During the early months of 1715, they assembled an army of men in
Macedonia under the
Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha. On 22 May, Grand Vizier marched south from
Thessalonica, arriving at
Thebes on 9 June, where he held a review of the troops. Although the accuracy of his figures is open to doubt, the journal of the French interpreter Benjamin Brue, reports 14,994 cavalry and 59,200 infantry as present at Thebes on 9 June, with the total number of men involved in the campaign against the Morea placed at 110,364 (22,844 cavalry and 87,520 infantry). After a war council on 13 June, 15,000
Janissaries under
Kara Mustafa Pasha were sent to capture
Lepanto, while the main body of the army under Yusuf Pasha and the
Agha of the Janissaries moved onto the
Isthmus of Corinth and the two fortresses of
Acrocorinth and
Nauplia, the main Venetian strongholds in the Morea. In the meantime, the Ottoman Fleet, numbering 80 warships under
Canum Hoca, had captured the last Venetian possessions in the Aegean, the islands of
Tinos and
Aigina. The Venetians, who did not have any standing army and relied mainly on mercenaries, could only muster 8,000 men and 42 mostly small ships, under the command of the Captain-General Daniel Delfin. This force was not only insufficient to meet the Ottoman army in the field, but also inadequate to man the many fortifications that the Venetians had built or enhanced during the past decades. In addition, the local Greek population disliked Venetian rule, something Damad Ali exploited, by ensuring that his troops respected their safety and property. Thus he was able to count on the good will of the Greeks, who provided his troops with ample provisions, while the Venetians, who hoped to recruit a militia amongst the native population, were left isolated in their forts. On 25 June, the Ottoman army crossed the Isthmus of Corinth and entered the Morea. The citadel of Acrocorinth, which controlled the passage to the peninsula, surrendered after a brief siege, on terms of safe passage for the garrison and the civilians. However, some Janissaries, eager for plunder, disobeyed Damat Ali's orders and entered the citadel. A large part of the garrison, including the
provveditore Giacomo Minoto, and most of the civilians were massacred or sold to
slavery. Only 180 Venetians were saved and transported to
Corfu. These tragic events later inspired
Lord Byron's poem
The Siege of Corinth. After Corinth, the Ottomans advanced against Nauplia (
Napoli di Romagna), the main base of Venetian power in the Morea. Nafplion was well-protected by several strong forts and had a garrison of 2,000 men. However, on 20 July, after only
nine days of siege, the Ottomans exploded a
mine under the bastions of
Palamidi and successfully stormed the fort. The Venetian defenders panicked and retreated, leading to a general collapse of the defence. The Ottomans then advanced to the southwest, where the forts of
Navarino and
Koroni were abandoned by the Venetians, who gathered their remaining forces at
Methoni (
Modon). However, being denied effective support from the sea by Delfin's reluctance to endanger his fleet by engaging the Ottoman navy, the fort capitulated. The remaining Venetian strongholds, including the last remaining outposts on
Crete (
Spinalonga and
Souda), likewise capitulated in exchange for safe departure. Within a hundred days, the entire Peloponnese had been re-taken by the Ottomans. According to the Ottomanist
Virginia Aksan, the campaign had been "basically a walkover for the Ottomans". Despite the presence of sufficient materiel, the Venetian garrisons were weak, and the Venetian government unable to finance the war, while the Ottomans not only enjoyed a considerable numerical superiority, but also were more willing "to tolerate large losses and considerable desertion": according to Brue, no less than 8,000 Ottoman soldiers were killed and another 6,000 wounded in the just nine days of the siege of Nauplia. Furthermore, unlike the Venetians, the Ottomans this time enjoyed the effective support of their fleet, which among other activities ferried a number of large siege cannons to support the siege of Nauplia. On 13 September, the Grand Vizier began his return journey, and on the 22nd, near Nauplia, received the congratulations of the Sultan. A week of parades and celebrations followed. On 10 October, the
Standard of the Prophet was ceremonially placed in its casket, a sign that the campaign was over. The troops received six months' worth of pay on 17 October near
Larissa, and the Grand Vizier returned to the capital, for a triumphal entrance, on 2 December. == The siege of Corfu ==