Bouboulina and her fleet of 8 ships sailed to Nafplion and took part in the siege ofВ the impregnable fortress there. On April 3rdДЇollowed by the islands of Hydra and Psara with a total of over 300 ships between them. Twice widowed with 7 children but extremely rich she ownedВ several ships. On March 13th 1821, twelve days before the official beginning of the War of Independence, the first 'revolutionary flag' was actually raised on the island of Spetses by Laskarina Bouboulina (though there were several revolutionary flags which could lay claim to being theДЇirst, including Hydra). It was the role of the Chios 'navy' in the revolt that was seen as an act of treason by the Turks, though in Brewer's book the Chios navy was less than eager to join the fray and the cause of the Turkish invasion was the fact that the Samos navy has landed on the island and occupied the citadel. The Chiotes had enormous privileges under the Ottomans even to the point of dominating the Ottoman admiralty. Of an Albanian affair and that the Chios massacre was a consequence of this. It would be unfair to over-look Ali Pasha and the fact that the insurrection of 1821 was actually something On the island of Chios 25,000 Greeks are killed while in the Peloponessos the Greeks kill 15,000 of the 40,000 Turks living there. Nevertheless, fighting begins to break out all over with massacres committed by both the Greeks and the Turks.

But historian David Brewer in his Greece, The Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule from the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence disagrees, stating thatВ the story of the flag raising at Agia Lavra was apparently an invention by Francois Pouqueville, a prominentДЄrchitect of the Philhellenism movement throughout Europe, whoВ contributedВ to the liberation of the Greeks, and to the rebirth of the Greek Nation. On March 25th 1821 Bishop Germanos of Patras raises the flag of revolution at the monastery of Agia Lavra near Kalavrita and the battle cry of 'Freedom or Death' becomes the motto of the revolution. But in the Peloponessos the rebellion is making progress and combined with Ali Pasha's rebellion in Ipirus the Turks have their hands full. The Phanariot Greeks fall in line behind the new patriarch and condemn the revolution. Which they consideredВ his duty for the vast privileges they allowed him. When the revolution breaks out in the Peloponessos, the Sultan in Istanbul hangs the Patriarch Grigorios V for failing to keep the Greek ChristiansВ in Instead they attack their wealthy countrymen and the Greeks have to escape. In 1821 the land that was known asВ Greece is controlled by the Turks, except for the Ionian islands which has been occupied by the Venetians, then the French andД«egins in Moldavia when an army of 4500 Hellenes led by General Alexander Ypsilantis, a Phanariot from the so-named district of Istanbul, a member of the Philike Hetairia (Friendly Society), invades hoping to encourage the local Romanian peasants to throw off the yoke of the Turks. When rebellion against the Ottoman Empire gave birth to Hellas,В Hellenic-speaking people had a national homeland for the first time in history. Contrary to popular opinion there never was a country called Greece or Hellas until the Revolution of 1821.

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