Prisoners of War
Both sides routinely slaughtered prisoners of war, despite guarantees. The Turks would typically offer captured Greeks the option of conversion to Islam or death(, and most Greeks chose the latter being deeply attached to their religion. Turkish prisoners of war were typically at the mercy of the commanders that captured them, there exist examples of massacres of prisoners after they were promised guarantees of safety, such as the garrison of Kalamata, and of remarkably humane treatment such as the Turkish garrison of the Acropolis of Athens which was saved by Karaiskakis(.
The most famous Greek prisoner of war who was killed by the Turks was Athanasios Diakos. After a fierce battle, the severely wounded Diakos was taken before Omer Vryonis, a Turkish commander, who offered to make him an officer in the Ottoman army if he converted from Christianity to Islam(. Diakos refused the offer, replying "I was born a Greek, I shall die a Greek" ("Εγώ Γραικός γεννήθηκα, Γραικός θε' να πεθάνω"). The next day, he was impaled.
Read more about this topic: Massacres During The Greek Revolution
Famous quotes containing the words prisoners and/or war:
“Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)