From this position,
the leaders were to try to communicate, by signals or otherwise, with
the garrison, and in concert with it, act as circumstances might
dictate. Should the garrison resolve to make a sortie, the main body of
the Greek army advancing simultaneously from the Phalerum, it was
confidently hoped that the combined attack on the enemy would prove
victorious; or, at least, would be so far successful, as to enable the
Greeks to save the garrison and bring away the families. The great
characteristic of the plan was, that nothing should be risked in
reference to the enemy's cavalry, and that if the detachment should find
they could accomplish nothing, they should, on the following night,
return as they went, in safety, and be embarked for the Phalerum."

Unfortunately, the two main points on which Lord Cochrane had insisted
were neglected, and thereby what must otherwise have been a brilliant
victory was turned into a miserable defeat. He had insisted upon the
movement from Cape Colias being aided by the march of the main body of
the army direct from the Piraeus to the hills, thus diverting the
attention of many of the Turks while the advancing party and the
garrison were uniting; but Zavella, to whom this part of the work had
been entrusted, never moved at all. He had urged yet more strongly that
the preparations for the advance should be so hastened as that all the
ground should be travelled over during the night-time, while the Turks
were in ignorance of it; but instead of that, the Greeks, though they
were embarked at Phalerum by midnight, and landed at Cape Colias before
two o'clock in the morning, loitered near the shore till daylight, so
that their whole enterprise was exposed to the enemy. The critics who
have laid the blame of the disaster on Lord Cochrane have neglected to
show how these circumstances caused the failure of the enterprise.

The story of the disaster of the 6th of May will be best told in the
words of an eye-witness. "About three thousand soldiers," said Dr.
Gosse, in a letter written to M. Eynard on the 23rd, "were embarked in
the night between the 5th and the 6th of May, in a clear moonlight, and
in the most perfect order, and promptly landed on the other shore. Up to
that time everything favoured our enterprise; but the treason and
negligence of the chiefs, and the indolence of some of the soldiers,
altogether destroyed it. Instead of marching directly to Athens during
the night, the