Mahmud Dramali Pasha was born in 1780 in Drama, hence the nickname Dramalis, by which he is known.. Born into a prominent Muslim family of the city, with connections in the Sultan's environment, he was brought up in the palace environment of the Sultan, Selim III. He was educated in military schools and participated in campaigns of the Ottoman army in the Balkans and Egypt.
He was risky and brave, but without strategic skills. He was distinguished by philanthropy and inhuman cruelty (Kokkinos), while other historians (D. Loules) describe him as meek and wise. With the favour of the mother of Sultan Mahmud II, he became Pasha of Drama in 1808, when his father Salih, who was serving there as a derebeis (a toparch appointed by the Gate), died.
In 1820 he was appointed vali (governor) of Larissa and helped Hursit Pasha in the war against Ali Pasha, while he drowned in blood the revolutionary movements of Pelion and Agrafa.. After the extermination of Ali and the sidelining of Hursit (1822), Dramalis was appointed vali of the Peloponnese (Mora Valesi) with the rank of vizier and undertook to form a military corps to suppress the Greek Revolution.
With a staff of prominent Turkish officials and an army of 30,000 men (24,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry), as well as with numerous transport animals (30,000 horses and 500 camels), arrived without resistance in Corinth on 5 July 1822. After easily capturing Acrocorinth, he advanced and camped in the Argolic plain on 12 July.
The Greeks, after the initial surprise, began to organise their resistance. According to Kolokotronis« plan, the Turkish army could not be confronted head-on, but had to be trapped in the Argolic plain and overwhelmed by both the heat and the lack of food and water, i.e. the tactics of »scorched earth" had to be applied. Indeed, the Greek commander-in-chief's plan was implemented to the letter. The supply sources of the Turks began to be destroyed and Dramalis began to suffer from lack of food and water and decided to return to Corinth. In order to mislead the Greeks, he sent his Christian secretary to the Mills of Argos, where their headquarters were, to offer them amnesty and to warn them, ostensibly out of concern, that the next day he would march to Tripoli.
Ο Theodoros Kolokotronis perceived the plan of Dramalis and with other chieftains he occupied the straits of Dervenakia, where from 26 to 28 July 1822 at the crossings of Agios Sostis, Kleisoura and Agionori he crushed the numerous army of Dramalis.
The humiliated Turkish general arrived on foot in Corinth with the remains of the army. On 26 October 1822, either from sorrow or typhus, he breathed his last in Corinth, where he was buried.
