Battle of Alamana
Part of theGreek War of Independence
Battle of Alamana byPanagiotis Zographos under the guidance ofYannis Makriyannis
Date 22 April 1821 Location Thermopylae,Sanjak of Eğriboz,Ottoman Empire (nowPhthiotis,Greece) Result Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Greek revolutionaries Diakos' contingent	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Athanasios Diakos  Dimitrios Panourgias Ioannis Dyovouniotis	Omer Vrioni
Strength
Unknown	Unknown
Casualties and losses
200[1]	150[2]

TheBattle of Alamana was fought between theGreeks and theOttoman Empire on 22 April 1821, during theGreek War of Independence.^[3]

After the fall ofLivadeia on 1 April 1821 to a contingent of Greek fighters under the command ofAthanasios Diakos and Vasilis Bousgos,Hursid Pasha sent two of his most competent commanders fromThessaly,Omer Vrioni and Köse Mehmed, at the head of 8,000 men with orders to put down the revolt inRoumeli and then proceed to thePeloponnese and lift the siege atTripolitsa.^[4]

Athanasios Diakos and his band, reinforced by the fighters ofDimitrios Panourgias and Yiannis Dyovouniotis, decided to halt theOttoman advance into Roumeli by taking defensive positions nearThermopylae. The Greek force of 1,500 men was split into three sections - Dyovouniotis was to defend the bridge atGorgopotamos, Panourgias the heights of Halkomata, and Diakos the bridge at Alamana.^[5]

Setting out from their camp at Lianokladi, nearLamia, the Ottoman Turks soon divided their force. The main force attacked Diakos, the other attacked Dyovouniotis, whose force was quickly routed, and then Panourgias, whose men retreated when he was wounded. The majority of the Greek force having fled, the Ottomans concentrated their attack on Diakos's position at the Alamana bridge. Seeing that it was a matter of time before they were overrun by the enemy, Bousgos, who had been fighting alongside Diakos, pleaded with him to retreat to safety. Diakos chose to stay and fight with 48 men; they put up a desperate hand-to-hand struggle for a number of hours before being overwhelmed. Diakos, wounded in the battle, was captured after his sword broke.^[6]

Athanasios Diakos was brought before Omer Vrioni, who offered to make him an officer in his army. Diakos immediately refused and replied:

"I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek".

Vrioni then ordered that Diakos beimpaled.^[7]The Ottomans tried to make Diakos carry the sharpened pole, but he threw it down with contempt. As he was led off to be impaled, it was said that onlookers heard him sing:

"Look at the timeCharon chose to take me, now that branches are flowering, now that the earth sends forth grass".^[8]

Diakos's song was in reference to the Greeks' uprising against the Ottoman Empire. One popular version mentions that Diakos was also roasted over a fire, however, this is questionable because of another local, oral tradition that has him being killed by a Greek rebel the next day out of mercy, as he was found to be in a near-death state from the impalement.

Even though the battle was ultimately a military defeat for the Greeks,Diakos's death provided the Greek national cause with a stirring myth of heroic martyrdom and enhanced the morale of theGreek uprising against theOttoman Empire

Citations

Bibliography

• Paroulakis, Peter Harold.The Greeks: Their Struggle for Independence. Hellenic International Press, 1984.ISBN 0-9590894-0-3.

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• Conflicts in 1821
• Battles involving the Ottoman Empire
• Military history of Central Greece
• Battles of the Greek War of Independence
• History of Phthiotis
• 1821 in Greece
• April 1821
• Central Greece in the Greek War of Independence

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