Messolonghi played an important role during the liberation struggle of the Greeks. After the Battle of Peta, the Turks headed for Messolonghi, whose strategic position ensured control of the Peloponnese for whoever conquered it. The first significant threat came on 20 July 1822 from the sea, when a united Turkish and Egyptian army under the command of Hassan Pasha arrived with 84 ships. After the first unsuccessful attack, the Greeks begin negotiations, mediated by Varnakiotis (who is subsequently said to have “bowed down” to the Turks) with Omer Vryonis. The city was protected by the “fence” the earthen mound built by Ath. Razikotsikas and on the outside with a trench 2 m wide, 1.20 m deep and 1600 m long. On top of the wall there were still 14 cannons and 2 Turkish cannons that had been taken as well as powder for a month.
On 21 October Kitsos Tzavelas and Botsaris arrived in the city with a few men and in the meeting that followed with Mavrokordatos they decided to “fight to the end”.The failure of the Turkish attack of 11,000 men was followed by negotiations which gave the Mesolonghians valuable time to organize their defense and the Hydraians time to send seven ships on 8 November to help Messolonghi.
The Turks set the attack for Christmas Day 1822, in order to find the Greeks unprepared for the holiday. On the eve of the attack, Konstantinos Gounaris of Ioannina, the Greek secretary of Omer Vryoni, whose wife and children were held hostage by the Turks in Arta, betrayed the plan to the Greeks and so when the Turks attacked they found men and women on every rampart heroically resisting. Thus the Greeks won the victory, while Gounaris, after the slaughter of his family, went to the monastery of Kleisoura to be cured.
In the years that intervened between the two sieges, the fortification of the city was organized by opening a large moat, commissioned to the Italian philhellenic engineer Petros Kokkinis, with 48 cannons. Having received an ultimatum from the Sultan, Kioutahi, with 35,000 troops, camped outside Messolonghi at the end of April 1825. There were about 4,500 Greek fighters inside Messolonghi. At sea, Mahmud Pasha’s fleet patrolled and supplied the Turks with food and ammunition continuously. In June, the Kioutahi ordered a general raid which was passionately rebuffed. Seeing the heroic resistance, Qutahashi attempts to negotiate a treaty, which the Greeks refuse. The siege continues and the Greeks, though without food and ammunition, continue to resist and provoke the anger of the Sultan who threatens to “take his head if Messolonghi does not fall”.
In December 1825 Ibrahim Pasha besieged Mesolongi and after failing, sought the cooperation of Kioutahi. But the situation for Greeks without supplies becomes increasingly desperate, as famine and disease are now a fact of life. Miaoulis is unable to supply the fighters and so the Exodus is decided on the night of April 10, 1826.
Three mobile bridges were constructed and erected at equal points. Those who were to exit were divided into these, while the helpless, together with those who chose to die near them, occupied the sturdier buildings along with ammunition to fight to the last. Before the Exodus, they recited the Blessed Sacrament and burned what was unnecessary. Shortly before, however, they become aware of the betrayal of the plan to Ibrahim by someone, probably a Turk, from the corps of the chieftain Ishku. Although they modified the plan, confusion, panic at the time of the Exodus and Turkish fire caused huge casualties. The support expected at Ai-Symio from the fighters of Karaiskakis did not come due to his sudden replacement at the head of the forces of Central Greece.
Only 1,300 fighters managed to reach Amfissa, while the women and children were decimated. Those who did not manage to get out, led by Christos Kapsalis, set fire to and blew up the powder magazine. The despot Joseph Rogon, after a tough resistance for two days and nights in the windmill, set fire to the last barrel of ammunition, completing the Exodus Epic in glorious fashion on April 12, 1826.
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