On 4 March 1827, Georgios Karaiskakis repels an attack by the Ottoman warlord Mehmet Resit Pasha (known as Kioutahi) at Keratsini, an area north of Piraeus, and inflicts heavy losses. The Battle of Keratsini once again highlighted the leadership qualities of the "son of the nun", who the following month would be killed quite ingloriously at Faliro to the detriment of the Revolution.
We were in the seventh year of the national uprising and the Turks had been besieging the Acropolis since July 1826. Karaiskakis, having already liberated most of Rumeli, most brilliantly exemplified by the epic Battle of Arachova (18-24 November 1826), had sensed that any fall of the "Castle of Athens" would have adverse effects on the course of the Revolution, which was already at a critical point after the fall of Messolonghi (10 April 1826) and Ibrahim's successes in the Peloponnese.
From Elefsina, where he was, he considered it necessary to occupy the area of Keratsini to secure his rear from the sea on the one hand and on the other to open a road to the Acropolis through Dafni and Eleion to relieve the besieged. He believed that this route would ensure the protection of his army from the enemy cavalry, while having the coastal Keratsini as a base he could more easily supply his forces from the ships.
On 2 March Karaiskakis arrived with his men in the area and organized his plan. The Qutah, who was besieging the Acropolis, as soon as he was informed of the arrival of his old acquaintance at Keratsini, hastened the next day with 800 men to spy on his movements. He occupied a hill on the southern hill of Korydallos, which the Athenians then called the hill of Sardela, and erected two cannons. On the same day he engaged in skirmishes with Karaiskakis' men, without any particular result.
On 4 March he repeated the attack with a much stronger force, consisting, according to some memoirists, of 3,000 infantry and 400 cavalry (other sources mention a larger number: 4,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry). Initially he turned to a fortified metochi, defended by Toussa Botsaris, Gardikiotis Grivas and Nikolaos Kasomoulis, with their few men. After cannonading it, he prepared around noon for the final assault.
Seeing the criticality of the situation, Karaiskakis attempted a diversion, but this was perceived by Kioutahi and he split his forces in two. The heroic resistance of the defenders of the metochion immobilized the Turks, who were later forced to flee when the cavalry of Hadjimichalis Dalianis appeared, inflicting heavy losses. At the same time reinforcements arrived from neighbouring Castella, completing the defeat of Kioutachi.
The Turks' losses were significant for the force they deployed. The dead amounted to 300 men and the wounded to 500 men. The Greeks lost 3 men, while about 25 were wounded. Makriyannis mentions in his "Memoirs" that the defenders of the Acropolis, seeing from afar the progress of the battle, went out and engaged the besiegers. This information, according to historians, seems exaggerated, because the Athenians could not have had an accurate view of the battle at Keratsini. However, Makriyannis' account echoes the general mood of euphoria and the lifted morale of the Greeks after Karaiskakis' great victory at Keratsini.
The "Achilles of Romiosyne", as Kostis Palamas called him, proved once again his military abilities on the battlefield, having under his command men who were not even close to forming a regular army. However, a few days later, he would be stripped of his command of Rumeli by a decision of the National Assembly of Troizina, so things would take a different turn when the English philhellene Richard Church took command of the army.
Source: sansimera.gr
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