army of the west moved south again under a
new commander, Rashid Pasha of Yannina, and laid final siege on April 27
to Mesolonghi, just a year after Byron had died of fever within its walls.
The Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frail mud-bastions,
and they more than held their own in the amphibious warfare of the
lagoons. The struggle was chequered by the continual coming and going of
the Greek and Ottoman fleets. They were indeed the decisive factor; for
without the supporting squadron Rashid would have found himself in the
same straits as his predecessors at the approach of autumn, while the
slackness of the islanders in keeping the sea allowed Mesolonghi to be
isolated in January 1826. The rest was accomplished by the arrival of
Ibrahim on the scene. His heavy batteries opened fire in February; his
gunboats secured command of the lagoons, and forced Anatolikon to
capitulate in March. In April provisions in Mesolonghi itself gave out,
and, scorning surrender, the garrison--men, women, and children together--
made a general sortie on the night of April 22. Four thousand fell, three
thousand were taken, and two thousand won through. It was a glorious end
for Mesolonghi, but it left the enemy in possession of all north-western
Greece.

The situation was going from bad to worse. Ibrahim returned to
Peloponnesos, and steadily pushed forward his front, ravaging as steadily
as he went. Rashid, after pacifying the north-west, moved on to the
north-eastern districts, where the national cause had been shaken by the
final treachery and speedy assassination of Odhyssevs. Siege was laid to
Athens in June, and the Greek Government enlisted in vain the military
experience of its Philhellenes. Fabvier held the Akropolis, but
Generalissimo Sir Richard Church was heavily defeated in the spring of
1827 in an attempt to relieve him from the Attic coast; Grand Admiral
Cochrane saw his fleet sail home for want of payment in advance, when he
summoned it for review at Poros; and Karaiskakis, the Greek captain of
Armatoli, was killed in a skirmish during his more successful efforts to
harass Rashid's communications by land. On June 5, 1827, the Greek
garrison of the Akropolis marched out on terms.

It looked as if the Greek effort after independence would be completely
crushed, and as if Sultan Mahmud would succeed in getting his empire under
control. In September 1826 he had rid it at last of the mischief at its
centre by