Ali Pasha, Lion of Ioannina

by Eugenia Russell

  The British as yet were in no position to intervene in the Ionian Islands, but they were acutely aware of their strategic importance and hence of Ali Pasha’s significance in relation to them. Spyridon and George Foresti, father and son, were Greeks from Zante in the service of the British Government. It was common practice for local consular services to be manned by natives of the region or of sympathetic countries. Before the outbreak of war between Britain and France, Spyridon Foresti had built up a large network of friends and business associates throughout the Ionian Islands, in southern Epirus and Dalmatia, and as far as Salonika and Constantinople, Asia Minor and Alexandria and with commercial agents and officials in Vienna, Bristol and London. Foresti had been appointed British vice consul on Zante in 1783 when it was under the Venetians, and promoted to consul in 1789 until the island was taken by France and he was incarcerated for a year on Corfu. He used this time productively as a spy, collecting information on shipping and the strength of the French Fleet for the Foreign Secretary, William Grenville. His efforts were so successful that Nelson attested that Foresti was one of only two consuls ‘I have found who really and truly do their duty’, and he recommended him to Lord Elgin at Constantinople, to the Foreign Secretary Lord Hawkesbury and Admiral Lord Keith. As an ex-sailor, Foresti’s connections amongst the sea captains and commercial travellers helped him in the gathering of information and the sending of dispatches. Nelson had already indicated a wish to free the Ionian Islands but when they came under joint Russian and Turkish control Foresti was given a roving consular commission. He was in Venice and then with the Russian Fleet taking part in the Siege of Corfu before being reinstated as consul on Zante and becoming the British resident in Corfu in 1799. A long-term resident of Zante and friend of Foresti’s was John Hawkins, a Cornish botanist and mining geologist who was making a study of local flora. Hawkins visited Ali Pasha in 1795 and 1798 where he was plied with gifts of antiquities. With his large network Foresti was perfectly placed to carry on his extra requirement of intelligence gathering for the military becoming the hub for the Adriatic and beyond. He kept Nelson informed of Russian intentions and naval capabilities and the general situation in Corfu and Albania with particular reference to Ali Pasha. He acted as a link between Nelson and Sir Sidney Smith in Egypt whose additional duty was to encourage Turkish opposition to Napoleon. Any such visit like that of Hawkins would have been useful to him. As early as 1798 Foresti was intercepting Ali’s communications with the French and he was able to give inside information as to why the Turkish Fleet abandoned Palermo in 1799. There had been a revolt amongst the sailors and thousands of them were released from duty at Corfu from where they proceeded to join Ali. Even at this stage the British were interested in recruiting two regiments of Albanians to help them in Sicily and Foresti was given the task, but the time was not yet ripe.

  Fig. 40: Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson (1799) by Lemuel Francis Abbott.

  With the establishment of diplomatic missions being part of the intelligence gathering process it was inevitable that Ali’s court would come into the frame. Although Ali’s domains were part of the Ottoman state, Ali was independent enough to warrant being dealt with as a separate entity. He could be used both as a conduit and as counterpoise to the Porte. In 1799, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, was appointed as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople where Sidney Smith’s brother John was serving as chargé d’affaires. Lord Elgin is remembered more for his interest in the collection of antiquities, most famously the Parthenon marbles held in the British Museum and commonly called after him, but he was in the post during a critical period of Anglo-Turkish relations. In his duties as ambassador he was able to travel in Greece accompanied by members of his staff. Philip Hunt, his chaplain, who aided him in his archaeological enterprises and was a keen collector of religious manuscripts, travelled extensively in the Aegean. This was a useful cover for the more serious business of intelligence collecting. In 1801 Hunt made a tour of the Morea with the purpose of discouraging local rulers from becoming involved with the French, from where he travelled to Ioannina. He spent three days there, and was received ‘with high honour by Ali Pasha’ having ‘two long conversations on the politics of the time’. Touching on the repairs Ali made to the fortress at Preveza and the discovery of some statues that Ali described as only seeming ‘to want breath’, Hunt managed to get a promise from Ali to send Lord Elgin any future antiquities he discovered. Behind the bonhomie there were serious developments in the air. On his arrival in Corfu, Hunt heard rumours of impending peace between Britain and France, rumours borne out early next year with the Treaty of Amiens beginning a short interlude in hostilities.

  Hunt was not the first choice from Elgin’s staff for such a mission, but William Richard Hamilton and John Philip Morier, his private secretaries, were unavailable. The new political climate offered Ali an opportunity to make more formal approaches to Britain, so when in early 1803, he requested Lord Elgin to send an emissary offering cooperation against France, it was Hamilton who was duly dispatched. Hamilton had been in Egypt, where he had seized the Rossetta Stone from the French and returned to Athens with Leake in 1802. Here they met Elgin and picked up some of the marbles from the Parthenon for transportation aboard Elgin’s ship Mentor. Caught in a storm rounding the Peloponnese at Cape Matapan, the tip of the Mani Peninsula, and overladen with antiquities, the ship sank after striking rocks off Cerigo (Kythera), an outpost of the Septinsular Republic. Lord Elgin had to spend the next two years retrieving the marbles from the seabed. In the meantime he was travelling in Boeotia and contemplating visiting Ali himself, but such thoughts had to be postponed as the British consul in Athens, Spyridon Logotheti of Levadia, working on Elgin’s behalf, had made himself unpopular with the local peasantry by seeking paid protection from Mukhtar. By May of 1803, relations with France had broken down once more. Impatient with Ali the French were arming the Suliotes, and Hamilton was in Ioannina just before war was officially resumed on 18 May. On the 6th, he had written to Lord Hawkesbury, giving a glowing impression of Ali.

  He is prompt in his measures, full of energy, and professes a very quick and nice discernment of Individual Character; but his want of education, and life spent in arms, have rendered him in his Government cruel and despotic, because he found it to his advantage. He has however established the most perfect tranquillity, and security of Persons and Property throughout his dominions, whose Inhabitants, Greeks and Turks, are richer, happier, more contented than in any other part of European Turkey.

  Ali had once again worked his charm, and no doubt giving the impression to the British he was someone they could do business with. Hamilton broached the possibility of the British Navy accessing stores through ‘Panormo’, Porto Palermo in Himara, and in a secret interview discussed Ali’s intentions on the resumption of war with France. Ali indicated the possibility of the British using the ports for military purposes, garrisoning and building fortifications along the coast and opening up trade between Albania and Britain. Hamilton passed on the information to Hawkesbury, Nelson and Sir Arthur Paget at Vienna who was responsible for the alliance, the Third Coalition, against France that year. By 26 May he was travelling back through Thessaly to Athens. The following year he was in Vienna before returning to London. Elgin had already left his post and was unfortunately caught in France when war resumed and was detained there for three years.

  Hamilton was followed by Morier who was born in Smyrna and came from a family of career diplomats; his father had been Consul General in Constantinople. Morier was appointed British Consul General to Albania, the Morea and adjacent territories of the Ottoman Empire to continue to discourage local alliances with France and gain intelligence as to the disposition of the inhabitants and their military capability to repel invasion. Early in 1804 Morier had an audience with ‘His Excellency’ during which Ali turned on the charm, offering assurances of his ‘entire devotion’ to the British government and underlying the threat from th
e Russian occupation of the Ionian Islands, which he also saw as a connivance by the Porte to reduce his power. Ali offered the use of his ports and even of 3,000 men to the British in return for arms, ammunition and artillery officers. Ali impressed Morier with his predictions of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the possibility of using him as a bulwark against other ‘Christian’ nations in return for protection and acknowledgement of his independent status. Needless to say Ali kept quiet about any dealings, previous or otherwise, with the French. Meanwhile from Corfu, Foresti was also acting on orders from Nelson to see if Ali would offer trade privileges. The need for timber and port facilities was becoming acute but it was important that the negotiations were kept from the Russian and Turkish governments and Nelson wrote to Ali in cipher. The intelligence was not immediately acted on but became useful in the later stages of the war. The value of Corfu as ‘an observatory over the whole of European Turkey’ had become apparent and it was a major motivation supporting the British invasion of the islands in 1809. The close relationship between Foresti and Nelson came to an end with his death at the Battle of Trafalgar the next year. John Morier was only in Ioannina a short time as his brother, the 20 years old David Richard Morier, arrived via Veli’s base in Tripolitza in the Morea to take up his appointment as secretary to the political mission to Ali’s court. John performed his duties as Consul General from Zante from where he could liaise with the Russians and update Nelson on the situation in Albania. While the Ionian Islands were under Russian control Foresti was working with their plenipotentiary, Count Moncenigo, on the mainland with instructions from Hawkesbury to support the rebels in order to frustrate the endeavours of the French and from Nelson as to his intelligence requirements.

  The British were not to have Ali all to themselves however. Julien Bessières had arrived at the same time to act as a conduit between Ali and the French. The loss of the Ionian Islands made it more imperative than ever for the French to have good relations with Ali. Two years later Bessières was replaced at Ioannina by François Pouqueville, sent by Napoleon to counter British influence. Pouqueville had been a physician to the Commission of the Sciences and Arts that accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign in 1798, when he had been forced to head home by bad health; only to be captured off Calabria by pirates from Tripoli on the Barbary coast along with a number of high-ranking officers including Bessières. Many of these pirates were actually Turkish or Greek, and Pouqueville was taken to the Peloponnese where the Bey of Navarino (Pylos) gave him the freedom to explore the region. From there he was sent to Constantinople, where he was again well-treated and allowed to travel, until his eventual release and return to France in 1801. His report of his experiences published in France in 1805 was of great interest to Napoleon. The fate of Bessières and four others was less fortunate; they were sold by the corsair captain as slaves in Butrint where Ali acquired them. By chance he had been given access to French military expertise without having to bargain for it and he promised them liberty after two years’ service. Treating them well, he quickly set them to work organizing his artillery, defences and small fleet, but the captives were not content and made a bid for freedom. In 1800 Bessières and two others made for Corfu, now under the Russians where they were imprisoned in the Fortezza Nuova on Corfu. After only a year they managed to escape and return to France. Bessières’ experience and inside knowledge of Ali’s court was of great use to French diplomacy. Once Bessières had introduced Pouqueville to Ali, he took up the position of Consul General to Venice and from 1807 to 1810 he was imperial commissaire, in charge of all civilian affairs, on Corfu, and Pouqueville’s superior. Pouqueville served as consul at Ali’s court until the end of hostilities in 1815. While Ali was expressing disappointment to Morier that his requests through Nelson and others for arms, shot and cannon and officers to train his men in return for safe haven for ships and timber, and men against French attack had met with silence, Pouqueville had Ali’s ear. His medical experience gave him special access to Ali for whom he acted impressively as a personal doctor, increasing his status within Ioannina and giving him official recognition by the Porte. Despite the loathing of Ali’s deeds expressed in his memoirs, Pouqueville promoted Ali both to Napoleon as a useful ally in the region and favourably to the Porte. Through his efforts Pouqueville claimed Sébastiani, the French consul at Constantinople, had gained Veli and Mukhtar their pashaliks of the Morea and Lepanto to contain the Russians. French and Ottoman interests were coalescing round the desire to oust the Russians from the Ionian Islands from where they were propagating revolutionary ideas amongst the Orthodox populations in Dalmatia and the wealthy Greek merchants of Albania. Napoleon also wanted a bulwark against Austrian and Russia expansion into the Balkans, to which end he was happy to supply military aid to the Porte. To the British, Ali expressed distrust at the Russian influence at the Porte and disappointment with the French for not honouring their payments for his support, his conviction that the Ottoman Empire was near collapse, and how Britain could count on his future assistance while the Greeks would not rise up in support of the French because he indulged their vanity and easy-going natures. Military aid was indeed slow in materializing from the French, but at the same time as he was making Pouqueville welcome, even accompanying him on his travels and archaeological excursions, he was getting as much out of the French as he could by appearing to help them without committing himself. He was aware that Colonel Papasoglu was recruiting Albanians for his Chasseurs d’Orient his thinking was that with good relations with France they might provide extra manpower he could utilize.

  Fig. 41: Portrait of François Pouqueville (1830) in front of Ioannina by Henriette Lorimer.

  After Elgin’s departure from office, the painter Giovanni Battista Lusieri continued the excavations in Athens on his behalf. The outbreak of war between Britain and Turkey in February 1807 forced Lusieri out of Greece, but as he was leaving, Ali, one never to miss an opportunity, ordered that all the antiquities in his possession be sequestered. Ali then required samples of vases to be sent to him for his inspection. Lusieri suspected that Logotheti had become friendly toward the French and that he was really behind the request, but it transpired from a communication from Pouqueville to Louis-Sébastien Fauvel, the French consul in Athens and Elgin’s rival who was collecting antiquities for France, that Pouqueville had put Ali up to it. As the sculptures were too heavy to transport over land they had satisfied themselves with vases intending to send them on to the Emperor. Ali was well aware of the growing philhellenic sympathies in Europe and the importance of preserving and reconnecting with the birthplace of European civilization and was content to pander to these sympathies for his own ends. He did send some of the vases as a gift to Napoleon, but they never reached him. Pouqueville informed Foresti in 1814 that Mehmet Effendi,1 who was put in charge of their delivery, left them in Spalatro (Split) in Dalmatia when he was told that he had to go all the way to Vilnius in Lithuania to meet Napoleon. Apart from demonstrating Ali’s long reach, he was in effect in control of Attica and Athens at this time, the acquisition and disposal of the vases illustrates his canny use of diplomatic sweeteners. It was during 1807 that Ali was seeking French aid in his endeavours to take Santa Maura and he was doing everything to improve relations only to be undone by the Treaty of Tilsit and the transfer of the islands to France despite his diplomatic efforts to affect the outcome. Mehmet Effendi had been on his way to the Baltic as Ali’s emissary to the negotiations with the hope of impressing on France and Russia the need for Ali to possess the former Venetian territories in order to create a viable Albanian state. In the end Napoleon forced him to roll back his demands leaving only his obsession with Parga. In response he increased the duties on grain, wood and livestock exported to the islands. From then on French diplomacy would turn to creating an Albanian league of rival Beys against Ali to counter growing British influence in the Adriatic. Initial British policy had been to persuade Ali to comply with the Treaty while the Porte wanted h
im to create amicable relations with Britain. When Britain and Turkey briefly went to war, David Morier, who had been left in total charge of the mission to Ali, found the continuing discord between the governments undermined any progress and he was transferred to Sir Arthur Paget’s mission in the Dardanelles, and then attached to Sir Robert Adair’s embassy negotiating a peace treaty with the Turks. When Lusieri returned to Athens in 1809 he retrieved most of Elgin’s statuary, but the vases were irretrievably lost. Even the acquisitive Veli Pasha, enjoying his apogee in the Morea, had managed to gain access to his house and stores, taking vases as gifts for the French. Once the Treaty of the Dardanelles was signed between Britain and Turkey, Ali became full of eagerness to please towards Elgin, sending him gifts through Foresti and offering him aid in retrieving his antiquities, but by now he was no longer in control at Athens.

  In November 1807 Captain Leake appeared on the scene. As a young captain in the Royal Artillery he had been seconded to the British Military Mission to Turkey in 1799, travelling from Constantinople to Syria and Egypt before arriving in Athens to meet with Elgin. After the wreck of the Mentor and a short sojourn in London he was sent back East to assist the Ottoman government by assessing the state of their defences against possible French attack from the Adriatic, travelling extensively throughout Greece and Albania. This was a genuine concern and Foresti in Corfu was keeping Nelson informed of a possible French invasion. Leake’s fact-finding missions did not go down well with the French, and when war broke out between the Porte and Britain they connived to have him arrested in Thessalonika as a spy. It was on his release, after nine months’ confinement that he had his secret meeting with Ali concerning the peace negotiations between Britain and Turkey. Leake found Ali to be a man of ability but unstable, a fantasist convinced of his own importance and on bad terms with the Sultan. The feeling of the new Foreign Secretary, George Canning, was that Ali’s claims to independence should not be encouraged while the Sultan stood up to Russia and France. Leake induced Ali to act as a go-between to bring about a reconciliation before returning to Britain. Although Pouqueville and Bessières were keen to use Ali they did not hesitate to take a hard line in order to safeguard French interest. Bessières was under no illusions. He routinely wrote to Ali in an annoyed and displeased tone, making no secret of his distrust of him, but he was also eager to present himself as Ali’s ally. He wrote to Athanasios Psalidas explaining the lengths he had gone to by being required to write to Napoleon regarding Preveza, which Ali had held on to, explaining Ali’s position in an effort to reduce the bad impression Ali had made. The situation over the dependencies was becoming more fraught. General Berthier announced that Parga was formally under French protection but the French still had to do business with Ali when needs must. In December 1807 Bessières was in discussion concerning the possible purchase of 300 horses for the use of the French cavalry and in the following March he was asking for help in order to take possession of ‘the village of Vouthroto’ (Butrint). He followed with a more threatening letter and still having achieved no result, Mula Mehmet next wrote to Ali offering indirect payment for Butrint on the behalf of the French. Until the French lost the Ionian Islands, Ali continued to provision the French troops at an increasing cost, but as the situation dragged on his relationship with Bessières deteriorated. He continued to refuse to honour the agreement over the French possessions in Epirus and Bessières was aware that Ali was favouring Britain in order to get what he wanted, possession in the islands. He warned Ali that if they continued in the same vein he would be forced to become indifferent to Ali’s affairs, implying that he could not be held responsible for his future behaviour towards him. In fact the French were encouraging the formation of a league of dissenters and klephts against him based on the islands.