Story Time with Father Pray — A Greek Hero
With gun smoke and saber stroke, this hero would forever leave his mark and burn his memory into the hearts of the Greeks.
Son of a murdered father, his home stripped from his people, he lived a life in exile.
A mercenary leader, Captain of the Souliotes, he earned his merit in the service of the French. His name was Marko Boccaris (Botzaris, Bozzaris, Bocaris)
As the Greeks Rebelled from the shackles of oppression from the Great Ottomans, the Captain brought his men to the aid of the Greeks.
He fought valiantly in the defense of the besieged city Missolonghi, and earned credit for his courage.
The battle that would forever seal Marko in the hearts of the Greeks was the daring raid on the Ottoman Albanian Vanguard.
The Ottomans had moved fast to squelch the rebellion. Western Hellas was all that remained, the walls of Messalonghi still stood, but the Greeks were demoralized by defeat.
Desperate for supplies, ammunition, and low in morale, Marko swayed the War council into a bold move. To attack the Vanguard of the Ottoman Empire.
Known intelligence from the beleaguered stronghold of Messalonghi stated the Ottoman vanguard consisted of 4500 heavily armed Mirdites, encamped in the meadows and vineyards of Karpenisi.
A plan had been decided. A 1200 man Greek force would attack the enemy camp. The army were divided into 3 groups. The center would be led by Captain Boccaris with his 400 Souliotes, and the left and right flanks were to be Greek troops.
On the night of August 8, 1823 “five hours after sunset” and with no sign of the other groups, Boccaris made the call and led his 400 men in to the enemy camp.
Under the mask of night they took the Mirdites by surprise. Discharging their rifles, the Souliotes drew their swords and drove the enemy soldiers from their Camps.
Only one camp remained and Marko was determined to secure it. The battle ensued delivering a serious wound to Marko. Injured and his attacked repelled, he rallied his men to push forward. He fought valiantly but it was in vain, as a shot rung out he finally claimed his fame. Marko was felled by a bullet to the head.
The last standing encampment never fell to the brave soldiers. A complete victory was stolen from them by the betrayal of the men who never came. Out of the 1200 man army, only Marko and his 400 brave Souliotes fought.
He would never got to see his victory, nor see his dream of a free Greece come to fruition.
As the sun-rose the Souliotes pulled back carrying their slain Commander.
The victory of the raid brought the Greeks much needed supplies. Wagons, Weapons, Animals, and supplies.
It is said that Marko’s 400 men suffered 13 dead and 27 wounded.
The Ottoman troops suffered significantly heavier losses, over 800 men dead and countless wounded. They had succeeded in routing the Vanguard and dealing a demoralizing and humiliating blow to the Ottomans.
Marko was buried with all honors in Messalonghi. His grave later mutilated and destroyed as the stronghold fell to the advancing Ottomans.
To this day Marko is hailed as a Hero. A man marked by his courage, intelligence, and his fervor for freedom.
His Heirs would honor his name and continue to serve Greece.
From an Exile to a Hero.
Great men can achieve great things.
MARCO BOZZARIS
by: Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867)
AT midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power;
In dreams, through camp and court he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams, his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch’s signet-ring;
Then press’d that monarch’s throne — a king:
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden’s garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian’s thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platæa’s day;
And now there breathed that haunted air,
The sons of sires who conquer’d there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far, as they.
An hour pass’d on: the Turk awoke:
That bright dream was his at last.
He woke to hear his sentries shriek,
“To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!”
He woke, to die ‘midst flame and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud,
And head, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
“Strike! — till the last arm’d foe expires;
Strike! — for your altars and your fires;
Strike! — for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!”
They fought like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain;
They conquer’d; — but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their loud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close,
Calmly as to a night’s repose, —
Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death,
Come to the mother’s, when she feels,
For the first time, her first born’s breath;
Come, when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke:
Come in consumption’s ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm
With banquet song and dance and wine;
And thou art terrible: — the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear,
Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come when his task of fame is wrought;
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought;
Come in her crowning hour, — and then
Thy sunken eye’s unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prison’d men;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange groves, and field of balm,
Blew o’er the Haytien seas.
Bozzaris! with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory’s time,
Rest thee: there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death’s leafless tree,
In sorrow’s pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb;
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone;
For thee her poet’s lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music-breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babes’ first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said,
At palace couch and cottage bed:
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears;
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys, —
And even she who gave thee birth
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh;
For thou art Freedom’s now, and Fame’s,
One of the few, th’ immortal names
That were not born to die
References:
Gordon, T. (1844). History of the Greek revolution: And of the wars and campaigns …, volume 2. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=31AbNr81wS4C&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=Battle+of+Karpenisi+Greek+Revolution&source=bl&ots=yyfFqmlgxp&sig=wxxj6TRVRcVvnkaeY-vHb0nlC4U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy9pKIk9HQAhUn5YMKHW3pAq4Q6AEIQDAH#v=onepage&q=Karpenis&f=false
Markos Botsaris (2016). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markos_Botsaris
