Battle of Gravia Inn

On 8 May 1821, just weeks after the Battle of Alamana, a small band of Greek fighters led by Odysseas Androutsos held off a large Ottoman army at an inn in Gravia, in Phocis, central Greece. The Ottoman commander Omer Vrioni was marching south with several thousand troops to crush the revolution. Androutsos, a former klepht and a skilled guerrilla leader, positioned around 120 men inside the stone inn, which they fortified, while other Greek fighters withdrew into the surrounding mountains. For hours, the defenders repelled repeated Ottoman assaults, firing from the walls and windows and inflicting heavy losses. When the Ottomans brought up artillery, Androutsos and his men slipped out of the inn under cover of darkness and escaped through the enemy lines with few casualties. The battle had a major effect. It delayed the Ottoman advance, allowing the revolution in the Peloponnese to gain strength, and it boosted Greek morale after the defeat at Alamana. It also made Androutsos a hero, and it remains one of the most celebrated episodes of the war.