Already in the middle of the 15th century, relations between Russia and Greeks had begun to tighten. However, until the ascension of Peter the Great to the throne of Holy Russia, the good relations between Greeks and Russians were more "platonic". However, Peter the Great, from the moment he decided to elevate Russia to a great power, saw the usefulness of the Greeks in his plans.
A traditional enemy of Turkey, for purely geopolitical reasons, Russia, like the other European powers before, took advantage of the Greeks' desire for freedom . In his proclamation, Peter signed as Peter I, Emperor of the Russians and Greeks.
Papazolis and Orloff
Russian interest in the Greek issue was rekindled when the German Catherine II ascended the tsarist throne. Catherine, after with the help of her lovers the Orloff brothers, "helped" her tsar husband Petros to leave this vain world, took over the reins of the huge state. Through Grigorios Orloff, Catherine came into contact with the Greek artillery captain Georgios Papazolis (or Papazolis), from Siatista.
In view of the imminent Russo-Turkish war, Orloff, with Catherine's consent, decided to send Papazolis to Greece to investigate the situation and report back to him. Based on Trieste, Papazolis came into contact, through envoys, with Peloponnesian dignitaries, who enthusiastically listened to his announcements about the strengthening of the movement from Russia.
In 1765, Papazolis himself traveled to Greece and came into contact with well-known charioteers and Maniati Stefanos Mavromichalis. The Maniates gave the answer that if the Russians did not appear they were not going to move. Papazolis turned to the lord of Kalamata, Panagiotis Benakis, who decided to help with all his might.
The Russians are coming
In 1768 the Russian-Turkish war was officially declared. Russian troops invaded Ottoman territory from Prutus. At the same time, Alexios and Theodore Orloff, brothers of Grigorios Orloff, left Petrograd and arrived in Venice, with the aim of inciting the enslaved people of the Ottoman Empire into a revolution.
Four ships of the line, four frigates and a few transports, tragically equipped and staffed, made up the Russian "fleet". Admiral Spiridov was nominally in command. But the real leader was the English captain Greg. A number of Greeks were on board the Russian ships, among whom the Mykonian captain Antonios Psaros stood out. .
In the meantime, the Orloff brothers received a visit from Maniatian envoys who, however, stressed to them that they would move only if at least 10,000 Russian soldiers appeared in the Peloponnese and only if Catherine deleted from the letter she had sent them the insulting phrase "the empress Heudokesen to consider you (the Maniates) her subjects". The Maniates explained to the Orlovs that they were not looking for a dictator, but for freedom. So from the beginning the relations between Maniatoni and Orlov were not the best possible.
However, the Turks, fearing the explosion of a new revolution, carried out preventive massacres and persecutions. Turkalvan soldiers began to plunder the Greek populations. Even the ecumenical patriarch Meletius, by order of the sultan, was deposed and imprisoned. And while the revolution was in danger of being crushed before it even started, the Russians were not saying to move.
Finally, after many adventures, Spiridov's first Russian squadron, on whose ships the Orlov brothers had also boarded, together with some Slavonians and Montenegrins who had been recruited in the meantime, reached Greek waters. The Russians, instead of sailing quickly towards the Peloponnese, sent one of their frigates to the Peloponnesian coast, which for three weeks circled them, alarming the Turkish authorities. Finally, on February 28, the Russian fleet anchored in the port of Oitylos.
But the Orlovs had with them only 500 soldiers, 40 boxes of weapons, but also priestly vestments and icons! Despite this, the Orlovs demanded the immediate military uprising of the Maniats. They even "ordered" them to notify the other leaders initiated in the movement to hurry to their meeting. Finally the Greeks were convinced to cooperate and together with the few Russian soldiers two military corps were formed, the "Eastern Spartan Legion" and the "Western Spartan Legion".
Siege of Koroni, Kalamata, Mystras
The first objective of the Orlov troops was Koroni. On March 10, 1770, Theodore Orloff appeared with three ships of the line before the city and landed 400 men. The Turkish garrison, also of 400 men, was initially ready to surrender. However, when the operations began and the Turks saw the incompetence of Theodore Orlov, they regained their courage and continued the resistance. At the same time, the Western Legion, consisting of 200 Greeks and 12 Russians, occupied Kalamata.
The Eastern Legion had also managed to capture Mystras, due to the Turks' fear of the Russian uniforms worn by its men. The victory at Mystras resulted in a general revolution of the Greeks, from the Peloponnese to Thessaly and Crete. If the Russians had brought with them more forces and weapons the Turks would have been crushed by then.
But the Russians soon showed their weaknesses. The siege of Koroni was not going well, due to the incompetence of the Russian gunners, who, according to Mavromichalis, "destroyed the houses of the Greeks at the base of the castle, without damaging the castle itself".
Mavromichalis' criticism caused new quarrels with Theodoros Orloff. The Russian did not even hesitate to call Maniatis a renegade leader and the swords almost came out of their sheaths... After this the Russians abandoned the siege of Koroni , despite the fact that on April 23, 1770, he arrived in the Greek seas and the second division of their fleet.
The Greeks of Koroni were the first victims of the Russian abandonment and paid for Catherine's "games" with their martyrdom. In the meantime the chieftains of Sterea had managed to liberate Messolonghi, which they fortified with a moat and which they made the seat of the temporary Greek government.
General uprising
The revolutionary government then in vain asked the Orlovs for the provision of a warship to guard the entrance of the Corinthian. At the same time, the Lahouris and Grivas were besieging Agrinio and Stathas was driving the Turks out of the entire Valtos, as far as Agrafa and Karpenisi.
Further south, Susmanis besieged Nafpaktos. In the rest of Sterea, the chieftains Komninos and Kalpouzos were besieging Livadia and Mitromaras had forced the Turks to shut themselves in the Acropolis of Athens.
In the Peloponnese, the metropolitan of Patras, Parthenios put himself in charge of a revolutionary army and liberated the entire province of Phanarios and Kalavryta, while the Notarades occupied the Isthmus, while the Maniates occupied Pylos.
Just at this moment when victory was smiling on the Greeks, the Russians decided to blackmail the developments, with tragic consequences.
Defeat in Tripoli and massacres
The Eastern Legion, under Antonio Psaros, numbering around 3,000 armed men, was ordered by the Orlovs to occupy the Peloponnese capital Tripoli. It was a chimera. Psaros with his 3,000 men, without cavalry and artillery would have been impossible to capture the well-fortified Tripoli, which was guarded by significant Turkish forces.
So fatefully the Legion of Psaros was disbanded by the Turkish cavalry. As a result of the defeat, the Pasha of Tripoli ordered a general massacre of the Greeks. More than 3,000 Greeks of Tripoli were slaughtered and the Turks painted their horses and hands with their blood, thanking the "prophet" for the victory he gave them.
The same thing happened in Trikala where so many other Greeks were slaughtered, turning Pineos into a red swamp. However, massacres also took place in Lemnos, Smyrna and Philippopolis in Eastern Romilia. At the same time the Turks recruited multitudes of Albanians which they ordered to exterminate the Greeks.
The Turcalvanian hordes first attacked the chieftains of the western Mainland. Stathas was forced to retreat to the mountains. But Grivas and his brother Cheios, together with Lahouris, gave a fierce battle but all fell fighting.
After the suppression of the revolution in Sterea, the Turkalvans descended on the Peloponnese, after first lifting the siege of Livadia and occupying Messolonghi and Aitoliko by slaughtering and looting. Mitromaras tried in vain to stop them at the Isthmus . Although he destroyed an entire enemy body, he was forced to retreat to Salamis, along with the women and children of Megaridus, due to the enemy's enormous numerical superiority.
The Peloponnese is excavated
The Turkalvans finally invaded the Peloponnese through the Isthmus, but also through Patras, where they landed undisturbed by the Russian ships of war, which were chartered in Pylos. Patras was razed to the ground and Corinth was just saved, after the inhabitants gave a huge "bakhtsis" to the enemies.
Then 8,000 Turkalvans under Haji Osman attacked the Maniates. Mavromichalis with 24 more men managed to resist for three days. But in the end, he and his son, the only ones left alive, tried to get out, half-burnt.
But they were captured and massacred. Then the Turkalvans, under the indifferent eyes of the Orlovs, attacked Methoni, dispersed the Russian body guarding it and massacred all its Greek inhabitants. At the same time, Theodore Orloff, not only remained inactive in Pylos, but also refused the entry inside the walls to the thousands of Greek refugees, who were leaving to escape the Turkish knife.
And yet the Russians were able to help since they had even gotten rid of the Ottoman fleet which they completely destroyed. In the meantime, the Russian fleet was operating in the Aegean and "liberating" islands, which it immediately abandoned to the vengeful fury of the Turks. As far as the Peloponnese is concerned, 60,000 Turkalvans stormed the place, in an unprecedented orgy of blood and horror.
Finally, in 1774, Catherine signed with the sultan the treaty of Kiucchuk-Kainartzis, which ended the war and, supposedly, some care was taken for the orthodox citizens of the Sublime Gate. But virtually no care was taken and the Albanians slaughtered Greeks unmolested until 1779. Only then did the sultan take measures against them because they had become so insolent that they dared to attack their masters the Turks.