mned Ypsilanti's enterprise. The Patriarch of
Constantinople was made to issue a ban of excommunication against the
rebels. In an official note of the Powers, the Congress of Leibach branded
the Greek revolt as a token of the same spirit which had produced the
revolution of Italy and Spain. Turkish troops crossed the Danube. The
Roumanian peasants, seeing no help from Russia, held aloof. Vladimiresco
plotted against the Greeks. It was in vain that brave Georgakis captured
the traitor at his own headquarters and carried him to his death in the
Greek camp. Ypsilanti was defeated in his first encounter with the Turks.
He retired before them toward the Austrian frontier. In the end he fled
across the border and was promptly made a prisoner in Austria. His
followers dearly sold their lives. At Skuleni, 400 of them under Georgakis
made a last stand on the Pruth. They were surrounded by ten times their
number. Georgakis refused to surrender. Bidding his followers flee, at the
moment when the Turks broke in the doors, he blew himself up in the
monastery of Skuleni.

[Sidenote: Revolt of Morea]

[Sidenote: Gregorios hanged]

At the news of Ypsilanti's uprising in Moldavia the entire Greek population
of the Morea rose against the Turk. From the outset, the Moreotes waged a
war of extermination. They massacred all Turks, men, women and children.
Within a few weeks the open country was swept clear of its Mohammedan
population. The fugitive Turks were invested within the walls of
Tripolitza, Patras, and other strong towns. Sultan Mahmud took prompt
vengeance. A number of innocent Greeks at Constantinople were strangled by
his executioners. The fury of the Moslem was let loose on the Infidel. All
Greek settlements along the Bosphorus were burned. But the crowning stroke
came on Easter Sunday, the most sacred day of the Greek Church. The
Patriarch of Constantinople, while he was celebrating service, was summoned
away by the dragoman of the Porte. At the order of the Sultan he was haled
before a hastily assembled synod and there degraded from his office as a
traitor. The synod was commanded to elect his successor. While the
trembling prelates did their bidding, Patriarch Gregorios was led out in
his sacred robes and hanged at the gate of his palace. His body remained
hanging throughout the Easter celebration, and was then given to the Jews
to be dragged through the streets and cast into the Bosphorus. A similar
fate befell the Greek