nder the command of one of the
greatest heroes that the war produced,--the intrepid and fearless
Andreas Miaulis, who with fire-ships destroyed nearly the whole of the
Turkish fleet. He was aided by Constantine Canaris and George Pepinis,
equal to him in courage, who succeeded in grappling the ships of the
enemy and setting them on fire. The Turks, with the remnant of their
magnificent fleet, took refuge in the harbor of Mitylene, while the
victors returned in triumph to Ipsara, and became the masters of the
Archipelago.

The Greek operations were not so fortunate at first on the land as they
were on the sea. Mavrokordatos led in person an expedition into Epirus;
but he was no general, and failed disastrously. Even the brave Marco
Bozzaris was unable to cut his way to the relief of his countrymen, shut
up in their fortresses without an adequate supply of provisions; and all
that the Greeks could do in their great discouragement was to supply
Missolonghi with provisions and a few defenders, in anticipation of
a siege.

Epirus was now fallen, and nothing remained but a guerilla warfare.
Indeed, a striking feature of the whole revolution was "the absence of
any one great leader to concentrate the Greek forces and utilize the
splendid heroism of people and chieftains in permanent strategic
successes. The war was a succession of sporadic fights,--successes and
failures,--with small apparent mutual relations and effects." In
Macedonia, which had joined the insurrection, there were six thousand
brave mountaineers in arms; but they had to contend with fifteen
thousand regular troops under the command of the pashas of Salonica and
Thessaly, who forced the passes of the Vale of Tempe, and slew all
before them. Chourchid Pasha, having his rear provided for, with thirty
thousand men now passed through the defile of Thermopylae, appeared
before Corinth, took its citadel, advanced to Argos, dispersed the
government which had established itself there, and then pursued his
victorious career to Napoli di Romania, whose garrison he reinforced.
But the summer sun dried up the surrounding plains; there was nothing
left on which his cavalry could feed, or his men either, and he found
himself in a perilous position in the midst of victory.

The defeated Greeks now rallied under Ypsilanti and Kolokotronis, who
raised the siege of Corinth, and advanced against their foes with twelve
thousand men. The Turkish army, decimated and in fear of s