The siege of Santa Maura in March and April 1810 was fought between the British and the French troops on the island of Lefkada (then known as Santa Maura). Santa Maura had belonged to the First French Empire since 1807, and was garrisoned by a mixed force of French regulars and men of the locally raised, Greco-Albanian Albanian Regiment. The British troops that landed on the island were also supported by Greek and Corsican volunteer troops. Mistrust of the Greco-Albanian troops by the French command, and the presence of Greeks in the British force, resulted in the defection of the Albanian Regiment's men to the British, hastening the surrender of the island.
The island of Santa Maura, along with the other Ionian Islands, fell under French rule in 1807, after the Treaty of Tilsit. [1] In October 1809, the British attacked and captured the islands of Zakynthos (Zante), Cephalonia, Kythira (Cerigo), and Ithaca. [2] These islands were defended by small garrisons, with a few dozen regular French soldiers and larger numbers of men of the locally raised Albanian Regiment (400 on Zakynthos, 145 on Cephalonia, 46 on Ithaca, and 27 on Kythira) on each island. [3] These forces were completely inadequate to offer anything but a token resistance; the captured men were transferred to Italy as prisoners of war, but more than a few of the Albanian Regiment's men—up to about half in Zakynthos—simply scattered into the countryside and resumed their traditional guerrilla habits. Most of these escapees, as well as those taken prisoner, were soon induced to enter British service in what eventually became the 1st Regiment Greek Light Infantry. Over 70% of the Albanian Regiment's men on the four islands switched to the British, including most of the officers. [4]
Before the landing of the main force, the British sent Lt. Colonel Hudson Lowe along with two Greek chieftains, Theodoros Kolokotronis and Konstantis Petmezas, to scout the situation on the island. Kolokotronis made contact with the local Greco-Albanian troops, and urged them to surrender, but the latter refused, citing their oath to fight with the French. [5] After that, the British landed their main force, some 4,000 strong, comprising British and Sicilian troops as well as Greek and Corsican (Royal Corsican Rangers) volunteer detachments. [6] The initial fighting was hard, but the British forces managed to overrun the French defences, capturing a number of gun batteries. In these battles, the Greeks under Kolokotronis and Richard Church distinguished themselves, and Church was wounded. [6]
After these setbacks, the French commander, General Camus, retired with his French troops to the Castle of Santa Maura. Distrustful of the loyalties of the Albanian Regiment, he left its men outside the fortress. This decision not only left the lightly equipped men of the Albanian Regiment exposed to the elements, but Camus also refused to give shelter to their families in the fortress. As a result, the entire Albanian Regiment detachment of 823 men, apart from 13 men the French held as hostages, defected to the British. [7] The British then proceeded to besiege the fortress, subjecting it to heavy bombardment, until the fortress surrendered. [6]
Lefkada, also known as Lefkas or Leukas and Leucadia, is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Lefkada. It is situated on the northern part of the island, approximately 25 minutes by automobile away from Aktion National Airport. The island is part of the regional unit of Lefkada.
The Orlov revolt was a Greek uprising in the Peloponnese and later also in Crete that broke out in February 1770, following the arrival of Russian Admiral Alexey Orlov, commander of the Imperial Russian Navy during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), at the Mani Peninsula. The revolt, a major precursor to the Greek War of Independence, was part of Catherine the Great's so-called "Greek Plan" and was eventually suppressed by the Ottomans.
Theodoros Kolokotronis was a Greek general and the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) against the Ottoman Empire.
The Septinsular Republic was an oligarchic republic that existed from 1800 to 1807 under nominal Russian and Ottoman sovereignty in the Ionian Islands.
Nikitaras was the nom de guerre of Nikitas Stamatelopoulos, a Greek revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence. Due to his fighting prowess, he was known as Turkofagos or Turkophagos, literally meaning the "Turk-Eater".
The United States of the Ionian Islands was a Greek state and amical protectorate of the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1864. The successor state of the Septinsular Republic, it covered the territory of the Ionian Islands, as well as the town of Parga on the adjacent mainland in modern Greece. It was ceded by the British to Greece as a gift to the newly enthroned King George I, apart from Parga, which had been sold to Ali Pasha of Ioannina in 1819.
The Adriatic campaign was a minor theatre of war during the Napoleonic Wars in which a succession of small British Royal Navy and Austrian Navy squadrons and independent cruisers harried the combined naval forces of the First French Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Illyrian Provinces and the Kingdom of Naples between 1807 and 1814 in the Adriatic Sea. Italy, Naples and Illyria were all controlled either directly or via proxy by the French Emperor Napoleon I, who had seized them at the Treaty of Pressburg in the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition.
The Pashalik of Yanina, sometimes referred to as the Pashalik of Ioannina or Pashalik of Janina, was an autonomous pashalik within the Ottoman Empire between 1787 and 1822 covering large areas of Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia. Under the Ottoman Albanian ruler Ali Pasha, the pashalik acquired a high degree of autonomy and even managed to stay de facto independent, though this was never officially recognized by the Ottoman Empire. Conceiving his territory in increasingly independent terms, Ali Pasha's correspondence and foreign Western correspondence frequently refer to the territories under Ali's control as Albania.
The Albanian Regiment was a military unit of the First French Empire formed in 1807 in Corfu. Consisting mainly of Albanians, but also Greeks, Italians and Dalmatians, it was commanded by Colonel Jean-Louis Toussaint Minot and served mainly as a defense unit in the French-ruled Ionian Islands. It was disbanded in 1814.
The First period of French rule in the Ionian Islands lasted from June 1797 to March 1799. Following the fall of the Republic of Venice in May 1797, the Ionian Islands, a Venetian possession, were occupied by Revolutionary France. The French instituted a new, democratic regime and, following the Treaty of Campo Formio, annexed the islands to France, forming the three departments of Corcyre (Corfu), Ithaque (Ithaca) and Mer-Égée.
The Battle of Nicopolis was fought on 23 October [O.S. 12 October] 1798 between the armed forces of Revolutionary France and the autonomous Ottoman-Albanian ruler, Ali Pasha of Janina. The French had seized the Venetian Ionian Islands off the western coast of Greece the previous year, after the Fall of the Republic of Venice. The islands also included a few mainland exclaves like Butrint and Preveza, which were coveted by Ali. French efforts to draw Ali into their camp against the Ottoman sultan failed, and when the Ottoman Empire turned against France, Ali attacked the French positions. The battle, which took place amidst the ruins of the ancient city of Nicopolis, resulted in a French defeat, and was followed by a devastating sack of Preveza.
The 1st Regiment Greek Light Infantry (1810–12) was a light infantry regiment, founded as a local establishment in British service consisting mostly of Greek and Albanian enlisted men and Greek and British officers that served during the Napoleonic Wars. Later it became a regular British Army regiment as the 1st Greek Light Infantry (1812–16). It had no official association with the modern state of Greece or the Filiki Eteria or any Greek War of Independence groups; however, several future leaders of the War of Independence fought in its ranks, as did a number of rank-and-file klephts and armatoloi.
The siege of Santa Maura took place on 21 July – 6 August 1684 between the forces of the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, and was the opening battle of the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War. From his base at Corfu the Venetian commander-in-chief, Francesco Morosini, led a fleet of 38 galleys, 8 galleasses and several auxiliary vessels to besiege the Fortress of Santa Maura on the island of Lefkada, that was under Ottoman rule. The besieging forces were swelled by Greek levies and volunteers from the Ionian Islands. The siege lasted until 6 August, when the commander Bekir Agha, bowing to pressure from the 500 Albanians and 200 Greeks in the fortress garrison, surrendered to the Venetians.
Zakynthos is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Today, Zakynthos is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and its only municipality. It covers an area of 405.55 km2 (156.6 sq mi) and its coastline is roughly 123 km (76 mi) in length. The name, like all similar names ending in -nthos, is pre-Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin. In Greek mythology the island was said to be named after Zakynthos, the son of a legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus.
The Greek Legion, officially the Light Jäger Foot Legion, was a Jäger infantry unit in the service of the Russian-controlled Septinsular Republic. It consisted of soldiers of Greek and Albanian origin and was led by Major-General Emmanouil Papadopoulos. It was active between 1805 and 1807, taking part in the War of the Third Coalition and the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812).
Emmanouil Papadopoulos was a Greek officer in Imperial Russian service. Born on the Ottoman island of Kea, Papadopoulos chose to depart with the Russian troops who had briefly occupied it when he was a teenager.
The Treaty of Constantinople of 2 April [O.S. 21 March] 1800 was concluded between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, and heralded the creation of the Septinsular Republic, the first autonomous Greek state since the Fall of the Byzantine Empire.
The Second period of French rule in the Ionian Islands began in August 1807, when the Septinsular Republic, a Russian protectorate comprising the seven Ionian Islands, was occupied by the First French Empire in accordance with the Treaty of Tilsit. The French annexed the Republic but maintained most of its institutions for local governance. In 1809–10, the British occupied the southernmost islands, leaving only Corfu, Paxoi, and the mainland exclave of Parga in French hands. The British also imposed a naval blockade on the French-ruled islands, which began to suffer from famine. Finally, the British occupied Paxoi in late 1813 and Parga in March 1814. Following the Abdication of Napoleon, the French governor-general in Corfu, François-Xavier Donzelot, capitulated and the French garrison was evacuated. In 1815, the islands became a British protectorate, the United States of the Ionian Islands.
The Castle of Santa Maura is a fortress on the northeastern tip of the Greek island of Lefkada. The castle began as a small fortification in c. 1300 to control access to the island, before it was expanded to become a walled town and the island's capital by the early 15th century. The Ottoman Empire took possession in 1479, and a century later rebuilt and enlarged it, giving it largely its present shape. A sizeable town grew outside the castle walls by the 1670s.
Fotos Tzavelas or Tzavellas was a Souliot clan leader and fighter.