In this candid letter Mehmed Ali was clever enough to know that the Europeans were not bluffing. Moreover, besides being clear that the outcome of any confrontation would be grave, he came very close to anticipating the magnitude of the horrible disaster that befell the combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleet in Navarino on 20 October 1827.96 In less than three hours the entire Ottoman fleet was lost and most of the ships of the Egyptian fleet were either sunk or burnt. This was the fleet that Mehmed Ali had gone to great lengths to buy and improve, and it was the fleet that he used to boast about acquiring saying that the world of Islam had never witnessed anything like it. And it was lost not through any negligence or misconduct on his part but because of the “obstinate and arrogant refusal of the Porte to accept European mediation” in the whole issue of Greek independence. This intransigent position on the part of the Porte did not change after Navarino: the Porte refused to hear of any requests by Ibrahim to withdraw to Egypt and instead kept on pressing on him the importance of holding on to all territories under his control as well as initiating further campaigns against the Christian population in the Morean peninsula and, if need be, to burn all villages on his way. Mehmed Ali refused to listen to these stubborn and unrealistic demands of the Porte and proceeded to sign a treaty with the European powers guaranteeing the safety of his son’s withdrawal from the Greek mainland.

XREF: Connects to loc 226 on the Greek campaign poisoning Ottoman-Egyptian cooperation — Navarino is the decisive naval catastrophe of that campaign.

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 239