Qualla: Burning of the Ottoman Flagship off Chios

Burning of the Ottoman Flagship off Chios: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlekH at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. Two months earlier, the same water had carried away the captives. Ottoman forces had landed on Chios in the spring of 1822 and turned the island into a charnel ground: tens of thousands of Greek inhabitants killed, tens of thousands more taken and sold into slavery in the markets of Smyrna and Istanbul. Now, on the night of 18 June, the bay was calm and the moon was hidden, and a small wooden boat drifted toward the great Ottoman flagship riding at anchor. Aboard her, packed with tar and gunpowder, the men of Psara waited for the wind.

Image: AlekH at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Burning of the Ottoman Flagship off Chios: After the Massacre

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maarten Sepp, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Chios massacre was not a battle. When the Greek War of Independence reached the island in 1822, the Ottoman response was annihilation - by most accounts more than thirty thousand islanders killed and tens of thousands more enslaved, a community erased within weeks. News of it...

Image: Maarten Sepp | CC BY-SA 4.0

Burning of the Ottoman Flagship off Chios: The Night Attack

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lazaros Fytalis, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two captains took the operation. Konstantinos Kanaris of Psara would target the flagship of the Ottoman admiral; Andreas Pipinos would strike the vice admiral's vessel. Four escort ships waited to pull the fireship crews from the sea once their work was done. The timing was delib...

Image: Lazaros Fytalis | CC BY-SA 4.0

Burning of the Ottoman Flagship off Chios: The Explosion

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Friedrich Campe, Public domain. The fire climbed the rigging and spread across the decks faster than the crew could fight it. When the flames reached the powder magazine, the flagship did not merely burn - it disintegrated, a single tremendous blast that lit the bay and was heard for miles. Roughly two thousand...

Image: Friedrich Campe | Public domain

Burning of the Ottoman Flagship off Chios: What the Water Remembers

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain. Kanaris survived to repeat the tactic against the Ottoman fleet again, and lived long enough to serve as prime minister of the independent Greece he had helped win. The fireship attack entered Greek memory as a symbol of defiance against overwhelming odds, painted by Ivan Aivazov...

Image: Ivan Aivazovsky | Public domain