and the Etaireia had carried out an invasion of the Ottoman-dominated Danubian Principalities of the Ottoman Empire, which coincided with an uprising in Wallachia. Ypsilantis, a general in the Russian Army and aide-de-camp to Tsar Alexander I, had hoped that his actions would cause the Russian Empire to intervene on his behalf, but the Emperor, a leading proponent of the Concert of Europe, disavowed any relation with him and effectively gave the Ottomans the "green light" to march into the Principalities to deal with the insurrection. At the same time, Ypsilantis clashed with the Wallachian Pandur leader Tudor Vladimirescu, who was ultimately tortured and killed by the Etaireia, causing the Wallachian rebel troops to withdraw from the conflict.
Battle
An army of two thousand Ottoman cavarly camped, under the leadership of Kara Ahmed, at Dragashani, in order to repulse the forces of Ypsilantis. The latter, after a council with his co-leaders, decided to attack Dragashani with his full army, which was consisted to be 7,500 troops and four cannons. At 19 June 1821, Vasileios Karavias noticed the Ottomans retreating from Dragashani and commanded his men to attack. The rest of the army though wasn't ready yet and Karavias acted alone with only 500 horsemen and the "Sacred Band". The Ottomans, noticing that the force that was attacking was less than a half of theirs, returmed in their positions and conflicted with the Greeks. Soon the Ottoman great numbers outwayed the suprising attack of Karavias. The latter retreated, but the Sacred Band didn't. The Sacred Band standed and fought the four times larger Ottoman cavarly, even though every hope of victory was lost. Giorgakis Olympios with some men atttacked and distracted the Ottomans for a while, saving about a hundred men with their leaders. After this conflict the Wallachian uprising started slowly fall apart.
Aftermath
Despite its failure, the revolution in the Danubian provinces helped inspire the uprising in the Peloponnese in March, from which the Greek Independence War officially began. Another aspect of the battle's aftermath entailed Alexander Ypsilantis' retreat to the Austrian-ruled area of Transylvania, after having written a forged letter to his troops stating that he was summoned by Francis I, the Emperor of Austria, to discuss military operations against the Ottomans on the Austrian frontier.
