ing, stormed Athens so
vigorously on the 14th of August, that the inhabitants were forced to
abandon it. Many of them, however, took refuge in the Acropolis, where a
strong garrison was established under the tyrannical rule of Goura, and
in this fortress the defence was maintained for nearly two months. Goura
died in October, and the rivalries of the officers whom he had held in
awe, now allowed to have free exercise, threatened to make easy the
further triumph of the besiegers. The citadel must have surrendered, but
for the timely arrival of Karaiskakes and Fabvier, each with a strong
body of troops, who diverted the enemy by formidable attacks in the
rear. Karaiskakes and his force continued, with various success, to
watch and harass the enemy from without. On the 12th of December
Fabvier, by a brilliant exploit, forced his way into the Acropolis with
about six hundred men. He had intended only to give it temporary relief,
but many of the native chiefs, gladly taking advantage of the arrival of
a body for which, conjointly with the garrison already established,
there was not room in the fortress, hastily departed. Thus the
leadership of the garrison, comprising about a thousand soldiers, with
whom were four or five hundred women and children, and more than forty
Philhellenes from France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, devolved upon
Colonel Fabvier. The besiegers numbered about seven thousand picked
soldiers, including a regiment of cavalry veterans and a good train of
artillery. The Greek regulars and irregulars, including a corps of
Philhellenes, commanded by Captain Inglesi, who attempted to raise the
siege, varied, at different times, from two or three thousand to seven
or eight thousand.

That was the state of affairs when Lord Cochrane arrived in Greece. That
the expulsion of the Turks from Attica and the recovery of Athens was
the first great work to be attempted was clear to every one, whether
native or Philhellene, who had the welfare of Greece at heart; but
opinions varied as to the best mode of procedure. Nearly all previous
efforts had been aimed at the direct attack of the besiegers in Athens
and its neighbourhood. General Gordon had established a camp of about
three thousand men at Munychia, the hill from which, two and twenty
centuries before, Thrasybulus had gone down to deliver Athens from the
thirty tyrants; and Karaiskakes, with some two thousand five hundred
followers, was stationed at Keratsina,