As was to be expected, the disgraceful defeat of his fleets and armies filled the Sultan with rage and renewed resolution.  The whole power of his empire was now called out to suppress the rebellion.  He had long meditated the destruction of that famous military corps in the Turkish service known as the Janizaries, who were not Turks, but recruited from the youth of the Greeks and other subject races captured in war.  They had all become Mussulmans, and were superb fighters; but their insults and insolence, engendered by their traditional pride in the prestige of the corps and the favor shown them by successive Sultans, filled Mahmoud with wrath.  The Sultan dissembled his resentment, however, in order to bring all the soldiers he could command to the utter destruction of his rebellious subjects.  He deposed his grand vizier, and sent orders to all the pashas in his dominions for a general levy of all Mussulmans between fifteen and fifty, to assemble in Thessaly in May, 1823.  He also made the utmost efforts to repair the disasters of his fleet.

The Greeks, too, made corresponding exertions to maintain their armies.  Though weakened, they were not despondent.  Their successes had filled them with new hopes and energies.  Their independence seemed to them to be established.  They even began to despise their foes.  But as soon as success seemed to have crowned their efforts they were subject to a new danger.  There were divisions, strifes, and jealousies between the chieftains.  Unity, so essential in war, was seriously jeoparded.  Had they remained united, and buried their resentments and jealousies in the cause of patriotism, their independence possibly might have been acknowledged.  But in the absence of a central power the various generals wished to fight on their own account, like guerilla chiefs.  They would not even submit to the National Assembly.  The leaders were so full of discords and personal ambition that they would not unite on anything.  Mavrokordatos and Ypsilanti were not on speaking terms.  One is naturally astonished at such suicidal courses, but he forgets what a powerful passion jealousy is in the human soul.  It was not absent from our own war of Independence, in which at one time rival generals would have supplanted, if possible, even Washington himself; indeed, it is present everywhere, not in war alone, but among all influential and ambitious people,—­women of society, legislators, artists, physicians, singers, actors, even clergymen, authors, and professors in colleges.  This unfortunate passion can be kept down only by the overpowering dominancy of transcendent ability, which everybody must concede, when envy is turned into admiration,—­as in the case of Napoleon.  There was no one chieftain among the Greeks who called out universal homage any more than there was in the camp of Agamemnon before the walls of Troy.  There were men of ability and patriotism and virtue; but, as already noted, no one of them was great enough to exact universal and willing obedience.  And this fact was well understood in all the cabinets of Europe, as well as in the camps of their enemies.  The disunions and dissensions of the rival Greek generals were of more advantage to the Turks than a force of fifty thousand men.