Battle of Agionori

Battle of Agionori
Part of the Greek War of Independence
Date 28 July 1822 Location Agionori, Corinth, Greece, Ottoman Empire Result Victory of the Greeks
Belligerents
Greek revolutionaries	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Nikitaras Nikitas Flessas Papaflessas	Mahmud Dramali Pasha
Casualties and losses
	600-1,000 dead

The Battle of Agionori was a military engagement of the Greek War of Independence. It took place on 28 July 1822, two days after the destruction of Dramali in Dervenakia. In this battle, the Greek leaders were Nikitaras, Nikitas Flessas and Papaflessas.

The events before the battle

After the battle at Dervenakia, Theodoros Kolokotronis conceived and implemented a plan to completely block Dramali's army, which he expected would attempt to pass from Nafplio to Corinth. Ultimately, the plan was not implemented properly, resulting in the Turks fleeing to Agionori, where the only one left to face them was Nikitaras with Nikitas Flessas. On the night of 27/28 July, Dramali learned that the Berbatios ravine was unguarded and decided to pass through it to reach the Agionori road and from there, via Klenia, to reach Corinth.

The battle

At first, Dramali turned against Nikitaras's corps at Agios Vasileios, which was more isolated and left a small force on the road to Agionori to occupy the Flessaians. Nikitara's men suffered losses and began to retreat towards Stefani, where they resisted effectively, assisted by Nikitas Flessas' corps. Finally, the Turks, caught between two fires, were defeated, losing at least 600 men (many historians put the losses at 1,000 men). They would have suffered greater losses if the Greeks had continued to pursue them, but it seems that they were dazzled by the rich loot and stopped. Only Nikitaras with a few men continued the pursuit, helped by the women of Agionori who threw stones at the Turks from above. Thus, a large number of the defeated escaped, along with Dramali's himself, to Corinth where they were again blocked by the Greeks.

The end of Dramali's army

In August and September 1822, Dramali regrouped the remnants of his army and tried three times to break through the Greek encirclement, unsuccessfully. After these failures, he tried to help the Turkish besieged Nafplio. In late October or November 1822, he died of grief or typhus. His men, based in Corinth, repeatedly supplied Nafplio and, after the fall of the latter, those who remained from illness and hardship fled to Patras, leaving a garrison of 500 men in Acrocorinth.

Sources

• Σφυρόερας, Βασίλειος (1975) [1956]. Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους - Η Ελληνική Επανάσταση (1821-1832). Vol. ΙΒ΄. Αθήνα: Εκδοτική Αθηνών. pp. 256–257. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)