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"Every free man is a citizen of Messolonghi.”
On April 10 1826, the Exodus of Messolonghi took place. After a brutal and exhausting siege, the starving defenders—the "Free Besieged"—made a heroic, desperate breakout. Though the city ultimately fell and a massacre ensued, their sacrifice was a pivotal turning point in the Greek Revolution. The tragedy deeply shocked European public opinion and reinvigorated the international Philhellenic movement. This week the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Exodus culminate in Greece.
This immense moral outrage that followed the event, was the direct catalyst that forced foreign powers to intervene in the Greek struggle. On October 20, 1827, the allied intervention at the Battle of Navarino took place—a direct geopolitical consequence of Messolonghi's fall. By decisively destroying the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet, Navarino sealed the success of the Revolution and permanently secured Greek independence.
