Navarino, Battle of
1827 CE
The naval Battle of Navarino is fought on 20 October 1827, during the Greek War of Independence (1821–32), in Navarino Bay (modern-day Pylos), on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea.An Ottoman armada, which, in addition to imperial warships, includes squadrons from the eyalets (provinces) of Egypt, Tunis and Algiers, is destroyed by an Allied force of British, French and Russian vessels.
It is notable for being the last major naval battle in history to be fought entirely with sailing ships, although most ships fight at anchor.
The Allies' victory wais achieved through superior firepower and gunnery.The central factor that precipitates the intervention of the three Great Powers in the Greek conflict are the Russian Empire's ambitions to expand in the Black Sea region at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and Russian emotional support for the fellow-Orthodox Christian Greeks, who had rebelled against their Ottoman overlords in 1821.
Russia's intentions in the region are seen as a major geostrategic threat by the other European powers, which fear the disintegration of the Ottoman empire and the establishment of Russian hegemony in the Balkans and the Near East.
This induces Great Britain and France to bind Russia in a joint intervention to secure Greek autonomy in a manner that preserves Ottoman territorial integrity.The Powers agree, by the Treaty of London (1827), to force the Ottoman government to grant the Greeks autonomy within the empire and dispatch naval squadrons to the eastern Mediterranean Sea to enforce their policy.
The naval battle happens more by accident than by design as a result of a maneuver by the Allied commander-in-chief, Admiral Edward Codrington, aimed at coercing the Ottoman commander to obey Allied instructions.The sinking of the Ottomans' Mediterranean fleet saves the fledgling Greek Republic from collapse, but it requires 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.
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Following news that combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleets are going to attack the Greek island of Hydra, the allied fleet intercepts the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet at Navarino.
After a week-long standoff, a battle began that results in the destruction of the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet.
The combined British and French fleets eventually decide the issue; when an Allied force of British, French and Russian vessels destroys the Turco-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino on October 20, 1827.
This is the last naval action to be fought under sail alone.
Navarino creates the conditions for a new Greek state, of which the exact boundaries, nature, and disposition remain to be determined.