[Sidenote: Nauplia and Missolonghi besieged]
The situation in Greece was calculated to stiffen the backbone of Canning's foreign policy. On February 22, Ibrahim's Egyptian army had crossed the sea unopposed and overran the Morea. The Greeks were defeated near Nodoni, and the garrison of Sphakteria was overwhelmed. The forts of Navarino capitulated. In vain was old Kolokotrones released from his prison to oppose the onslaught of Ibrahim's Arabs. The Greeks were driven back through Tripolitza, and did not succeed in making a stand until the Turks reached Nauplia. Here Demetrios Ypsilanti with a few hundred men repulsed the Turkish vanguard at Lerna. Ibrahim settled down to the siege of Nauplia and of Missolonghi. The country round about was laid waste and the people killed. Ibrahim's hordes even cut down all trees and saplings. Thus the fertile mountains and hillsides of Greece were changed into the barren rocks they are to-day. Nothing so excited the sympathy of the lovers of liberty in Europe as these wanton ravages on classic soil committed by the savages of the desert. Even Alexander of Russia was so moved by the rising indignation of his people that he dissolved diplomatic conferences at St. Petersburg in August. He issued a declaration that Russia, acting on its own discretion, would put a stop to the outrages of Greece. Accompanied by the leaders of the Russian war party, he left St. Petersburg and travelled to the Black Sea. All Europe waited for the long-threatened Russian advance on Constantinople. Suddenly news arrived that the Czar had died at Taganrog.
Alexander expired on November 19 (December 1), in the arms of Empress Elizabeth. His last hours were clouded by revelations of a plot to assassinate him. As if to recant his reactionary measures of the last few years, he said: "They may say what they like of me, but I have lived and will die republican"--a curious boast which is justified only by the earlier years of Alexander's reign. In the beginning of his rule the Czar reversed the despotic tendencies of his predecessors. Free travel was permitted; foreign books and papers were allowed to enter; the better classes of the community were exempted from corporal punishments; the emancipation of serfs was begun, and the collegiate organization of the administration was supplanted by ministries modelled after those of the chief European countries. As early as 1802 Alexander could boast of a Cabinet as good as that of any constitutional monarch. Another far-reaching reform was the reorganization of Russian public education, and the encouragement given to the publication of Bibles. A temporary relaxation of the censorship resulted in the foundation of societies of literature and of such journals as the "Russian Messenger," "The Northern Mercury," and the "Democrat." Writers like Pushkin and Gogol brought forth their earliest works. Koltsov discovered a new source of poetry in the popular songs. Lermontov sang the wild beauty of the Caucasus, and Ozerov wrote his classical drama "Dmitri Donskoi," which recalled the struggles of Russia against the Tartars. Modern romantic tendencies were advanced by Joukovsky's translation of Schiller's and Byron's poems. Ginka composed the scores for his earlier operas.