YPSILANTI. 



151 



with which and earth they would fill up the ditches, 

 so that they might advance to fight hand to hand 

 with the garrison, undermine the walls, and, by 

 throwing them down, win the place." Before this 

 expedient could be executed, however, news was 

 brought that the king of France was advancing with 

 a powerful body of troops; and on receiving this 

 intelligence, the bishop and his captains thought it 

 best upon the whole to endeavour to make their 

 escape as fast as they could. They reached home, 

 and also contrived to carry with them a good deal 

 of booty : but they were not thought to have 

 brought much honour back from their campaign. 

 " When these knights," the historian tells us, " re- 

 turned to England, they were attacked by the com- 

 mon people, who told them they had behaved very 

 badly in their expedition, for, from the prosperity 

 they had had at the beginning, they ought to have 

 conquered all Flanders." 



YPSILANTI; an old Greek Fanariot family at 

 Constantinople, descended from the Comneni, mem- 

 bers of which have several times held the dignity 

 of hospodar in Moldavia and Walachia. The grand- 

 father of the princes Alexander and Demetrius, 

 celebrated for their share in the Greek revolution, 

 was executed at the command of the Porte, with 

 the most horrible tortures. Their great-grand- 

 father and uncle were victims of the bow-string. 

 The father, Constantine Ypsilanti, hospodar of 

 Walachia, was deposed by the Porte in 1805, but 

 was reinstated at the request of Russia. When 

 Russia threatened the Porte with war in 1806, he 

 learned that his head was in danger, and fled to 

 Jassy. The Russian government assigned him and 

 his family Kiev as a residence. When the Rus- 

 sians advanced into Walachia, he hoped to recover 

 this principality by their aid. With this view, he 

 repaired thither, and armed the Walachians against 

 the Turks ; but instes J of the 40,000 men whom 

 the Russian general req.iired of him, he could col- 

 lect only 5000. The body of Russian auxiliaries 

 was therefore too weak; and Ypsilanti had to escape, 

 by way of Transylvania, to Russia, where he died 

 at Kiev, in 1816. He wrote several works. His 

 sons entered the Russian service. The eldest, 

 Alexander, imperial Russian major-general, and aid- 

 de-camp of the emperor, born at Constantinople, 

 Dec. 12, 1792, went with his father, in 1805, to 

 Petersburg, and entered the Russian service. He 

 fought with distinction at Polotzk, in 1812, and 

 was a captain of hussars, when a ball, at the battle 

 of Dresden, Aug. 27, 1813, carried away his right 

 hand. In 1814, he spent some time in Weimar. 

 About this time, the emperor made him a colonel 

 and his aid-de-camp. In 1817, he received the com- 

 mand of a brigade of hussars, and was appointed 

 major-general. In 1820, he became acquainted 

 with the Hetaireia. He joined this association, and 

 eventually became its head. When be saw that 

 the breaking out of the insurrection could no longer 

 be delayed, one of his couriers having been arrested 

 in Servia, so that he had reason to fear the discovery 

 of the whole plan, he resolved to plant in Moldavia 

 the standard of revolt. He crossed the Pruth with 

 f a few attendants, and, on Feb. 23, old style, (March 

 7), 1821, at Jassy, the capital of Moldavia, under 

 the very eyes of the hospodar, Michael Suzzo, 

 issued a proclamation in which he announced that on 

 this day Greece had kindled the torch of freedom, 

 and thrown off the yoke of tyranny. (See Greece, 

 Insurrection of.~) This step of Ypsilanti's was con- 

 nected with the plan of a general insurrection, 



which was to break out simultaneously in the Mo- 

 rea, on the islands, and in Constantinople. Ypsi- 

 lanti hoped to promote the main project by his 

 entrance into Moldavia. The insurrection was 

 also hastened by the enterprise of Theodore Wla- 

 dimiresko. This rude but daring Walachian, after 

 the death of the hospodar of Walachia, Alex. Suzzo, 

 Jan. 30, 1821, had, with a band of Arnaouts, called 

 the Walachian peasants and pandoors to arms, 

 in order to obtain from the Porte, by means of the 

 assistance of Russia, which he promised them, the 

 restoration of the ancient rights of the country. 

 Ypsilanti, who, however, was in no way connected 

 with Wladimiresko, gave his companions and all 

 the Hetairists, who hastened to him from Russia 

 and Germany, the assurance that Russia would as- 

 sist the cause of Greece. But the military insur- 

 rections in Italy, on account of which the congress 

 of Laybach was convened, induced the emperor 

 Alexander to express publicly his disapprobation ol 

 the undertaking of the Hetairists, and to summon 

 their leader, the prince Alex. Ypsilanti, to make 

 his defence. As he did not obey, the emperor 

 caused his name to be struck from the rolls of the 

 Russian army. The Russian consul at Jassy had 

 already, April 9, issued two proclamations, in the 

 name of his sovereign, commanding prince Ypsilanti 

 and his adherents to return immediately to Russia, 

 and exhorting the Moldavians to tranquillity and 

 obedience to the Porte. Mich. Suzzo was, in con- 

 sequence, obliged to leave Moldavia, April 1 1 ; and 

 the boyards sent deputies to the Porte, praying that 

 another hospodar might be given them, adding the 

 assurance, that they would themselves suppress the 

 rebellion. Ypsilanti, when he learned this, was 

 on his march to Bucharest. He and his band, of 

 about 5000 men, persisted firmly in their enterprise. 

 April 10, he entered Bucharest, which city Wladi- 

 miresko, who would not join Ypsilanti, had left 

 with his pandoors, shortly before. April 12, Ypsi- 

 lanti marched to Tergowist, where he wasted his 

 time, while Wladimiresko was negociating with the 

 Porte. The boyards themselves had refused all 

 participation in Ypsilanti's attempt ; and many of 

 them had fled, with their wives, children, and pro- 

 perty, to Transylvania. Wladimiresko's insurrec- 

 tion was directed more against the boyards than 

 against the Porte. At the same time, the three 

 pachas of Widdin, Silistria, and Brailow, with 

 10,000 Turkish troops, entered Walachia and Mol- 

 davia. At Jassy, where the Hetairists had wrest- 

 ed the administration from the boyards, complete 

 anarchy prevailed. Jussuf, seraskier of Brailow, 

 defeated the Greeks at Galacz, May 13, took the 

 city by storm, destroyed the French flotilla on the 

 Danube, and compelled the Hetairists, May 18, to 

 evacuate Jassy. George Cantacuzeno retired, with 

 about 3000 men, without opposition, behind the 

 Piutb. Meanwhile Wladimiresko had regained 

 possession of Bucharest, where he continued to 

 negociate with the Turks. May 28, he relinquish- 

 ed the city to Kiaya Mehmed, pacha of Silistria, 

 and, after some inconsiderable skirmishes with the 

 Turks, retreated to Pitescht, to make advances to 

 prince Ypsilanti. But Ypsilanti caused him to be 

 seized by captain Jordaki, (called also Gorgakis, or 

 George of Olympus') conveyed to Tergowist, and after 

 a trial by a court-martial, to be beheaded as guilty 

 of high treason, June 7. This transaction excited 

 much dissatisfaction and defection, because Theo- 

 dore Wladimiresko had never formally acknowledg- 

 ed Ypsilanti's supremacy. A portion, indeed, of 



