On 13 April 1822, Ottoman forces completed the destruction of Naousa, a city in Macedonia that had risen against Ottoman...

On 13 April 1822, Ottoman forces completed the destruction of Naousa, a city in Macedonia that had risen against Ottoman rule just months earlier. According to official Ottoman documents, 409 residents were killed, more than 400 women and children were sold into slavery, and 655 houses were confiscated. The city that had defied an empire paid in blood. The Greek defenders, numbering around 4,000, held out for weeks under four commanders: Zafeirakis Theodosiou, Anastasios Karatasos, Angelis Gatsos, and Diamantis Nikolaou. When Abdul Abud, Pasha of Thessaloniki, arrived on 14 March 1822 with 16,000 soldiers and 12 cannons, the city refused to surrender. Ottoman assaults on 16, 18, and 19 March all failed. The bombardment began on 24 March. By 6 April, reinforced by 3,000 additional men, the Ottomans broke through the defenses and entered the city. What followed was recorded even in Ottoman archives as systematic and total. Rather than be taken captive, many women threw themselves and their children into the waters of the Arapitsa waterfall at Stubanoi. A monument stands there to this day. Accounts passed down through generations in Greece describe the wives of Zafeirakis and Karatasos being tortured for refusing to convert to Islam. The wife of Zafeirakis is said to have been walled up alive inside the church of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki. The fall of Naousa effectively ended the Greek revolution in central Macedonia. The city lost its privileges for years. In 1955, a royal decree honored what happened there, and Naousa officially carries the title "The Heroic City of Naousa" to this day. #Greece #GreekHistory #MacedoniasHeroes