Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Greek andartes struggled through the years of 1905-08:(43)
[. . .] many remaining in Macedonia to face the severe winters, roamed the mountains and villages, inflicting heavy casualties on the I.M.R.O., exarchist bands, notables, and agents, and indeed sometimes on the Turks.
The winters were indeed cold, temperatures frequently dropped to below zero degrees Fahrenheit. The lake at Kastoria often froze solid. Horse draw sleds were able to transport goods across the ice from Kastoria to Mavrovo and the other lakeside villages.
Leading one of the bands of Greek andartes was a Greek Army officer named Pavlos Melas(photo & photo / 44). Dedicated to the union of Macedonia with Greece, and supported by Crown Price Constantine, Melas crossed the Aliakmon River into Macedonia for the first time in March of 1904. He re-crossed the river several times gathering information and organizing armed bands to conduct clandestine operations. Melas was appointed commander-in-chief by the Greek Macedonian Committee in Athens. In October of 1904, after a summer campaign, he was shot and killed in the town of Statista (north of Kastoria).(45) Melas' death was mourned in Athens as: "[. . .] church bells tolled the passing of a national hero."(46)
Years later Dimitraki remembered Cretan volunteers in the guerilla bands that encamped close to the shore of the lake. Cretans were secretly recruited to fight in Macedonia. Eager to kill the Turks that held their land in captivity they came and fought with enthusiasm. However the Macedonian Greeks were interested in defeating Bulgarian Exarchists; not in killing Turks, who Karavangelis used to fight Bulgarians. The goals of Macedonian Greeks were first to assure the dominance of their ethnicity in Macedonia, and second, to unify Macedonia with Greece.
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