The loss of Milouna Pass was a severe blow to Greece, but not half so bad as the fall of Larissa, which from all accounts appears to have been a very disastrous affair.
The Greeks appear to have behaved in a very cowardly, rebellious way, and the whole story is very discouraging.
A battle was fought at Mati, and the Turks, who had swarmed through the pass, were victorious, and the Greeks were forced to retreat.
Unfortunately there was no good general to manage the movement, and instead of falling back in an orderly manner, they seem to have hurried away from the battle in a mob.
A newspaper correspondent who was present says that the men straggled along sullenly: the soldiers, mule-trains, carts, wagons, guns, and crying villagers, women, and children in a panic-stricken crowd.
A few officers tried to restore order and to make the soldiers re-form their ranks; but their efforts were already hopeless, when a cry arose:
"The Turks are upon us!"
At this, the mob began to run for life, helter-skelter, pell-mell, trampling each other under foot, the soldiers actually shooting any one who barred their way.
To make things still worse, the retreat had begun at nightfall, and it was in the darkness of night that the cry, "The Turks are upon us!" was raised.
As a matter of fact, there were no Turks in sight, and nobody quite knows how the scare was started.