Asymmetric, 2-player, card-driven wargame. Beautifully presented. Streamlined, tense and very replayable. War, logistics and politics.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Anything you want… (you’ve got it)
about 5 years ago
– Thu, Apr 04, 2019 at 12:39:05 AM
Hello Everyone,
This is an update some of you were waiting for.
We rarely play solo at PHALANX, as we always have opponents to challenge in our office and playtest teams. But we often play with our children, as we have no less than 9 kids between us. That is why we haven’t originally asked Vangelis for a solo mode, but for an entry mode, to let us play with younger adepts of siege warfare. The idea that the game should have solo mode came later and despite Vangelis working hard, we weren’t in a position to announce it when the campaign started. But now?
Now we can.
This solo mode will be Kickstarter Special Expansion and will be made available to all the backers FOR FREE. It will be available in retail but at 6 GBP and in limited printrun.
Here is a description of the solo variant, provided by Vangelis himself:
Regarding the solo game, the way it will work is roughly this: The Insurgent player will be played by A.I., reacting to what the human Imperial player will be doing. There will be a flowchart spelling out various cases and what to do in each case, as well as 9 cards, one for each Insurgent action. When playing, you will be drawing a normal hand for the Insurgent "bot", keeping it face down. At the start of each of his turns, you will be revealing the top card and getting the written Action Points. You will be then following the flowchart to see how these points are going to be spent. The point of having the cards is that some information is placed on them to avoid filling the flowchart with rare cases or repeat the same ones again and again. Also, in some cases, the cards are used as randomizers regarding the action to be taken.
Keep in mind that if the Insurgent bot plays an Imperial card for points, it will be available for the Imperial player to use on the following turn, according to the main game's rules. On the other hand, when the Imperial player plays an Insurgent card, its effect is going to be automatically applied at the end of that turn.
The rules still need extensive testing to make sure they work properly in all cases (and there is no "bug" or loophole in the AI that the players will exploit) but the groundwork is there.
Second social goal taken!
With no less than 133 interactions you have taken the second social goal. Now all game boxes will get exclusive linen paper finish. Thank you very much! You may congratulate yourselves too!
The Sacred City
You already know the background and outcome of the Greek War of Independence. Now we can move to the most important part of our story. So, the initiative goes to our great friend Eric G.L. Pinzelli who continues his tale.
In April 15, 1825, the Ottoman armies in Central Greece besieged the fortified city of Missolonghi for the third time. The defenders managed to hold the city for one year, but the numerically superior strength of the Ottomans and Egyptians and the lack of supplies led them to decide a heroic sortie (called «Exodos» in Greek) on the fateful night of 10 April 1826. Of 10,500 people in Missolonghi at the time, very few people survived the Ottoman pincer movement after the betrayal of their plan. Romantic painters, writers and poets immortalized the scenes of the last moments of the besieged city and its inhabitants, turning the dramatic siege of Missolonghi into the most epic last stand of the early 19th Century.
Since its foundation in the 16th century, the economy of Missolonghi was based on fishing in its large sea lagoon. By the 18th century, the ships of Missolonghi were performing trade in the Eastern Mediterranean and even as far as the Atlantic Ocean. By the end of the century, the naval power of the city was undeniable. In the early 1820s, there were around 5,500 inhabitants, mostly fishermen. Built at one end of a shallow bay, which prevented access to deep draft ships, the city was separated from the sea a mere 7 km away by the marshy and shallow lagoon called Limnothalassa (sea-lake). The entrance to the bay was controlled by the islets Vasiladi, Dolmâ and Anatolikon at the northern end where fortifications were also erected. To the east, Mount Aracinthe was another natural defense. Despite these natural features, the city’s land defenses only consisted of a small ditch almost filled, a wall poorly maintained, and four rusty cannons.
This was about to change however: From the onset of the Revolution, Missolonghi became one of the political and strategic centers of the uprising. The city turned into the citadel of western Greece and the outpost of rebellious Morea. It was also the seat of the “Senate of the Western continental Greece” with Alexandros Mavrokordatos as its President.
After a first unsuccessful attempt to take the town in the fall of 1822, another expedition to western Central Greece was undertaken by Mustafa Pasha of Scutari and Omer Vrioni. To try to stop them, Marcos Botsaris and 450 Souliotes led the celebrated attack on the turkish camp south of Karpenisi the night of 21 August 1823. They managed to catch the enemy by surprise and inflicted serious casualties, but Botsaris was killed. His death, a severe blow to the Greek cause, was compared to Leonidas’ at the Thermopyles. His body was brought back and buried at Missolonghi. After a few weeks of siege, on 20 November 1823, Mustafa Pasha had to lift the second siege of Missolonghi due to shortages.
The previous defeats suffered by the Turks during the two first sieges increased dramatically Missonlonghi’s symbolic value for both sides. Knowing the Turks would come back more determined than ever, from March 1823 Mavrokordatos had commissioned engineer Pietro Coccini from Chios to reinforce and expand the fortifications, which were upgraded with 48 cannons and 4 mortars. During seven months, all the residents of Missolonghi worked in shifts regardless of age or sex to improve the vital fortifications. The wall extended from the waters of the lagoon across the promontory on which the town was built. The wall was about 3,50 meters high, 7-18 meters wide. It was defended by bastions, towers of different sizes and strengthened toward its eastern extremity by a lunette and a tenaille. The wide muddy ditch provided an extra protection. It wasn’t a typical Vauban state of the art fortress, but it provided added confidence to the inhabitants.
Missolonghi gained even more fame and recognition as the city of the most illustrious of Philhellenes, the English poet Lord Byron whose reputation and personality made him the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics. Byron landed with great fanfare in Missolonghi in January, 1824, as a representative of the London Greek Committee. Lord Byron tried to integrate the unruly Souliotes into a regular army. Scores of Souliotes were attached to him, attracted by the money that he was known to bring. An attack on the fortress of Lepanto with Napier or Gordon was planned but the scheme never made any progress. The Souliotes became more and more unruly, mutinying for more pay. The disputes among the foreigners worsened.
A disheartened Byron had planned on leading his brigade but fell sick before he was able to see its fruition. He died on April 19, 1824 of a high fever that was thought to have been caused by bloodletting, contaminated medical instruments. His death became a catalyst for the romantic souls of Europe, while the prolonged resistance of the city jolted, stirred and was awakening the world. Men began to make their way to Greece as a direct result of hearing that Byron had gone there. In Western Europe and America newspapers were more than ever full of epic stories of the «noble Greeks» fighting the «barbaric Ottomans».
Written by Eric G.L. Pinzelli
Thank you for your support!
PHALANX Team
Risen from the Ashes
about 5 years ago
– Tue, Apr 02, 2019 at 11:59:53 PM
Hello Everyone,
It has been a week since this campaign started, and we are in 80% of our funding goal. Thank you very much! We are happy that this ambitious, even if niche, project is so close to being funded. This baby just needs a final push, so to speak. To help mother Freedom deliver her offspring, spread the word and share the below links:
Provided above posts get a total of 100 interactions we will upgrade the game box to the linen paper finish. We need shares and likes at Facebook, likes and retweets at Twitter and likes at Instagram, It should be easy-peasy, as you have 84 already. ;)
Solo variant
Out of the many queries, here at the Kickstarter but also through other channels, one is the loudest. You want a solo variant for Freedom! We wouldn’t be PHALANX if we didn’t listen. So, we are very glad to be able to tell you that Vangelis, who was frantically working behind the scenes for some time, has just announced the solo variant is now ready.
We have also decided to throw in a simplified game variant, to be used as a tutorial or entry level scenario, or a game variant to be played with children or non-seasoned opponents. We call it ‘Assault’ as it concentrates just on the siege, leaving aside the issues of supplying the war and politics. Some of you had a chance to see the variant in play at Essen Spiel last year. Now, it will be in every game box.
We need to work out how to fit both of the above into the box as there are production and logistic requirements we need to account for. We’ll keep you in the loop in further updates.
Phoenix Rises! Greek War of Independence.
And now let’s get back to our story, written by Eric G.L. Pinzelli. We can see you quite enjoy these capsules, so here, a longer one:
«Cast your eyes toward the seas, which are covered by our seafaring cousins, ready to follow the example of Salamis. Look to the land, and everywhere you will see Leonidas at the head of the patriotic Spartans!» - Alexandros Ypsilantis, 8 October 1820.
When the Venetians lead by Francesco Morosini reconquered the Peloponnese (Morea) from the Ottomans at the end of the 17th Century, many Greeks, mostly from Mani, rallied and fought alongside the European mercenaries. At the Peace of Karlowitz (1699), the Porte had reluctantly accepted the transfer of its southern Balkanic dominion to the Serenissima. Under the progressive Venetian administration, peoples from the Morea started to experience a new degree of freedom, a first «national» awakening was taking place. Even after the swift reconquest of the Peloponnese soon after by a mighty Ottoman force (summer of 1715), the land remained in turmoil, from then on and throughout the 18th century, as bands of klephts (bandits-insurgents) multiplied. During the Greek War of Independence, the klephts, along with the armatoloi (Greek militia), would form the nucleus of the Greek fighting forces, and play a prominent part throughout its duration.
The next great uprising was the Russian supported Orlov Revolt of the 1770s, which was eventually crushed by the Ottomans after having limited success. The defeat of the Ottoman fleet at Chesma speeded up rebellions by minority groups in the Ottoman Empire, especially the Orthodox Christians in the Balkan peninsula. A small Greek pirate flotilla lead by Lambros Katsonis continued to harass Turkish shipping in the Aegean until 1790.
in 1814 in Odessa, influenced by the Italian Carbonari, young Phanariots Greeks created a secret organization in freemasonic fashion. Its purpose was to unite all Greeks to overthrow Turkish rule, the Φιλική Εταιρεία (Friendly Association or Society) was born. The Society initiated members from the diaspora Greeks of Russia and the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. By 1821, the membership numbered in thousands. In 1820, Alexandros Ypsilantis, veteran of the Napoleonic Wars who had attended the Congress of Vienna, was elected as the leader of the Eteria. The Greek revolt actually started in a territory where the Greeks were a minority: On 22 February 1821 (O.S.), Alexandros Ypsilantis raised the Greek banner of revolt in Moldavia. The Romanians (who had more grievances against the Greek Phanariots than against the Turks) actually helped the Turks to expel the Greeks. Ypsilantis had hoped that his actions would cause the Russian Empire to intervene on his behalf, but Tsar Alexander I, a leading proponent of the Concert of Europe, disavowed any relation with him and effectively gave the Ottomans the "green light" to march into the Principalities to deal with the insurrection. The official opinion of the powers on the Greek Revolution, pressed most strongly by Metternich and the Austrian Government, that the Sultan was the legitimate sovereign of the Greeks and that they were wrong to rebel against him, struck European public opinion as particularly cynical. The Congress system and the Holy Alliance poised to subdue any revolt. Ypsilantis was defeated at the Battle of Drăgășani in June 1821. His Sacred Band, whose motto was «From my ashes I'm reborn» was annihilated. Ypsilantis was saved by a French philhellene officer and had to flee north, were he was detained by the Austrian authorities.
Despite its failure, the Sacred Band inspired the uprising in mainland Greece in March 1821, when the Greek Independence War really began. Almost immediately, the insurrection became an international media event throughout Europe: the issue of Greek freedom turned out to be a cause of European civilization:
«We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece... The Modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our kind, and he inherited much of their sensibility, their rapidity of conception, their enthusiasm, and their courage.» - Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, 1821 (his last published poem).
At the time, the Ottoman Empire faced war against Persia and a revolt by Ali Pasha in Epirus (whose Greek concubine was also a member of the Eteria), which forced the vali (governor) of the Morea, Hursid Pasha, and other local pashas to leave their provinces and campaign against the rebel force from 1820 until January 1822. The uprising would have much more success in the Peloponnese, a rugged area suited to hit-and-run warfare, with an overwhelming Christian majority, and Greek dominance in the sea due to the many ships of the nearby islands of Hydra, Spetses and Psara.
With the governor of Morea busy besieging Ali Pasha’s Ioannina, bands of armed Greeks rallied to take his own capital, Tripolitsa, situated in the heart of the Peloponnese. After the city had fallen in September 1821, the brutal massacre at Tripolitsa was the final and largest in a sequence of extermination against all the Muslims in the Peloponnese during the first months of the revolt. Many of the rebels viewed the conflict very much as a religious war between Christians and Muslims, the cross was chosen as the symbol of the rebellion. In January 1822 the insurgents declared the independence of Greece. The Turks attempted three times (1822–24) to invade the Peloponnese but were unable to reconquer the peninsula.
Internal rivalries, however, prevented the Greeks from gaining the upper hand definitively. In fact, in 1823 civil war broke out between the warlords Theódoros Kolokotrónis and Geórgios Kountouriótis, who was head of the government that had been formed in January 1822. After a second civil war (1824), Kountouriótis was firmly established as leader, but his government and the entire revolution were gravely threatened by the arrival of Egyptian forces, led by Ibrāhīm Pasha, which had been sent to aid the Turks (1825). With the support of Egyptian sea power, the Ottoman forces successfully invaded the Peloponnese; they furthermore captured Missolonghi in April 1826 and the Athenian acropolis in June 1827.
The city of Messolongi played an important role in the Greek War of Independence, because of its strategic location at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. In April 1824, Lord Byron died in Missolonghi of an illness, adding to the fame of the city. Despite repeated attacks, the city endured for a year, but hunger led the garrison and the entire population to a heroic exodus on the night of April 10, 1826, from which only a small number survived. The events of Messolongi constitute one of the most moving episodes of Greek history. The struggle of the besieged astonished the international public opinion, which saw in this the symbol of ultimate heroism.
In a twist of destiny, it was the European great powers who ultimately rescued the rebellion which was hopelessly divided and had failed militarily. While the Turks and Egyptians were about to suppress the revolution, a mediation of the Great Powers (Britain-France-Russia) was achieved for solving the «Greek problem». The Treaty of London (July 1827) demanded a truce between the belligerents and the autonomy of Greece. Ottoman intransigence instead led to the unplanned naval battle of Navarino (October 1827), where the combined fleets of the three Great Powers annihilated the Turkish-Egyptian squadron.
The naval battle of Navarino was the decisive event for the Greek War of Independence. Soon after, a Russian army of 100,000 men swept aside the Ottoman forces in the Romanian Principalities and crossed the Danube. A French land expedition followed in August 1828 (the Morea Expedition, which was a military and scientific enterprise as during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign) under the command of General Maison, and within two months succeeded in evacuating the Peloponnese of all Egyptian presence. After the Morea military expedition, the insurgents Greeks only had to face the Turkish troops in Central Greece.
In 1830 the foundation and Independence of the Greek State was finally recognized by the Great Powers. The Greek territories that had been liberated by September 1829, a year after the Morea military expedition (the Peloponnese and central Greece), were those which would form independent Greece after 1832. Liberals, romantics and philhellenes in Europe and America had triumphed over the Congress system, Greece had recovered its freedom. Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier.
Written by Eric G.L. Pinzelli
It is all for today. But before you open a new window, please grab your keyboards and devices and spread the news about this project. Let’s fund this game as quick as we can, leaving enough time for some interesting stretch goals and game variants. :)
Thank you and happy gaming!
PHALANX Team
Eastern Question
about 5 years ago
– Tue, Apr 02, 2019 at 02:28:50 AM
Hello Everyone,
We hope that you had a good weekend, full of family and gaming time! :) But let’s get back to the trenches, as the enemy is coming!
Victory over the first goal
Thank you for fulfilling the first social goal. With more than 142 interactions with the posts indicated, you took the exclusive linen finish for your game boards easily. It was a real Concert of Nations!
Greek media are also supporting this campaign, knowing the importance of the besieged fortress. :)
The above is a recent article, published in the paper version of a high-circulation newspaper, called Kathimerini. Thank you!
A new attack to repel
To let you support this valiant defence, we have prepared a new social goal for you:
We will upgrade the game box to the linen paper finish if the posts below gets a total of 100 interactions: Facebook (shares and likes), Twitter (likes and retweets), Instagram (likes) of the following posts:
In the comments section you have mentioned famous Lord Byron. Was he connected to the third siege of Missolonghi? Fortunately Eric G.L. Pinzelli is here with us, and he will answer this question, in a new capsule about the sick man of Europe:
When the Greeks entered in rebellion against the Sultan, the Ottoman Empire was in full decline and as referred to as "the sick man of Europe." Nicholas I of Russia was credited for coining the phrase in 1853. The truly significant weakening of the empire's military strength in the 18th century and early 19th century threatened to undermine the fragile balance of power system shaped by the Concert of Europe. In view of its internal fragility, the Ottoman Empire, once a feared conqueror until the 17th Century, was now the target of imperialist ambitions by the European Great Powers. The «Eastern Question» encompassed a myriad of interrelated elements: Ottoman military defeats, Ottoman insolvency, the rise of ethno-religious nationalism in its European provinces, and of course the Great Power rivalries.
The Eastern Question became a major European issue when the Greeks declared independence from the Sultan in 1821. It was at this time that the phrase "Eastern Question" was coined. At the closing of the Conference of Laibach (May 12, 1821), with the Greeks in mind, Russia, Austria and Prussia issued a declaration to proclaim to the world the principles which guided them in coming to the assistance of subdued peoples. However, Castlereagh and Metternich counseled Alexander I not to declare war on the Ottomans. Instead, they pleaded that he maintain the Concert of Europe. Rather than immediately putting the Eastern Question to rest by aiding the Greeks and attacking the Ottomans, Alexander wavered, ultimately failing to take any decisive action. However, the Great Powers were impossible or unwilling to stop volunteers and aid from being organized and Philhellenism supporting the Greek cause flourished.
The spirit of Romanticism that then dominated Western European cultural life also made support for Greek independence politically viable. The education system of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a heavy focus upon the classical world, especially Roman and Greek literature. Romantic views of a connection with classical Greece, which inspired Philhellenism infused the entire Greek War of Independence, in which the celebrated Romantic poet Lord Byron took such a publicized part.
The early 19th century Romantic movement emphasized identities based on irrational and emotional ethnic and religious factors. At the time, many national minorities were seeking to assert their own identities dissolved in mutli-national empires such as the Austrian or Ottoman Empires. The concept of romantic nationalism, that shared cultural, ethnic, linguistic or geographic traits could define a group identity, and was often equated with a political state had emerged in the late 18th century, primarily among German philosophers and historians. Music and poetry were vehicles to spread this political and cultural nationalism.
Byron famously embodied the Romantic hero, and influenced countless other writers including Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emily Brontë, and Alexander Pushkin. Increasingly dissatisfied with a life of poetry and a long supporter of Greek independence, Byron joined the Greeks in their uprising against the Ottomans in 1823. Byron spent 4,000 pounds of his own money to refit the Greek naval fleet and took personal command of a Greek unit of elite fighters. While planning an attack on the Turkish fortress of Lepanto, Byron contracted marsh fever and died at Missolonghi on April 19, 1824 at age 36. Byron remains a Greek hero, and the inspiration of musicians, writers, and freedom fighters ever since.
Written by Eric G.L. Pinzelli
There is no victory without sacrifice. Thank you for your support!
PHALANX Team
The Concert of Nations
about 5 years ago
– Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 01:28:17 PM
Hello Everyone,
The fourth day of the siege is just starting. With 70% of our funding goal, we are on track to get this fortress before the Sultan requests our heads delivered instead! With morale still high, we can move to the daily news:
As our numbers are growing, we want to launch the first assault. Let’s fight for the first social stretch goal: exclusive linen paper finish for the game board.
We will upgrade the game board to the linen paper finish if the posts below gets a total of 100 Facebook shares, Twitter retweets and Instagram likes of the following posts:
You have enjoyed the previous capsules, so now is a time to pass the initiative to Eric G.L. Pinzelli, who will tell you about quite utopian idea, which ended up like many other, similar ones...
The «Concert of Europe» or «Concert of Nations» was an international system founded on balance of powers established in Vienna in 1815. It gave a century of stability to war-torn Europe, and collapsed a century later with the beginning of the Great War. The Congress of Vienna dissolved the Napoleonic world, attempted to restore the «old order», the monarchies Napoleon had overthrown. It also attempted to oppose revolutionary movements and weaken the forces of nationalism to prevent future conflicts.
Prince Metternich, the prime minister of Austria, and British Foreign Secretary Castlereagh proposed a form of collective and collaborative security for Europe, a «Congress system». This concept of an ongoing congress, a «concert of nations», was meant to settle future international disputes before they reached the battlefield. With tsar Alexander I of Russia, these leaders known for their conservatism aimed at creating lasting peace and maintaining the status quo and opposed liberal progress, ushering in an era of reaction that lasted until the Spring of Nations (1848).
Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria and France (included in the peace talks and represented by the crafty Talleyrand) all agreed to hold regular encounters. Meetings of the Great Powers during this period included: Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), Carlsbad (1819), Troppau (1820), Laibach (1821), Verona (1822), London (1832), and Berlin (1878, 1885). On the Greek question, or the events involving Belgium or Egypt, the principles on which the Concert was based enabled negotiated solutions, and when there was conflict, it was prevented from spreading to the entire continent until WW1.
Although severely criticized by President Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of the Great War, on the long-term, the 1815 Congress system proved much more effective than the Treaty of Versailles: The first lead to a reintegrated France and a century of general European peace, the other to a revanchist Germany and another even bloodier war in less than twenty years!
In reality, there was no internal harmony among the Great European Powers. Merely an outward show of co-operation was maintained for some time. When the French danger was over, the unity among the Allies was gone and every Power decided to deal individually with her diplomacy. The era of Congresses truly collapsed with the withdrawal of Great Britain from 1823. However, it served as a model for later organizations such as the League of Nations in 1919 and the United Nations in 1945.
Despite his final defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon had several fundamental effects on Europe. For one thing, he had spread the idea of liberalism, especially in Western and Central Europe. Numerous movements started to develop around various cultural groups, who began to develop a sense of national identity. While initially, all of these revolutions failed in 1830-31, and reactionary forces re-established political control, the revolutions marked the start of the steady progress towards the end of the Concert of Europe under the dominance of multinational empires. The seeds of revolution had taken root and were spreading rapidly across the face of Europe...
By the same token, The French Revolution and Napoleon had also spread the idea of nationalism in East and Central Europe and this nationalism revival came to be part of the «Eastern Question» when the Greeks entered in rebellion against the Sultan.
Written by Eric G.L. Pinzelli
Thank you for your support!
PHALANX Team
Do you need yet another wargame in your collection?
about 5 years ago
– Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 02:47:24 PM
Hello Everyone,
Is Freedom! an interesting addendum to your collection? This is an important question on an overcrowded market and overcrowded shelves. Today we will try to help you find an answer.
And for those who prefer watching to reading, Stuka Joe has prepared a gameplay video:
So, what are your thoughts after reading/seeing above? We had no doubt the game deserves to be published even if the setting is, so to say, not too popular. But hey, that’s a way to learn something new, allow to be inspired and leave the comfort zone of those few conflicts, which were soooo overdone in games.
Also a side note. Don’t be turned off by beautiful art! We know wargamers like it simple but just could not resist making the game an object of art. Well, yes, sometimes we pay too much attention to detail at PHALANX. ;)
Now let's go back to Eric G.L. Pinzelli’s excellent writing and read about the universal concept of freedom. For our game in fact, revolves around the idea of fighting for freedom.
“We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!” - Epictetos.
From the land of the Ancient Greeks came the concept of Liberty and since then, fighting for freedom, one’s home and fatherland has always been considered the noblest and most just cause. Life, liberty, and property are inalienable rights of all human creatures carved in marble since the Magna Carta, and later the United States Constitution. When American colonists fought against Britain, they were fighting not so much for new freedom, but to preserve the liberty and the rights that they believed to be enshrined in the 13th Century Magna Carta.
And to preserve Liberty has never been an easy task. In the 5th Century BC, when the mighty Persian Empire responded to the rebellion of the Ionian Greeks with a massive land and sea invasion aimed at crushing resistance and adding all of Greece to its Empire, it seemed likely that the Greeks would be crushed by the Persian onslaught. In a stunning upset, a small Athenian force of brave hoplites turned back the Persian amphibious assault at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.
But it wasn’t enough yet. A decade later, a small force led by King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, valiantly delayed the gigantic Persian army at Thermopylae in what has become the most famous symbol of defiance in History.
The 300 Spartans and the Thespians eventually all perished but they had fought vigorously and valiantly, refusing to merely submit to foreign rule and tyranny. Encouraged by those heroic deeds, the other Greek city-states rallied and fought with greater dynamism against the Persians. The Greek World was saved and under the Macedonians, later thrived and even conquered all Asia. If the Persians had won, the ideals that motivated the Spartans to fight against the Persians at Thermopylae would have died and the principle of liberty itself may have never existed as such.
This is what a few brave men and women had in common throughout the ages: The defenders of Rochester Castle remained steadfast for seven weeks against King John’s assaults, Emperor Constantine XI died on the walls of Constantinople to defend his homeland against the Turkish forces, America’s Founding Fathers rejected tyranny and chose George Washington to lead the nation to Independence. In more recent times, dauntless RAF pilots gave their lives during the Battle of Britain to preserve their Nation from invasion and destruction.
While a young American nation was starting its inexorable Westward expansion, the public became aware of another epic struggle that mirrored their own recent Revolution. From the land of the Ancient Greeks, where the sparkle of Liberty had seen the light more than two millennia ago, the proud sons of Themistocles and Leonidas had once again taken arms against tyranny. From all the corners of this mythical land, they were rising as one and rallying at Missolonghi for what was to become the most epic freedom battle of the century.
