There were numerous massacres during the Greek War of Independence

Greek War of Independence

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...

 perpetrated by both the Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 revolutionaries and the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces. The war was characterized by a lack of respect for civilian life and prisoners of war on both sides of the conflict. Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

, Albanian

Albanians

Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...

 and Jewish

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 populations identified with the Ottomans inhabiting the Peloponnese

Peloponnese

The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...

 suffered massacres particularly where Greek forces were dominant, while massacres of Greeks took place especially in Ionia

Ionia

Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...

, Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

, Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, Macedonia

Macedonia (Greece)

Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...

 and the Aegean

Aegean Islands

The Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast...

 islands. Settled Turkish, Albanian and smaller Jewish communities in the Peloponnese were destroyed, and settled Greek communities in the Aegean, Crete, Central

Central Greece

Continental Greece or Central Greece , colloquially known as Roúmeli , is a geographical region of Greece. Its territory is divided into the administrative regions of Central Greece, Attica, and part of West Greece...

 and Southern Greece were wiped out.

Peloponnese

British historian W. Alison Phillips

Walter Alison Phillips

Walter Alison Phillips was an English historian, a specialist in the history of Europe in the 19th century. From 1914 to 1939 he was the first holder of the Lecky chair of History in Trinity College, Dublin. Most of his writing is in the name of W...

, who wrote the history of the Greek revolution, noted in 1897:

Everywhere, as though at a preconcerted signal, the peasantry rose, and massacred all the Turks—men, women and children—on whom they could lay hands. In the Morea shall no Turk be left. Nor in the whole wide world. Thus rang the song which, from mouth to mouth, announced the beginning of a war of extermination... Within three weeks of the outbreak of the revolt, not a Muslim was left, save those who had succeeded in escaping into the towns.

According to another historian of the Greek revolt, William St. Clair, upwards of twenty thousand Turkish men, women and children were killed by their Greek neighbors in a few weeks of slaughter. William St. Clair also argued that: "with the beginning of the revolt, the bishops and priests exhorted their parishioners to exterminate infidel Muslims." St. Clair wrote:

The Turks of Greece left few traces. They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821 unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world....It was hard to believe then that Greece once contained a large population of Turkish descent, living in small communities all over the country, prosperous farmers, merchants, and officials, whose families had known no other home for hundreds of years...They were killed deliberately, without qualm or scruple, and there was no regrets either then or later.

Atrocities toward the Turkish civilian population inhabiting the Peloponnese had started in Achaia on the 28th of March, just with the beginning of the Greek revolt. On the 2nd of April, the outbreak became general over the whole of Peloponnese and on that day many Turks were murdered in different places. On the third of April 1821, the Turks of Kalavryta

Kalavryta

Kalavryta is a town and a municipality in the eastcentral part of the peripheral unit of Achaea, Greece. It is the southern terminus of the Kalavryta - Diakopto Road and the eastern terminus of the Patras - Kalavryta Road. It is located approx...

 surrendered upon promises of security which were afterwards violated. Followingly, massacres ensued against the Turkish civilians in the towns of Peloponnese that the Greek revolutionaries had captured.

The Turks in Monemvasia

Monemvasia

Monemvasia is a town and a municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a small peninsula off the east coast of the Peloponnese. The peninsula is linked to the mainland by a short causeway 200m in length. Its area consists mostly of a large plateau some 100 metres above sea level, up to...

, weakened by the famine opened the gates of the city, and laid down their weapons. Six hundred of them had already gone on board the brigs, when the Mainotes burst into the town and started murdering all those who had not yet reached to the shore or those who had chosen to stay in the town. Those on the ships meanwhile were stripped of their clothes, beaten and left on a desolate rock in the Aegean, instead of being deported to Asia Minor as promised. Only a few of them were saved by a French merchant, called M. Bonfort.

A general massacre ensued the fall of Navarino

Navarino

Navarino or Navarin may refer to:*Pylos , a Greek town, on the Ionian Sea**Battle of Navarino, 1827 naval battle off Navarino*Navarino, Wisconsin, a town, United States...

 on August 19, 1821. See Navarino Massacre

Navarino Massacre

Navarino Massacre was one of a series of massacres that occurred following the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, which resulted in the extermination of the Turkish civilian population previously inhabiting the region ....

.

The worst Greek atrocity in terms of the numbers of victims involved was the massacre following the Fall of Tripolitsa in 1822. Up to 30,000 Turks had been killed in Tripolitsa:

For three days the miserable inhabitants were given over to lust and cruelty of a mob of savages. Neither sex nor age was spared. Women and children were tortured before being put to death. So great was the slaughter that Kolokotronis himself says that, from the gate to the citadel his horse’s hoofs never touched the ground. His path of triumph was carpeted with corpses. At the end of two days, the wretched remnant of the Mussulmans were deliberately collected, to the number of some two thousand souls, of every age and sex, but principally women and children, were led out to a ravine in the neighboring mountains and there butchered like cattle.

Although the total estimates of the casualties vary, the Turkish, Muslim Albanian and Jewish population of the Peloponnese had ceased to exist as a settled community. Some estimates of the Turkish and Muslim Albanian civilian deaths by the rebels range from 15,000 out of 40,000 Muslim residents to 30,000 only in Tripolitsa. According to historians W.Alison Phillips, George Finlay, William St. Clair and Barbara Jelavich, massacres of Turkish civilians started simultaneously with the outbreak of the revolt, while Harris J. Booras wrote that the massacres followed the brutal hanging of Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople.

Historian George Finlay claimed that the extermination of the Muslims in the rural districts was the result of a premeditated design and it proceeded more from the suggestions of men of letters, than form the revengeful feelings of the people. William St. Clair wrote that: "The orgy of genocide exhausted itself in the Peloponnese only when there were no more Turks to kill."

Central Greece

In Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, 1,190 Turks, of whom only 190 were capable of bearing arms, surrendered upon promises of security. W. Alison Phillips noted that: A scene of horror followed which has only too many parallels during the course of this horrible war.

Vrachroi, modern day Agrinio

Agrinio

Agrinion is the largest city and municipality of the Aetolia-Acarnania peripheral unit of Greece, with 96,321 inhabitants. It is the economical center of Aetolia-Acarnania, although its capital is the town of Mesolonghi. The settlement dates back to ancient times...

, was an important town in West-Central Greece. It contained, besides the Christian population, some five hundred Mussulman families and about two hundred Jews. The massacres in Vrachori commenced with the Jews and soon Mussulmans shared the same fate.

Aegean Islands

There were also massacres towards the Muslim inhabitants of the islands in the Aegean Sea, in the early years of the Greek revolt. According to historian William St. clair, one of the aims of the Greek revolutionaries was to embroil as many Greek communities as possible in their struggle. Their technique was "to engineer some atrocity against the local Turkish population", so that these different Greek communities would have to ally themselves with the revolutionaries fearing a retaliation from the Ottomans. In such a case, in March 1821, Greeks from the Samos island had landed in the Island Chios and attacked the Muslim population living in that island.

Another similar massacre took place in the island Hydra

Hydra, Saronic Islands

Hydra is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece, located in the Aegean Sea between the Saronic Gulf and the Argolic Gulf. It is separated from the Peloponnese by narrow strip of water...

, one of the most important Aegean islands. Besides the atrocities committed against the local Muslims in the island, two hybrid brigs captured a Turkish ship laden with a valuable cargo, and carrying a number of passengers. Among these was a recently deposed Sheik-ul-Islam, or patriarch of the Orthodox Muslims, who was said to be going to Mecca for pilgrimage. It was his efforts to prevent the cruel reprisals which, at Constantinople, followed the news of the massacres in Peloponnese, which brought him into disfavor, and caused his exile. There were also several other Turkish families on board. British historian of the Greek revolt, W. Alison Phillips noted: The Hydriots murdered them all in cold blood, helpless old men, ladies of rank, beautiful slaves, and little children were butchered like cattle. The venerable old man, whose crime had been an excess of zeal on behalf of the Greeks, was forced to see his family outraged and murdered before his eyes...

Massacres of Greeks

Constantinople

Most of the Greeks in the Greek quarter of Constantinople were massacred. On Easter Sunday, 9 April 1821, Gregory V

Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople

Gregory V was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1797 to 1798, from 1806 to 1808 and from 1818 to 1821. He was responsible for much restoration work to the Patriarchal Cathedral of St George, which had been badly damaged by fire in 1738...

 was hanged in the central outside portal of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by the Ottomans. His body was mutilated and thrown into the sea, where it was rescued by Greek sailors. One week later, the former Ecumenical Patriarch Cyril VI was hanged in the gate of the Adrianople's cathedral. This was followed by the execution of two Metropolitans and twelve Bishops by the Turkish authorities. By the end of April, a number of prominent Greeks had been decapitated by Turkish forces in Constantinople, including Constantine Mourousis

Mourousis family

The Mourousis or Moruzi are a family which was first mentioned in the Empire of Trebizond. Its origins have been lost, but the two prevalent theories are that they were either a local family originating in a village which has a related name or else one that arrived with the Venetians during the...

, Levidis

Levidis family

Levidis is the name of a family of old Byzantine aristocratic origin, hailing from Constantinople and with a distinguished role in the history of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Wallachia, and modern Greece....

 Tsalikis, Dimitrios Paparigopoulos, Antonios Tsouras, and the Phanariotes

Phanariotes

Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...

 Petros Tsigris, Dimitrios Skanavis and Manuel Hotzeris, while Georgios Mavrocordatos

Mavrocordatos

Mavrocordatos was the name of a family of Phanariot Greeks, distinguished in the history of the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia, Moldavia, and modern Greece...

 was hanged. In May, the Metropolitans Gregorios of Derkon, Dorotheos of Adrianople, Ioannikios of Tyrnavos

Tyrnavos

Tyrnavos is a municipality in the Larissa regional unit, of the Thessaly region of Greece. Tyrnavos is the prefecture's third largest community within the Larissa prefecture. The town is near the mountains and the Thessalian Plain. The river Titarisios, a tributary of the Pineios, flows through...

, Joseph of Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, and the Phanariote

Phanariotes

Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...

 Georgios Callimachi

Callimachi family

Callimachi, Calimachi, or Kallimachi was a Moldavian boyar and princely family, originating with a group of free peasants living in the Orhei area of Bessarabia. It still remains present today in modern Romania.-Members:*Vasile Călmaşul: b...

 and Nikolaos Mourousis

Mourousis family

The Mourousis or Moruzi are a family which was first mentioned in the Empire of Trebizond. Its origins have been lost, but the two prevalent theories are that they were either a local family originating in a village which has a related name or else one that arrived with the Venetians during the...

 were decapitated on the Sultan's orders in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

.

Aegean Islands

Soon after the outbreak of the revolution, Ottoman authorities began massacring Greek islanders, whose fleets were instrumental to the Greek cause. The Turks and Egyptians ravaged several Greek islands during the Greek Revolution, including those of Samothrace

Samothrace

Samothrace is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a self-governing municipality within the Evros peripheral unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,723 . Its main industries are fishing and tourism. Resources on the island includes granite and...

 (1821), Chios

Chios Massacre

The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. Greeks from neighbouring islands arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chians to join the struggle for independence. In response, Ottoman...

 (1822), Kos

Kos

Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...

, Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

, Kasos

Kasos

Kasos is a Greek island municipality in the Dodecanese. It is the southernmost island in the Aegean Sea, and is part of the Karpathos peripheral unit. As of 2001, its population was 990. The island has been called in , .-Geography:...

 and Psara

Psara

Psara is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Together with the small uninhabited island of Antipsara it forms the municipality of Psara. It is part of the Chios peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The only town of the island and seat of the municipality is also called...

 (1824). The massacre of Samothrace occurred on September 1, 1821, where a Turkish fleet under the Kapudan Pasha Nasuhzade Ali Pasha killed most of the male population, took the women and children to slavery and burned down their homes. The Chios Massacre

Chios Massacre

The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. Greeks from neighbouring islands arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chians to join the struggle for independence. In response, Ottoman...

 of 1822 became one of the most notorious occurrences of the war. Mehmet Ali

Mehmet Ali

Mehmet Ali or Mehemet Ali is a Turkish given name for males. People with the name include:* Memet Ali Alabora, Turkish actor* Mehmet Ali Ağca, Turkish assassin* Mehmet Ali Aybar, Turkish sprinter* Mehmet Ali Birand, Turkish journalist...

, the Pasha of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, dispatched his naval fleet to Kasos and on May 27, 1824 killed the population

Kasos massacre

The Kasos massacre was the massacre of Greek civilians during the Greek War of Independence.On 7 June 1824, Mehmet Ali's men landed on Kasos and killed around 7,000 inhabitants. Reprisals were committed after the Greek Christian population rebelled against the Ottoman Empire; the island was burnt...

. A few weeks later, the fleet under Husrev Pasha destroyed the population of Psara.

Central Greece

Shortly after Lord Byron's death in 1824, the Turks arrived to besiege the Greeks once more at Missolonghi. Turkish commander Reşid Mehmed Pasha

Resid Mehmed Pasha

- Early life :Reşid Mehmed was born in Georgia, the son of a Greek Orthodox priest. As a child, he was captured as a slave by the Turks, and brought to the service of the then Kapudan Pasha Husrev Pasha. His intelligence and ability impressed his master, and secured his rapid rise...

 was joined by Ibrahim Pasha

Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt

Ibrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...

, who crossed the Gulf of Corinth

Gulf of Corinth

The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece...

, and during the early part of 1826, Ibrahim had more artillery and supply brought in. However, his men were unable to storm the walls, and in 1826, following a one year siege, Turkish-Egyptian forces conquered the city on Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. ....

, and exterminated almost its entire population. The attack increased support for the Greek cause in western Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, with Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

 depicting the massacre in his painting Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi.

Crete

During the great massacre of Heraklion

Heraklion

Heraklion, or Heraclion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete, Greece. It is the 4th largest city in Greece....

 on 24 June 1821, remembered in the area as "the great ravage" ("ο μεγάλος αρπεντές", "o megalos arpentes"), the Turks also killed the metropolite of Crete, Gerasimos Pardalis, and five more bishops: Neofitos of Knossos, Joachim of Herronissos, Ierotheos of Lambis, Zacharias of Sitia and Kallinikos, the titular bishop of Diopolis.

After the Sultan's vassal in Egypt was sent to intervene with the Egyptian fleet on 1825, Muhammad Ali's son, Ibrahim, landed in Crete and began to massacre the majority Greek community.

Cyprus

On July 1821, the head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church

Cypriot Orthodox Church

The Church of Cyprus is an autocephalous Greek church within the communion of Orthodox Christianity. It is one of the oldest Eastern Orthodox autocephalous churches, achieving independence from the Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East in 431...

 Archbishop Kyprianos

Kyprianos

Archbishop Kyprianos of Cyprus was the head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church in the early 19th century at the time that the Greek War of Independence broke out....

, along with 486 prominent Greek Cypriots

Greek Cypriots

Greek Cypriots are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community at 77% of the population. Greek Cypriots are mostly members of the Church of Cyprus, an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity...

, amongst them the Metropolitans Chrysanthethos of Paphos

Paphos

Paphos , sometimes referred to as Pafos, is a coastal city in the southwest of Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos and New Paphos. The currently inhabited city is New Paphos. It lies on the Mediterranean coast, about west of the...

, Meletios of Kition and Lavrentios of Kyrenia

Kyrenia

Kyrenia is a town on the northern coast of Cyprus, noted for its historic harbour and castle. Internationally recognised as part of the Republic of Cyprus, Kyrenia has been under Turkish control since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974...

, were executed by hanging or beheading by the Ottomans in Nicosia

Nicosia

Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...

.

The French consul M. Méchain reported on 15 September 1821 that the local pasha

Pasha

Pasha or pascha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors, generals and dignitaries. As an honorary title, Pasha, in one of its various ranks, is equivalent to the British title of Lord, and was also one of the highest titles in...

, Küçük Mehmet, carried out several days of massacres in Cyprus since July 9 and continued on for forty days, despite the Vizier's command to end the plundering since 20 July 1821.
On October 15, a massive Turkish Cypriot mob seized and hanged an Archbishop, five Bishops, thirty six ecclesiastics, and hanged most of the Greek Cypriots in Larnaca

Larnaca

Larnaca, is the third largest city on the southern coast of Cyprus after Nicosia and Limassol. It has a population of 72,000 and is the island's second largest commercial port and an important tourist resort...

 and the other towns. By September 1822, sixty two Greek Cypriot
villages and hamlets had entirely disappeared.

Peloponnese

Historian David Brewer writes that in the first year of the revolution, a Turkish army descended on the city of Patras

Patras

Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...

 and slaughtered all of the civilians of the settlement, razing the city.
The forces of Ibrahim Pasha were extremely brutal in the Peloponnese, burning the major port of Kalamata

Kalamata

Kalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...

 to the ground and slaughtering the city's inhabitants; they also ravaged the countryside and were heavily involved in the slave trade. When Ibrahim Pasha retook Tripoli in June 22, 1825, he massacred the entire Greek population, destroyed the city and tore down its walls.

Macedonia

Greek villages in Macedonia were destroyed, and many of the inhabitants were put to death. Thomas Gordon reports executions of Greek civilians in Serres

Serres

Serres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...

 and Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, beheadings of merchants and clergy, and seventy burnt villages.

In May 1821, the governor Yusuf Bey ordered his men to kill any Greeks in Thessaloniki they found in the streets. Haïroullah Effendi reported that then and "for days and nights the air was filled with shouts, wails, screams." The Metropolitan bishop was brought in chains, together with other leading notables, and they were tortured and executed in the square

Market square

The market square is a feature of many European and colonial towns. It is an open area where market stalls are traditionally set out for trading, commonly on one particular day of the week known as market day....

 of the flour market. Some were hanged from the plane trees around the Rotonda

Arch and Tomb of Galerius

The Arch of Galerius and the Rotunda are neighboring early 4th-century monuments in the city of Thessaloniki, in the region of Central Macedonia in northern Greece. The Rotunda is also known as the Church of Agios Georgios or the Rotunda of St...

. Others were killed in the cathedral where they had fled for refuge, and their heads were gathered together as a present for Yusuf Bey.

In 1822, Abdul Abud, the Pasha of Thessaloniki, arrived on 14 March at the head of a 16,000 strong force and 12 cannons against Naousa

Naousa, Imathia

Naousa or Naoussa is a city in the Imathia peripheral unit of Macedonia, Greece. Population 34,441.It is famous for its parks and for its ski resorts...

. The Greeks defended Naousa with a force of 4,000 under the overall command of Zafeirakis Theodosiou

Zafeirakis Theodosiou

Zafeirakis Theodosiou was a Greek prokritos , meaning political leader of Greeks during Ottoman rule, of Naousa, Imathia and an important figure of the Greek War of Independence in the region of Macedonia.-Life:...

 and Anastasios Karatasos

Anastasios Karatasos

Anastasios Karatasos was a Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence was born in the village of Dovras, Imathia Prefecture and is considered to be the most important revolutionary from Macedonia....

. The Turks attempted to take the town on 16 March 1822, and on 18 and 19 March, without success. On 24 March the Turks began a bombardment of the city walls that lasted for days. After requests for the town's surrender were dismissed by the Greeks, the Turks charged the gate of St George on 31 March. The Turkish attack failed but on 6 April, after receiving fresh reinforcements of some 3,000 men, the Turkish army finally overcame the Greek resistance and entered the city. In an infamous incident, many of the women committed suicide by falling down a cliff over the small river Arapitsa. Abdul Abud laid the town and surrounding area to waste. The Greek population was massacred. The destruction of Naousa marked the end of the Greek revolution in Macedonia in 1822.

Massacres of Jews

According to the Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish Virtual Library is an online encyclopedia published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise . Established in 1993, it is a comprehensive website covering Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish culture.-History:...

, Jewish populations in the Peloponnese

Peloponnese

The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...

 had become in disfavour with the Greeks by apparently supporting the Ottomans, and during the Greek War of Independence thousands of Jews were massacred alongside the Ottoman Turks by the Greek rebels, with the Jewish communities of Mistras, Tripolis, Kalamata

Kalamata

Kalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...

 and Patras

Patras

Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...

 completely destroyed. A few survivors moved north to areas still under Ottoman rule. St. Clair notes that some amongst the clergy incited murder of Jewish populations as they had of Turkish ones.

Steven Bowman claims that despite the fact that many Jews were killed, they were not targeted specifically: "Such a tragedy seems to be more a side-effect of the butchering of the Turks of Tripolis, the last Ottoman stronghold in the South where the Jews had taken refuge from the fighting, than a specific action against Jews per se." However, in the case of Vrachori a massacre of a Jewish population occurred first, and the Jewish population in the Peloponnese

Peloponnese

The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...

 regardless was effectively decimated, unlike that of the considerable Jewish populations of the Aegean

Aegean Islands

The Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast...

, Epirus

Epirus

The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...

 and other areas of Greece in the several following conflicts between Greeks and the Ottomans later in the century. Many Jews within Greece and throughout Europe were however supporters of the Greek revolt, using their wealth (as in the case of the Rothschilds

Rothschild family

The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...

) as well as their political and public influence to assist the Greek cause. Following the state's establishment, it also then attracted many Jewish immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, as one of the first states in the world to grant legal equality to Jews.

Prisoners of war

Both sides routinely slaughtered prisoners of war, despite guarantees. The Turks would typically offer captured Greeks the option of conversion to Islam or death' onMouseout='HidePop("55952")' href="/topics/Acropolis">Acropolis

Acropolis

Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...

 of Athens which was saved by Karaiskakis(.

The most famous Greek prisoner of war who was killed by the Turks was Athanasios Diakos

Athanasios Diakos

Athanasios Diakos , a Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence and a national hero, was born Athanasios Nikolaos Massavetas in the village of Ano Mousounitsa, Phocis.-Early life:...

. After a fierce battle, the severely wounded Diakos was taken before Omer Vryonis

Omer Vryonis

Omer Vrioni was a leading Ottoman figure in the Greek War of Independence.-Early life:Omer Vrioni was an Albanian from the village of Vrioni near Berat, with a distinguished record in the battles in Egypt against Napoleon. When Ali Pasha revolted against the Porte, Omer was his treasurer...

, a Turkish commander, who offered to make him an officer in the Ottoman army if he converted from Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 to Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

(. Diakos refused the offer, replying "I was born a Greek, I shall die a Greek" ("Εγώ Γραικός γεννήθηκα, Γραικός θε' να πεθάνω"). The next day, he was impaled

Impalement

Impalement is the traumatic penetration of an organism by an elongated foreign object such as a stake, pole, or spear, and this usually implies complete perforation of the central mass of the impaled body...

.

Janissaries

By 1826, the once elite corps of Janissaries, who were descended from Christian children (but by this time also included large numbers of Turkish conscripts) that were once collected in the Devshirme system and forced to become soldier-slaves,(but the system was corrupted later) were almost universally hated throughout Turkey because they had become a hereditary caste of corrupt Turkish soldiers. When they noticed that the sultan Mahmud II

Mahmud II

Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...

 was forming a new army and hiring European gunners, they mutinied, but the Sipahi

Sipahi

Sipahi was the name of several Ottoman cavalry corps...

s forced them to retreat to their barracks in the city of Thessaloniki. In the ensuing fight, the Janissary barracks were set in flames by artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

fire resulting in a massive number of casualties. Survivors were either exiled or executed and their possessions confiscated by the Sultan.