2814 LE MONITEUR UNIVERSEL

LE MONITEUR UNIVERSEL

No 218. Lundi, 6 Aout 1827. Toulon, 24 July. Extract from a private letter. “I left Colonel Faviero on the 7th of June, on the island of Aegina. He had left the fortress of Athens on the 5th of the same month. The Acropolis of Athens capitulated, as we are informed by the newspapers, was evacuated by the Greeks and surrendered to the Turks on June 5. The garrison was conveyed to the island of Salamis by two ships from the Austrian station and four from the French nation, including the frigate Syrene, on board Admiral Derigny, to whom the capitulation was due, who negotiated the most favorable terms the Greeks could they hope The garrison, numbering one thousand and eight men, women, children, and soldiers, departed with their arms and baggage. Everything was done with great order. Not a single shot was fired from either side. The whole Turkish army had been routed by the seraskier, who behaved on this occasion with a fidelity hardly to be expected from a robber who had been stained by so many acts of treachery and cruelty... ...However disastrous to Greece the loss of the Acropolis of Athens, which was the avenue of Attica, the preservation of the garrison with all its weapons is no less important. The unfortunate affair of the 6th of May and the evacuation of the position of Faliros by the Greeks, on the 28th of the same month, had made the situation of the fortress hopeless, negating any hope of help from outside. He could only hold out for a little while longer, the garrison was short of water and barley. The water was beginning to run out and it was feared that the spring would dry up in the summer. In a few days he would reach the same extreme situation as that of Messolongius, and would be compelled to abandon women, children, old men, and wounded, and emerge, arms in hand, through vastly superior forces. In such a situation, then, nothing better could happen to the Greeks than to achieve a capitulation such as the one granted to them by the Pasha. He was so fluent in his negotiations with Derigny, because he knew that Ibrahim Pasha was coming with short marches to Corinth to meet at Athens, and he feared that he would again take from him the honor of taking the place, as at Messolonghi. Ibrahim is also superior to him, in his capacity as pasha of Mecca.' 2nd, p. 4. In French.