Surrender is no Guarantee of Safety

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Permalink Reply by shiva on May 16, 2015 at 10:28

The Battle of Sculeni was fought on 29 June 1821 in Sculeni, Moldavia 

The Ottomans possessed a military that outnumbered the Greeks at approximately ten to one.[3] Catacouzenos imitated the retreat of Ypsilantis to the Austrian Empire after Dragashani, by fleeing to Russia. However, his forces, made up of around 500 young Greek soldiers (Edwin Emerson places the number at 400 soldiers[3]), wanted to stay and fight against the Ottoman Empire. During the battle, approximately one-fourth of the Greek army fled by swimming across the Prut. The remaining soldiers continued to fight until they were either killed by the Ottomans or by the stream itself. The Russians, positioned on the opposite bank of the river, applauded the bravery of the Greeks. Giorgakis Olympios, a military leader who commanded an army in Wallachia, was garrisoned in the Moldavian Secu Monastery; Giorgakis fought until the Ottomans stormed the monastery and forced him to light powder kegs from which he perished in the explosion.

However, Giorgakis had a Macedonian comrade by the name of Yiannis Pharmakis, who continued the fight for a fortnight longer. In the end, on 4 October 1821, Pharmakis surrendered on the promise that his life would be spared. The promise was not kept by the Ottomans, and Pharmakis was ultimately decapitated in Constantinople.

Permalink Reply by shiva on May 16, 2015 at 11:09

Now for a really nasty deed

Batak massacre refers to the massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman irregular troops in 1876 at the beginning of the April Uprising. The number of victims ranges from 3,000 to 5,000, depending on the source.

The role of Batak in the April Uprising was to take possession of the storehouses in the surrounding villages and to ensure that the insurgents would have provisions, also to block the main ways and keep the Turkish soldiers from receiving supplies.

The task of Batak was to manage with the Pomak villages (Chepino and Korovo) should those try to prevent the uprising. Should the chetas in the nearby locations fail in their commands, the rest should have gathered in Batak. The only problem the organization of the uprising had expected was that Batak had to defend itself alone against the Turkish troops, but the risk was taken.

After the April uprising started on 30 April 1876, part of the armed men in Batak, led by the voivode Petar Goranov, attacked the Turks. They succeeded to eliminate part of the ottoman leaders, but were reported to the authorities and were sent 5,000 Bashi-bazouk, mainly Pomaks, led by Ahmet Aga from Barutin surrounded the town.

At that time the Pomaks were a part of the Ottoman Muslim Millet. After a first battle, the men from Batak decided to negotiate with Ahmet Aga. He promised them the withdrawal of his troops under the condition that Batak disarmed. After the rebels had laid down their weapons, the Bashi-bazouk attacked them and beheaded them.

While some of the leaders of the Revolutionary committee were surrendering the weapons, some people achieved to escape the village, but immediately after that all the territory was surrounded and no one else was let out.

The Bashi-Bozouk went to the houses and raided them; many were burnt and they shot at everyone and everything. Many of the people decided to hide into the houses of the wealthy or in the church, which had a stronger construction and were going to protect them from the fire.

On 2 May, those hidden in the House of Bogdan surrendered, because they were promised by Ahmet Aga to be spared. More than 200 men, women and children were led out, stripped out of their valuables and clothes, in order not to stain the land with their blood, and killed.

The Aga asked some of the wealthy men of Batak to go to his camp and lay down all the arms of the villagers. Between those who went were the mayor Trendafil Toshev Kerelov and his son, Petar Trandafilov Kerelov.

They had reached an agreement that if the village was disarmed, the Pomaks will leave Batak for good. But instead, the Bulgarians were caught captive – once the arms were confiscated, all of them were beheaded, burnt alive or impaled. The murder of the leader Trendafil Kerelov was particularly violent and was described by a witness – his son's wife Bosilka:

“My father in law went to receive the Bashi-Bаzouk when the village was surrounded and men Ahmet Aga, who said that he wanted all the arms laid down. Trendafil went to collect it from the villagers.

When he surrendered it, they shot him with a gun and the bullet scratched his eye. Then I heard Ahmet Aga command with his own mouth that Trendafil would be impaled and burnt.

The words he used were "Shishak aor" which means in Turkish to put on a spike, like the piece of meat they call “kebap”. After that, they took all the money he had, undressed him, gouged his eyes and teeth and impaled him slowly on the spike, until it went out of his mouth.

Then they burnt him, still alive. He lived for half-an-hour during this terrible scene.

At the time, I stood close to Ahmet Aga. Apart from me, there were some other Bulgarian women. We were surrounded by Bashi-Bozouk, who were fencing us from every side, and we were forced to watch what was happening to Trendafil.] One of her children, Vladimir, who was still a baby at his mother's breast, was impaled on a sword in front of her eyes. “At the time this was happening, Ahmet Aga's son took my child from my back and cut him to pieces, there in front of me. The burnt bones of Trendafil stood there for one month and only then were buried.”

The orthodox church "Sveta Nedelya" was the last keep of the rebels. Bashi-bazouk destroyed the school, where 200 people were burnt alive, hidden in the basement. Then they went straight to the church, where they dug holes into the fence of the yard and started to shoot at everyone there.

The most terrifying chapter of the massacre happened on the night of 2 May 1876 in that very yard. On the morning of 3 May the Pomaks took the yard and advanced to the door of the church, but weren’t able to get in – the door was bared by the people inside.

The defense of the church held for three days, the Turkish were shooting ceaselessly at the villagers to make them surrender. Some tried to enter the church from the roof, but were unsuccessful, although achieved to shoot some of the people inside.

There was no water in the church, so the barricaded had to resort to the oil of the lamps and the blood of their own dead. They tried to dig into the floor with bare hands in order to find underground water.

On the third day the survivors decided to go outside, when they realized their faith was decided. When they opened the doors of the church Ahmet Aga was waiting for them with his Bashi-bozouk. A ruthless beheading followed and only those who accepted to be converted to the Islam were left alive.

The plans of the Ottoman leader were to populate the village with the converted villagers, but they turned out not to be enough. Before the Bashi-bozouk left the village, they burnt the church, but the stone walls were preserved and only the wooden furniture and the icons were destroyed. When some Russian commissions were to go and inspect the village, 3 months later, the Ottoman authorities tried to bury the bodies, but they could not hide the smell in the air. They also painted the walls of the church, but the blood stains showed up in time.

After the massacre in the church, Ahmet Aga summoned all the surviving villagers outside, saying that it would be in order to make a list of the slain and the widows.

The better part of the survivors gathered, since those who did not obey would be killed. They were divided in two groups of women and men; then the Ottoman commander made the women stand back and slain all the remaining 300 men.

Those women who protested were also raped and killed. On the same day there were another 300 people murdered on the wooden bridge beside the school, first their arms cut, then their ears, noses, shoulders, and only after that they were finished.

Permalink Reply by shiva on May 16, 2015 at 15:22

Paul. I really do not know if it is possible to link to any individual events on the Timeline.Maybe Alan will know.

One very big negative is Timeline events do nor show up in search engines such as Google.

My next entry to this thread will prove you are right the West has very short memories