Qualla: Battle of Nicopolis (1798)

Battle of Nicopolis (1798): Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Felician Myrbach (1853-1940), Public domain. The ruins of ancient Nicopolis were already eighteen centuries old when soldiers began dying among them in October 1798. The battle fought there that autumn was small by the standards of the Napoleonic Wars — a few hundred French troops and their Greek allies against a force many times larger — but its aftermath fell on the people of Preveza with devastating force. What happened to the town's inhabitants after the fighting ended belongs to the history of this place as much as any troop movement or tactical maneuver.

Image: Felician Myrbach (1853-1940) | Public domain

Battle of Nicopolis (1798): A Republic Falls, an Empire Shifts

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Flickr user [2] (Γιάννης Χουβαρδάς). Uploaded from wikimedia user Thiodor2012., CC BY-SA 2.0. The chain of events that brought French soldiers to Nicopolis began in 1797, when Napoleon's campaigns ended the Republic of Venice. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, the former Venetian islands — Corfu, Cephalonia, Lefkada, Zakynthos, Ithaca, Kythira — passed to France, along with ...

Image: Flickr user [2] (Γιάννης Χουβαρδάς). Uploaded from wikimedia user Thiodor2012. | CC BY-SA 2.0

Battle of Nicopolis (1798): The Stand at Nicopolis

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlMare, Public domain. The French commander at Preveza had anticipated trouble and set his men to work building fieldworks on the isthmus at the site of ancient Nicopolis — the narrow neck of land that controls the approach to the peninsula. In just over two weeks they threw up two artillery redoubts o...

Image: AlMare | Public domain

Battle of Nicopolis (1798): What Happened in Preveza

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Felician Myrbach, Public domain. After the fighting ended, the people of Preveza faced what fell on many towns that found themselves on the losing side of such a contest. Ali Pasha had the town's inhabitants who had supported the French publicly executed. The town was torched. Many Prevezans had fled to Aktion,...

Image: Felician Myrbach | Public domain

Battle of Nicopolis (1798): The Prisoners and What Followed

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sakis Kostaris, CC BY-SA 3.0. La Salcette, seven French officers, and 149 other ranks were taken prisoner. They were subjected to mistreatment and paraded through the streets of Ioannina before being sent to Constantinople as a demonstration of Ali's loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan. A number of them, including ...

Image: Sakis Kostaris | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Nicopolis (1798): Ancient Ruins, Modern Soldiers

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Felician Myrbach, Public domain. The site of the battle is inseparable from the ruins of Nicopolis — Augustus's city, eighteen centuries old by the time the redoubts were built. Ali Pasha made his command post on a hill the sources call Michalitsi, which may have been on or near the Monument of Augustus itself. ...

Image: Felician Myrbach | Public domain