The Massacre of Tripolitsa

The Siege of Tripolitsa or the Fall of Tripolitsa to revolutionary Greek forces in the summer of 1821 marked an early victory in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, which had begun earlier in that year. It is known for the massacre mainly of its Muslim plus Jewish population, which occurred after the city's fall to the Greek revolutionary forces. As historian of the war W. Alison Phillips noted, "the other atrocities of Greeks paled before the awful scenes which followed the storming of Tripolitza".

The siege and the fall of Tripolitsa was an idea earlier conceived by the great chieftain Theodoros Kolokotronis, because he calculated that this would be a heavy blow for the Turks and would certainly give a major advantage to the Greeks, since Tripolitsa was the administrative hub of the Ottoman Empire in Morias (the Peloponnese) and home to probably half of the Turkish population of the district. The siege of Tripolitsa was decided on April 1821 and began the following month.

Life for the Turks gradually became more and more difficult, as food stocks ran out and the population reached its limits. A Turkish attack during August failed and a month later the Greeks managed to invade the city and, after suffering significant losses, to take it over.

The statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis in Tripolitsa

"Inside the town they had begun to massacre. ... I rushed to the palace ... If you wish to hurt these Albanians, I cried, "kill me rather; for, while I am a living man, whoever first makes the attempt, him will I kill the first." ... I was faithful to my word of honor ... Tripolitsa was three miles in circumference. The [Greek] host which entered it, cut down and were slaying men, women, and children from Friday till Sunday. Thirty-two thousand were reported to have been slain. One Hydriote [boasted that he had] killed ninety. About a hundred Greeks were killed; but the end came [thus]: a proclamation was issued that the slaughter must cease. ... When I entered Tripolitsa, they showed me a plane tree in the market-place where the Greeks had always been hung. I sighed. "Alas!" I said, "how many of my own clan — of my own race — have been hung there!" And I ordered it to be cut down. I felt some consolation then from the slaughter of the Turks. ... [Before the fall] we had formed a plan of proposing to the Turks that they should deliver Tripolitsa into our hands, and that we should, in that case, send persons into it to gather the spoils together, which were then to be apportioned and divided among the different districts for the benefit of the nation; but who would listen?

General Theodoros Kolokotronis memoirs

"For three days the miserable inhabitants were given over to lust and cruelty of a mob of savages. Neither sex nor age was spared. Women and children were tortured before being put to death. So great was the slaughter that Kolokotronis himself says that, from the gate to the citadel his horse's hoofs never touched the ground. His path of triumph was carpeted with corpses. At the end of two days, the wretched remnant of the Mussulmans were deliberately collected, to the number of some two thousand souls, of every age and sex, but principally women and children, were led out to a ravine in the neighboring mountains and there butchered like cattle."

Walter Alison Phillips

"Commander Panagiotis Kephalas plants the flag of liberty upon the walls of Tripolizza" by Peter von Hess

"Upwards of ten thousand Turks were put to death. Prisoners who were suspected of having concealed their money were tortured. Their arms and legs were cut off and they were slowly roasted over fires. Pregnant women were cut open, their heads cut off, and dogs' heads stuck between their legs. From Friday to Sunday the air was filled with the sound of screams… One Greek boasted that he personally killed ninety people. The Jewish colony was systematically tortured… For weeks afterwards starving Turkish children running helplessly about the ruins were being cut down and shot at by exultant Greeks… The wells were poisoned by the bodies that had been thrown in…

The Turks of Greece left few traces. They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821 unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world….It was hard to believe then that Greece once contained a large population of Turkish descent, living in small communities all over the country, prosperous farmers, merchants, and officials, whose families had known no other home for hundreds of years…They were killed deliberately, without qualm or scruple, and there was no regrets either then or later."

William St. Clair