Pylos (Greek: Πύλος), historically also known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Pylos has a long history, being inhabited since Neolithic times. It was a significant kingdom in Mycenean Greece, with remains of the so-called “Palace of Nestor” excavated nearby, named after Nestor, the king of Pylos in Homer’s Iliad. After the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in mid-March 1821, Navarino was besieged by the local Greeks on 29 March. The garrison held out until the first week of August, when they were forced to capitulate. The Turks under Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt retook most of the Peloponnese in 1825, including the Pylos area, overcoming the Greek defenders at the battles of Sphacteria and Neokastro. In October 1827, the combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleets were defeated in the bay at the Battle of Navarino by the allied navies of the United Kingdom, France and Russia. The sinking of the Ottomans’ Mediterranean fleet saved the fledgling Greek Republic from collapse. But it required two more military interventions, by Russia in the form of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–9 and by a French expeditionary force to the Peloponnese to force the withdrawal of Ottoman forces from central and southern Greece and to secure Greek independence. Pylos, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:41:09 +0000
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