Canto The Fifth
When we last met our Islands they faced horrid odds,
All alone ‘gainst an empire, a feat for the gods,
But the navy, though small, made a daring attack
And surprised the dread Turks before they could react.
In Taras’s wide gulf the first battle was fought,
Bringing thusly the Sultan’s invasion to naught,
While smaller ships sailed to the Straits of Otrando
To set a blockade on the Illyrian coast pronto.
The Ionian ships were outnumbered by far
But their iron-cast hulls cannon balls couldn’t mar,
And while they overcame their wooden-walled foes
The new army to Cyprus made haste unopposed.
The old brigade from Corfu and Zante’s new troops
Surrounded the island like so many loops,
And in a few months, both had succeeded
To raise a free flag as Nicosia befitted.
Meanwhile, the Ionian Fleet saw it fit
Its forces in different locations to split.
The flagship, Kapodistrias, patrolled the Aegean,
While Kolokotronis took on a new mien
And steamed to keep watch on Albanian coasts.
The Turks, quite unable to use their large hosts,
With fleets of small ships sought to overwhelm
The Ionian seamen and so take the helm.
The flagship prevailed with barely a scratch;
The ironclad suffered but won its own match.
Those two ships, with some smaller transports then made,
Turned Ottoman admirals very afraid.
The Ionian government demanded Cyprus;
The Porte was finding those terms rather fibrous.
When Ionians took the Aegean they smoldered;
When Ionians landed in Libya they folded.
In the 20th of June of 1885
The Sultan allowed himself to be deprived
Of Cyprus, thus ending the war of two years
That started with such great Ionian fears.
There was much jubilation in all the Greek lands;
Aristidis Kallergis became quite the lad,
When the fleet for a victory float he assembled,
Though the two clipper transports were soon disassembled.
But victory wasn’t just cheers and parades.
There were outstanding loans that had to be repaid,
While the laissez-faire policy of the Seven Isles
Had doomed local industry to war-time demise.
Cyprus, though with industry, was not free of problems;
Very low literacy, that served as an omen
Of the long road ahead to bring the island to speed.
But the happy, then, people could pay little heed.