Ali Pasha, Lion of Ioannina

by Eugenia Russell

  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 suprem
acy 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.

  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 Ioann
ina 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: