On June 11, 1821, Greek revolutionary forces captured Vrachori, the city now known as Agrinion, ending a siege that had ...

On June 11, 1821, Greek revolutionary forces captured Vrachori, the city now known as Agrinion, ending a siege that had begun on May 28 and delivering the most significant victory of the revolution's first year in Rumelia. Vrachori was not just another Ottoman-held town. It was the military and administrative capital of the entire region the Ottomans called Kàrleli, the equivalent of Tripolitsa for the Peloponnese. Taking it meant ripping the command center of Western Greece out of Ottoman hands. The assault was launched by six commanders, Dimitrios Makris, Thodoraki Grivas, Alexakis Vlachopoulos, Giorgis Tsongas, Nikolaos Kakaris, and Kostas Siadimas, who deliberately timed their opening attack on May 28 to fall on a day of Ramadan. Over the following days they tightened the siege until Ottoman food and ammunition stocks ran low and several warehouses had already fallen to the rebels. The garrison began to crack from within. Tensions between the Turkish and Albanian forces inside the walls turned into open conflict. The Ottoman-Albanian commander Nurka Zervani secretly cut a deal with the Greeks, allowing his Albanian troops to leave with their personal belongings. They slipped out at night heading toward Karpenisi, loaded with valuables looted from Turkish and Jewish residents, but the Yioldas brothers ambushed them on the road and decimated them. Zervani himself was taken prisoner. The remaining Ottoman defenders had no options left. They surrendered on June 11, and Vrachori fell to the Greek revolution. The city was later retaken by Ottoman forces under Ibrahim Pasha and did not become permanently part of the Greek state until 1832, but the fall of its strongest fortress in Rumelia 205 years ago today stood as the defining Greek victory of the entire first year of the war. #GreekRevolution #Greece #History