At the same time, however, Khourshid Pasha surrendered command of the Ottoman forces in Epirus to the Albanian general Omer Vrioni.[3] Joining the Greeks were one battalion of German, Polish, Swiss, French and Italian philhellene volunteers with Karl von Normann-Ehrenfels, formerly of the Wurttemberg army, serving as Mavrokordatos's chief of staff.[4] Several of the Italian, German and French philhellenes were veterans of the Napoleonic wars and who trained a battalion of Greeks to fight in the Western-style of war.[5] The philhellenes were far from united and in a duel a German shot a Frenchman dead.[6] One French philhellene Jean-François-Maxime Raybaud reported: "It was unimaginably difficult to train the men in the harsh and precise details of service in the ranks, in strict discipline and in the advantages of systematic instruction, when these men were Europeans of a generally difficult temperament and different in their habits, education, language and weapons".[7] Mavrokordhatos's force of about 2,000 men, both regular and irregular were outnumbered by the Ottoman force of 10,000 (or 14.000[8])Turks and Albanians.[7] Mavrokordhatos placed his men on two ridges to the west and east of the village of Peta, which stands on a low hill at the beginning of a coastal plain.[9] On the higher ridge to the east of the village were placed Greek forces under Gogos Bakolas on the right, forces commanded by other captains Varnakiotis and Vlachopoulos in the middle while Markos Botsaris were on the left.[10] On the western and lower ridge were the philhellenes with the Greek regulars under the Italian captain Taralla in the middle, volunteers from the British protectorate of the Ionian islands on the right and the philhellenes under the Italian Dania on the left.[10] Bakolas and Botsaris were old enemies, both being rival klephts (bandits) and Mavrokordhatos wanted to keep the two rivals as far as apart as possible as the two men hated on another.[10]