19 clans, it could muster a fighting force of 1,500 men. With Turkey engaged in its war against Russia and Austria on the Danubian border their lawless activities, which were again causing disquiet amongst the locals, were more than an irritant. A diplomatic success scored by Russia in the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji (1774) that concluded the previous war was the acknowledgement by the Ottomans of Catherine as protector of the Orthodox Christians within the Empire. This gave her an excuse to interfere over the border with her agents fanning the flame of discontent. Once again she invited the Greeks to throw in their lot with Russia in order to divert Turkish forces. This time her pleas fell largely on deaf ears; the Peloponnesians were no longer enthusiastic, still suffering as they were from the reprisals of the Albanian irregulars for their part in the Orlov rebellion.

The ever-eager Suliotes were another matter and they responded positively to Catherine, thus providing Ali with an ideal opportunity, to move against them as a loyal supporter of the Sultan. Contemporary accounts also implicate Ibrahim Pasha and his allies in inciting the Suliotes against Ali; but the fact that, in March of 1789, the chieftains of Suli wrote to Louitzis Sotiris, the primate of Vostitsa (modern Aigio) in the Morea and a Russian agent, declaring that they had gathered 2,200 men ready to take up arms against Ali as the Sultan’s representative in Epirus, confirms Russian involvement. Forewarned of the Suliotes’ intentions Ali immediately mobilized his forces. He attacked Suli with his old allies the Tsapari family and the agas of Paramythia and a force of 3,000 men. Luckily for Ali, the Russians having encouraged them once again their support fleet failed to materialize. Ali’s first assault was beaten back with considerable losses, and spurred on by their success, the Suliotes turned rogue and joined forces with klephtic bands from the Pindus, ravaging both Greek and Albanian villages in Acanarnia as far as Arta and up to loannina itself. The failure of the Russians scuppered any plan of the Suliotes joining forces with the sea captain Lambro Kanzani (Lambros Katzonis) who was fighting with the Russian navy in the Aegean. They were said, however, to have supplied men to Kanzani when he, having also been abandoned by the Russians, turned pirate and began harrying Turkish shipping. Kanzani, who dined with Byron in Constantinople in 1809, achieved further fame by making an appearance in Don Juan and The Bride of Abydos.

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Fig. 27: Map of Suli by William M Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, Vol. 1 (1835).

The actions of the Suliotes had lost them friends amongst the armatoli, and if Ibrahim was involved he may have had a change of heart, the arrangements for Veli’s marriage to one of his daughters have been put to around 1792. Having failed in his direct assault on Suli, Ali turned to another tactic, guile, and an art with which he would be popularly associated. In the klephtic song known as ‘Katsoudas’, his ruse to capture an adversary is to dupe him with an offer of friendship. Katsoudas is invited to Ioannina to join Ali’s service. At first Katsoudas is warmly entertained by Ali, inducing him to lower his guard, confess his misdemeanours and hand over his booty; then as he bows his head in submission in comes the executioner and ‘off went his head’. This reputation for double-dealing and deception became a major component of the various versions of Ali’s dealings with the Suliotes. Their fame for uncompromising resistance and Ali’s attempts to crush them ensured that their confrontations would take on mythical proportions almost from the outset. All the chroniclers dwell on the same details. In 1792 Ali was mustering an army said to have numbered up to 10,000 men to attack Argyrocastro in response to the town’s lack of enthusiasm in accepting his imposition of a Bey. This was apparently merely an elaborate feint to lure the Suliotes out from their mountain stronghold. Ali wrote in Greek to the Suliote captains Georgios Botsaris and Lambros Tzavelas asking for their assistance. Several translations of the letter are given in the accounts; the one quoted below was made by Sir William Eton from a copy given to him by a dragoman who was in Ioannina at the time:

My friends, Captain Bogia [Botsaris] and Captain Giavella [Tzavelas], I, Ali Pasha, salute you, and kiss your eyes, because I well know your courage and heroic minds.

It appears to me that I have great need of you, therefore I entreat you immediately, when you receive my letter, to assemble all your heroes, and come to meet me, that I may go to fight my enemies. This is the hour and the time that I have need of you. I expect to see your friendship, and the love which you have for me. Your pay will be double that which I give to the Albanians, because I know that your courage is greater than theirs; therefore I will not go to fight before you come, and I expect that you will come soon.

This only, and I salute you.

The captains cautiously took the bait, perhaps only to test Ali’s intentions. Botsaris replied saying he could not muster enough followers but that Tzavelas would join his army with seventy men as a sign of friendship. After at first being put in the frontline, their suspicions were confirmed when Tzavelas and his men were surprised and seized, some killed on the spot and the rest put in chains and sent to Ioannina. Ali then marched on Suli. Botsaris was already waiting for him. Following the usual Suliote stratagem he had retreated and was dug in with provisions on Mount Tripia, the four villages abandoned and the wells soured. Ali took personal charge aided by Mukhtar, by then pasha of the two tails, and a number of vassal chiefs; and in his train, Tzavelas. Various means were then tried, including the threat of death by flaying alive, to persuade Tzavelas to betray his kinsmen, but to no avail. Tzavelas was then offered his freedom and overlordship of Suli if he could get the Suliotes to submit. Tzavelas agreed, but he was required to hand over his 12 years old son, Fotos, in exchange as surety. Once safe in the mountains Tzavelas sent Ali a letter:

Ali Pasha, I am glad I have deceived a traitor; I am here to defend my country against a thief. My son will be put to death, but I will desperately revenge him before I fall myself. Some men, like you Turks, will say I am a cruel father to sacrifice my son for my own safety. I answer, if you take the mountain, my son would have been killed, with all the rest of my family and my countrymen; then I could not have revenged his death. If we are victorious, I may have other children, my wife is young. If my son, young as he is, is not willing to be sacrificed for his country, he is not worthy to live, or to be owned by me as my son.

Advance, traitor, I am impatient to be revenged. I am your sworn enemy. Captain Giavella.

Fotos was taken to Ioannina. Eton’s dragoman claimed he was a witness when the boy answered Veli Bey’s assertion that he was waiting orders from his father to roast him alive by saying, in true playground manner, that he was unafraid because his father would do the same to Veli’s father if he got hold of him. The Suliotes continued the struggle undeterred and in time-honoured fashion the women joined the fight under the command of Moscho, Tzavelas’ wife. After making no headway in penetrating the high strongholds and some of his support beginning to waiver Ali was forced to cut his losses. He released Fotos and his other hostages, paid a ransom for the liberty of his own prisoners and signed a truce. Yet another campaign into Suliote territory had proved futile and costly, his troops driven back near to the outskirts of Ioannina by the Suliotes and their allies and the number of his Albanian troops killed counted in the thousands as to the less than 100 Suliotes. Eton was a well-connected and well-travelled observer resident at the time in Moscow and Constantinople. His account of the war is the earliest published and written soon after the events; its stories embellished on by later writers to become part of the Suliotes folklore. Eton’s quotations from letters give it the air of veracity but his mistaken and colourful account of the death of Ali’s son Mukhtar in one engagement throws an element of doubt on the details. If the exact details are in doubt, the result was not. For Ali it was a humiliation he would not forget.

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Fig. 28: ‘Suli’, Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania… by Edward Lear.

Correspondence from Ali’s archive places Veli’s wedding in around August of 1794. One of Ali’s patrons, Spyridon Golemis, could not attend, so he wrote in apology to Ali in July sending two boxes ‘of a few sweets’ as a wedding gift. He expressed great joy at the news, implying a relationship of genuine affection between Ali and Veli. The sources reveal that Ali’s relationship with Mukhtar was less cordial. Soon after or on his wedding Veli was given the title of pasha. Assuming Veli was not taking another wife, and there is no indication he did so, this was the marriage made to cement good relations between Ali and Ibrahim of Berat.

Despite Ali’s setback in Suli, his standing at Constantinople was significant. In response to a plea from the pasha of Negroponte (Euboea) Ali was able to use his influence to effect a reversal of the death penalty imposed on him. Ali’s position of strength had been attained by force within an environment of lawlessness but it now was vital to maintain the peace in order to keep his coffers filled. Villagers complained to him of raids by klephts, often from neighbouring villages, and Suliotes stealing sheep. By offering protection to towns and villages in return for declarations of loyalty he could increase his network of control over an ever-expanding area, planting his representatives and negotiating terms and tax arrangements as need be. Typically letters addressed to Ali from his supplicants are full of obsequious and flattering phrases reflecting the power relationship between them. The people of Kokosi in Thessaly wrote to Ali in 1794 on behalf of ‘Platini, Scourpi, Koffi, and the rest of the villages’, beginning, ‘Your most glorious, sublime, prosperous pasha, our lord, we your servants… kneel in front of your highness, and we kiss your noble hand, and footprints…’. They go on to request the prolonged stay of one of Ali’s boluk-bashis (officers) with his men to protect them from bandits. In response his letters are terse and factual. Similarly on his becoming pasha of Ioannina, the villagers of Kato Soudena asked to be put under his protection in return for payment, and pointedly everyone signed the letter with a promise. Protection was not only from bandits. Although he was officially a representative of the government, Ali offered protection from the Sultan’s tax collectors too, diverting funds that otherwise would have gone to the state for modernization, particularly to the army, or from other persons in authority. By ceding their village to Ali communities could put themselves under his jurisdiction. As Kostas Mitsou, a notable of Dervenditsa (Anthochorion near Metsovo) in the Pindus wrote in his diary, ‘In the year 1795… Ali Pasha made us slaves and took our village as a ciftlic’, and for this plus a yearly tribute he undertook to pay their local taxes to Trikkala, but not those to the Porte. Ali further interfered with the collection and disposal of government tax revenue through the bribery of officials or the allocation of tax collecting duties to his family and followers. According to Finlay the higher ranks of the Orthodox Church colluded with Ali in as much as the bishops were willing to act as his tax collectors, hence the comment by Kir Petros to Leake about the Bishop of Ioannina.

Not all communities were cowed. Sometimes roles were reversed and Ali would pay to bring a community into his realm or villages would threaten to breakaway, as in 1802 when the villagers of Chebelovo complained that Ali was showing favouritism to their neighbours. If a community was discontented with Ali’s rule it could seek recourse in the Ottoman kadi courts and in neighbouring imperial authorities, or even directly in Constantinople itself. The political intrigues of the Imperial Court meant that his position as dervendji-pasha could never be totally assured and so he kept the wheels oiled at central government through his connections at the capital. In 1797 Stefanos Misiou, one of his lobbyists in the Phanariot elite, informed him that there was a rival bid for the control of the passes. Misiou advised him to make a higher offer to the Treasury and to seek better relations with the local communities who paid him tax, as complaints would give the authorities the excuse to give the post to his rival. In 1798 Ali’s power was felt as far as Veroia, a regional centre in Macedonia, and in 1799 he was formally granted the governorship of Thessaly to rid the region of bandits, followed by all of Rumeli. The area that Ali controlled and that which was formally recognized as his were not exactly coterminous, but by shows of force he was able to exert pressure to extract taxes beyond the strict confines of his borders. By 1803 several villages in the district of Florina, also in western Macedonia were concluding agreements regarding taxes and dues to be collected. From correspondence with the Divan Efendi at Constantinople it is known that his tax-collecting powers eventually stretched as far north as Prilep, in the centre of the modern Republic of Macedonia, through the ruse of using false identities as a tax-farmer.1

In 1796 Kara Mahmud Bushati of Scutari invaded Montenegro once more, but this time with the approval of the Porte so as to bring the fractious tribes under control. When he was killed in battle at Krusi, one of his territories, the sanjak of Ochrid, temporarily passed to Mukhtar, formalizing the spread of Ali’s influence in the north. The extension of Ali’s territory north and eastwards did not tempt him to move his centre of operations. Ali was relatively secure within his own mountain homeland and with his acquisition of the natural regional centre of Ioannina, he became part of an international network. The stability he brought helped the town become more cosmopolitan and his increased importance attracted a growing number of foreigners to his court. The French already had consuls at Arta and Preveza when, according to Vaudoncourt, Ali tried to approach Louis XVI as a precautionary counter to protect him against his enemies at Constantinople, with no success. Once he was firmly established though, he was strategically well placed to take advantage of the forthcoming political manoeuvrings of Britain, France and Russia. By 1794, according to the Russian Consul General at Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Cezzar Pasha of Damascus (who later helped in the defeat of Napoleon in Egypt), Mahmud Bushati Pasha of Scutari and Ali Pasha of Tepelene were regional governors who had usurped authority and the Porte could do little about it. Ali’s weakness was his inherited problem of the Venetians who hemmed in Epirus from the sea, controlling the ports and the Ionian straits. They had obtained an agreement from the Porte in 1788 that allowed no Turkish vessels access and no gun emplacements within a mile of the coast. These constraints were a hindrance to the trade of Epirus as well as to Ali’s military ambitions. But Venice’s star was on the wane. The Treaty of Jassy, concluded between Russia and Turkey in 1792, allowed Greeks to sail under the Russian flag, laying the foundation of Greek shipping and opening up trade with the Crimea. Events then changed even more dramatically to the west in Europe. Revolution in France was followed by the arrival of the French on Ali’s doorstep as the dominant force. Eton’s dragoman informant of the events in Suli was an interpreter sent on business to Ali Pasha in Ioannina by the French consul of Salonika, Esprit-Marie Cousinéry, a philhellene and supporter of Greek independence. Here he met de Lassale, the consul of Preveza, or as Davenport calls him ‘a shipwright’, and the discussions turned understandably to developments in France and the revolution. Lassale’s mission was to obtain timber from Epirus for the French Navy, and in the words of the dragoman, ‘revolutionizing that country’. The policy of the French was to turn Ali against the Porte and make him the ‘successor of Pyrrhus’. Lassale offered French assistance with arms and ammunition if Ali could subdue Suli and Himara. Lasalle’s further involvement was short; he met an unhappy end, shot by one of Lambros’ captains on the streets of Preveza.

From 1792 the French Republic was at war with much of Europe, and by 1794 their forces were making ground in Italy under their dynamic young general, Napoleon Bonaparte. The Republic of Venice fell to Napoleon in 1797 and by the Treaty of Campo Formio the possession of the Ionian Islands and the neighbouring ports of Arta, Preveza, Vonitsa, Parga, Igoumenitsa and Butrint were transferred to France. French eyes were then turned to the mainland. These outposts, and the islands beyond, for so long a thorn in the flesh of the Ottomans, were prizes that Ali coveted to consolidate his own position, and he was prepared to manoeuvre in whichever way necessary to get them. Panagiotis Aravantinos, the nineteenth century historian of Epirus, claimed that Ali had already surreptitiously obtained the governorship of Arta under the false name of ‘Mustafa’, a person who never existed, holding it from 1796 until his death. In the meantime the French established garrisons under the command of General Antoine Gentili and a small naval force at Corfu. When General La Salchette and 280 grenadiers marched into Preveza with the aura of liberators the people gave the troops a warm welcome. The British may have derided Napoleon as that ‘Corsican upstart’ but his famous victories meant that he became an idol to many who saw him as a potential liberator, a notion he was happy to encourage. His charisma was such that even German intellectuals imagined him as an almost Christlike figure riding at the head of his army, a man of destiny, or as Friedrich Hegel put it, ‘the world-spirit on horseback’, an idea that travelled to the uncowed clans of the Mani Peninsula in the Peloponnese who took to praying to his portrait alongside that of the Virgin Mary, while the klephts of Epirus flocked to the banner of his Ionian regiments. The advance of the French armies was seen by many of the subjugated people of Europe as a march of freedom. In Vienna, inspired by the idealism of the French Revolution, Rigas Feraios was agitating for a pan-Balkan revolution and printing pamphlets on political reform and ‘the Rights of Man’. Caught up in the euphoria of the moment the townsfolk of Preveza called their transfer to France as the ‘First Year of Liberation’. Rigas was on his way to Venice to ask for support from Napoleon when he was apprehended by the Austrian authorities. Napoleon in turn was more interested in Egypt and ultimately the route to India. Although the Ionian Islands were merely stepping stones within this grand plan, Greek liberation would help dismember the Ottoman Empire. So as Napoleon fantasized about becoming liberator of Greece, French agents set to work stirring up revolutionary sentiment.

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Fig. 29: ‘Kimara’, Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania… by Edward Lear.

Rather than the policy of the Venetians, who fostered good relations with the pashas of Delvino and had supported local independently minded groups such as the Suliotes and Himariotes as buffers to protect their coastal enclaves, the French sought to make friendly advances towards the rival pashas to sow discord within the Empire. Ali saw an opportunity in this new situation. Professing a mutual hatred of the Venetian aristocracy that had ruled the Ionian Islands he immediately opened secret communication with Napoleon, then still in northern Italy. As relations between France and Turkey were verging on open war, this was tantamount to treason. The French proved so anxious to appease him in order to facilitate their own agenda against Turkey, that Ali was able to persuade them to help him put an end to the independence of the Himariotes once and for all. Gentili reported back that Ali was full of admiration for Napoleon and the French. Ali made a fuss of the deputation to Ioannina, even bestowing a wife on a member of the party, the young adjutant general Rose, and in exchange for a tricolour cockade and promises of friendship agreed to dispatch supplies in return. Rose’s marriage was a grand affair during which a ballon aerostatique was released from a fairground and if the girl was Ali’s illegitimate daughter as was suggested, their friendship was more than formal. In a secret meeting with Gentili, Ali was more forthright, asking for armaments, military technical assistance and access for warships in the waters around Corfu. As a result of his charm offensive, in the spring of 1798 Gentili agreed to connive with Ali in ferrying a body of his Albanians from Arta through the straits by night in contravention of the treaty that had stood between the Venetians and the Porte to launch a surprise attack on Nivitza (Nivice), the most prosperous town on the coastal littoral between Butrint and Avlona. The fact that men from Himara were employed in the Neapolitan Army that fought against Napoleon may have influenced Gentili’s decision. Landing Ali’s troops in the bay at Lukova to the north they outflanked the town which commands the entrance to the narrow valley routeway into Himara from the landward side. His force attacked Nivitza and its neighbour Agios Vasili, a mile to the north, on Easter Sunday when the inhabitants were at prayer, taking the town and other villages, reducing them to ruins, and ravaging as far north as Himara itself. Six thousand unarmed civilians were said to have been slaughtered, some by roasting alive and impalement, and the rest of the population were sent to Ali’s farms near Trikkala, their land then divided up to be cultivated by his planted population of Saranda. Ali left a small square fortress at Agios Vasili guarding the entrance to Himara and to keep an eye on the remaining population of Nivitza. With the Himariote league destroyed and the whole of Himara from the important fisheries of Saranda to the castle and harbour at Porto Palermo, he had possession of the coast as far as Avlona and a region encircling the pashalik of Delvino. Ever aware that his actions would be reported at court he made sure that his agents in Constantinople put a favourable spin on his conquest to reassure the Porte it was done to subjugate the infidels; and as a safeguard he duly paid a feudal tribute to the government.

Over the winter of 1797–8 duty called once again along the Danube. This time Osman Pazvantoğlu was the problem causing the Sultan grief. The rebel governor Pazvantoğlu was carving out his own state with its capital in Vidin, in modern Bulgaria, and an army variously estimated as from 50,000 to 100,000 men had been dispatched under the Grand Admiral Hüseyin Küçük to take the city and capture the renegade. Ali was reluctant to show himself to the French as subservient to the Sultan but his enemies at the capital would make the most of his non-compliance to an official decree. Ali tried to absent himself from having to take to the field in person by using his position of dervendji-pasha to require the people of Karpenisi in the southern Pindus to write to the patriarch of Constantinople informing him that they were in fear of bandits if Ali left them unprotected. This ruse evidently did not work. According to Pouqueville, Ali took 20,0002 of his Albanians to the front, where it is suggested that he needed a show of force to protect himself from assassination. In the event, Ali distinguished himself in the conflict, but overall the campaign ended in failure, and as was the way of things, Pazvantoğlu was forgiven by Selim III and made a pasha; for his part Ali was rewarded with the title Aslan, the Lion, by the Porte. This seems a more likely scenario for his acquiring the title Aslan than the massacring of the Himariotes as is suggested in some sources. The campaign against Vidin took place in February 1798, so Ali may not have even been present in Epirus during the attack on Himara; Mukhtar had been left in charge at Ioannina. The French were angered by Ali’s involvement against Pazvantoğlu, whom they were also grooming, and Ali in return was disappointed in their lack of financial and military support. They had even gone so far as to offer him the crown of Albania once they had taken the Morea, but it was soon evident this was not going to happen. With relations soured, both sides underwhelmed by each other’s commitment, it was expedient that on his return home he now felt duty-bound to heed the Sultan’s call to drive the French out of Epirus.

ln June 1798 the French took Malta. The next step was their long-held objective of Egypt, precipitating war with the Ottomans. Two weeks later the army disembarked at Alexandria pushing Epirus to the sidelines. The siege of Vidin lasted until August, so Ali was still on the Danube at this time. Mukhtar had been keeping Ali informed of subversive activities by the French, including the dispersal of leaflets and tricolour cockades designed to incite revolt, particularly amongst the Suliotes. Ali attained special dispensation from the Sultan to return home to deal with matters while still keeping the lines of communication open with the French. One version of events has it that he offered to throw in his lot with the French in return for the Island of Santa Maura (Lefkas), the ex-Venetian dependencies on the mainland and the right to place a garrison on Corfu. If true, the commander-in-chief of the French forces on Corfu, General Louis François Jean Chabot, unsurprisingly turned down his offer. His course of action was made clear with the declaration of war in September. The accounts of Hughes and Pouqueville suggest he gained a commission to deal with French aggression through his agents at Constantinople, implying some underhand lobbying, but it would obviously have been in the Porte’s best interest for him to take authority in a time of war as the most powerful pasha in the region and guard the Empire’s western border. The version of events given by Ali’s hagiographer Haxhi Shehreti in the Alipashiad is that the Porte was so slow to react that he took it on himself without official sanction to mobilize over 20,000 troops against an impending French invasion.

Having assembled his forces, he did not wait for the French to make the first move. Encamped before Butrint and with little feeling for his previously professed friendship, he lured the unfortunate Rose, temporarily in charge at Corfu, to a meeting at Filates, near Igoumenitsa, where he was promptly taken prisoner, tortured and then sent to Ioannina in irons. That Rose fell into Ali’s trap was in part due to his naive trust in Ali’s loyalty. Ali evidently had given the impression that he had thrown in his hand with the French and his manoeuvres were to counter any approach by the Turks or Russians. Rose apparently gave little away as Ali adopted the same tactic on the French sub-lieutenant of Butrint. Whether Ali gained much from these methods, the lightly defended Butrint soon fell, and with Igoumenitsa, the main port of access to Corfu, in his hands he turned on Preveza. General Chabot, who was at Butrint, thought it more expedient to cut his losses and retreat to Corfu. Ali’s approach was made easier by his old adversary Georgios Botsaris, who allowed his troops passage through Suliote territory in return for a payment. Many of the inhabitants had already fled to the nearby islands leaving the town to be defended by La Salchette’s garrison and the townspeople’s pro-French civic militia, some Ionian islanders and 60 Suliotes under Captain Christakis, numbering around 700 in all. The French decided to make their line of defence the narrow isthmus from which direction any landward approach has to be made rather than the town walls. They hastily built entrenchments and fortifications close by the ancient city of Nicopolis which overlooks the plain before the town, but to no avail. Ali’s superior force, which included his own Greeks and Suliotes, outnumbered them ten to one. On 12 October, Ali watched the ensuing battle, during which Mukhtar led a cavalry charge, positioned on a hill above Nicopolis. Hughes records that he built a small serai there on the same spot on which the Emperor Augustus had watched his victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium fought out in the bay. Under the weight of such odds the town fell, a victory in part eased by the counter-propaganda of Metropolitan (Archbishop) Ignatios of Arta, an agent of Ali’s, who undermined the resolve of the defending Greeks.

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Fig. 30: Louis-Auguste Camus de Richemont directing the building of a trench at the Battle of Nicopolis (1894) by Felician Myrbach.

Over the next few days the French garrison and its Greek defenders were massacred, some of them it was said in Ali’s presence as he entered the town. According to Pouqueville, Ali was unable to prevent this wholesale slaughter by his troops, which does not entirely square with subsequent events. The following day Ali had 300 Greeks killed in front of him. Some defenders who had escaped to the mountains foolishly returned on the promise of an amnesty; 170 of them were then summarily executed by the sword at the Salora customs. Those that survived were marched to Ioannina where Ali organized a grand reception for his victorious troops. Many of the prisoners died on the way but those that made it walked at the head of the procession holding the cut and salted heads of their companions while they were jeered at and pelted with stones by the city’s pro-Ottoman residents. The women and young girls were, as the Alipashiad proudly attests, ‘sold… at Ioannina like negro slaves’. Pouqueville put the surviving French total at 200, in other words most of the French force, undermining the notion that they were slaughtered along with the Greeks. Nine of the captured French grenadiers, La Salchette and two officers were then sent in chains to Constantinople for questioning, along with the heads of the executed prisoners for the acknowledgement of the Sultan in a job well done. One of the officers, the commander of the French engineers, Louis-Auguste Camus de Rhichemont, had been spared through the personal intervention of Mukhtar, who had been impressed by his bravery. The surviving officers were joined by Rose, and sent to the Castle of the Seven Towers, the Yedikule fortress in Constantinople. There they met Pouqueville who had been taken prisoner by Barbary pirates as he was returning from Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt after the Battle of the Nile. Rose’s condition was too far gone and he died of his wounds despite Pouqueville’s attempt to save him. Richemont did survive and wrote an account of the engagement. He was ransomed in 1801, possibly through the auspices of Napoleon’s mother.

The massacre at Preveza became a notorious event, remembered in song as witnessed by Byron on his arrival at the Salora customs, and with repercussions that would influence Greek nationalism. Some Suliotes fought with Ali and Byron was more taken with their warlike braggadocio than that it was there that the 170 were executed. Preveza itself was left in ruins, the property of the Greeks seized by Ali and redistributed amongst his Albanians. The remaining population was dispersed into the surrounding countryside where they were set to work in the marshy land around the Ambracian Gulf. Hughes estimated that the population had fallen from 16,000 to 3,000 when he visited and that Ali, in contrary fashion, continued to despoil the town and oppress its inhabitants while at the same time making it his naval depot, the ‘Portsmouth of Albania’, and a favourite residence. Ali next turned to Vonitsa on the opposite shore of the Ambracian Gulf. This time the town fell without a fight, the inhabitants surrendering after the intervention of Archbishop Ignatios on Ali’s behalf.

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Fig. 31: Lieutenant Richemont taking down an Albanian horseman.

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Fig. 32: Being shown the severed head of a French soldier by Ali’s men by Felician Myrbach (1894).

Parga, to the north of Preveza, had long been a place of refuge for fugitives from Turkish rule and was thus of particular annoyance to any ruler of Epirus. Backed by a steep mountain its territory formed a small enclave two or three miles round the city. With a population of up to 4,000, Parga was always considered an important military outpost for the Ionian Islands, and particularly in respect of Corfu for which it was termed ‘the Ear and the Eye’. Immediately after the fall of Preveza, Ali wrote to the Pargians, ‘Learn men of Parga, the victory of this day and the fate of Prevesa’. Offering an olive branch and a promise allowing them the form of government they desired ‘as fellow subjects of my sovereign’, he proposed a parley. Ali’s first entreaty was ignored. He persisted, leaving out mention of subjugation to the Turks but urging the inhabitants to murder the French garrison. The Pargians replied on 16 October that Ali’s tyrannical actions, their love of liberty and their sense of honour meant they had to turn down his offer. The strong defences of the town and the citizen’s resolve made Parga a particularly vexing problem that would become another of Ali’s fixations. In the meantime, since his harassment of Missolonghi in the late 1770s, Ali had had his eyes on the region of Aetolia-Acarnania lying to the southeast of Vonitsa. Having been unable to gain control through interference in its governance, he saw a chance to move his troops into the province, known as Karli-Eli in Turkish, while forcing the region’s civil administrator and tax collector to seek refuge in the citadel at Vonitsa. This act of intimidation brought a reaction from the Ottoman government who pre-empted any further aggression by granting the entire sanjak of Karli-Eli minus the sub-district of Missolonghi as a private royal domain to Mihrişah Valide Sultan, the mother of Selim III and co-regent, forcing Ali to back down from a direct confrontation with the Porte. The province was administered on behalf of the Valide Sultan by Yusuf Agha, a cousin of her treasurer. Leake tells us that Ali made frequent presents to Mihrişah and Yusuf in order to keep on good terms.

Santa Maura, the closest of the Ionian Islands separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, became a more legitimate object of desire. But international events were to thwart Ali as he was on the brink of seizing the island. Napoleon’s attempt on Egypt had forced Turkey to join the Second Coalition led by Britain and Austria into an alliance with Russia. Ali’s actions had made the Porte anxious, and as a Russian-Turkish Fleet made its way to take the islands from the French it was made clear that Ali should be sidelined. Unsure of the welcome he might receive and of his objectives the government refused to send troops to Ali for any attack on island defences. Ali was on the point of negotiating another surrender with the local inhabitants who were ready to revolt against the French garrison when the Russian squadron arrived. Barely a month had passed since the fall of Preveza and Admiral Fyodor Ushakov3 was laying siege to the island and citadel of Corfu; the Pargians decided this was a good time to put themselves under Russian protection, and the French garrison, vulnerable to attack from the sea by the Russians and by Ali on land, had decided it was better off in Corfu leaving the town undefended. Once the Russians had taken Zante they offered Parga their protection, and the Russian admiral sent a Russo-Turkish force to take charge of the city. Napoleon, who was still in Egypt, must have been blissfully unaware of events as he was still writing to his officers in December urging them to cultivate good relations with Ali.

After a year of fighting the Russo-Turkish force took Corfu, ending the French occupation of the Ionian Islands. Ali, with his son Veli and Ibrahim Bey of Avlona were obliged to assemble a large land force to join the siege. Their part in the Siege of Corfu was largely of a diversionary nature but Ali’s involvement increased his reputation to such an extent that it was widely reported that Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson himself, only recently victorious over the French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile, sent his congratulations. In 1800, the seven islands were formed into the independent Septinsular Republic, a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire paying a triennial tribute but under the protection of both powers and with a ‘Byzantine’ Constitution acceptable to the Porte. It had been important to the Porte for Ali to gain the mainland dependencies before any intervention by Russia. As a result the former Venetian possessions were ceded to Turkey on condition that their religious freedom should be honoured, there should be no extra taxation, they continued to be governed by their own laws and customs and that no Muslim acquire property or settle amongst them, apart from the Turkish governor. Civil unrest on the islands after the change of rule, in the Turkish view stirred up by Russian agents, gave the Russians the excuse to increase their garrison putting the new Republic under their de facto military occupation. Despite the removal of foreign powers from the mainland, Ali was unable to exert direct influence over the ports. The situation as regards to Parga was ambiguous. The Pargians preferred to deal directly with the Porte than fall to Ali so with Suliote aid they resisted his menaces for a further six months while a deputation was sent to Constantinople where, through the minister for the Ionian Islands at the Divan, they procured a Voivode (governor) to be sent as protection. When Britain and France briefly made peace in 1802 this arrangement was endorsed in the Treaty of Amiens. Any designs Ali had for further conquest had to be put on hold and the governor of the mainland dependencies, Abdoulah Bey, refused to satisfy Ali’s demands allowing him to take possession of Parga. Britain’s peace with France was short-lived and on resumption of hostilities in 1803 Ali approached the British Embassy at the capital requesting that an emissary be sent from Britain to him at Ioannina to give advice on how he should proceed. When the first official British contact with Ali, William Hamilton, arrived he made his usual promises of assistance during the coming conflict.

From correspondence sent by Veli, who was in Adrianople at the time, to Ali, it is apparent that Veli thought Haxhi Shehreti was incapable of representing Ali’s best interests at the Porte, referring to him as both a ‘friend’ and a ‘fool’. In his Alipashiad Haxhi Shehreti suggests that Ali’s actions against the towns in French hands were undertaken on behalf of the Sultan to put down Greek insurrection. As the towns were not under Turkish rule and that Turkey was at war with France this seems an unnecessary extra justification. The towns were though a source of increasing Greek nationalist sentiment encouraged through French interference. The Suliotes had received money, munitions and supplies from French ships through Parga. These activities were aimed at weakening the Ottoman Empire. Exchanging French influence on the Christian population of Epirus for Russian was no great improvement, but while they were allies supplies were cut off and the Porte seeing an opportunity obliged Ali to finally bring the Suliotes down. Learning from previous mistakes, Ali realised that a direct assault on Suli was impossible and he initiated a slow war of attrition. With his allies the Tsiparis family of Margariti he blockaded Suli with a ring of twelve fortresses, with one at Gliki guarding the only road in. This was slow and dangerous work as Suliote sharpshooters picked off his men. During construction an estimated third of Ali’s troops deserted. While his investment of Suli was progressing Ali was keeping an eye on other matters. In 1802, another of his slow-burning campaigns finally paid off when he took Delvino after seven years of intermittent fighting that Leake said left the surrounding villages in ruins. Now he had Epirus under one control from Arta to Avlona and Tepelene. Suli was the only blemish in his complete mastery of the region.

The Suliotes themselves were in some state of disarray. Georgios Botsaris had been persuaded or bribed to join Ali’s camp, taking with him some valuable munitions. Fotos Tzavelas, the son of his old comrade Lambros, was now the leader of the Suliotes. Georgios did not survive the war, he was said to have died of a broken heart when his son and 200 of his followers were cut to pieces by his erstwhile comrades in the mountains. While Ali received imperial supplies and could call on the support of his surrounding pashas, including that of the lukewarm Ibrahim of Berat, mustering an army of around 20,000 men, increasingly the Suliotes were becoming starved and exhausted. He finally attacked in autumn 1803 leaving nothing to chance. The main body of Suliotes were assembled at the stronghold of Kungi, just above Suli village, where with their situation becoming more desperate and short of food and ammunition it was decided that those who wanted to surrender could. Ali, realizing that his soldiers were also wearying of the fight, saw a chance to take the leaders alive as hostages and expel the Suliotes from their stronghold. Through the auspices of Veli an arrangement was made with Fotos Tzavelas for the Suliotes to surrender. A monk known as Last Judgement Samuel, who was in charge of the magazines, took control of the faction that preferred death to capitulation, and with the knowledge of Fotos, he waited with five companions until Ali’s troops came to take the arsenal and then when all were inside he put a match to it. Once the Suliotes agreed to abandon their homeland, the four villages were destroyed, and the survivors numbering around 4,000, were packed off to find refuge in Parga and the Ionian Islands. A few put their trust in Veli and remained. That Ali and Veli were not always in accord is shown in an outspoken letter to his father: ‘And regarding the arrival of your highness to these parts [Suli], I don’t find it appropriate because you have a long shadow and they are afraid and don’t come out; that is how I see it and may your years be long. Your slave, Velis’. Veli had shown himself to be more of the diplomat, seeking common ground rather than conflict. In Holland’s assessment: ‘… His military reputation is below that of Mouctar Pasha, but in political sagacity, he is considered to be greatly his superior’.

The history of the Suli War has become the stuff of legend and partisan storytelling. The versions that portray Ali as the epitome of the cruel and duplicitous tyrant, especially those heavily reliant on Perraivos’ History of Suli and Parga, portray all his actions as ones of betrayal. In these versions he cynically sets his men on the Suliote refugees as they make their way to Parga, the Suliotes only surviving because the soldiers have not got the stomach to kill them. The Suliotes who remained, under a promise of protection from Ali withdrew to the safety of the mountain of Zalongo. Whether this was all a ploy or a typical piece of Ali double-dealing, he reneged on his promise and ordered his troops to attack them. Many of the Suliote men were prepared to fight to the death, the women also preferred death rather than be taken and sent into slavery. In order to cheat fate over fifty women, holding their children in their arms, formed a circle dance on the cliff at Zalongo and then one by one, reaching the edge they threw themselves over. The dance became commemorated in folklore as the Dance of Zalongo and the news of the mass suicide of the Suliote women so well known that it spread throughout Europe. These events may have happened but another version makes Ali’s motivation different. The Alipashiad does not gloss over that many Suliotes were made slaves but puts the emphasis on Fotos’ desire for peace and Ali’s honourable dealings with him, releasing his wife who had been made hostage, and giving him and several families safe passage to Parga. William Plate of the Royal Geographical Society, summarizing the evidence in The Biographical Dictionary (1842), infers that Ali was infuriated by the deception of the monk Samuel and sought to take revenge on the fugitive Suliotes, who were then forced to fight their way through to Parga. Some decided to double back and seek refuge at the convent at Zalongo. The convent was stormed and the defenders slaughtered. Those that could escape, mainly women and children, made their way to the mountain top where they performed their dance of death rather than dishonour before they could be reached. Of those Suliote men who survived in exile some went on to find service wherever they could, for the Russians or the French, in the Ionian Islands or the Turkish Army, or even with Ali. For those unfortunates that were captured the harem awaited the women and children, while for the men a slow death of torture, followed by impalement or burning.

The defeat of the Suliotes had an effect on the relationships among the neighbouring tribes and families. Treaties of friendship and non-aggression existed between Muslim and Christian families. Fotos Tzavelas was a blood brother of Isliam Pronios, the most powerful bey in Paramythia. Ali became aware that the Pronios family was only giving half-hearted support to his cause, even passing information to the other side. Ali was not prepared to turn a blind eye. At first he invested their castle at Galata with a token force as a gesture only to increase it at the first so-called provocation, a fabricated alliance with the pasha of Berat. The Pronio family were soon thrown off their land and the village of Paramythia destroyed. Using this technique he infiltrated the district bit by bit. The ascendancy of his one-time allies, the Tsaparis family, similarly came to an end. In 1807, like their neighbours the Proniates before them, they were forced by Ali to abandon their properties and seek refuge in the Ionian Islands. From there they went to join Muhammad Ali Pasha who had taken control in Egypt, only returning on the death of Ali to resume their positions as tax collectors and chiflik holders.

Ali’s victory over the Suliotes was soured by the death of his wife, Emine, who according to the melodramatic account expired after her entreaties for Ali to show clemency towards the Suliotes fell on deaf ears, leaving him heartbroken and blaming himself for her murder. They had been married thirty years or more and Ali was now around 60 years old. It was towards the end of 1802 that his third son Selim was born to one of his slaves, perhaps an indication that domestic matters were a little more complex. She was then put in charge of the harem at Tepelene. From a letter to Lord Elgin, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, from his chaplain Philip Hunt who was in Corfu, we learn that on hearing the news he had a brother, Mukhtar shot the unfortunate Tartar messenger dead on the spot. It is usually attested that as a reward for his destruction of Suli, Ali was made beylerbey (lord of lords) or Valisi of Rumeli and his son Veli, the pasha of the Morea, a promotion that may also have caused some friction between the brothers. The beylerbey was a high rank equivalent to a viceroy with military authority for the province. There were probably other reasons. Constant war was having a disruptive effect on the stability of the Balkans. While Ali had his hands full subduing the Suliotes, the activities of the klephtic bands had not been curtailed. In a letter to Ali in March 1802, Ismail Pashabey informed him that he had mustered 200 men to go after the robber bands in Patraziki (Ypati) and Agrafa straddling the road to Lamia. This region in the southern Pindus was where the one-time shepherd turned klepht, Antonis Katsantonis, operated and his exploits were such that he was rapidly becoming a local hero.

At the same time in the north, Pazvantoğlu had resumed his raids along the Danube and the threats from both Muslim and Christian bandits (hayduks and klephts) were so intense that Selim III had been forced to issue a decree (10 July 1801) renewing the virtually dictatorial powers granted to the Valisi of Rumeli, Hadji Mehmed Pasha for a further two years. This appointment must have achieved little as, faced with the continued anarchy, the Sultan then gave the post to Ali on 28 January 1803, before he had subdued Suli in the winter of that year. Ali was not one to miss an opportunity to make the most of his new position and summoned the neighbouring pashas to contribute to an army that would make a show of strength in the troubled districts. Having amassed 80,000 troops Ali made a tour of inspection of the new territories in Macedonia that were now under his official authority, issuing advance orders for their provision with food and money, expenses that naturally fell on the local inhabitants, particularly the trade-guilds. By the spring of 1804 he was encamped outside the walls of Philoppopolis (now Plovdiv in southern Bulgaria) having left a trail of destruction and dispensing rough justice to those who had disturbed the peace. This exhibition of his power did not fail to raise alarm bells at the capital and unrest amongst Ali’s tributary troops was put down to the connivance of his enemies. Ali prudently decided it was time to go home, laden with booty taken from the robbers. Back in Ioannina he met with the newly arrived British Consul-General John Philip Morier, to whom he expressed the possibility of Epirus becoming an independent state built from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire with British support. The Sultan was right to be worried.

The activities of the klephts closer to home continued, and those of a devious mind implicated Ali in encouraging the state of affairs to manipulate the Sultan into giving him more power. In 1806, probably due to the death of Mihrişah the year before, Ali achieved his wish to get control of Karli-Eli, so that his domains encircled the southern Pindus where Katsantonis operated. It is not clear whether the actions of klephts like Katsantonis were in support of the Suliotes, motivated as some would have it by their display of stubborn courage, or the exploitation of Ali’s preoccupation in Suli and the diversions of Pazvantoğlu. Amongst some of the armatoli and klephts Russian propaganda was having its effect, turning their disaffection into a growing freedom movement, but ideas of national identity were not fully formulated, so the notion that Suliotes and klephts would join forces to create a new state rather than for their own personal version of liberty were perhaps still premature. Prominent amongst the band captains who later became acknowledged supporters of Greek liberty were Nikotsaras (Nikos Tsaras) from Olympus, Demitrios Palaeopolos from Karpenissi and the priest Euthemos Blakavas, names that would go on to be celebrated in klephtic and patriotic song. Blakavas was an example of a man turned outlaw through the outrage he felt at the injustices put on his people, whereas Nikotsaras and Palaeopolos were at various times armatoli in Ali’s service. When Nikotsaras turned bandit after shooting a Turkish soldier he caused such havoc to the population of Thessaly that he had a price put on his head. After a suitable hiatus in his activities he made up with Ali and was reinstated as one of his armatoli, but the mood of the freebooters was changing. Nikotsaras’ intentions became clearer when he joined the Serbian uprising.

The situation along Turkey’s border had deteriorated once more. As a term of their cooperation with the Ottomans, the Russians had imposed the rule of two Phanariot Greeks with pro-Russian leanings as hospodars in Wallachia and Moldavia, Constantine Ypsilantis and Alexandru Marusi respectively, thereby drawing the provinces into their orbit. Previously Ypsilantis had been active in Vienna in 1799 in the nascent Greek independence movement and he was sympathetic towards the Serbian uprising. After the Austrians and their Russian allies were crushed by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, the fragile relationship between Turkey and Russia cooled with Selim, who had tried to pursue a course of neutrality between the competing powers, beginning to favour the French interest. Ypsilantis’ loyalties were now too much for the Porte and the two hospodars were deposed. In retaliation Ypsilantis turned on his previous masters, returning the following year at the head of 20,000 Russian troops heading towards Bucharest to unite with the Serbs. To counter the Russian offensive a large army was mustered by Sultan Selim under the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Hilmi Pasha with regular troops and a core of janissaries drawn from Constantinople and the Balkans. Ali and Ismail Pasha of Serres were given responsibility for provisioning the army. With Russia back at war with Turkey, and its ally Britain, Ali saw another opportunity to show his loyalty to the Sultan by attacking the Ionian Islands, ostensibly to bring them ‘back’ under Turkish control, as dependencies, while at the same time resuming his claim on the coastal towns of Epirus directly controlled by the Porte. Under the pretext of defending the towns from Russian aggression, he got Veli to drive out the governor Abdulla Bey from Preveza and move his forces into Butrint, Igoumenitsa, and Vonitsa. Ignoring the treaty of 1800 he imposed his own arbitrary system of government, confiscating property and levying new taxes. Once again Parga stood out against his entreaties. Turning to the Russians for protection, the admiral commanding at Corfu responded by sending a garrison.

On his part Ali demanded that the Russians surrender up the Suliotes who had taken refuge in the islands. The Suliotes had been joined by klephts from the Morea fleeing Veli’s attacks, including the most famous of all and future leader of the Greek revolt, Theodore Kolokotronis, making up a sizeable force. When Count Georgi Mocenigo, an Ionian Greek in Russian service, refused Ali’s demands, Ali prepared to attack Santa Maura where many of the Greek captains and their men were exiled. After Austerlitz Ali had reopened diplomatic relations with France and Pouqueville was appointed ambassador to his court in November 1805 replacing Julien Bessières who had been resident in Ioannina for a year. Bessières and Pouqueville were already acquainted; they had been on the same ship taken by pirates in 1798. Napoleon’s victory had forced the Habsburgs to leave the Third Coalition against France that included Britain and Russia and dissolve their Empire, and formally relinquish their claims in the Treaty of Pressburg to any territory in Italy and Dalmatia, making Epirus and France neighbours. According to Pouqueville it was through his efforts and the good auspices of French diplomacy at Constantinople that Veli had obtained the Morea and Mukhtar the sanjak of Lepanto, including Kari-Eli, although how he would have achieved this seems far-fetched as he was in Paris after his release by the Turks in 1801. Good relations with Napoleon meant Ali could count on French aid for his designs on Santa Maura. Ali’s force of 5,000 men was augmented with two gunboats, French officers and artillery and Guillaume de Vaudoncourt, an artillery general from Napoleon’s Italian service, was put to work on the siege emplacements and defences at Preveza. Since around 1800 Ali had embarked on an ambitious programme of castle building and public works and Vaudoncourt went on to refashion Ioannina on a grand scale. In response Moncenigo persuaded the Senate of the Septinsular Republic to send Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistria, who had no military experience, to organize the defence of the island. Kapodistria, the former Inspector of Education, was given the title of Military Governor and Commissioner Extraordinary; he would go on to become the head of the Greek state.

Over the summer Kapodistria set about fortifying the narrow isthmus by which any attack on the island was likely to come. He was aided by Archbishop Ignatios who had grown sick of Ali’s methods and escaped his agents to join the other Greek volunteers from Corfu, the other islands and the mainland, and Colonel Michaud, a French engineer in Russian service, and a force of Russian troops. The Russian troops included a regiment of Light Riflemen led by General Papadopoulos, a Russian Greek. This was an irregular force made up of 3,000 Himariotes, Suliotes, Greeks and Albanians who had fled from Ali and were now in Russian service, veterans of conflicts in Naples, Tenedos and Dalmatia. With Russian troops behind him and confronted by Ali with his French officers, Kapodistria prepared for a more ‘European’ battle. He built a regular system of defence along an extended and well-prepared line, while Bishop Ignatios hired a fleet of small boats against a sea attack. Meanwhile Ali proceeded with caution; in part waiting for reinforcements and restrained by his French advisors who were reluctant to fight their fellow countrymen on the opposing side in a matter of little concern to them. A stand-off ensued broken up by skirmishes during which Kapodistria’s men took prisoners to gain information on Ali’s movements. Kapodistria’s cause was aided by the raids of Katsandonis and Kitso Botsaris, a son of the ‘traitor’ Georgios Botsaris, and their 700 armatole who attacked one of Ali’s villages, burning much of his property and forcing him to retaliate. Kitsos too had changed sides, having served Ali as armatole of Radovizi near Zalongo and as a negotiator between Ali and the Suliotes. While the ‘patriotism’ and commitment of some of the other volunteers was questioned and complaints made against Kolokotronis for seizing ships indiscriminately, Ali’s attempt to bring up five guns from Lepanto was seen off by a Greek ship manned by armatoli. Such efforts delayed the build-up of his forces in Preveza including some Greeks and forty French artillerymen. As he waited for more French reinforcements, a further interruption occurred when he had to return to Ioannina with 1,600 men to meet with emissaries from the Sultan.

As Ali was poised to attack, and with nerves fraying on the opposing shore, he was thwarted by events far away in East Prussia. Napoleon’s decisive victory over the Russians at the Battle of Friedland forced Tsar Alexander to make peace and the Treaty of Tilsit (July 1807) put the Ionian Islands, Butrint, Parga, Preveza and Vonitsa back under the protection of France, rather than as was implied by French promises, giving them to Turkey. By August, French troops under General César Berthier were arriving in Corfu. When Kapodistria notified Ali of the situation he replied that a truce between France and Russia had nothing to do with him, but he would respect it as long as no armatoli remained on the mainland. Ali’s interpretation meant he held on to Butrint, Preveza and Vonitsa, but he was unable to influence events at Parga where the Russian garrison handed over to the French as agreed. Kapodistria would have preferred the exiled armatoli to remain in Russian service but he managed to convince them to enrol under French command as an alternative to a life of continued outlawry. The change of alliances did not dampen Ali’s desire to acquire Parga, but now he tried the diplomatic tack through Berthier, who in turn notified Napoleon. Napoleon was not impressed with Ali’s demands and told the Pargians to defend their country. When Kapodistria learnt of the death of an armatole during Katsantonis’ defeat of Ali’s troops at an engagement known as the Battle of Mount Prosiliako near Agrafa, his statement that the fighter had ‘sacrificed his life for his country’ gave expression to the growth in nationalistic feeling. For his part Ali lost Veli Gega, a member of his Supreme Council. But for the moment Kapodistria and the armatoli had to bide their time. Even if Ali was aggressively beyond control and the Ottoman government a chaotic ‘tyrannical and unjust domination’ that had to be destroyed, the Septinsular Republic was not at war with the Porte, but part of the French Empire. Liberty, equality and fraternity were no longer the watchwords; Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804, King of Italy in 1805 and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806, an equivalent post to that of Holy Roman Emperor previously held by Francis II, the Emperor of Austria. For the future though, the siege of Santa Maura was a boost to Kapodistria’s standing during which he gained the confidence of the armatoli and klephts, and the belief in the possibility of a free Greece.

Despite Ali’s threats toward Parga, General Berthier was prepared to negotiate with him for the sale of 300 horses for his cavalry. At the same time he persuaded Napoleon to let him form the displaced armatoli into a regiment arguing that it was dangerous to leave them unemployed. The volunteers left by the Russians were reformed into the Régiment Albanais and they were joined by assorted Greek refugees who were put into their own Battaillon du Chasseurs à Pied Grecs in 1808. The regiments were later amalgamated with the hope of introducing some discipline into the Epirotes who had brought their families and flocks with them and were prone to slipping back to the mainland for a spot of pillaging. In 1809 Les Chasseurs d’Orient, a mainly Greek regiment under Colonel Nicole Papasoglu from Smyrna, joined the Corfu garrison. Papasoglu and other members of Les Chasseurs were veterans of the Légion Grecque, two battalions made up of local Greeks that had served Napoleon in Egypt. They had been mainly active along the Dalmatian coast from 1806, particularly at the relief of Ragusa from the besieging Russians; a few were even present at the Battle of Trafalgar. Papasoglu had seen diplomatic service in Constantinople, and from Dalmatia he had been sent on a goodwill trip to Ali in Ioannina heading up a small group of artillery envoys and instructors. He used the opportunity to recruit some Greeks for the regiment along the way. A number of other Greeks transferred to Les Chasseurs from the Russian’s own short-lived Greek Corps active in Wallachia between 1807 and 1808 with the help of the French consul in Bucharest.

The actions of Ali and the government had only succeeded in pushing the armatoli and klephts to making common cause. Coming together in the islands and with French encouragement a more coordinated and idealistic plan for the future began to take shape, a future without Ali Pasha. During 1807 the captains on Santa Maura, apocryphally including Kolokotronis, although he makes no mention of it in his memoirs, headed a call to link up with Nikotsaras, Palaeopolos, Blakavas and other klephts operating in Macedonia and the Pindus Mountains. The armatoli and klepht captains met at the Evangelistria Monastery on the Island of Skiathos where they swore an ‘Oath of Freedom’. The islanders of Skiathos had taken part in the naval victory of Chesme during the Orlov Revolt and Nikotsaras decided to join forces with the Russian admiral, Dmitry Nikolayevich Senyavin, based at Tenedos whose fleet was preparing to attack Constantinople. In the meantime, under the first Greek flag (a white cross on light blue background) and assisted by the British frigate Sea Horse under Captain John Stuart the outlaws made raids on Ali’s troops on the mainland Thessaly. During one such raid Nikotsaras was killed. Palaeopolos and Blakavas took their fight towards Ali in the mountain passes. The notion that a klepht confederacy was preparing to overthrow Ali was thought to be looked on favourably by some members of the Ottoman cabinet alarmed by the growth of his power. By the following year the actions of the klephts had became so serious that Mukhtar was dispatched with 4,000 troops to wipe them out. As the actions of the rebels degenerated into brigandage, inflicting damage on Greek and Muslim alike, support for their cause faded. Ali had set his web of informers to work and the band was caught at Kastri on the road to Trikkala in the Pindus after being betrayed by Deliyanni, a fellow klepht. Outnumbered eight to one there was only to be one outcome. Palaeopolos and Blakavas were taken and after two years in an Ioannina prison they managed to escape to Constantinople. Palaeopolos sought asylum from the French and went on to Moldavia. Blakavas was less fortunate. He procured a firman or decree of protection from the Porte and foolishly returned to Ioannina where Ali invited him to a conference at the end of which, true to form, Ali had him seized as he was leaving the room. Blakavas was put in prison where he was well treated during the time it took a messenger to go and return from Constantinople with a permission from the Porte for Ali to do what he pleased with his prisoner. Having got what he needed, Ali duly had him chopped to pieces; it was these remains that Byron and Hobhouse had witnessed hanging on display in Ioannina. Pouqueville claimed to have seen Blakavas suffering under the rays of the hot sun, tied to a stake in the court of the seraglio in Ioannina, his eyes flashing with defiance before suffering the calm death of a hero. In the aftermath Ali’s army destroyed the fortified monastery of St Demetrius at Meteora where Blakavas had sought refuge. His ally Katsantonis was only apprehended in 1809 when Ali learnt he was weakened by smallpox. Ali had him tortured to death and executed in public by having his bones crushed with a sledgehammer.

By now Ali was acting with increasing independence of the Ottoman government. His desire for control of his Adriatic shore, and therefore the islands lying just off the coast, had become so paramount that he was employing agents in London and Paris to further his interests and had even tried to influence the outcome of the Treaty of Tilsit with his own representative, an Italian priest captured with Pouqueville who had converted to Islam and was known as Mehmet Effendi. Contrary to official policy he had kept up relations with Britain and once the Ionian Islands were under the French, shifted his allegiance accordingly. Under pressure from Britain, Selim’s faith in France waned and in November 1807 Ali had his first meetings with Captain Leake. The most important took place in secret (out of the prying eyes of Pouqueville) on the night of the 12th on the beach near Nicopolis. Britain hoped to exploit Ali’s growing independence and Leake induced him to use his influence at Constantinople to help bring about a reconciliation between the Porte and Britain. In return Ali hoped to get Britain to invade the islands on his behalf. Bessières, now back in Corfu as imperial commissaire after a spell in Venice as consul, was putting his own pressure on Ali for the return of Butrint to France. Through an indirect source the French indicated that they might be willing to pay Ali for Butrint. Ali remained unmoved and his actions began to annoy Bessières. Aware of Ali’s intentions to use the British against Parga, he warned him that his newly-formed friendship with Britain would sour his relations with France. At the capital the reforms to the ineffective army that the modernizing Selim was trying to introduce had proved too much for his enemies and the janissaries rose up in revolt. A short period of chaos followed, and in 1808 the Sultan was assassinated. Ali took the opportunity to move outside his jurisdiction by occupying Attica with a military force. Selim’s successor Mustapha IV’s reign of fourteen months was marked by rioting in Constantinople, and order was only restored when he was deposed and succeeded by Mahmud II, who carried on Selim’s work. War along the Danubian front continued nevertheless and Ali responded by sending his sons Mukhtar and Veli.

In January 1809 Britain and Turkey made peace (Treaty of the Dardanelles) and next month Leake, promoted to major, was back from England with a present of artillery and ammunition for Ali to use against the French. From then on until March 1810 Leake was usually resident either at Preveza or Ioannina, from where he made frequent forays into the interior of Epirus and Thessaly. Leake had only been in Epirus a few months when Byron and Hobhouse arrived. Although relations were cooling between Turkey and France, Ali was still provisioning the French troops on Corfu. A testament to the complicated state of affairs was the deputation encountered by Hobhouse on 5 October on its way from Ali with letters to Bessières complaining of slow payment, just as the British Navy was occupying Cephalonia. The British Navy had defeated the French off Zante and was picking the islands off one by one, actions which had precipitated the revolt of the klephts earlier than anticipated. The Battaillon du Chasseurs à Pied Grecs who were defending positions on Zante, Cephalonia and Ithaca had been infiltrated by British, Russian and Turkish agents and despite their evident courage their loyalty was questionable. Captain Richard Church, a veteran of dealing with foreign recruits in Corsica and Malta, had been particularly active making his own contacts among the Greeks. They reportedly surrendered at the first shot and the islands fell to the British. As soon as Church took control of Zante he wasted no time in re-forming the Greek and Albanian fighters into the Duke of York’s Greek Light Infantry under his command as major. The Greek infantry was quickly trained and put to work in the taking of Santa Maura the following year. Despite the fact Ali had hoped to take Santa Maura himself with British complicity, their success, intentionally or otherwise, had the effect of shoring up his position and changing the direction of future Greek insurrection. The desire for revolution was hardening and Kolokotrnis had ambitious plans. He had made an alliance with Ali Farmakis, an Albanian chief who had quarrelled with Veli, in the hope of forming a confederacy of Suliotes and other Albanian tribes under Hasan Tsapari to overthrow Veli and his father. Kolokotronis wanted to go direct to Napoleon, but when he informed General Donzelot, the governor of the Ionian Islands, of his plans, Donzelot approached Napoleon on his behalf. Donzelot put forward a proposal for 500 French artillerymen, 5,000 Greeks in French pay, a regiment from Corsica, funds for recruiting further Albanians and Greeks, and ships and other transport. To appease the Sultan, he was to be informed that the rebellion was not against the Turkish Empire but to rid it of the usurpers Ali and Veli, replacing them with a democratic government run by twelve Christians and twelve Muslims. Napoleon sanctioned the plan, but as the money was being made available and Epirote recruits raised the British arrived. Kolokotronis, tacking with the wind, joined Church’s regiment with the rank of captain. Paxos and Corfu were tougher nuts for the British to crack. On Corfu, Papasoglu’s regiment spent its time taking potshots from the batteries at passing British ships and on one occasion he bravely managed to break the British blockade.

British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean was taking its toll on French influence, bringing the Anglo-French conflict right to Ali’s doorstep. As they made gains in the Ionian Islands, Ali’s old and aged adversary Ibrahim Pasha of Berat, hoping for their protection, had put his faith in the French in return for exclusive rights to the commerce of Avlona and the right to station some artillerymen on his castle walls. As revolt raged in Thessaly, Ibrahim had gathered a league of Ali’s enemies around him (Mustafa the former pasha of Delvino, Hasan Tsapari of Margariti, Pronio Aga of Paramythia, the Aga of Konispoli and the Beys of Himara and the Suliotes) and aided by French artillery he began attacking Ali’s territory. Ali saw more gain in pinning his colours to the British cause, promising help in their attempt on Corfu and opening up his ports to British shipping. Learning of Ibrahim’s plans he had not been prepared to allow French interests to infiltrate into his territory through a rival, opening up another front. With British aid behind him, Ali was able to isolate Ibrahim by bribing his supporters with gold and promises. Consequently Ali was besieging Ibrahim in Berat when Byron and Hobhouse arrived to pay him court at Tepelene. His army of 8,000 Greeks and Albanians was led by Omar Bey Vryoni a native of the nearby village of Vironi, who had seen action against the British in Egypt. An intractable year of skirmishing was brought to a conclusion with the aid of 600 Congreve rockets supplied Leake. When Berat fell, Ibrahim was obliged to retire to Avlona while Ali informed the Porte that he had been required to take Berat as all of upper Albania was in revolt due to the inability and infirmity of the aged pasha who was under the influence of the French. Initially Ali held back from Avlona, deterred by news from Suleyman Divan Efendi4 in Constantinople that the Sultan was displeased with Ali’s attitude to Ibrahim, but once again in time-honoured manner the new Sultan Mahmud was forced to acknowledge a fait accompli as the best policy of maintaining internal order. Avlona’s defences were poor and Ali soon had it in his possession; allowing him to tidy up his dominion over the whole coast from Durazzo in the north to Arta in the south, removing any notables that stood in his way. As a sideline he obtained the pitch mines (the basis of modern Albania’s oil industry begun in the 1920s) between Berat and Avlona for a small fee from the Porte, allowing him to begin exporting through Avlona to Malta and the Italian coast. Mukhtar was duly installed as pasha of Berat, with Omar as governor, and Ibrahim was sent to languish in prison until, according to Pouqueville he was poisoned by one of Ali’s doctors, who was then hung.

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Fig. 33: Field Officer Sir Richard Church in the uniform of the Duke of York’s Greek Light Infantry by Denis Dighton.

In 1810 Byron wrote a letter to Hobhouse from Patras saying that ‘Ali was in a scrape’. Ibrahim, the pasha of Scurtari was descending on him with an army of 20,000 men having retaken Berat and threatening Tepelene. Veli, who was on his way to the Danube, was diverted back to Ioannina much to the annoyance of Sultan Mahmud and with ‘all Albania in an uproar. The Mountains we crossed last year are the Scene of warfare, and there is nothing but carnage and the cutting of throats’. Byron had hoped to accept an invitation from Veli to review his army in Larissa but that had been sidelined. Byron and the energetic and exuberant Veli appear to have got on. Veli was good-natured and had a sense of humour, but he was constantly running out of supplies and money, as his begging letters to his father attest. Veli may well have inherited Ali’s charm, but he also inherited his greed. The Abbot of the Olympiotissa Monastery summed up the general feeling in 1813:

He [Veli] made a business of seizing villages through the use of menaces, honeyed words or coercion, and then taking them and making them his own by acts of treachery which he justified with specious excuses.

With Ali’s actions becoming of increasing concern to the Sultan, a way to weaken him was the removal of Veli from the pashalik of the Morea where his greed was making him unpopular, and his relocation in the less important and closer pashalik of Larissa in Thessaly. Ali’s nephew, Adem Bey, Shainitza’s third and favourite son and governor of Libokavo whom Byron met on the way to see Ali the previous year, was dead, following another son Elmás who had also died young. There was also a report that Mukhtar had been captured by the Russians but this was to be dismissed as ‘Greek Bazaar rumour’. Indeed most of Byron’s information was suspect, perhaps a mixture of new and old news. In many ways Ali’s star was still on the rise. Through Divan Efendi he knew Pouqueville was trying his best to undermine him at the Porte complaining that he had assisted the British in taking Santa Maura. The Porte did not accept the accusation but Divan Efendi was unsure. French intrigues at Constantinople may have influenced the Sultan’s decision to relocate Veli, but Ali was still able to add the sanjacks of Ochrid and Elbasan to his territory and finally take formal control of Argyrocastro and Delvino in 1811. Turkish forces were being massed along the Danube where Russian preoccupations with France had weakened their efforts initiating a Turkish counteroffensive. It was expected that Veli would supply 20,000 men, Mukhtar, 10,000 and Ali would arrive with 30,000 of, according to Sir Robert Adair, the ‘best troops in the Empire’. In the event Ali declined to go citing old age and ill health, but most likely he feared that he might be put in prison or worse, so he preferred to watch his back at home.

Tensions though between father and sons were real enough. Veli and Mukhtar were in Sofia, from where they made several requests for Haxhi Shehreti to visit them in confidence. Ali was reluctant, thinking they were going to conspire against him. Ali trusted Haxhi Shehreti enough to confide to him that some of his main concerns in life were his approaching old age and his ‘children’. Although his hopes of gaining Santa Maura were dashed when General Sir John Oswald captured the island for the British and they kept it for themselves, he was happy to keep his friendship with Britain for the time being and Ioannina received a new British resident, George Foresti and numerous visits from high-ranking British officers. With the Ionian Islands on hold for the time being he had turned his attentions to outstanding business. The intrigues of the increasingly desperate French on Corfu had encouraged Mustafa Pasha of Delvino to keep in league with his former allies despite the peace between them and Ali. They had hoped to assemble their forces at Argyrocastro, nominally under Ibrahim Pasha but where Ali already had influence within the town through the marriage of his sister to Suleyman. A show of force, including artillery, proved all that was necessary for the gates to be opened to Ali. Mustafa and other leaders were given up by the townsfolk of Gardiki where they had sought refuge in the hope that Ali would spare them. Ali sealed his control of Epirus to the coast by promptly sending the Bey of Argyrocastro, the Bey of Konispoli and the pasha of Delvino and their followers to prison in Ioannina and putting his youngest son, Selim, hardly more than 10 years old, in charge at Argyrocastro. The two sons of Mustapha who were held as hostages by Ali were eliminated and eventually Mustapha and the other hostages vanished from amongst the living.

With the fall of its allies, Argyrocastro, Delvino and the pasha of Berat, Gardiki was left unprotected and exposed to Ali vengeance. Apparently urged on by his grief-stricken sister, Ali was reminded of his duty to her and his mother, and in 1812 he finally wrought his version of justice on the unfortunate town, massacring between 700 and 800 of its inhabitants in revenge for the outrage committed against them forty or so years previously. It is unlikely that he needed much encouragement and rather than being ashamed of the deed it seems he took great pleasure in its notoriety. He diverted Holland on his route from Tepelene to Ioannina with specific instructions to visit the scene of his crime. Having a force of possibly up to 15,000 men at his disposal, Ali was in a position to completely surround the town allowing no escape. Initially his Muslim troops were unwilling to make headway, perhaps fearing the consequence of their actions in attacking co-religionists. The attack was only successful when Thanasis Vagias from Lekil near Tepelene, and a party of fellow Greeks took the citadel. Once the town was taken Ali personally supervised the selection of those individuals to be sent for imprisonment in Ioannina or into slavery, including women and children, in parts of Albania, while those men he deemed in some way to be connected with the outrage of the past were bound together and herded within the courtyard of a large khan. The gates were then locked and the surrounding walls mounted with men who on Ali’s signal opened fire. The slaughter continued until all were dead, some finished off by the sword. The thirty-six prominent members of the town sent as prisoners to Ioannina may have been seduced into thinking they had been spared but on arrival they were taken to a quiet spot and shot. At the site of the massacre a stone memorial was placed with a vindicating account and warning in verse in Greek of the fate that would befall anyone who sought to injure any members of Ali’s family. Leake gives a rendition of the inscription in which the deceased explain Ali’s actions:

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Fig. 34: ‘The Vizier Ali Pacha, Giving the Fatal Signal, for the Slaughter of the Gardikiotes Shut up in the Khan of Valiare’, from Historical Portraiture of Leading Events in the Life of Ali Pacha, Vizier of Epirus, Surnamed the Lion, in a Series of Designs by W Davenport, 1823.

When Ali was a little boy, deprived of his father, with no brother, and only a mother, we ran with arms in our hands to cut him off. He escaped, skilful as he is, upon which we went to Gariani (Kariyanni5) and burnt his houses. It is now fifty years since. It is for that deed that he slew us at the Khan; that he has sent our chief men to the island of the lake of Ioannina, and there put them to death; that he has dispersed our families among all the kazis under his authority, has razed our unfortunate town to the ground, and ordered that it may remain a desert forever. For he is a very just man, and in like manner slew the Khormoites,6 and ordered that not one should remain alive.

Ali then concludes, ‘When I consider this terrible slaughter, I am much grieved, and I desire that so great an evil shall never occur again: For which reason I give notice to all my neighbours that they must not molest my house but be obedient, in order that they may be happy.’ If this massacre took place fifty years after the capture and molestation of his mother and sister, of which no mention is made, this would date that event at around 1760. The epithet ‘little boy’ would be more appropriate to someone born in 1750 rather than the earlier 1740 supporting the later date for Ali’s birth. Shainitza’s wrath was mollified when she received the hair from the victims’ heads to stuff the cushions of her divan, but Ali was still not satisfied. Other villages in the vicinity that were in some way connected to Gardiki were also ravaged or destroyed and Gardiki itself left a shell with building materials from the best houses taken to be used in the building of his new seraglio at Argyrocastro.

Ali was now in his pomp and increasingly acting as an independent ruler. Over the next few years his court received a string of visitors, including a Persian khan and the deposed King Gustav IV Adolf (Gustavus Adolphus) of Sweden. Gustav’s mishandled campaigns against Napoleon had resulted in defeat by Russia and a palace coup putting his Uncle Charles (XIII) on the throne. Ali’s lavish receptions impressed his guests and Gustav presented him with a sword belonging to his predecessor Charles II. Ali’s acquisitive nature was not satisfied. He was so impressed by a diamond in Gustav’s possession that he bought it for 13,000 pounds sterling, no doubt easing the unhappy ex-monarch’s financial situation. Ali went out of his way to please his European guests. At one party attended by Sir John Oswald in 1810 at Preveza an additional chef was imported from Santa Maura to join Ali’s own head cook for the occasion and the shopping list showed a heavy Italian-Ionian influence. Organizational duties fell to the notorious Thanasis Vagias, who undertook everything from simple transactions to ambassadorial dinners. For his trouble Vagias was provided with five okades of wine every day for his personal use from a local wine-seller. All that was left to spoil Ali’s satisfaction with his growing importance on the international stage was the irritating obstinacy of Parga.

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Fig. 35: The quarantine station at Santa Maura from The Ionian Islands: twelve plates London, 1821 by Joseph Cartwright.

In 1812, after years of invincibility, Napoleon was in retreat after his ill-fated expedition to Russia and Ali thought the time was ripe for another attempt on Parga. He sent his son Mukhtar, Omer Vironi and Agos Vasiaris and 6,000 men to lay siege. After some fruitless preliminary negotiation with General Berthier, his troops under his nephew Daut Bey took the outlying village of Agia, massacring and enslaving the population, their territory converted to chifliks for his favourites. Parga, to where the redoubtable Papasoglu had moved to take command of the castle after his dwindling regiment had been ordered to Ancona in 1813, was then besieged by land, and by sea with a fleet from Preveza. In one attack Daut Bey was killed by fire from Parga Castle. Ali ordered Daut Bey’s body to be buried at the frontier in a mausoleum in view of the fortress at Parga as a reminder of what to expect. The French found themselves in an awkward position as they were not officially at war with Ali. So while the Pargians defended their town stoutly, the French resistance was lukewarm. At Anthousa, a hill between Agia and Parga that overlooked the town, Ali had a fortress built to use as a base of operations. When the British took Paxos, opposite to Parga, with the aid of the Greek Light Infantry, the Pargians decided to throw in their lot with Britain as the best policy for protection in the future and sidelining Ali who was now in a tricky diplomatic bind. They approached Captain Garland, and forces were diverted from the blockade of Corfu to take the town. After the French commandant refused to surrender it was agreed that if the inhabitants seized the town themselves, raising the British flag, the British forces would support them. On 22 March 1814, after a short struggle the Pargians took the town and raised the flag. The French garrison was exchanged for a small British one and the French were allowed passage to Corfu. Not only were the French in retreat from Parga, but they were also on the back foot and by May they had been defeated. The French ceded their possessions in the Ionian Islands and on the coast of Epirus to the British when in the Congress of Vienna of 1815 the British were given formal control of the protectorate of the Islands, the coastal towns were not mentioned, leaving the Pargians in limbo.

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Fig. 36: The town and harbour of Vathi, Ithaka from The Ionian Islands: twelve plates London, 1821 by Joseph Cartwright.

With any attempts to prise Parga from the British falling on the deaf ears of General Sir James Campbell, who was not to be taken in by any false claims, Ali turned to the Sultan. He accused Parga of being a nest of malefactors and along with the Suliotes, a danger to the Porte. When Campbell was replaced by Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Maitland as the governor of the Ionian Islands, the British Ambassador in Constantinople had been persuaded that a Turkish commissioner should be sent to Ioannina to treat with the various parties. Ali sent a deputy to Corfu on 16 March 1817 to inform Maitland that the Ottoman commissioner had arrived in Ioannina. Maitland was wary enough to have reinforced the thirty-man garrison at Parga tenfold while talks were under way lest Ali tried any pre-emptive moves. He was also aware that the Pargians would not take too kindly to any news that they might be ceded to Ali, so the garrison under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Philippe de Bosset was not there only to guard against any tricks by Ali but any violent reaction on the part of the inhabitants. While negotiations continued Ali set about undermining the population. The inhabitants were forced to repair the walls and prepare for attack in response to his feints and manoeuvres and he cut off supplies from his territories and grain from Cephalonia and Zante to create shortages. Finally on 17 May 1817 at loannina, the British, represented by John Cartwright, the British Consul in the Morea, and the Turks, represented by the Vizier Hamit Bey, signed a treaty ceding Parga to the Ottomans in return for Turkey resting its claims to the Ionian Islands. According to the treaty, it was left in the hands of Ali Pasha to guarantee the life, the security and the property of the citizens of Parga. Maitland promised any citizen who preferred to leave rather than remain under Ottoman rule would receive compensation for their losses. The Turkish government were unwilling to pay, but offered Parga to Ali if he were willing to pay. The first estimate by the Pargians was £500,000, the British and Turkish commissioners made separate assessments; the British, £276,075, the Turkish, £56,756. Nearly everyone in Parga chose to emigrate to Corfu, a humiliation for Ali and a burden to Maitland. The negotiations dragged on. In May, Maitland resolved the issue directly with Ali, an agreement was signed stipulating the terms including the compensation. The sum of £150,000 had to be paid by Ali before Parga was handed over.

On the Orthodox Good Friday, 1 April 1819, between 3,000 to 4,000 Pargians began their evacuation, carrying with them the disinterred bones or ashes of their ancestors, the images of their saints, flags and handfuls of soil as a reminder of their homeland; they took to the sea in boats provided by the islanders (the British vessels had not arrived on time) as refugees to start a afresh under British protection on Corfu, but always dreaming of their return. The sad moment of their arrival was witnessed by Kapodistria and his friend Dimitrios Arliotis, who described how the Pargians sat on the shore, gazing across the water to their former home with tears in their eyes, while Kapodistria gazed at them. In May Ali, who had been sniffing at the gates all the while, made his payment and marched into an empty town. On Corfu the commissioners distributed the compensation, after some niggling deductions by Maitland, and the exiles were housed and the poorest fed. The handing over of Parga was even at the time a highly controversial affair. The Pargians thought Maitland a dupe of Ali or in league with the Turks, nicknaming him ‘Sultan Thomas’. Kapodistria blamed the tragedy of the ‘sacrifice of Parga’ on ‘the bad faith and miscalculations of British agents’ leaving the population ‘obliged to deliver their old homes to Ali Pasha for a modest sum of money and carrying with them only the exhumed bones of their fathers’. The experienced Colonel de Bosset, a Swiss in the British Army who had fought at the Battle of Alexandria and was governor of Cephalonia between 1810–13,7 was highly critical of Maitland’s conduct. Maitland was accused of foolishly allowing Ali’s men to make the evaluations for compensation and even of embezzling some of the money. It was commonly believed that he and the British had betrayed and sold Parga, not just to the Turks, but to Ali in particular as a cynical reward for his help against the French. The evacuation of Parga was a black mark for British foreign policy and national esteem but it became a symbol of Greek suffering and was turned to useful propaganda for the Greek cause.

Three letters from the Ali Archive give us an insight into his role in the affair and the nature of his demands while negotiating with the British Ambassador. In April 1818, Haxhi Shehreti and Elmaz Metze, his replacement in Constantinople, wrote to Ali informing him that the British Ambassador had been trying to find a solution favourable to Ali on the matter of the financial settlement and that he had met one of Ali’s agents, Konstantis Agrafiotis, to say that the British government had agreed to contribute financially towards the compensation, which otherwise would have been Ali’s responsibility. However, it transpires from a letter to Ali from Agrafiotis that the British did not accept the accusation that they were in any way responsible for the decision of all the Pargians to leave their homes. They could not have predicted such an outcome which was probably due to their fears linked with the massacre at Preveza, for as Holland put it, Ali had never forgiven the Pargians for their truculence and they in return ‘regard him with a mixture of fear and detestation’. Also the cap that Ali had asked of sixty families maximum being allowed to leave could not be imposed retrospectively so the British had given permission for them all to leave their homeland. Parga would be Ali’s last triumph. Having at last achieved his goal of complete mastery of the coast he reached the zenith of his power, but as he knew himself, he was sitting on a powder keg that a single match could blow up. Constantinople itself was a tinderbox, where a number of fires raged, said to be the work of discontented janissaries. Elmar Metze informed Ali that the Sultan had sought refuge from a fire in his unoccupied house there. Normally such a visit by the holy presence of the ‘king’ would require the house being closed down, but on being informed that the house belonged to Ali, the Sultan relented, allowing the building to remain in use; an act Metze reassuringly interpreted as all being well and Ali still in favour.

A quarter of a century of war between France and various European alliances was finally brought to an end in 1815 with Napoleon’s defeat by Britain and Prussia at Waterloo and his exile to St Helena, ushering in the prospect of peace in Europe for the first time in generations. To preserve peace the major powers adopted a policy under the guidance of the Austrian foreign minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich, to uphold the balance of power by acknowledging each other’s spheres of interest and opposing revolutionary or nationalistic movements. A weak link in the chain was the fragile Ottoman Empire, and its impending internal disintegration as the ‘Sick man of Europe’ became a headache for succeeding diplomats dealing with what was to be known as the ‘Eastern Question’. For Britain a stable Turkey was important as a counter to Russian expansion in the East. The prospect of an entente and stability within the Balkans was not necessarily good news for Ali as it made him part of the problem rather than the solution. He could no longer rely on foreign allies to use as a veil for his ambitions, playing them off against each other and the new reality exposed him to closer scrutiny by the Porte. On the Ionian Islands the Greek regiments were disbanded and many klephts who had served under foreign flags had nowhere to go unless they joined the Neapolitan service or, paradoxically, the service of Ali Pasha. Having abandoned hope of getting the islands he turned his efforts to improve his towns and palaces, but signs of strain were beginning to show. In 1818 his beautiful new palace at Tepelene was struck by lightning and gutted by fire. His treasures valued at £2m were saved but his furniture was lost. Ali’s relationship with his sons was one of lord and servant, or ‘slave’ in Veli’s words in response to a request for financial assistance to repair the damage. All the revenue from their pashaliks was in Ali’s view held in common, for him to dispose of. Ali’s attitude to his family was that they were part of his networks. He would work to get them positions at court by force or through lobbying, sometimes financial, and they would give him undying loyalty in return. Ali continued the policy of securing his position through the tentacles of marriage alliances, as Hughes witnessed in 1814 when Veli’s son Mahmet married the daughter of a bey of Larissa, but by 1819 the tide was turning and such tactics would no longer prove effective. His one-time friend, Ismail Pashabey, let it be known to the Porte that Veli had been depriving the government of its revenues from Thessaly. Veli was downgraded once more, and transferred to the tiny pashalik of Lepanto, which Mukhtar had to give up to his brother, curtailing Ali’s power east of the Pindus.

In 1816 Ali had taken on a new wife, marrying Kyra Vassiliki, his favourite mistress, amidst much ‘pomp and ceremony’. The beautiful, according to Hughes, Vassiliki Kontaxi was a Greek from the village of Pilsivitsa in Thesprotia near the Albanian border. She had come to Ali at the age of 12 to intercede for her father’s life and after granting her father pardon, she was introduced into his harem. Vassiliki had been allowed to continue in her Orthodox faith and she undertook a number of charity initiatives and financed restoration work to monasteries on Mount Athos. Ali must have indulged her to some extent for she was reputed to have ameliorated some of his policies; and in 1818 she was bold enough to be inducted into the clandestine Filiki Eteria, the secret organization working for Greek freedom, directly recruited by Nikolaos Skoufas, one of the three founding members of the organization. It is said also that she had a brother, George Kitsos, who went on to fight in the Greek revolt. The society had begun to broaden its recruitment to include a certain number of women. Before his death in that year, Skoufas had suggested systematically contacting all women who by their proximity to institutions of power might be useful to the cause, specifically nominating Vassiliki. Skoufas was from the village of Kompoti near Arta and he had worked at various times as an apothecary, a commercial secretary and a hatter. As a merchant he had travelled to Russia, and while in Odessa he had become acquainted with Athanasios Tsakalov and Emmanuil Xanthos. Xanthos was a merchant from Patmos, but Tsakalov was a fellow Epirote from Ioannina who was in Russia to be with his father. Tsakalov had studied physics in Paris where he had been a co-founder of the Ellinoglosso Xenodocheio (the Greek-speaking Hotel), a secret organization whose purpose was to educate the Greeks for the struggle against the Ottomans. The three men came up with the idea of founding a new secret organization to prepare the ground for Greek independence.

To solve the problems of the Empire, Sultan Mahmud like his predecessor Selim, had returned to reform. With the Serbian uprising having been brought to a conclusion, creating a semi-independent state (1817), and other Balkan troublemakers brought into line, Mehmet Sait Halet Efendi, the Sultan’s favourite minister, drew the attention of the Sultan to what he portrayed as Ali Pasha’s continued disloyal acquisition of personal power. In 1814 his encroachments into the territory of the pasha of Salonika (Thessaloniki) where his agents had been active in a number of towns had caused complaints.8 Ali’s men had been collecting taxes from the region since 1808, causing problems with the local agas, and he had a network of informers to keep him aware of developments. Despite his excuses and the giving of gifts, his massacre at Gardiki had gone down badly with the Divan. With his stock falling at Constantinople, Ali looked to other means to safeguard his position, leaving nothing to chance. He decided that one way to nullify his enemies was to make secret moves to formalize what had in essence been true for a number of years, his existence as an independent state. Through Metze he tried to get his Greek diaspora friends posts as ambassador to Vienna and consuls to the Ionian Islands, Trieste and Leghorn (Livorno). The imperial dragoman, Michael Soutsos, said there might be a chance of Vienna, but by the end of 1818 he had been transferred to the post of voivode of Moldova. In 1818, in a bid for Russian support Ali let it be known that he was friendly towards the aims of the Filiki Eteria who were also looking towards the Russians for help. The Filiki Eteria, who were aware of Ali’s manoeuvres were happy to encourage him to rebel, in the hope it would create the right circumstance for their own bid for independence. For his part Ali thought he could use the Greeks for his own ends and he approached those employed at his court, announcing that he would assist their organization. But the Greeks kept a distance in case he betrayed them.

Ali was used to double-dealing but his subsequent actions smack more of desperation than strategy as events at Constantinople took a more serious turn. The existence of plague at the capital, where it was never totally under control, gave Ali the excuse to create a cordon sanitaire, with lazarettos on the routes from Epirus to the capital, ostensibly to safeguard his people from its spread, but also as a means of control enabling him to intercept messages or anyone suspected of being sent from the Sultan to obtain his head. To counter the news from his spies that his enemies were turning the Sultan against him he increased his bribes, but his past was catching up with him. He had played fast and loose with his allies too many times. Ismail Pashabey, who had fallen out with Ali, switched his allegiance and fled to Constantinople where he gained a position of some influence with the authorities. In February 1820 Ismail put out a story that Ali had sent agents to murder him on the streets. Three Albanians were found who confessed under interrogation to being assassins and were executed. The whole thing was quite likely staged, but as a result Ali was declared an enemy of the Porte and Ismail was given the pashaliks of Ioannina and Delvino in Ali’s stead. On hearing of this, while continuing his use of bribes, he tried to deflect attention by warning the ministers of the existence of the Filiki Eteria and hoping they would see it as in their interests to keep him in power. Soutsos, who had become a member of the Filiki Eteria, was now using his influence against Ali and used to hearing of Greek conspiracies the Porte ignored him, believing he was the greater danger. Ali responded by turning to the Ottomans’ disaffected subjects, the Montenegrans and Serbs as well as the Greeks. He summoned the klephts to a conference in Preveza, promising arms and booty, and at a further meeting of Greeks and Albanians he offered money and a constitution, having approached Metternich to supply a model. The Greek revolutionaries listened but waited, happy to humour him for the moment. Never one to put all his bets on one play Ali also sought assistance from the British. He tried to persuade Maitland to help him promote an uprising against the Turks, something contrary to their policy. Maitland nevertheless referred the matter home. But when Ali met Maitland’s representative Sir Frederick Hankey in April 1820 at Preveza, he had changed his tune declaring he wanted reconciliation with the Porte. This time he wanted protection from the British Fleet being aware that his flank was exposed to attack by the Turks from the Ionian Sea. The problem gave the confused Maitland a sleepless night. He was worried Ali might turn to Russia if Britain did not help, but Lord Bathurst, the colonial secretary, had given unequivocal instructions, there was no treaty barring Turkish warships from the Ionian Sea and Britain had no right to prevent naval operations by the Porte against the coast of Epirus.

Ali, of course, had not waited for Britain’s reply but had already turned back to Russia offering more than he offered Britain: if Russia recognized his authority under the tsar he would raise his subjects in revolt against the Sultan and help Russia conquer European Turkey. The Russians gave little but a vague intention of support in the hope Ali might defy the Sultan. Having claimed to be a member of the Filiki Eteria he sought to curry favour with the Greeks and in the process impress the Russians by reduced taxes and cancelling debts and forced labour projects. There was even talk of him converting to Christianity. During May while Maitland awaited instructions he sent Colonel Charles Napier on a secret mission to Ioannina to assess Ali’s military resources. On his own initiative Napier offered his services as military commander if Ali made a bid for Greek support by granting freedom to his Christian subjects, adopted a new military organization, and paid an advance £100,000. Napier reported:

Ali has desired me to ask the Government’s leave for raising troops in England, and my proposal was to assemble 8,000 troops at Parga before February next, if he can maintain the contest for this summer. With these he might incorporate twenty-thousand Greeks; in a month I could make them all fit to take the field and attack the Turks in their winter quarters… England may make him an independent sovereign, not only of Albania, but all Greece, from Morea to Macedon. She can determine his frontier at her will, and by compelling him to accept a constitution favourable to the Greeks, she would form of those people a vigorous nation… The Greeks look to England for their emancipation. But if ever England engages in war with Russia to support the Turks, the Greeks will consider her as trying to rivet their chains and will join with the Russians.

The plan was too ambitious for either the British Government or Ali to take up. Ali was an opportunist but not a gambler and the stakes were too high. He was no longer a young man and the limits of his ambition and power were becoming clear. He had depended on Turkey for his power base, through defeating his enemies he had also kept in with the Sultan and without the support of one of the major powers he did not possess sufficient resources.

In July the Sublime Porte sent Ali an ultimatum. He was ordered to present himself within forty days to justify himself. Ali would have known it would be a risk to go, so he failed to turn up, but his insubordination played into the Sultan’s hands by giving him a convenient excuse to use force against him. Ismail Pashabey was given the task of assembling a large army of regular troops under the pashas of Scutari and Larissa, the latter no longer a bulwark of Veli’s protecting Ali’s eastern flank. The combined force may have been chaotic but it was to prove effective. Finlay writes:

The Othoman army was slowly collected, and it formed a motley assembly, without order, without artillery. Each pasha moved forward as he mustered his followers, with a separate commissar and a separate military chest. The daily rations and daily pay of the soldier differed in different divisions of the army. Ismael was really only the nominal commander-in-chief. He was not a soldier, and had he been an experienced officer, he could have done little to enforce order on the forces he commanded.

Ali was prepared. He had managed to swell the ranks of his army with volunteers persuaded to make common cause, but he was not going to take on the Sultan’s army in open battle, preferring to fall back on defensible positions in the mountain passes. Omar Vrionis and 15,000 men were stationed at Metsovo to defend the approach from Larissa across the Pindus, while to the south-east Odysseus Androutsos held the mountain passes around Livadia, and to the north Mukhtar at Berat and his second son Hussain at Tepelene faced up against the pasha of Scutari, Mustafa Bushatli, son of Kara Mahmud Pasha. To the south Preveza, the key against attack from the sea, was held by Veli who had been driven out of Lepanto and Parga was under his son Mehmed. Ali himself remained at Ioannina with a garrison of around 8,000 men. For the first time in years and at the age of around 70, Ali was on the defensive and facing a large coordinated attack from all sides. The Ottoman Army advanced in a pincer from the south reaching the western coast. Here they joined the Turkish naval expedition from Constantinople consisting of three line-of-battle ships, five frigates and about twenty brigs, joined by squadrons from Algeria and Egypt. The Arab crews were more efficient; they had destroyed a Greek Fleet in the harbour of Galaxidhi on the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth. Control of the sea meant that Spyros Kolovos,9 one of Ali’s secretaries and intermediaries, was taken by the Turks while trying to obtain ammunition from Corfu, and tortured to death. If Ali’s troops had remained loyal he may have tested the Porte’s resolve as had happened on numerous previous occasions. As the strength of the opposition became clear even the loyalty of Ali’s sons wavered. Faced with the choice of inheriting a share of their father’s domain in permanent opposition to the Sultan or making peace each decided the best course was the latter, and with promises of pardons or another pashalik somewhere, they abandoned their positions. In the north Mukhtar surrendered Berat and Argyrocastro fell with Selim taken. The Turks used bribes to undermine Ali’s troops and the Suliotes were invited from Corfu to take their homeland back. With their help the imperial force took Preveza from Veli, but they found Ali’s fort of Kiafa a tougher proposition. Only Hussein Bey swore to die for his grandfather. As the Turks closed in Napier paid him a second visit at Ioannina, imploring him to spend money on his fortifications and on reorganizing his military force, but Ali was loathe to part with his money. Only when Ali’s Odysseus Androutsos retreated from Thermopylae, and Omer Vrionis deserted to the Ottomans and his 15,000 men disappeared, and it was too late, did Ali make an offer of £2m to Napier to improve his defences. He was now slowly being surrounded at Ioannina as the 25,000-strong Turkish Army settled down for a protracted siege.

With winter, the discipline of the Ottoman Army, which was already suspect, deteriorated. Supplies were hard to come by and the country round Ioannina was mercilessly ravaged. In the words of an eyewitness the troops were ‘raiding cities, townships and villages without the slightest restraint and stealing their last morsel of food from the mouths of poor Greeks’. Both sides employed Albanian mercenaries and Greeks, and their loyalty was prone to waver. With the devastation many of the Greeks turned back to Ali. His spies learnt that the presence of the Suliotes had caused a rift in the imperial force, with the local beys and agas threatening to desert. After the Suliots’ failure to take Kiafa they were withdrawn from the main body of troops outside Ioannina and stationed in the most exposed positions and given little support when attacked. In consequence in December they opened negotiations with Ali, and left the Turkish camp for Suli, where Ali’s commander at Kiafa handed over the fortress. In a strange reversal of fortune by January 1821 they were allied to Ali who had restored them to their homes and promised to provide money for their families in exile. Attempts by the Turks to try to win back their allegiance through the Greek metropolitan of Arta failed. With Ismail proving ineffective as commander of such a large force, the Sultan replaced him with the experienced Hurshid Pasha, who had taken over as governor of the Morea in November 1820. Hurshid had served as grand vizier and suppressed the revolts in Serbia. Energetic and capable he set about reorganizing the army. By now both sides were suffering from defections and the situation amongst the Turks was so bad that Hurshid felt compelled to stay in the camp. Ali on the other hand was not content to just sit and wait but when he was tricked into making a sortie on 7 February he was severely defeated. Hurshid on the other hand was frustrated by his Albanian troops who wanted to prolong the campaign so they could continue drawing pay.

Alexandros Ypsilantis, the son of Constantine, a colonel in the Russian Army had taken over as leader of the Filiki Eteria. Apprised of the situation in Epirus he decided to use Ali as a diversion in a bid for Greek independence. He sent orders to Kolokotronis to encourage the klephts to join with the Suliotes, instructing them that any towns and fortresses taken from the Turks should be garrisoned by persons ready to declare for the Greek rebellion. In marching north to join the campaign Hurshid had weakened the Morea and when Mehmed Salik, the acting governor, announced that on top of the impositions already made to finance the war against Ali, a doubling of the herach, or poll tax, the situation was ripe for revolt. In February 1821 Ypsilantis moved an army made up of many Greeks in Russian service and Epirotes of Zagori into Wallachia, where Soutsos had become hospodar, in the hope of inciting a pan-Balkan revolution with Russian support. The Turks began to get jittery and in March they ordered the metropolitan bishops of the Peloponnese to go to Tripolitsa to confer on the subject of Ali’s intrigues. The Turks still feared him more than a Greek uprising and wanted to nullify his bids for Greek support. They planned to hold the leading Greeks hostage, but the Greeks suspected the worst and made their excuses, stalling for time. By March, in response to Ypsilantis’ move, the Peloponnese was in revolt but initially the Turks were still more worried about Ali than the situation in the Morea. The Sultan supported the policy of his grand vizier, Halet Effendi, who by ignoring the Greeks allowed them to consolidate. Halet’s main concern was to discourage Muslims, and particularly Ali’s Albanians, from cooperating with Christian klephts. On hearing of the Greek revolt, Ali sent Alexis Noutsos, who had commanded a force against Ismail in Zagori, on a mission to his compatriots to suggest a collaboration with the view to establishing an Albanian-Greek state under Ali’s sovereignty. Ali’s moves were coming too late to allay Greek suspicions and the momentum was already under way. Noutsos did not return. He joined the Greek leader Alexander Mavrokordatos at Missolonghi and the revolution.

Hurshid Pasha was now fighting a war on two fronts. While besieging Ali he had the Greeks biting at his heels to the south. In September at Peta near Arta, the Greek chiefs formed an alliance with the Suliotes and their Albanian allies to help Ali on condition that they got the freedom of the villages he had converted to chifliks under his direct control. Mavrokordatos who was still afraid that Ali might come to some arrangement with the Turks, persuaded Markos Botsaris, the Suliote leader, to desert the cause of Ali and to throw in his lot with the Greek chieftains besieging Arta. His brother Kostas Botsaris, a veteran of Les Chasseurs on the Ionian Islands and member of the Filiki Eteria, was already fighting for the cause. The Turks meanwhile tried to split the Greeks and Albanians. Ali’s one-time ally and trusted general, Omar Vrionis, was sent to relieve Arta. He told the Albanians that Ali was at the end of his tether, and that the cunning Greeks were only fighting on their own account. When the Albanians found out that the Greeks lacked arms and ammunition and were destroying mosques, they deserted the Suliots and joined Omar. Meanwhile the Suliots slipped off home to Suli. By October the war of attrition had taken its toll and starved of supplies Ali burnt the town retreating to his last stronghold, the citadel of Itch-kalé on the promontory in the lake in Ioannina, where he shut himself up with the remnants of his harem and a small nervous garrison. He was described as living in a bombproof cellar, deserted by most of his sycophants, wrapped in a bundle of embroidered garments.

After a winter of stalemate the Turks broke into the citadel in January to find only 100 defenders left. Ali had retreated to his last and strongest tower, where his treasure and powder magazine were kept, threatening to blow himself up. Ali was prepared to play his last hand. He still had a vast treasure, although much reduced, and he was prepared to bargain with Hurshid who wanted to ensure that the treasure was not lost in any last-minute futile battle but retained for himself and the Sultan. Ali suggested a truce so he could belatedly put his case to the Sultan. Hurshid was prepared to agree if Ali signed an armistice, surrendered the fortress and retired to the little monastery of Agios Panteleimon on the island in the lake, while Hurshid applied to the Sultan for a pardon. Ali accepted, probably thinking he could convince the Sultan that he was still needed to fight the Greeks. Taking Vassiliki and his private guard Ali retired to the island to await the answer, supplied with delicacies and musicians by Hurshid. Once Hurshid had obtained access to the treasure, Ali was left with no bargaining position. Whether he was under orders that Ali should die or he was actually awaiting the Sultan’s decree is uncertain. As with much in Ali’s life, even the manner of his death is one of confusion and elaboration. On 5 February, Hurshid sent troops to Ali with instructions either to arrest him or to kill him; the accounts differ. Ali expected them to be delivering the pardon and in the simplest version, when the arresting officers entered the room and demanded his head for the Sultan, he opened fire on them. In the ensuing fight he killed two and wounded another before being shot through the heart. Another account portrays a more devious strategy on the part of the officer in charge. After some discussion with Ali in an upper room they left together and went out on the balcony. Ali made a low bow, and as he was off his guard the officer stabbed him in the heart, declaring ‘Ali is dead’. Ali either died then and there or, in the manner of a horror movie, not having suffered the mortal blow he came back to life and crawled back into the room. The Turks, afraid to take him on, shot at him through the wooden floor, killing him. Another version has it that when the officer arrived with the document accompanied by troops, Ali realized it was not a pardon. Both sides opened fire, and after a confused struggle during which Ali was wounded, he took refuge in the upstairs room. The fatal blow was a shot fired up through the floorboards, wounding him in the groin. Finlay had not heard this version until he visited the monastery thirty years later and this is the one widely told today. Whatever the manner of his death, Ali’s head was cut off, perhaps on a stone step outside, and shown to the remaining Albanian troops, who after a token show of resistance surrendered when they were promised their arrears in wages, whereupon they cheered loudly, ‘The dog Ali is dead. Long live the Sultan.’ Ali’s head was then sent to the Sultan, the skin peeled off for transportation in the usual manner to be stuffed with straw and moistened for presentation. It was then exhibited on the gates of the Sultan’s palace with the heads of his three sons and grandson, in the same way as the heads Ali himself had sent to the Sultan for his pleasure.

Ali’s head may have gone to Constantinople but his body remained in Ioannina where he was buried with his first wife, Emine, in the citadel. Vassiliki was more fortunate. She was sent to the Ottoman capital, but alive as a prisoner. In 1830 she received a pardon and the newly independent Greek state, remembering her support for Greek liberty, gave her a medieval tower in Katochi, near Missolonghi, where she lived until her death in 1834. It was a Greek state that did not include Epirus. Ali’s army and Ioannina had fallen into the hands of the Sultan and all of Epirus would not taste freedom until 1913.

Every year of Ali’s life was spent in bloodshed and war. In mid-nineteenth century Europe his memory was synonymous with cruelty and despotism while it was acknowledged that some of his countrymen viewed him as a model governor. Summing up his life, the count-duke of Sorgo, a senator in the Dalmatian Republic of Ragusa who knew Ali personally, said that his system of government was fit for the country over which he ruled and no European would have brought Albania to the flourishing state it enjoyed during the last twenty years of his life. But in the words of Ismail Kemal Bey, the first head of state of Albania, there was a sense of wasted opportunity when he referred to the Greeks’ insurrection:

If Ali Pasha had been less a man of his time and better endowed with political forethought, he would himself have organized this coup in time, and Albania and Greece, with the whole of Thessaly and Macedonia, might have become an independent State and a kingdom of great importance.

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Fig. 37: The tomb of Ali Pasha from Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor… by Robert Walsh and Thomas Allom, London, 1836–38.

1 Tax farming was tax collecting through a third party who would perform the function for a fee, a common perk in the Ottoman system.

2 Other figures are 10,000 or 16,000.

3 Sometimes given as Oksakoff.

4 The divan efendi presided over the council of the local governors.

5 Presumably the tiny village of Karjan/Karjani/Qarjani a few miles south of Tepelene, not far from Hormovo.

6 The people of Hormovo.

7 He was also the first collector of Mycenaean pottery.

8 Karaferi, Negosti, Vodena—modern Veroia, Naousa and Edessa.

9 Often given as Spyridon Colovo.