Battle of Petra

On 12 September 1829, a Greek force commanded by Demetrios Ypsilantis defeated an Ottoman army at Petra, a pass in Boeotia, between Thebes and Livadeia, in the last battle of the Greek War of Independence. Demetrios was the younger brother of Alexandros Ypsilantis, who had launched the revolution in Moldavia in 1821, and he had fought in the war from its early years. In 1829, he was leading the Greek army in eastern central Greece, working to drive out the last Ottoman forces before the final borders of the Greek state were decided. At Petra, the Ottoman commander Aslan Bey was trying to withdraw his troops north when the Greeks attacked. After fighting, the Ottomans agreed to surrender and to leave central Greece, withdrawing north of the Spercheios River. The battle had symbolic importance. It meant that the war, which had begun under one Ypsilantis brother in 1821, was ended under the other. It also strengthened Greek claims to central Greece in the negotiations over the borders of the new state.