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Third siege of Missolonghi, 1825 to 1826: the siege and the Exodus

Greek War of Independence · 15 April 1825 to 10 April 1826 · Greek revolutionaries vs Ottoman Empire and Egypt · ~7 min read · Updated October 2026

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Dark locator map of Greece and the Aegean with a gold star at Missolonghi on the Gulf of Patras, with a small world map inset.

Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain).

At a glance

Greek revolutionariesNotis Botsaris, Kitsos Tzavelas, Dimitrios Makris; the townspeople of Missolonghi
vs
Ottoman Empire and EgyptReşid Mehmed Pasha (Kioutachis); Ibrahim Pasha from December 1825
Date
15 April 1825 to the Exodus on the night of 10 April 1826 (Old Style; 22 April New Style)
Location
Missolonghi (Mesolongi), on its lagoon at the entrance to the Gulf of Patras, western Greece
War
Greek War of Independence
Strength
Ottomans about 20,000 (Phillips, Greek Herald) or never more than 10,000 (Finlay), joined late in 1825 by Ibrahim's Egyptian army; Greeks about 4,000 fighters and some 12,000 other people in the town (Finlay, Phillips)
Losses
Survivors of the Exodus put at about 1,000 of 7,000 (Greek Herald), about 1,300 (Phillips) or about 1,500 (Finlay); Ibrahim claimed 3,000 heads
Outcome
Ottoman capture of the town; a wave of philhellenic outrage in Europe
Quick answer

What happened at the third siege of Missolonghi?

In April 1825 an Ottoman army under Reşid Mehmed Pasha, known to the Greeks as Kioutachis, laid siege to Missolonghi, the Greek stronghold on its lagoon in western Greece. The town held out all summer and autumn. Late in 1825 Ibrahim Pasha brought his Egyptian army, took the forts of the lagoon and starved the town. On the night of 10 April 1826 by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, 22 April by the Gregorian, the defenders and townspeople tried to break out. Most were killed or captured, but the Exodus stirred Europe and helped bring the Great Powers into the war.1

Few places mean as much in modern Greek memory as Missolonghi, Mesolongi in Greek. The small town of fishermen and boatmen on a shallow lagoon held off two Ottoman armies for almost a year, and when its food ran out its people chose to break out together rather than surrender. Greece calls it the Sacred City. The Victorian historian George Finlay called the siege the most glorious military operation of the Greek Revolution.2

Background: the town on the lagoon

Missolonghi was the first town in western Greece to join the revolution of 1821. Its position let it control western Central Greece and the entrance to the Gulf of Patras, and under the politician Alexandros Mavrokordatos it became the center of the struggle in the region. Philhellenes came from many countries. Lord Byron arrived in 1824, gave money to the cause, revived interest abroad, and died of fever at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824.3

The Ottomans had already tried twice. In 1822 Reşid Mehmed Pasha and Omer Vryonis besieged the town for two months and withdrew with heavy losses, and a second campaign followed in 1823. Counting differs: Finlay and Greek News Agenda call the siege that began in 1825 the second, while Greek Herald and The National Herald, which count the campaign of 1823, call it the third, as our calendar does.4 › The Greatest Battles of the Ottoman Empire

Armies and commanders

Reşid Mehmed Pasha, called Kioutachis by the Greeks, was the Ottoman commander who had beaten the Greeks at Peta earlier in the war. He crossed the pass of Makrynoros into western Greece in early April 1825 almost unopposed. His strength is disputed: Phillips and Greek Herald give him about 20,000 men, while Finlay thought his army never exceeded 10,000 troops.5

The town was defended by an earthen wall across the neck of the promontory, strengthened with bastions, with a ditch in front and a fortified islet in the lagoon. Both Finlay and Phillips count a garrison of about 4,000 fighting men, soldiers and armed peasants, and some 12,000 other people inside the walls. The veteran Souliot Notis Botsaris commanded the troops. Panagiotis Papadiamantopoulos, a primate from Patras, sat on the commission that governed western Greece and led the civil administration of the town.6

Lithograph of a bearded man in a white turban and embroidered Greek jacket, with two pistols tucked in his sash and his right hand on a saber, captioned Notis (Constantine) Botzaris, Chief Captain of the Souliotes
Notis Botsaris, the Souliot captain who commanded the garrison of Missolonghi and led one of the columns of the Exodus, in a lithograph published in London in June 1826, two months after the fall of the town. Public domain. Joseph Bouvier (attributed), printed by G. E. Madeley, published by Adam Friedel, London, 1826, British Museum 1881,0514.22, via Wikimedia Commons.

The siege in phases

Spring and summer 1825. The siege began on 15 April 1825 by the Old Style calendar used in Greece; Finlay and Phillips, writing in New Style dates, have Reşid reaching the town on 27 April. Short of guns, he advanced by trenches and parallels, and at times his mortars fired stones for want of shells. When the Ottoman fleet arrived in July, he brought flat-bottomed boats into the lagoon and closed the town by water as well as by land. Assaults on the bastions at the end of July and on 1 and 2 August were all thrown back.7

The fleet and the mound. On 3 August a Greek fleet under Andreas Miaoulis appeared, and the Ottoman admiral sailed away. The Greeks retook the lagoon and resupplied the town. Reşid, short of money and ammunition, raised a great mound of earth toward one of the bastions and even took it, but the defenders cut it off and drove his men back, and in a great sortie on 21 September the townspeople, soldiers and civilians with spades, leveled the mound while the soldiers held off the besiegers. After another sortie in October Reşid fell back to a fortified camp at the foot of Mount Zygos.8

Hand-colored 1826 French map of the lagoon of Missolonghi, with the walled town at right, Anatoliko on its island at upper left, Fort Vasiladi at the entrance of the lagoon, the mountains of Zygos along the top and the Gulf of Patras at the bottom, with a lettered key to the bastions and batteries
Plan of the town and surroundings of Missolonghi, drawn from surveys made on the spot in 1825 and published in Paris in 1826: the walled town at right, the island town of Anatoliko at upper left, the fort of Vasiladi guarding the channel from the sea, and the mountains of Zygos, where the Exodus ended, along the top. Public domain. Pierre Lapie (attributed in the title), published by R. Ch. Piquet, Paris, 1826, Bibliothèque nationale de France GE D-17238, via Wikimedia Commons.

Ibrahim arrives. The Ottoman fleet came back in November, and Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the Egyptian army sent by Muhammad Ali of Egypt, which had already invaded the Peloponnese, was ordered to join Reşid. The pashas held a council of war late in November, and in December Ibrahim took over the conduct of the siege. Reşid, in a fit of cruelty, had a priest, women and boys impaled before the walls for passing news to their families inside. A fleet raised by private subscription in Greece got supplies into the town in January 1826, but its Hydriot crews, paid in advance for only a month, soon sailed home.9

The two pashas did not love each other. Finlay describes Reşid's irritation that Ibrahim never asked him for help or advice and ran his own operations with complete independence, and Phillips writes that the mere presence of the Egyptian wounded Reşid's pride. The winter rains turned the plain around the town into a swamp and halted the digging until the new year.10

Lithograph of a bearded man in a fez with a long tassel, wearing a cloak fastened with large tassels over an embroidered jacket, with a Greek caption naming Ibrahim Pasha
Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the Egyptian army, who took over the siege in December 1825, in a lithograph by Charles Baugniet of 1840. Public domain. Charles Baugniet, printed by P. Degobert, Brussels, 1840, KU Leuven Libraries PA06968, via Wikimedia Commons.

The lagoon falls. On 25 February Ibrahim opened fire from new batteries, and on the 27th and 28th his Egyptian regulars stormed the walls and were thrown back. He then launched a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats and took the lagoon fort by fort: Vasiladi, which guarded the channel from the sea, on 9 March, and the island town of Anatoliko soon afterward. The pashas offered terms; the defenders answered that they would defend the town to their last drop of blood.11

Klissova. On 6 April a small garrison on the islet of Klissova under Kitsos Tzavelas, about 150 men in Finlay's count and 200 in Phillips's, beat off repeated assaults by Reşid's Albanians and Ibrahim's regulars, who had to wade through mud under fire. Hussein Bey, the Egyptian commander, was mortally wounded. It was the last Greek success of the siege.12

Turning point: the Exodus

A Greek fleet under Miaoulis came back in April but could not break through the much larger Ottoman fleet, and sailed away. The town had rations for only two days. Rather than surrender, the defenders and townspeople resolved to force a passage for the whole population through the enemy lines.13

On the night of 10 April 1826 Old Style, 22 April New Style, the eve of Palm Sunday, the garrison formed three columns under Notis Botsaris, Kitsos Tzavelas and Dimitrios Makris, with the civilians behind them. The women dressed and armed like the men; children carried pistols. Help was to come from Georgios Karaiskakis, whose armatoli were to attack the Ottoman rear from Mount Zygos, but Karaiskakis lay ill and the attack never came. A deserter had warned Ibrahim, and the besiegers were waiting.14

As the crowd crossed the bridges over the ditch under heavy fire, a cry of "Back! Back!" went up, and many townspeople turned and fled back into the town. The columns broke through the trenches, but in the open they were ridden down by cavalry held ready for them, and at the foot of the mountain they ran into an ambush of Albanians where they had expected friends.15

Oil painting of a young woman in Greek dress with outstretched arms, standing on broken stones from which a dead man's hand protrudes, with a turbaned soldier holding a standard in the dark background
Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi, 1826, painted within months of the Exodus and now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux: Greece as a woman on the rubble of the town, the arm of a dead defender beneath her, an Ottoman soldier planting a standard behind. Public domain. Eugène Delacroix, 1826, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, via Wikimedia Commons.

Aftermath: the sack and the dead

The Ottoman and Egyptian troops poured into the town. Defenders who could not march blew up the powder stores rather than surrender, killing themselves with the attackers; Phillips and Greek News Agenda name the local notable Christos Kapsalis among them. Papadiamantopoulos, who had chosen to come back and share the town's fate, died in the sack.16

No exact count exists, and the sources disagree on the survivors. Finlay writes that about 1,500 reached Salona, most of them soldiers, with a few hundred more escaping elsewhere; Phillips counts about 1,300 who reached safety; Greek Herald writes that only about 1,000 of the 7,000 who joined the Exodus survived. Many of the women and children were taken prisoner and sold into slavery. Both Finlay and Phillips record that Ibrahim made a trophy of 3,000 heads.17

A military disaster became a political victory: within months of the fall of Missolonghi, Europe was arming the Greek cause.

Legacy and memory

For the Ottomans the road was now open. With western Greece secured, Reşid marched east into Attica; the town of Athens fell in August 1826 and the Acropolis in June 1827. Karaiskakis, who had failed to save Missolonghi, was killed in 1827 trying to relieve the Acropolis.18

The news caused an outcry across Europe. Phillips describes a wave of philhellenic feeling, with societies and subscriptions in France, Germany and even Austria, and Greek News Agenda notes the reaction in Paris and its influence on governments. Britain, France and Russia offered mediation in 1826 and 1827; when the Ottomans refused, their fleets destroyed the Egyptian and Ottoman fleet at Navarino on 20 October 1827, and Greece became independent.19

Eugène Delacroix painted Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi within months of the Exodus. The national poet Dionysios Solomos made the last days of the siege the subject of his unfinished epic, The Free Besieged.20

Visiting Missolonghi today

The Exodus is commemorated every year on Palm Sunday with a memorial procession from the cathedral of Saint Spyridon to the Garden of Heroes, the memorial park where monuments honor those who died for Greece's freedom. Parts of the old walls and gates can still be seen.21

Frequently asked questions

When was the third siege of Missolonghi?

From 15 April 1825 to the Exodus on the night of 10 April 1826 by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, that is from 27 April 1825 to 22 April 1826 by the Gregorian calendar.

Who besieged Missolonghi?

An Ottoman army under Reşid Mehmed Pasha, known to the Greeks as Kioutachis, joined late in 1825 by the Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha, who took over the conduct of the siege.

Who defended Missolonghi?

About 4,000 soldiers and armed peasants under Souliot captains such as Notis Botsaris and Kitsos Tzavelas, and the townspeople themselves, with Panagiotis Papadiamantopoulos leading the civil administration.

What was the Exodus of Missolonghi?

The breakout attempted by the starving defenders and people of Missolonghi on the night of 10 April 1826 (Old Style; 22 April New Style). The besiegers had been warned by a deserter, the relief from outside never came, and most of those who took part were killed or captured.

How many people survived the Exodus?

No exact count exists. Accounts of the survivors range from about 1,000 of 7,000 (Greek Herald) to about 1,300 (Phillips) or 1,500 (Finlay); many women and children were captured and sold into slavery.

Why is it sometimes called the second siege?

The Ottomans besieged the town in 1822 and campaigned against the area again in 1823. Historians who count only the full sieges, such as Finlay, call the siege of 1825 to 1826 the second; those who count the 1823 campaign call it the third.

Why is Missolonghi important?

Its fall shocked Europe, strengthened the philhellenic movement and helped push Britain, France and Russia toward the intervention that led to Navarino in 1827. Greece honors it as the Sacred City.

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

  1. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”. ↩
  2. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”. ↩
  3. Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Lord Byron”; Tserpeli archive, “The Exodus of Messolonghi”. ↩
  4. Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”; The National Herald, “The Garden of the Heroes awaits in Messolonghi”; George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”. ↩
  5. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”. ↩
  6. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”. ↩
  7. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”. ↩
  8. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”. ↩
  9. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “War of Greek Independence”. ↩
  10. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”. ↩
  11. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”. ↩
  12. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; To Vima, “Messolonghi Marks 200 Years Since the Heroic Exodus”. ↩
  13. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”. ↩
  14. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Geórgios Karaïskákis”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”. ↩
  15. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”. ↩
  16. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”. ↩
  17. George Finlay, “History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”; Tserpeli archive, “The Exodus of Messolonghi”. ↩
  18. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “War of Greek Independence”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Geórgios Karaïskákis”; W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”. ↩
  19. W. Alison Phillips, “The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “War of Greek Independence”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”. ↩
  20. Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Greek News Agenda, “Missolonghi, Sacred City”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”; The National Herald, “The Garden of the Heroes awaits in Messolonghi”. ↩
  21. The National Herald, “The Garden of the Heroes awaits in Messolonghi”; To Vima, “Messolonghi Marks 200 Years Since the Heroic Exodus”; Tserpeli archive, “The Exodus of Messolonghi”; Greek Herald, “Remembering the Exodus of Messolonghi in 1826”. ↩

Sources

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