Running Out of Bullets: Greeks & Turks

When the Greeks fought for their independence from the Ottoman Turks in 1821, they began the war with a siege of the Acropolis – one of their most revered and historically significant sites. And when the Turks ran out of bullets, they started dismantling the blocks of the Parthenon to make more bullets. In an attempt to save the structure, the Greeks came up with a very unusual idea. In this episode, we talk about this Greek legend, and then speak with Nikki the Death Doula!

Back in 2015, I had this crazy 9 hour layover in the Athens airport in Greece. I had been to Crete for some shows and was on my way on to the next stop, but I wasn’t about to stay in the airport for an entire day, so I checked my luggage and paid a cab driver extra money to show me around Athens for the day. So I got to see the original Olympic stadium, the Changing of the Guard at the Presidential Mansion, Lycabettus Mountain, the Acropolis and the Parthenon. And today’s story revolves around the Parthenon. 

When I visited 9 years ago, the Parthenon was under a decades-long reconstruction project. People working on this thing were spending their entire careers studying the missing blocks in the marble and using 3D imaging to recreate the blocks. They’re attempting to restore it to its original shape. So first what was this thing built for?

It was built in 432 BC – 2,456 years ago – as a temple to the goddess Athena as a sort of celebratory monument for the Hellenic victory over Persian invaders during the Greco-Persion Wars. It was also used as the treasury. Later, it was converted to a Christian Church, then after the Ottoman conquest, was a mosque. The Ottomans were using it as a munitions dump and it when it was attacked by the Venetians, it destroyed a lot of the original structure. Over the years, the story of the Parthenon goes like this. Basically 7 different times, the Parthenon was attacked and completely transformed. During one of these times, a huge 40 foot shining bronze statue of Athena was stolen and never recovered. At one point, many of the important pieces of marble were shipped to Britain for study and never returned. 

From 1821 to 1830, the Greeks fought for their Independence from the Ottoman Turks. This war is now known as the Greek War of Independence and the Greek victory resulted in the formation of what we now know as modern-day Greece. It’s the beginning of this 8 ½ year war where today’s story takes place. 

The Greeks had been fighting for their Independence from Ottoman Rule for literally centuries. None of the rebellions had been particularly successful. But in March of 1821, a large organized Greek uprising began. And they instantly took back all of Athens – except the Acropolis. The Acropolis is the area around the Parthenon, a giant hill in the middle of the city that almost acts as its own town. In fact, the Ottomans had built many houses and store houses around the Parthenon. It was their military fort, and their armory. If you see a photo of the Acropolis, you’ll understand why. It’s an easily defensible position, rising above the city of Athens below, so they had high ground. But they also were leveraging the fact that they didn’t think the Greeks would attack their own sacred Parthenon. So that’s one of the reasons they used it to store munitions and powder. 

But now the Greeks were attacking to take it back. The force was made up of 600-some Athenians, but reinforced to a size of about 3,000 attackers with the help of Aeginan, Hydras, Cephallonians and Keas. The Ottomans also called in reinforcements and soon took back the surrounding city of Athens for a short time. In 1822, a second siege by Greeks once again had the Ottomans surrounded at the Acropolis and that’s when the Ottoman Turks began running out of bullets for their flintlock muskets. They started looking to the marble stones of the sacred Parthenon to make more bullets. That’s when the Greeks said “NO” and came up with another idea.

The Turks of the Ottoman Empire fought with several types of weapons in the Greek War for Independence. Ottoman Flintlock Muskets were smoothbore, muzzle-loaders, mostly of Ottoman build, but they also fought with imported weapons from Europe like the British Brown Bess and the French Charleville musket. Officers commonly carried pistols made in both the Ottoman Empire and by the Balkans. They also used artillery like cast-iron and bronze cannons. 

In 1822, the Greeks were making their second attempt to lay siege to the Acropolis. And during this time, the Turks started running low on bullets. Lead had been used in the joints of the stones to build the ancient structure, and, as the Turks needed lead, they started actually dismantling the Parthenon to make more bullets. They had already removed something like 500 stones. This was in the area that still stood after the horrible explosion that blew apart much of the structure 200 years earlier when the Venetians attacked. So this area of the Parthenon was now being destroyed and the Greeks watched and fought back. 

A young historian named Kyriakos Pittakis becomes very important at this point. He was an important Greek Historian, but he was also part of an underground resistance movement against the Ottoman Turks and likely fought in the 1822 siege at the Acropolis. He saw, before his very eyes, the Parthenon being destroyed so the Turks could make more bullets and he went to give a speech at the Academy of Athens, pleading for an unusual solution. He asked Odysseus Androutsos, a military leader of the time for bullets. Why? Pittakis’s plan was to actually give bullets to the Turks –  their enemies – in the hope that they stop dismantling the Parthenon. And they did! The Turks fought with the newly supplied bullets and left the rest of the Parthenon standing. 

They actually sent bullets up the mountain to the Acropolis, so that they would stop removing stones from the ancient temple. This one man and his connection to the history and preservation of the landmark actually saved part of this beautiful structure as the battle continued. 

By June of that year, the Turks surrendered the Acropolis after a year-long siege. The terms of surrender were that the Ottomans would be given free passage out of the country on foreign ships not aligned with Greece and the Turks who wanted to stay in Athens would be given amnesty to stay without being harassed.

Eventually, the Russians, the British and the French all came to the aide of the Greeks and by 1829, they won victory over the Ottoman Empire and regained their Independence after centuries of Ottoman rule. And today, the Parthenon still stands.

So 9 years ago, when I visited the Parthenon, some of what I was seeing had been restored and rebuilt, but much of it was original. And only preserved because one man cared about their ancient heritage enough to come up with an incredibly unusual tactic. The Internet Says it’s True.

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