d men.[1] Athens had capitulated to
Odhyssevs ten days before; but it had kept open the road for Dramali, and
north-eastern Greece fell without resistance into his hands. The citadel
of Korinth surrendered as tamely as the open country, and he was master of
the isthmus before the end of the month. Nauplia meanwhile had been
treating with its besiegers for terms, and would have surrendered to the
Greeks already if they had not driven their bargain so hard. Dramali
hurried on southward into the plain to the fortress's relief, raised the
siege, occupied the town of Argos, and scattered the Greek forces into the
hills. But the citadel of Argos held out against him, and the positions
were rapidly reversed. Under the experienced direction of Kolokotronis,
the Greeks from their hill-fastnesses ringed round the plain of Argos and
scaled up every issue. Dramali's supplies ran out. An attempt of his
vanguard to break through again towards the north was bloodily repulsed,
and he barely succeeded two days later in extricating the main body in a
demoralized condition, with the loss of all his baggage-train. The Turkish
army melted away, Dramali was happy to die at Korinth, and Khurshid was
executed by the sultan's command. The invasion of Peloponnesos had broken
down, and nothing could avert the fall of Nauplia. The Ottoman fleet
hovered for one September week in the offing, but Kanaris's fire-ships
took another ship of the line in toll at the roadsteads of Tenedos before
it safely regained the Dardanelles. The garrison of Nauplia capitulated in
December, on condition of personal security and liberty, and the captain
of a British frigate, which arrived on the spot, took measures that the
compact should be observed instead of being broken by the customary
massacre. But the strongest fortress in Peloponnesos was now in Greek
hands.

[Footnote 1: Including a strong contingent of Moslem Slavs--Bulgarian
Pomaks from the Aegean hinterland and Serbian Bosniaks from the Adriatic.]

In the north-west the season had not passed so well. When the Turks
invested Ali in Yannina, they repatriated the Suliot exiles in their
native mountains. But a strong sultan was just as formidable to the
Suliots as a strong pasha, so they swelled their ranks by enfranchising
their peasant-serfs, and made common cause with their old enemy in his
adversity. Now that Ali was destroyed, the Suliots found themselves in a
precarious position, and turned to the Greeks