The Dodecanese were not absent from the invitation to the struggle of the Greek Revolution of 1821, contributing in every way and means to the national effort.

Of course, they did not manage to rise up like in other regions of the country, mainly due to the proximity of the Dodecanese islands to the opposite Turkish coast, but also due to the fact that the preparations for the Revolution were betrayed on the island of Rhodes, resulting in their arrest and imprisonment the members of Philiki Etairia.

Nevertheless, from the first moment the Dodecanese were on the front lines of the games, paying a similar price with the Kasos Holocaust by the Egyptian fleet, the massacres on the island of Kos and the naval battle of Gerontas.

All these events unknown to many, he came to highlight the book “The Dodecanese in the national uprising of 1821” by the writer and lawyer Manolis Makris, published by the House of Letters and Arts of the Dodecanese.

For the first time, after long and painstaking research, the author managed to collect and present the actions of the Dodecanese, their struggles and sacrifices.

In the book, special mention is also made of the persons who were at the forefront of the national effort, apart from Emmanuel Xanthos, one of the three founders of Filiki Etairia who was Patmios.

His action and contribution stand out in these reports Dimitriou Themelis who served as Minister of the Military and fell fighting in 1826 at the ramparts of Messolonghi and Panagiotis Rodi who was a close associate of the first governor Ioannis Kapodistrias and as Secretary of the Military and Marines he founded the Evelpidon School in Nafplion.

THE Dimitrios Themelis was born in Patmos around 1770-1772. He studied at the flourishing Patmiada School at the time. From 1809, he was elected several times as provost and representative of the community of Patmos in Constantinople to handle cases. Then we find him trading in Galatsi in Wallachia. There he was initiated into the Friendly Society in 1818 by Archimandrite Grigorios Dikaios – Papaflessa and quickly emerged as one of the Society’s great national apostles. In October 1820, Emm. Xanthos introduced Themelis to Alexander Ypsilantis, who appreciated the personality of Patmios as a patriot and at the beginning of 1821 sent him as General Commissioner of the Aegean Islands together with Evangelos Matzarakis, to organize the revolutionary movement there. He passed through Psara, Mytilini, Kydonia, Smyrna, where he recommended ephorates and groups of Friends for the organization of the struggle. In April 1821, when the Revolution broke out, he was in Patmos. In June 1821 he met in Hydra with Dimitrios Ypsilantis, who appointed him his representative in the Aegean islands. In September 1821 he is in the Peloponnese, where he fights on the side of Dim. Ypsilanti in the operations for the capture of Tripolitsa. From his diary, which was saved in Patmos, we learn that continuing his tour of the Aegean islands, he visited Kasos, Crete and Samos, where he worked closely with the leader of the revolution there, Lykourgos Logothetis. In 1824 he returned to Patmos, where his family was located, orphaned after the death of his wife, while he himself was ill and needed some time to recover. He lived in great poverty, while the Patmians honored him with the office of their patron or representative. At the assembly of the Parliament on 28 November 1824 in Argos, he was listed in the Parliament as a member of parliament. When the struggle remained in the Peloponnese against the Turkish-Egyptian troops and Messolonghi was in danger from Kioutachis and Ibrahim, the temporary Greek Government of Lazaros Kountouriotis appointed a Temporary Tripartite Management Committee of Western Greece, whose members were I. Papadiamantopoulos from Patras, G. Kanavos from Nafpaktos and D. from Patmos. Fundamental. At the same time, he appointed Themelis “General Director of all political and military affairs of Western Greece”. Themelis fell gloriously on the ramparts of Messolonghi at the beginning of April 1826, i.e. a few days before the tragic and desperate Exodus of the “Free Besiegers”. The Messolongites buried him with honors. And when his death became known in his hometown of Patmos, on May 12, 1826, the people of Patmos erected a cenotaph for him and the appropriate eulogy was heard by the patriarch Theophilos.

Panagiotis Rodios

He was born in Rhodes in 1789, where he learned his first letters. He then studied at the Philological High School of Smyrna, traveled first to Padua and finally ended up in Paris to study medicine. There he joined the circle of Adamantios Korais and was introduced to the ideas of the Enlightenment. But before he finished his studies, the Greek Revolution was declared. And then he left Paris and came to Greece in August 1821 together with the first Philhellenes. He joined the Philhellenic Constitution and first collaborated with Dimitrios Ypsilantis and then with Alexandros Mavrokordatos. He fought in the battle of Peta as a captain (July 4, 1822), while as the leader of the Philhellenes with the rank of major he took part in the siege and fall of Nafplion (November 1822). From the first moment, the goal of Pan. Rhodium was the creation of a regular army according to Napoleonic standards. But the conflicts between the military and the politicians had already begun, with the result that the “regulars” (mainly French Philhellenes) were organized separately under P. Rodios. During the civil wars that followed, he was in the “oligarchic” faction of Alexandros Mavrokordatos – Georgios Kountouriotis, he was appointed Temporary General Secretary of the Executive (January – October 1824) and developed strong action against the military, led by Theodoros Kolokotronis and Dimitrios Ypsilantis. In view of the expected landing of Ibrahim Pasha in the Peloponnese and in order to reconstitute the corps of “regulars”, Pan. Rodios was promoted to colonel. And he did manage to organize the regular army according to European standards (they had a uniform uniform, strict discipline, and they trained). The body of regulars, whose leadership was alternated with Pan. Rhodes and the French Philhellene Favieros, took part in operations in the Peloponnese against Ibrahim’s troops.

And in the years that followed the idea of ​​creating a regular army became general, since everyone saw that there was no other way to deal with Ibrahim. In the efforts of the Powers to settle the “Greek issue”, Pan. Rhodios sided with Mavrocordatos and appeared useful with the European education he had. After the National Assembly of Troizina (March 1827) that elected Io. Kapodistrias as Governor of Greece, Pan. Rhodes moved from the pro-English faction of Mavrokordatus to its rival pro-Russian faction, to which Kapodistrias was believed to belong. He had already severed his ties with Mavrokordatos and when in early 1828 Kapodistrias arrived in Greece and assumed the duties of Governor, Rhodes lived in Aegina impoverished and marginalized. The Governor, asking, according to Kasomoulis, “a worthy Greek military officer for matters of organization, succeeding the military officer on leave and rejected by the other governments, who was in Aegina, living on dry bread, colonel Rodion, charged him to draw up the organization of the regiments” . And so, from the summer of 1829, Pan. Rhodes took over as Secretary of the Army and Navy to carry out then, despite the various obstacles that arose, a wide-ranging military reform. Then he also founded the two-year School of Evelpides in Nafplio to staff the army with professional officers. After the murder of Kapodistrias, Pan. Rodios retained the position of Secretary (we would say minister today) of the Military. During the years of the Regency, disillusioned with public affairs and especially because he had been outranked by other officers, he retired to his small farm in Nafplio. There he wrote some books of military content. He returned to the political scene in 1837, when he was appointed Supreme Commander of Athens and Piraeus. In 1841 he received from King Otto the rank of lieutenant general. After the revolution of September 3rd and the proclamation of the Constitution, he became a politician and was elected plenipotentiary of Nafplio. He served twice as Minister of Military Affairs, in 1844 and 1848. In Athens, he also published the first Greek military magazine, “Military Progress”. He died in 1851.

Other fighters of 1821 were

Michael Rodios

He was born in Rhodes in 1802. Still a teenager, he went to seek his fortune in Constantinople, where he became a member of the Society of Friends. He was then exiled to Proussa and from there he managed to reach Nafplion, at the beginning of 1824, where he enlisted in the regular army that Panagiotis of Rhodes was trying to set up. He fought in many battles and was one of Faviero’s brave regulars, who on November 28, 1826 broke the siege of the Acropolis of Athens and supplied the garrison with gunpowder.

After the establishment of the Greek state, he continued his military career and reached the rank of colonel. He died in Athens in 1868. When his funeral was held in Athens, the funeral eulogy was delivered by Minos Venetoklis, then a student of the Law School and later a great benefactor.

Vasilios Venetoklis

He was also a member of the Friendly Society in Rhodes. When Metropolitan Agapios and the other Friends of Rhodes were arrested and imprisoned, he managed to avoid arrest and secretly left for Egypt together with his brother Panagiotis. When the Revolution was declared, he came to Nafplion and enlisted as a non-commissioned officer in the light cavalry. He served throughout the liberation struggle and reached the rank of Phalanx captain. He then returned to Rhodes, where he married his fiancee Miss Reisi, who as another Penelope waited for him for a whole 18 years. From their marriage were born Dimitrios and Minos Venetoklis, the great Benefactors of Rhodes.

Anastasios of Rhodes

He had also been initiated into the Society of Friends in Rhodes and when the Revolution began he went to Nafplion, enlisted in the army, and reached the rank of colonel. He was large, brave and an excellent swordsman.

Panagiotis Spanou Roditis

He was the owner of the ship “Heracles” with which he fought with the Cassiotes in the first years of the Revolution. He had a base at Tristomo in Karpathos and when Kasos was in danger from Mehmet Ali’s ships, he sent six cannons, gunpowder and other supplies to reinforce it.

Athanasios Anthou Rodios

He was trading in Egypt when the Revolution broke out. He came to revolted Greece, first to Messolonghi and then to Corinth, with a small military detachment. Under the commander Nikitaras, he took part in the battle at Dervenakia against Dramalis (1822). After the Second National Assembly in Astros, he was appointed mayor of Karpathos. He then went to Kasos and took part in expeditionary operations in Asia Minor. After the destruction of Kasos, he fled to Hydra and ended up in Nafplio.

Konstantinos Kastritsios (1793-1846)

Member of the Friendly Society. He was in Egypt as a merchant with his father when the Greek Revolution was announced. He came to Greece, enlisted in the Philhellenic Phalanx and fought in various battles. He distinguished himself and reached the rank of captain.

Georgios Kazoullis

It seems that he served as secretary and staff officer to various Greek chieftains, mainly Hatzichristos.

They are still referred to as Rhodians who fought in the army of revolutionary Greece o Christofis MilionisThe Anastasios HadjistavrisThe Captain JannisStefanos Georgiou or Kleftostefanis from Trianta and others.

They were also those who gave financial support to the Race: O Athanasios Kazoullis, who in those years worked in a mint and found a way to send the precious metal to Greece to support the struggle. And even the struggle was strengthened by Nikolaos KastritsiosThe Nikolaos Kaloglou and others.