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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Ali Pasha Biography ALI PASHA, (1741-1822). An Albanian ruler, notorious for cruelty, and known as "the Lion of Janina." He was born at Tepeleni, in the Albanian province of Janina. His father, one of the Albanian beys, died in Ali's boyhood, and the rearing of the child was thus left to his mother, a vindictive and merciless woman, who apparently instilled into him her own spirit. His youth was passed in peril and hardship, seeking to recover the possessions of which the neighboring pashas had robbed his father. Young Ali at last had to betake himself to the mountains and even to pledge his sword to save himself from dying of hunger. At length a change came in his fortunes, and be returned to Tepeleni in triumph. On the very day of his return he murdered his brother and then imprisoned his mother on the charge of poisoning him. He helped the Porte to subdue the Pasha of Scutari and thereby obtained the lands taken from his father and several Greek cities. He also attacked and slew (with the permission of the Sultan) Selim, Pasha of Delvino, and, as a reward, was appointed Lieutenant to the new Pasha of Dervent. He used this office to enrich himself by sharing the profits of brigandage. For this he was deposed, but he bought his way back into favor. For his services in the Turkish military forces in the war of 1757 he was named Pasha of Trikala in Thessaly; at the same time he seized Janina and had himself appointed Pasha of that province. Having thus won a position of power by the most unscrupulous means, he displayed marked administrative ability. He swept his old friends, the robbers, from the mountain roads, incorporated them into military troops, quelled the wretched factions that prevailed, and everywhere introduced order in the place of anarchy by the vigor and vigilance of his administration. In order to gain a seaport on the Albanian coast Ali formed an alliance with Napoleon. But Napoleon was defeated in Egypt, and Ali, not to be caught on the losing side, changed friends quickly and as an ally of the English soon found himself in full possession of three towns on the Adriatic. He revenged upon the inhabitants of Gardiki an injury done to his mother 40 years before, by the murder of 739 male descendants of the original offenders, who themselves were all dead. But at the same time he maintained order and justice. Security and peace reigned, highroads were constructed, and industry flourished, so that the European travelers, with whom he willingly held intercourse, considered him an active and intelligent governor. From the year 1507, when he once more entered into an alliance with Napoleon, the dependence of Ali on the Porte was merely nominal. Having failed, however, to obtain, through the influence of Napoleon, Parga, on the coast of Albania, and the Ionian Islands, he now entered into an alliance with the English, to whom he made many concessions. In return for these they granted Parga, nominally to the Sultan, but really to Ali. As he now considered his power to be securely established, he caused the commanders of the Greek armatole (or Greek militia), who had hitherto given him assistance, to be privately assassinated one by, one, while at the same time he put to death the assassins, to save himself from the suspicion of having been their instigator. The Porte at length determined to put an end to the power of this daring rebel; and in 1820 Sultan Mahmud sentenced him to be deposed. Ali put up a stiff fight, but at last surrendered, on the security of an oath that his life and property would be granted him; the Turks, however, stabbed and then decapitated him. Ali, like many other half-civilized monarchs and chiefs who have lived within the sphere of European influence, was keenly alive to whatever occurred among the powers of Christendom. Though utterly illiterate himself, he had all the foreign journals translated and read to him. He watched every political change, as if conscious that the interests of his little region depended for their future prosperity on the West, and not on the East., and made friendly advances to both the French and English. Consult: Ibrahim Manzour Effendi, Mémoires sur le Grèce et d'Albanie pendant le gouvernement d'Ali Pacha (Paris, 1827); Pencker, Die Sulioten and ihre Kriege mit Ali Pascha von Janina (Breslau 1834); Davenport, The Life of Ali Pasha (London, 1837). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. I (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 419. |