After the naval battle of Spetses (September 8-13, 1822), the defeated Turkish fleet fled to Souda. From there he set sail on October 8, heading for the Straits.
Arriving at Mykonos, he attempted to land crews on the shores of the island. Its inhabitants, however, led by Manto Mavrogenous, rejected their attempt: “instead of water and land, they offered him gunpowder and volleys”, writes Sp. Trikoupis, forcing them to board their ships again. After its failure to capture Mykonos (October 11-14), the Ottoman armada continued its voyage to the Straits. On October 15, however, due to rough seas, he was forced to approach Tenedos, awaiting orders from the Sultan. This fact, however, was noticed by the naval forces of the Greeks.
For what followed, the testimony of Anastasios Orlandos is revealing: “[…] the Psarians, conceiving the bold idea of setting fire to this enemy fleet, and in that place where it had anchored, prepared two fire-guns, while the Shakolevan [σσ. τύπος μικρού ιστιοφόρου] under G. N. Vratsanon, and the brikion under K. Kanarin, and on October 27 they were sent to their respective conditions, accompanied by two mystics [σσ. μικρά πειρατικά πλοία] under G. Kalafatin and A. Sarigiannin. The wind was blowing bitterly and the fiery ones were ahead, and the mystical ones were following. The Ottomans certainly saw these ships coming towards the fleet, but not suspecting that they could ever be of firepower, they thought on the contrary, perhaps, that the two in advance were Turkish, and that, being pursued by the mystics, they fled under the protection of the fleet. The firemen had agreed among themselves, the one under Vratsanon Shakolevan, as a slow-moving one, to throw himself on the first answered bikrot [σσ. πολεμικό πλοίο με δύο σειρές πυροβόλων] , and the brikion under Kanaris, on the other hand, from among those anchored inland; but Kanaris, having added other sails to his galley, when they approached the enemy’s fleet, threw it against the first dikrot that answered and burned it. This event, occurring around midnight on the 28th to the 29th of October, put the entire Ottoman fleet in such a state of panic and fear that they seized the enemy ships, cut their anchors, and tried to save themselves in the sails in order to avoid the supposedly threatening this danger” (An. Orlandos, Naval – i.e. stories of the pro-independence struggle of Greece that took place under the three naval islands, especially Spetses, vol. A, En Athens 1869, p. 322).
Other historians of the time refer more clearly to the trick used by the Greeks to mislead the Turkish fleet and get closer to their objectives. “The Volcanoes” [σσ. πυρπολικά], writes Spiliadis, “they carried a Turkish flag, and it appeared that they were being pursued by the Greeks. They were chasing it towards the evening, they can be seen on the shores of Tenedos, and the Turks think they are theirs, because I saw them being pursued”. (N. Spiliadou, Memoirs, vol. A΄, Athens 1851, p. 458). This ruse enabled Kanaris to attack the flagship of the Turkish fleet and burn it. The flagship, which Vratsanos had targeted, managed to be saved. “The admiral was saved, I cut her anchors,” writes Trikoupis, “but the vice admiral was set on fire. There were 1,600 sailors and soldiers in it, of which only 15 escaped.”
After setting fire to the Turkish ship, the sailors of the two fire-boats sailed to Skyros, where they had anchored both mystikas, “and the enemy fleet came down in fear and breathed the Hellespont, being humiliated behind the merchant ships of Greece and leaving the bold sailors of the sea king” (Sp. Trikoupis, Istory of the Greek Revolution, vol. II, London 1861, pp. 315-316).
Column Editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigone-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
