Omer Vryonis
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Omer Vryonis (also Omer Vrioni) was a leading Ottoman figure in the Greek War of Independence.
Omer Vryonis was actually Albanian but, when Ali Pasha revolted against the Porte (as the government of the Empire was called), he chose the side of Sultan Mahmud II rather than that of his own countryman and ruler.
After the fall and execution of Ali Pasha, Omer Vryonis was sent to suppress the Greek Revolution which had broken out on March 25, 1821. On April 24, 1821, he defeated the Greeks at the Battle of Alamana and had their commander, Athanasios Diakos, impaled. "The sickening reality of the impalement was that the victim was spreadeagled face down, and held in place by ropes attached to each leg while a man with a heavy mallet drove a long sharpened pole in his anus.[1] Vrioni's advance was temporarily halted by Odysseas Androutsos who, with a handful of men, inflicted heavy casualties upon him at the Battle of the inn of Gravia on May 8, 1821.
Omer Vrioni was largely antagonistic with Kutahye, the Turkish commander of Central Greece and, in 1824, was recalled by the Porte and assigned a command in Macedonia.
[edit] Notes and sources
- ^ Brewer, David, The Greek War of Independence, (The Overlook Press 2001) p.86 ISBN 1585673951
