Ibrahim Pasha Invades the Peloponnese

In February 1825, Ibrahim Pasha, son of Muhammad Ali, the powerful ruler of Egypt, landed at Methoni in the southwestern Peloponnese with a modern, well-trained Egyptian army. Unable to defeat the Greek revolution on his own, the Ottoman sultan had asked Muhammad Ali for help, promising him control of Crete and the Peloponnese. Ibrahim's forces had been trained by French officers in European methods and were far better organized than the Greek irregular fighters or earlier Ottoman armies. The Greeks, still weakened by their civil wars, were unprepared. Ibrahim captured the strategic fortress of Navarino in May 1825 and defeated the Greeks at Maniaki. He then swept through the Peloponnese, burning villages, destroying crops and olive groves, and taking prisoners, and he also marched to assist the siege of Missolonghi. The Greek leader Theodoros Kolokotronis, freed from prison, led guerrilla resistance. Rumors that Ibrahim planned to remove the Greek population and resettle the region alarmed European governments. His campaign brought the revolution close to collapse, but it also pushed Britain, France and Russia toward intervention.