Androutsos with 500 men tried to cross the Peloponnese and enter Roumelia. Barbitsiotis in a rear-guard action managed to help fight his way through the Peloponnese and into Roumelia. In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte, at the time a general serving in the French Revolutionary Wars under the orders of the French Directory, sent two members of the Stephanopoulos family to Mani in order to convince the Maniots to attack the Ottomans from the Peloponnese while he attacked from Egypt. Zacharias Barbitsiotis and Zanetbey (Zanetos Grigorakis) accepted the offer, and Napoleon sent them weapons. When the Turks discovered this, they had Zanetos replaced as bey with Panagiotis Koumoundouros.