When Orthodox Tosk Albanians attacked Catholic and Muslim Gheghs and Marko Bocari (Marco Botzares) in 1823
According to the Scottish historian George Finlay, the night attack that cost the life of the legendary Markos Botsaris in August 1823 was far more complex than the traditional Greek narrative suggests.
At midnight on 21 August 1823, Orthodox Tosks (Arberors) surprised the camp of Catholic and Muslim Ghegs. Leading 350 Souliotes, Marco Botzares burst into the enemy camp and rushed to kill the bey. The Ottoman forces fled in panic. Finlay notes that the Greek captains, watching from nearby villages, failed to join the attack.
“But Greek envy sacrificed the Albanian hero,” he wrote.
This episode reveals a lesser-known dimension of the Greek Revolution: it was not only a struggle between Greeks and Ottomans, but also a brutal civil war between Orthodox Arberors (Albanians) fighting on the revolutionary side and Muslim (and Catholic) Albanians fighting alongside the Turks. Blood was spilled between brothers of the same nation, divided by faith and allegiance.
The death of Botsaris, one of the greatest Arberor heroes, became a tragic symbol of this internal conflict.
Cited:
“At midnight on the 21st of August 1823 the orthodox Tosks surprised the camp of the Catholic and Mussulman Guegs. Marco Botzares, at the head of three hundred and fifty Suliots, broke into the midst of their enemies and rushed forward to slay the bey. The Otroman troops, roused from sleep, fled with precipitation, leaving their arms behind. Had the Greek captains descended with the armatoli of Etolia and Acarnania from the villages in which they were idly watching the flashes of the Suliot arms, they might have annihilated the Turkish force.
But Greek envy sacrificed the Albanian hero. The bey of Ochrida had pitched his tent in a mandra or walled enclosure, built to protect beehives or young lambs from badgers and foxes. Botzares reached this wall, and, not finding the entrance, raised his head to look over it, in order to discover a means of entering it with his followers.”
Source
Finlay, George. History of the Greek Revolution. 2 vols. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1861.
