The
Greek War of Independence, also known as the
Greek Revolution ( ; Ottoman Turkish: يونان عصياني
Yunan İsyanı) was a successful war of independence waged
by the Greek revolutionaries
between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European
powers, against the Ottoman Empire,
who were assisted by their vassals, the
Egyptian
Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of Tunisia
.
Following
the fall of the Byzantine Empire to
the Ottoman Empire, most of Greece
came under
Turkish rule. During this time, there were numerous revolts
by Greeks attempting to gain independence. In 1814, a secret
organization called the
Filiki Eteria
was founded with the aim of liberating Greece.
The Filiki Eteria
planned to launch revolts in the Peloponnese
, the Danubian
Principalities and Constantinople
. The first of these revolts began on 6 March
1821 in the Danubian Principalities, but it was soon put down by
the Ottomans. The events in the north urged the Greeks in the
Peloponnese in action and on 17 March 1821 the
Maniots declared war on the Ottomans.
By the end of the
month, the Peloponnese was in open revolt against the Turks and by
October 1821 the Greeks under Theodoros Kolokotronis had captured
Tripolitsa
. The Peloponnesian revolt was quickly followed
by revolts in Crete
, Macedonia
and Central Greece,
which would soon be suppressed. Meanwhile, the
makeshift Greek navy was achieving success against the Ottoman navy
in the Aegean
Sea
and prevented Turkish reinforcements from arriving
by sea.
Tensions soon developed among different Greek factions, leading to
a virtual
civil war. Meanwhile, the
Ottoman Sultan negotiated with
Mehmet Ali of Egypt, who agreed
to send his son
Ibrahim Pasha to
Greece with an army to suppress the revolt in return for
territorial gain.
Ibrahim landed in the Peloponnese in February
1825 and had immediate success: by the end of 1825, most of the
Peloponnese was under Egyptian control, and the city of Messolonghi
—put under siege by the Turks since April 1825—fell
in April 1826. Although Ibrahim was defeated in Mani, he had succeeded in suppressing most of
the revolt in the Peloponnese and Athens
had been
retaken.
Following
years of negotiation, three Great Powers, Russia
, the
United
Kingdom
and France,
decided to intervene in the conflict and each nation sent a navy to
Greece. Following news that combined Turkish–Egyptian fleets
were going to attack the Greek island of
Hydra, the allied fleet intercepted the
Turkish–Egyptian fleet at
Navarino.
Following
a week long standoff, a battle
began which resulted in the destruction of the
Turkish–Egyptian fleet. With the help of a
French expeditionary force, the Greeks
drove the Turks out of the Peloponnese and proceeded to the
captured part of Central Greece by 1828. As a result of years of
negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation
in May 1832.
Background
The
Fall of Constantinople in
1453 and the subsequent fall of the successor states of the
Byzantine Empire marked the end of Byzantine sovereignty. Since
then, the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans and Anatolia, although
there were some exceptions. Orthodox Christians were granted some
political rights under Ottoman rule, but they were considered
inferior subjects. The majority of Greeks were called
rayas by the Turks, a name that referred to the large mass
of subjects in the Ottoman
ruling
class. Meanwhile, Greek intellectuals and humanists, who had
migrated west before or during the Ottoman invasions, such as
Demetrius Chalcondyles and
Leonardos Philaras, began to call
for the liberation of their homeland. However, Greece was to remain
under Ottoman rule for several more centuries.
In the 18th and 19th
century, as revolutionary nationalism grew across Europe—including the Balkans (due, in large part, to
the influence of the French
Revolution)—the Ottoman Empire's power declined and Greek
nationalism began to assert itself, with the Greek cause beginning
to draw support not only from the large Greek merchant diaspora in
both Western Europe and Russia
but also
from Western European Philhellenes.Boime, Social History of
Modern Art, pp. 194–196
* Trudgill, "Greece and European Turkey", p. 241 This Greek
movement for independence, was not only the first movement of
national character in Eastern Europe, but also the first one in a
non-Christian environment, like the Ottoman Empire.
Greeks under Ottoman rule
The Greek Revolution was not an isolated event; numerous failed
attempts at regaining independence took place throughout the
history of the Ottoman era. Throughout the 17th century there was
great resistance to the
Ottomans in
the
Morea and elsewhere, as evidenced by
revolts led by
Dionysius the
Philosopher.
After the Morean
War, Peloponnese
came under Venetian
rule for 30 years, and remained in turmoil from
then on and throughout the 17th century, as the bands of the
klephts multiplied. The first great
uprising was the Russian-sponsored
Orlov
Revolt of the 1770s, which was crushed by the Ottomans after
having limited success. After the crushing of the uprising, Muslim
Albanians ravaged many regions in mainland Greece.Svoronos,
History of Modern Greece, p. 59
* Vacalopoulos,
History of Macedonia, p.
336 However, the
Maniots
continually resisted Turkish rule, and defeated several Turkish
incursions into their region, the most famous of which was the
invasion of 1770.
During
the second
Russo-Turkish War, the Greek community of Trieste
financed a small fleet under Lambros Katsonis, which was a nuisance for
the Turkish navy; during the war klephts and armatoloi rose once
again.
At the same time, a number of Greeks enjoyed a privileged position
in the Ottoman state as members of the Ottoman bureaucracy.
Greeks
controlled the affairs of the Orthodox Church through the Ecumenical Patriarchate of
Constantinople
, as the higher clergy of the Orthodox Church was
mostly of Greek origin. Thus, as a result of the Ottoman
millet system, the
predominantly Greek hierarchy of the Patriarchate enjoyed control
over the Empire's Orthodox subjects (the
Rum milleti).
Modern scholars assert that the
Greek Orthodox Church played a pivotal
role in the preservation of national identity, the development of
Greek society and the resurgence of Greek nationalism.
From the 18th century
and onwards, members of prominent Greek families in Constantinople,
known as Phanariotes (after the Phanar
district of
the city) gained considerable control over Turkish foreign policy
and eventually over the bureaucracy as a whole.Paparrigopoulos,
History of the Hellenic Nation, Eb, p. 108
* Svoronos, The Greek Nation, p. 89
* Trudgill, "Greece and European Turkey", p. 241
Of considerable importance during the same period was the strong
maritime tradition on the islands of the Aegean, together with the
emergence over the 18th century of an influential merchant class,
which generated the wealth necessary to found schools, libraries
and pay for young Greeks to study at the universities of Western
Europe. It was there that they came into contact with the radical
ideas of the
European
Enlightenment, the French Revolution and romantic nationalism.
Educated and influential members of the large Greek diaspora, such
as
Adamantios Korais and
Anthimos Gazis, tried to transmit these ideas
back to the Greeks, with the double aim of raising their
educational level and simultaneously strengthening their national
identity. This was achieved through the dissemination of books,
pamphlets and other writings in Greek, in a process that has been
described as the
modern Greek
Enlightenment (Greek: Διαφωτισμός).
The most influential of the Greek writers and intellectuals was
Rigas Feraios. Deeply influenced by
the French Revolution, Rigas was the first who conceived and
organized a comprehensive national movement aiming at the
liberation of all
Balkan nations—including
the Turks of the region—and the creation of a "Balkan Republic".
Arrested
by Austrian
officials in Trieste
in 1797, he was handed over to Ottoman officials
and transported to Belgrade
along with his co-conspirators. All of them
were strangled to death and their bodies were dumped in the
Danube, in June 1798. Rigas' death ultimately
fanned the flames of Greek nationalism; his nationalist poem, the
Thourios (war-song), was translated into a number of
Western European and later
Balkan languages and served as a
rallying cry for Greeks against Ottoman rule:
- Greek
- [...]
- English
- For how long, o brave young men, shall we live in
fastnesses,
- Alone, like lions, on the ridges in the
mountains?
- Shall we dwell in caves, looking out on branches,
- Fleeing from the world on account of bitter
serfdom?
- Abandoning brothers, sisters, parents, homeland
- Friends, children, and all of our kin?
- [...]
- Better one hour of free life,
- Than forty years of slavery and prison.
Klephts and armatoloi
In times of militarily weak central authority, the Balkan
countryside became infested by groups of bandits that struck at
Muslims and Christians alike, called klephts (κλέφτες) in Greek,
the equivalent of
Hajduks. Defying Ottoman
rule, the klephts were highly admired and held a significant place
in the popular mythology.
Responding to the klephts' attacks, the Ottomans recruited the
ablest amongst these groups, contracting Christian militias, known
as armatoloi (Greek: αρματολοί), to secure endangered areas,
especially mountain passes. The area under their control was called
armatolik, the oldest known being established in
Agrafa during the reign of
Murad
II.
Boundaries between klephts and armatoloi were not clear, as the
latter would often turn into klephts to extort more benefits from
the authorities, and, consequently, another klepht group would be
appointed to the armatolik to confront their predecessors.
Nevertheless, klephts and armatoloi formed a provincial elite,
though not a social class whose members would muster under a common
goal. As the armatoloi's position gradually turned into a
hereditary one, some captains took care of their armatolik as their
personal property. A great deal of power was placed in their hands
and they integrated in the network of clientelist relationships
that formed the Ottoman administration. Some managed to establish
exclusive control in their armatolik, forcing the
Porte to repeatedly, though unsuccessfully, try to
eliminate them. By the time of the War of Independence powerful
armatoloi could be traced in
Rumeli, modern
Thessaly, Epirus and southern Macedonia. According to
Yannis Makriyannis, klephts and
armatoloi—being the only available major military formation on the
side of the Greeks—played such a crucial role in the Greek
revolution that he referred to them as the "yeast of
liberty".
Filiki Eteria
Feraios' martyrdom was to inspire three young Greek merchants,
Nikolaos Skoufas, Manolis Xanthos,
and Athanasios Tsakalov.
Influenced by the Italian Carbonari (organized in the fashion of Freemasonry), they founded in 1814 the secret
Filiki Eteria ("Friendly Society") in
Odessa
, an
important center of the Greek mercantile diaspora.
With the
support of wealthy Greek exile communities in Britain
and the United States
and with the aid of sympathizers in Western Europe,
they planned the rebellion. The society's basic objective
was a revival of the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as the
capital, not the formation of a national state.
In early 1820,
Ioannis Kapodistrias, an
official from the Ionian
Islands
who had become the joint foreign minister of
Tsar Alexander I, was approached by
the Society in order to be named leader but declined the offer; the
Filikoi (members of Filiki Eteria) then turned to Alexander Ypsilantis, a
Phanariote serving in the Russian army as general and adjutant to
Alexander, who accepted.
The Filiki Eteria expanded rapidly and was soon able to recruit
members in all areas of the Greek world and among all elements of
the Greek society. In 1821, the Ottoman Empire mainly faced the war
against
Persia and most particularly
the revolt by
Ali Pasha in Epirus, which
had forced the
vali (governor) of the Morea,
Hursid Pasha, and other local pashas to leave
their provinces and campaign against the rebel force.
At the same time, the
Great Powers, allied in the "Concert of Europe" in opposition to
revolutions in the aftermath of Napoleon I of France, were preoccupied
with revolts in Italy
and Spain
. It
was in this context that the Greeks judged the time ripe for their
own revolt. The plan originally involved uprisings in three places,
the Peloponnese, the
Danubian
Principalities and Constantinople.
Philhellenism
Due to Greece's classical heritage, there was tremendous sympathy
for the Greek cause throughout Europe. Many wealthy Americans and
Western European aristocrats, such as the renowned poet
Lord Byron, took up
arms to join the Greek revolutionaries. Many more also financed the
revolution. The
Scottish historian
and philhellene
Thomas Gordon took part
in the revolutionary struggle and later wrote the first histories
of the Greek revolution in
English.
Philhellenes often overlooked contradictory stories about Greek
atrocities, having deposited their libertarian impulses to the
Greek revolution.
In Europe, the Greek revolt aroused widespread sympathy among the
public, although at first it was met with lukewarm reception from
the Great Powers. Some historians argue that Ottoman atrocities
were given wide coverage in Europe, while Christian atrocities
tended to be suppressed or played down.Boime,
Social History of
Modern Art, 195
* Brown,
International Politics and the Middle East,
52
* Schick,
Christian Maidens, Turkish Ravishers, 286 One of
these Ottoman massacres inspired
Eugène Delacroix's famous painting
Massacre of Chios;
other philhellenic works by Delacroix were inspired by various
Byron poems. Byron, the most celebrated philhellene of all, lent
his name, prestige and wealth to the cause..
The mountains look on Marathon
--
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might yet be free
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
...
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush?
– Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae.
|
Byron, The Isles of
Greece |
He spent
time in Albania
and Greece, organizing funds and supplies
(including the provision of several ships), but died from fever at
Messolonghi
in 1824. Byron's death helped to create an
even stronger European sympathy for the Greek cause. His poetry,
along with
Delacroix's art,
helped arouse European public opinion in favor of the Greek
revolutionaries to the point of no return, and led Western powers
to intervene directly.
Philhellenism made a notable contribution to
romanticism, enabling the younger generation of
artistic and literary intellectuals to expand the classical
repertoire by treating modern Greek history as an extension of
ancient history; the idea of a regeneration of the spirit of
ancient Greece permeated the rhetoric of the Greek cause's
supporters . Modern classicists and romantics envisioned the
casting out of the Turks as the prelude to the revival of the
Golden Age.
Outbreak of the revolution
Danubian principalities
Alexander
Ypsilantis was elected as the head of the Filiki Eteria in
April 1820 and took upon him the task of planning the insurrection.
Ypsilantis' intention was to raise all the Christians of the
Balkans in rebellion and perhaps force Russia to intervene on their
behalf. On 6 March, he crossed the river
Prut
with his followers, entering the
Danubian Principalities.
In order
to encourage the local Romanian Christians
to join him, he announced that he had "the support of a Great
Power", implying Russia
. Two
days after crossing the Prut, Ypsilantis issued a proclamation
calling all Greeks and Christians to rise up against the
Ottomans.Clogg,
A Concise History of Greece, p. 32
* Hitchins,
The Romanians, 149–150
"Fight for Faith and Motherland! The
time has come, O Hellenes. Long ago the people of Europe, fighting
for their own rights and liberties, invited us to imitation ... The
enlightened peoples of Europe are occupied in restoring the same
well-being, and, full of gratitude for the benefactions of our
forefathers towards them, desire the liberation of Greece. We,
seemingly worthy of ancestral virtue and of the present century,
are hopeful that we will achieve their defense and help. Many of
these freedom-lovers want to come and fight alongside us ... Who
then hinders your manly arms? Our cowardly enemy is sick and weak.
Our generals are experienced, and all our fellow countrymen are
full of enthusiasm. Unite, then, O brave and magnanimous Greeks!
Let national phalanxes be formed, let patriotic legions appear and
you will see those old giants of despotism fall themselves, before
our triumphant banners." |
Ypsilantis'
Proclamation at Iaşi. |
Instead
of directly advancing on Brăila
, where he
arguably could have prevented Ottoman armies from entering the
Principalities, and where he might have forced Russia to accept a
fait
accompli, he remained in Iaşi
, and ordered
the executions of several pro-Ottoman Moldovans. In Bucharest
, where he had arrived in early April after some
weeks delay, he decided that he could not rely on the Wallachian Pandurs to
continue their Oltenian-based revolt and
assist the Greek cause. The Pandur leader was
Tudor Vladimirescu, who had already
reached the outskirts of Bucharest on 28 March. In Bucharest, the
relations of the two men deteriorated dramatically; Vladimirescu's
first priority was to assert his authority against the newly
appointed prince
Scarlat
Callimachi, trying to maintain relations with both Russia and
the Ottomans.
At that point, Kapodistrias, the foreign minister of Russia, was
ordered by
Alexander I to send
Ypsilantis a letter upbraiding him for misusing the mandate
received from the Tsar; Kapodistrias announced to Ypsilantis that
his name had been struck off the army list and that he was
commanded to lay down arms. Ypsilantis tried to ignore the letter,
but Vladimirescu took this as the end of his commitment to the
Eteria. A conflict erupted inside his camp and he was tried and put
to death by the Eteria on 7 June. The loss of their Romanian
allies, followed by an Ottoman intervention on Wallachian soil,
sealed defeat for the Greek exiles and culminated in the disastrous
Battle of Dragashani and the
destruction of the
Sacred Band on
19 June.
Alexander
Ypsilantis, accompanied by his brother Nicholas and a remnant of
his followers, retreated to Râmnicu Vâlcea
, where he spent some days negotiating with the
Austrian authorities for permission to cross the frontier.
Fearing
that his followers might surrender him to the Turks, he gave out
that Austria had declared war on Turkey, caused a Te Deum to be sung in Cozia Monastery
, and, on pretext of arranging measures with the
Austrian commander-in-chief, he crossed the frontier.
However, the reactionary policies of the
Holy Alliance were enforced by
Francis II and the country
refused to give asylum for leaders of revolts in neighboring
countries. Ypsilantis was kept in close confinement for seven
years. In Moldavia, the struggle continued for a while, under
Giorgakis Olympios and
Yiannis Pharmakis but, by the end of the
year, the provinces had been pacified by the Ottomans.
Peloponnese
The
Peloponnese
, with its long tradition of resistance to the
Ottomans, was to become the heartland of the revolt. In the
early months of 1821, with the absence of the Turkish governor
Mora valisi Hursid Pasha and
many of his troops, the situation was favourable for the Greeks to
rise against Ottoman occupation.
Theodoros Kolokotronis, a renowned
Greek klepht who had served in the British army in the Ionian
Islands
during the Napoleonic
Wars, returned on 6 January 1821 and went to the Mani Peninsula. The Turks found out
about Kolokotronis' arrival and demanded his surrender from the
local
bey,
Petros Mavromichalis, also known as
Petrobey. Mavromichalis refused, saying he was just an old
man.
The
crucial meeting was held at Vostitsa (modern Aigion
), where
chieftains and prelates from all over the Peloponnese assembled on
26 January. There, the klepht captains declared their
readiness for the uprising, while most of the civil leaders
presented themselves sceptical and demanded guarantees about a
Russian intervention. Nevertheless, as news came of Ypsilantis'
march into the Danubian Principalities, the atmosphere in the
Peloponnese was tense, and by mid-March, sporadic incidents against
Muslims occurred, heralding the start of the uprising.
The Revolution was
declared on March 25, 1821, in the Monastery of Agia Lavra
by the archbishop of Patras Germanos, The cry “Freedom or
Death” became the motto of the revolution. Revolts
against Ottoman Turkish rule soon broke out in the Peloponnese, in
Greece north of the Gulf of Corinth, and on numerous islands. The
25th of March has been established as the official anniversary of
the Revolution and is celebrated as a
national day in Greece.
On 17
March, 1821, war was declared on the Turks by the Maniots in
Areopoli
. An army of 2,000 Maniots under the command
of Petros Mavromichalis, which included Kolokotronis, his nephew
Nikitaras and Papaflessas, advanced on the Messenian
town of Kalamata
, which fell to the Greeks on the 23rd. On
the same day,
Andreas Londos, a Greek
primate, rose up at Vostitsa. On
March 28, the Messenian Senate, the first of the Greeks' local
governing councils, held its first session in Kalamata.
In
Achaia
, the town
of Kalavryta
was besieged on 21 March. In Patras
, in the
already tense atmosphere, the Ottomans had transferred their
belongings to the fortress in late February, followed by their
families some days later. On 22 March, the revolutionaries
declared the Revolution at the square of Agios Georgios in Patras,
in the presence of archbishop Germanos. On the next day, the
leaders of the Revolution in Achaia sent a document to the foreign
consulates explaining the reasons of the Revolution. On 23 March,
the Ottomans launched sporadic attacks towards the town while the
revolutionaries, led by
Panagiotis
Karatzas, drove them back to the fortress.
Yannis Makriyannis who had been hiding in
the town referred to the scene in his memoirs:
"Shooting broke
out two days later in Patras. The Turks had seized the
fortress and the Romans had
taken the seashore."
By the
end of March, the Greeks effectively controlled the countryside,
while the Turks were confined to the fortresses, most notably those
of Patras, Rio
, Acrocorinth
, Monemvasia
, Nafplion
and the provincial capital, Tripolitsa
, where many Muslims had fled with their families at
the beginning of the uprising. All these were loosely
besieged by local irregular forces under their own captains, since
the Greeks lacked artillery. With the exception of Tripolitsa, all
sites had access to the sea and could be resupplied and reinforced
by the Ottoman fleet.
Kolokotronis, determined to take Tripolitsa,
the Ottoman provincial capital in the Peloponnese, moved into
Arcadia
with 300 Greek soldiers. When he entered
Arcadia his band of 300 fought a Turkish force of 1,300 men and
defeated them. On 5 October,
Tripolitsa was seized by Kolokotronis and
his men, and the town was given over to the mob for two days.
Central Greece
Many armatoloi in Central Greece had joined the Filiki Eteria. When
the revolution erupted they took up arms alongside the
revolutionaries, namely, amongst them,
Androutsos,
Karaiskakis and
Athanasios Diakos, pursuing a
patron-client reasoning.
The first
region to revolt in Central Greece
was Phocis
on 24
March. Boeotia, Livadeia
was captured by Athanasios Diakos on 29 March, followed by
Thebes
two days
later. The Ottoman garrison held out in the citadel of
Salona, the regional capital, until April 10, when the Greeks took
it. At the same time, the Greeks suffered a defeat at the
Battle of Alamana against the army of
Omer Vryonis, which resulted in the
death of Athanasios Diakos.
However, the Ottoman advance was stopped at
the Battle of Gravia, near Mount Parnassus and the ruins of ancient
Delphi
, under the
leadership of Odysseas
Androutsos. Vryonis turned towards Boeotia and sacked
Livadeia, awaiting reinforcements before proceeding towards the
Morea. These forces, 8,000 men under Beyran
Pasha, were ultimately defeated at the
Battle of Vassilika on 26 August. This
defeat forced Vryonis too to withdraw, securing the fledgling Greek
revolutionaries.
Crete
Cretan participation in the revolution was extensive, but it failed
to achieve liberation from Turkish rule due to Egyptian
intervention.
Crete
had a long
history of resisting Turkish rule, exemplified by the folk hero
Daskalogiannis who was killed whilst
fighting the Turks. In 1821, an uprising by Christians was
met with a fierce response from the Ottoman authorities and the
execution of several bishops, regarded as ringleaders. The Sultan
Mahmud II was forced to seek the aid of
his rebellious vassal and rival, the Pasha of Egypt, and offered
him the
pashalik of Crete. The Egyptian army landed on the
island in 1824, and Ibrahim undertook the task of ending the
rebellion.
Between 1821 and 1828, the island was the scene of repeated
hostilities and atrocities. The Muslims were driven into the large
fortified towns on the north coast and it would appear that as many
as 60% of them died from plague or famine while there. The Cretan
Christians also suffered severely, losing around 21% of their
population.
Macedonia
The
economic ascent of Thessaloniki
and of the other urban centers of Macedonia
coincided with the cultural and political
renaissance of the Greeks. The ideals and patriotic songs of
Regas and others had made a profound impression upon the
Thessalonians. Α few years later, the revolutionary fervor of the
Southern Greeks was to spread to these parts, and the seeds of
Filiki Eteria were speedily to take root.
The leader and
coordinator of the revolution in Macedonia was Emmanouel Pappas from the village of
Dobista
, Serres
, who was initiated into the Filiki Eteria in
1819. Papas had considerable influence over the local
Ottoman authorities, especially the local governor, Ismail Bey, and
offered much of his personal wealth for the cause.
Following the instructions of Alexander Ypsilantis, that is to
prepare the ground and to rouse the inhabitants of Macedonia to
rebellion, Papas loaded arms and munitions from Constantinople on a
ship on 23 March and proceeded to
Mount
Athos, considering that this would be the most suitable
spring-board for starting the insurrection. As Vacalopoulos notes,
however, "adequate preparations for rebellion had not been made,
nor were revolutionary ideals to be reconciled with the ideological
world of the monks within the Athonite regime".
On 8 May, the Turks,
infuriated by the landing of sailors from Psara
at
Tsayezi
, by the capture of Turkish merchants and the
seizure of their goods, rampaged through the streets of Serres,
searched the houses of the notables for arms, imprisoned the
Metropolitan and 150 merchants, and seized their goods as a
reprisal for the plundering by the Psarians.
In
Thessaloniki
, governor Yusuf Bey (the son of Ismail Bey)
imprisoned in his headquarters more than 400 hostages, of whom more
than 100 were monks from the monastic estates. He also wished to
seize the powerful notables of Polygyros
, who got wind of his intentions and fled. On
17 May, the Greeks of Polygyros took up arms, killed the local
governor and 14 of his men, and wounded three others; they also
repulsed two Turkish detachments.
On 18 May, when Yusuf learnt of the
incidents at Polygyros and the spreading of the insurrection ot the
villages of Chalkidiki
, he ordered half of his hostages to be slaughtered
before his eyes. The Mulla of Thessalonica, Hayrıülah, gives
the following description of Yusuf's retaliations:
It would take until the end of the century for the city's Greek
community to recover.
The revolt, however, gained momentum in
Mount Athos and Kassandra
, and the island of Thasos
joined
it. Meanwhile, the revolt in Chalkidiki was progressing
slowly and unsystematically. In June 1821 the insurgents tried to
cut communications between
Thrace and the
south, attempting to prevent the
serasker Hadji Mehmet Bayram Pasha from
transferring forces from Asia Minor to Southern Greece.
Even
though the rebels delayed him, they were ultimately defeated at the
pass of Rentina
.
The insurrection in Chalkidiki was, from then on, confined to the
peninsulas of Mount Athos and Kassandra. On 30 October 1821, an
offensive led by the new Pasha of Thessaloniki, Mehmet Emin
Abulubud, resulted in a decisive Ottoman victory at Kassandra.
The
survivors, among them Papas, were rescued by the Psarian fleet,
which took them mainly to Skiathos
, Skopelos
and Skyros
.
However, Papas died en route to join the revolution at
Hydra.
Sithonia
, Mount Athos and Thasos subsequently surrendered on
terms.
Nevertheless, the revolt spread from
Central to Western Macedonia, from Olympus
to Pieria
and
Vermion
. In the autumn of 1821, Nikolaos Kasomoulis
was sent to Southern Greece as the "representative of South-East
Macedonia", and met
Demetrius
Ypsilantis (brother of Alexander Ypsilantis) . He then wrote to
Papas from Hydra, asking him to visit Olympus to meet the captains
there and to "fire them with the required patriotic enthusiasm".
At the
beginning of 1822, Anastasios
Karatasos and Aggelis Gatsos
arranged a meeting with other armatoloi; they decided that the
insurrection should be based on three towns: Naoussa, Kastania
, and Siatista
.
In March
1822, Mehmet Emin secured decisive victories at Kolindros
and Kastania. Further north, in the vicinity
of Naousa,
Zafeirakis
Theodosiou, Karatasos and Gatsos organized the city's defense,
and the first clashes resulted in a victory for the Greeks. Mehmed
Emin then appeared before the town with 10,000 regular troops and
10,600 irregulars. Failing to get the insurgents to surrender,
Mehmet Emin launched a number of attacks pushing them further back
and finally captured Naousa in April, helped by the enemies of
Zafeirakis, who had revealed an unguarded spot, the "Alonia".
Reprisals and executions ensued, and women are reported to have
flung themselves over the Arapitsa waterfall to avoid dishonor and
being sold in slavery.
Those who broke through the siege of Naousa
fell back in Kozani
, Siatista
and Aspropotamos River, or were
carried by the Psarian fleet to the Northern Aegean islands.
War at sea
From the early stages of the revolution, success at sea was vital
for the Greeks. If they failed to counter the
Ottoman Navy, it would be able to resupply the
isolated Ottoman garrisons and land reinforcements from the
Ottoman Empire's Asian provinces at
will, crushing the rebellion.
The Greek fleet was primarily outfitted by
prosperous Aegean islanders, principally from three islands:
Hydra
, Spetses
and Psara
.
Each island equipped, manned and maintained its own squadron, under
its own admiral. Although they were manned by experienced crews,
the Greek ships were not designed for warfare, equipped with only
light guns and staffed by armed merchantmen. Against them stood the
Ottoman fleet, which enjoyed several advantages: its ships and
supporting craft were built for war; it was supported by the
resources of the vast Ottoman Empire; command was centralized and
disciplined under the
Kaptan Pasha. The
total Ottoman fleet size consisted of 23 masted
ships of the line, each with about 80 guns
and 7 or 8
frigates with 50 guns, 5
corvettes with about 30 guns and around 40
brigs with 20 or fewer guns.
In the face of this situation, the Greeks decided to use
fire ships ( ), which had proven themselves
effective for the Psarians during the
Orlov
Revolt in 1770. The first test was made at
Eresos on May 27, 1821, when a Turkish frigate was
successfully destroyed by a fire ship under Dimitrios Papanikolis.
In the fire ships, the Greeks found an effective weapon against the
Ottoman vessels.
In subsequent years, the successes of the
Greek fire ships would increase their reputation, with acts such as
the destruction of the Ottoman flagship by Constantine Kanaris at Chios
, after the
massacre of the island's population in
June 1822, acquiring international fame. Overall, 59
fire ship attacks were carried out, of which 39 were
successful.
At the same time, conventional naval actions were also fought, at
which naval commanders like
Andreas Miaoulis,
Nikolis Apostolis,
Iakovos Tombazis and
Antonios Kriezis distinguished themselves.
The early successes of the Greek fleet in direct confrontations
with the Ottomans at Patras and Spetses gave the crews confidence
and contributed greatly to the survival and success of the uprising
in the Peloponnese.
Later, however, as Greece became embroiled in a
civil war, the Sultan called upon his strongest
subject,
Muhammad Ali of
Egypt, for aid.
Plagued by internal strife and financial
difficulties in keeping the fleet in constant readiness, the Greeks
failed to prevent the capture and destruction of Kasos
and
Psara in 1824, on the landing
of the Egyptian army at Methoni
. Despite victories at Samos
and
Gerontas, the Revolution was threatened with collapse until the
intervention of the Great Powers in the Battle of
Navarino
in 1827.
Revolution in peril
Greek infighting
From
November 15 to 20, 1821, a council was held in Salona (present-day
Amfissa
) in which the main local notables and military
chiefs participated. Under the direction of
Theodoros Negris, they set down a
proto-constitution for the region, the
"Legal Order of Eastern
Continental Greece" (Νομική Διάταξις της Ανατολικής Χέρσου
Ελλάδος), and established a governing council, the
Areopagus of Eastern
Continental Greece, composed of 71 notables from Eastern
Greece,
Thessaly and
Macedonia.
A month
later, a national
legislative assembly was formed at Epidaurus
, at which Demetrius Ypsilantis was elected
president.
Officially, the Areopagus was superseded by the central provisional
administration, established at the First National Assembly, but the
council continued its existence and exercised considerable
authority, albeit in the name of the national government. Tensions
between the Areopagus, which was dominated by Central Greeks, and
the National Assembly, which was dominated by Peloponnesians,
caused an early rift among the revolutionaries. The relationship
between the two governments was extremely tense and Greece soon
entered a phase of virtual civil war based on the regional
governments.
Egyptian intervention
Seeing
that the Greek force had defeated Turkey's, the Ottoman Sultan
asked his Egyptian vassal, Mehmet
Ali of Egypt, who hailed from Kavala
, for
aid. Mehmet Ali agreed to send his son Ibrahim Pasha in command of his
expedition to Greece in exchange for Crete, Cyprus, the Peleponnese
and Syria
. He
planned to pay for the war by expelling most of its inhabitants and
resettling Greece with Egyptian peasants.
Ibrahim Pasha landed at
Methoni on February
24, 1825 and a month later he was joined by his army of 10,000
infantry and 1,000 cavalry.
Ibrahim proceeded to defeat the Greek garrison on the
small island of Sphacteria
off the coast of Messenia. With the Greeks
in disarray, Ibrahim ravaged the Western Peloponnese and defeated
and killed
Papaflessas at the
Battle of Maniaki. The Greek government,
in an attempt to defeat the Egyptians, released Kolokotronis from
captivity, but he too was unsuccessful.
By the end of June,
Ibrahim had captured the city of Argos
and was
within striking distance of Nafplion
. The city was saved by Commodore Gawen
Hamilton of the
Royal Navy who placed his
ships in a position which looked like he would assist in the
defense of the city.
At the
same time, the Turkish armies in Central Greece were besieging the
city of Messolonghi
for the third time
. The siege had begun on April 15, 1825,
the day on which Navarino had fallen to Ibrahim. The Turks
approached the city and began surrounding it with trenches as well
as setting up batteries. The first major Turkish attack was not
launched until August, when the Turks undermined the wall and
brought a section of it down. The Greeks counter-attacked and drove
the Turks back. On the same night, they launched a raid on the
Turkish trenches and batteries, managing to inflict major
damage.
Both sides were being supplied by sea. However, the Greeks were
having difficulty paying the crews; this resulted in the fighting
of only a few captains who did not receive any remuneration.
In early
autumn, the Greek navy under the command of Miaoulis forced the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of
Corinth
to retreat, after attacking it with fire
ships. In mid-winter, Ibrahim left Navarino by land and
cross the Gulf of Corinth and joined the Turks at Messolonghi.
After six weeks of fighting, Ibrahim's army had no more luck than
the Turks in penertrating Messolonghi's defences.
In the spring of 1826, Ibrahim managed to capture the marshes
around the city, although not without heavy losses. By capturing
the marshes, he had cut the Greeks off from the sea and blocked off
their supply route. Despite the Egyptians and the Turks offering
them terms to stop the attacks, the Greek refused and continued to
fight. On April 22, the Greeks decided to sail from the city during
the night with 3,000 men to cut a path through the Egyptian lines
and allow 6,000 women, children and non-combatants to follow.
However,
a Bulgarian
deserter informed Ibrahim of the Greek's intention
and he had his entire army deployed; only 1,800 Greeks managed to
cut their way through the Egyptian lines. Between 3,000 and
4,000 women and children were enslaved and many of the people who
remained behind decided to blow themselves up with gun powder
rather than be enslaved.
Ibrahim sent an envoy to the Maniots demanding that they surrender
or else he would ravage their land as he had done to the rest of
the Peloponnese. Instead of surrendering, the Maniots simply
replied:
Ibrahim tried
to enter Mani from the north-east near Almiro on the June 21,
1826, but he was forced to stop at the fortifications at Vergas in
northern Mani. His army of 7,000 men was held off by an army of
2,000 Maniots and 500 refugees from other parts of Greece until
Kolokotronis attacked the Egyptians from the rear and forced them
to retreat. Ibrahim again tried to enter Mani, but again the
Maniots defeated the Turkish and Egyptian forces. The Maniots
pursued the Egyptians all the way to Kalamata before returning to
Vergas. This battle was costly for Ibrahim not only because he
suffered 2,500 casualties, but it also ruined his plan to invade
Mani from the north. Ibrahim would try again several times to take
Mani, however, each time the Turko-Arab forces were repulsed, they
suffered much heavier casualties than the Greeks.
European intervention
Initial hostility
When the news of the Greek Revolution were first received, the
reaction of the European powers was uniformly hostile. They
recognized the degeneration of the
Ottoman Empire but they did not know how to
handle this situation (a problem known as the "Eastern Question").
Afraid of the complications the partition of the empire might
raise, the British foreign minister,
Viscount Castlereagh,
as well as the Austrian foreign minister, Prince
Metternich, and the
Tsar of Russia,
Alexander I,
shared the same view concerning the necessity of preserving the
status quo and the peace of Europe. They also pleaded that
they maintain the
Concert of
Europe.
Metternich also tried to undermine the Russian foreign minister,
Ioannis Capodistrias, who was
of Greek origin. Capodistrias demanded Alexander to declare war on
the Ottomans in order to liberate Greece and increase the greatness
of Russia. Metternich persuaded Alexander that Capodistrias was in
league with the Italian
Carbonari (an
Italian revolutionary group) leading Alexander to disavow him.
As a
result of the Russian reaction to Alexander Ypsilantis,
Capodistrias resigned as foreign minister and moved to Switzerland
. Nevertheless, Alexander's position was
ambivalent, since he regarded himself as the protector of the
Orthodox Church, and his subjects were deeply moved by the hanging
of the Patriarch. These factors explain why, after denouncing the
Greek Revolution, Alexander dispatched an ultimatum to
Constantinople on 27 July 1821. However, the danger of war passed
temporarily, after Metternich and Castlereagh persuaded the Sultan
to make some concessions to the Tsar.
Change of stance
In August 1822,
George Canning was
appointed by the British government as Minister of Foreign Affairs
succeeding Castlereagh. Canning was influenced by the mounting
popular agitation against the Ottomans and believed that a
settlement could no longer be postponed. He also feared that Russia
might undertake unilateral action against the Ottoman Empire. In
March 1823, Canning declared that "when a whole nation revolts
against its conqueror, the nation can not be considered as
piratical but as a nation in a state of war". In February of the
same year, he notified the Ottoman Empire that the United Kingdom
would maintain friendly relations with the Turks only under the
condition that the latter respected the Christian subjects of the
Empire. The Commissioner of the Ionian Islands that belonged to the
United Kingdom, was ordered to consider the Greeks in a state of
war and give them the right to cut off certain areas from which the
Turks could get provisions. These measures led to the increase of
British influence. This influence was reinforced by the issuing of
two loans that the Greeks managed to conclude with British
fund-holders in 1824 and 1825. These loans, which, in effect, made
the City of London the financier of the Revolution, inspired the
creation of the "British" political party in Greece, whose opinion
was that the Revolution could only end in success with the help of
the United Kingdom. At the same time, parties affiliated to Russia
and France made their appearance. These parties would later strive
for power during king Otto's reign.
When Tsar
Nicholas I succeeded
Alexander in December 1825, Canning decided to act immediately: he
sent the
Duke
of Wellington to Russia, and the outcome was the St. Petersburg
Protocol of April 4, 1826. According to the Protocol, the two
powers agreed to mediate between the Ottomans and the Greeks on the
basis of complete autonomy of Greece under Turkish sovereignty.
Before he met with Wellington, the Tsar had already sent an
ultimatum to the Porte, demanding that the Principalities be
evacuated immediately and that plenipotentiaries be sent to Russia
to settle outstanding issues. The Sultan agreed to sent the
plenipotentiaries, and on October 7, 1826 signed the
Akkerman Convention, in which Russian
demands concerning Serbia and the principalities were
accepted.
The Greeks formally applied for the mediation provided in the
Petersburg Protocol, while the Turks and the Egyptians showed no
willingness to stop fighting. Canning therefore prepared for action
by negotiating the
Treaty of
London (July 6, 1827) with France and Russia. This provided
that the Allies should again offer negotiations, and if the Sultan
rejected it they would exert all the means which circumstances may
suggest to force the cessation of hostilities.
Meanwhile, news
reached Greece in late July 1827, that Mehmet Ali's new fleet was
completed in Alexandria
and sailing towards Navarino to join the rest of the Egyptian-Turkish
fleet. The aim of this fleet was to attack Hydra and knock
the island's fleet out of the war. On 29 August, the Porte formally
rejected the Treaty of London's stipulations, and, subsequently,
the commanders-in-chief of the
British and
French Mediterranean fleets,
Admiral
Edward Codrington and
Admiral
Henri de Rigny sailed into
the Gulf of Argos and requested to meet with Greek representatives
onboard the
HMS Asia.
After the Greek delegation, led by Mavrocordatos, accepted the
terms of the Treaty, the Allies prepared to insist upon the
armistice, and their fleets were instructed to intercept supplies
destined for Ibrahim's forces. When Mehmet Ali's fleet, which had
been warned by the British and French to stay away from Greece,
left Alexandria and joined other Ottoman/Egyptian units at Navarino
on September 8, Codrington arrived with his squadron off Navarino
on September 12. On October 13, Codrington was joined, off
Navarino, by his allied support, a French squadron under De Rigny
and a Russian squadron under
L. Heyden. Upon their arrival to
Navarino, Codgrinton and de Rigny tried to negotiate with Ibrahim
but Ibrahim insisted that by the Sultan's order he must destroy
Hydra. Codrington responded by saying that if Ibrahim's fleets
attempted to go anywhere but home, he would have to destroy them.
Ibrahim agreed to write to the Sultan to see if he would change his
orders but he also complained about the Greeks being able to
continue their attacks. Codrington promised that he would stop the
Greeks and Philhellenes from attacking the Turks and Egyptians.
After doing this, he disbanded most of his fleet which returned to
Malta while the French went to the Aegean.
However, when Frank Hastings, a Philhellene, destroyed a Turkish
naval squadron, Ibrahim sent out a detachment of his fleet out of
Navarino in order to defeat Hastings. Codrington had not heard of
Hastings actions and thought that Ibrahim was breaking his
agreement. Codrington intercepted the force and made them retreat
and did so again on the following day when Ibrahim lead the fleet
in person. Codrington assembled his fleet once more, with the
British returning from Malta and the French from the Aegean. They
were also joined by the Russian contingent led by Count
Login Geiden. Ibrahim now began a campaign to
annihilate the Greeks of the Peloponnese as he thought the Allies
had reneged on their agreement.
On 20 October 1827, as the weather got worse, the British, Russian
and French fleets entered the Bay of Navarino in peaceful formation
to shelter themselves and to make sure that Egyptian-Turkish fleet
did not slip off and attack Hydra. When a British
frigate sent a boat to request the Egyptians to move
their fire ships, the officer onboard was shot by the Egyptians.
The frigate responded by muskets in retaliation and an Egyptian
ship fired a cannon shot at the French flagship, the Sirene, which
returned fire.
The battle ended in a complete victory for the Allies and in the
annihilation of the Egyptian-Turkish fleet. Of the 89
Egyptian-Turkish ships that took part in the battle, only 14 made
it back to Alexandria and their dead amounted to over 8,000. The
Allies didn't lose a ship and suffered only 181 deaths. The Porte
demanded compensation from the Allies for the ships but his demand
was refused on the grounds that the Turks had acted as the
aggressors. The three countries' ambassadors also left
Constantinople. In England, the battle was criticized as being an
'untoward event' towards Turkey who was called an 'ancient ally'.
Codrington was recalled and blamed for having allowed the
retreating Egyptian-Turkish ships to carry 2,000 Greek slaves. In
France, the news of the battle was greeted with great enthusiasm
and the government had an unexpected surge in popularity. Russia
formally took the opportunity to declare war on the Turks.
In October 1828, the Greeks regrouped and formed a new government
under Kapodistrias.
They then advanced to seize as much
territory as possible, including Athens
and Thebes
, before
the Western powers imposed a ceasefire. As far as the
Peloponnese was concerned, the United Kingdom and Russia accepted
the offer of France to send an army to expel Ibrahim's forces.
Nicolas Joseph Maison, who was given
command of the French expeditionary Corps, landed on August 30,
1828 at Petalidi
, and helped the Greeks evacuate the Peloponnese
from all the hostile troops by October 30 . Maison thus
implemented the convention Codrington had negotiated and signed in
Alexandria with Muhammad Ali, and which provided for the withdrawal
of all Egyptian troops from the Peloponnese.Finlay,
History of
the Greek Revolution, II, 192–193
* Williams,
The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors,
102
The final
major engagement of the war was the Battle of Petra, which occurred north of
Attica
.
Greek forces under Demetrius Ypsilantis, for the first time trained
to fight as a regular European army rather than as guerilla bands,
advanced against Aslan Bey's forces and defeated them.
The Turks would
surrender all lands from Livadeia
to the Spercheios River
in exchange for safe passage out of Central Greece. As
George Finlay stresses:
From autonomy to independence
On 21
December 1828 the ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Russia, and
France met in the island of Poros
, and
prepared a Protocol, which provided for the creation of an
autonomous state ruled by a monarch, whose authority should be
confirmed by a firman of the
Sultan. The proposed borderline ran from Arta
to Volos
, and,
despite Kapodistrias' efforts, the new state would include only the
islands of Cyclades
, Sporades
, Samos
, and
maybe Crete
.
Based on the Protocol of Poros, the London Conference agreed on the
Protocol of 22 March 1829, which accepted most of the ambassadors'
proposals, but drew the borders southern than the initial proposal,
and did not include Samos and Crete in the new state.
Under the
pressure
of Russia, the Porte finally agreed on the terms of the Treaty
of London of 6 July 1827, and of the Protocol of 22 March 1829.
Soon afterward, the United Kingdom and France conceived the idea of
an independent Greek state, trying to limit the influence of Russia
on the new state.Bridge & Bullen,
The Great Powers and the
European States System, 83
* Dimakis,
The Great Powers and the Struggle of 1821,
526–527 Russia was not delighted by the idea, but could not reject
it, and, consequently, the three powers finally agreed to create an
independent Greek state under their joint protection, and concluded
the Protocols of 3 February 1830. By one of the Protocols, the
Greek throne was initially offered to
Léopold I, the future
King of Belgium, but he refused, being
discouraged by the gloomy picture painted by Kapodistrias and
unsatisfied with the Aspropotamos-Zitouni borderline, which
replaced the more favorable line running from Arta to Volos
considered by the Great Powers earlier.
Negotiations
temporarily stalled after Kapodistrias was assassinated in 1831 in
Nafplion
by the Mavromichalis' clan after having demanded
that they unconditionally submit to his authority. When they
refused, Kapodistias put Petrobey in jail, sparking vows of
vengeance from his clan.Clogg,
A Short History of Modern
Greece, pp. 66–67
* Verzijl,
International Law in Historical Perspective,
pp. 462–463
The withdrawal of Léopold as a candidate for the throne of Greece
and the
July Revolution in France
further delayed the final settlement of the new kingdom's frontiers
until a new government was formed in the United Kingdom.
Lord Palmerston,
who took over as British
Foreign
Secretary, agreed to the Arta–Volos borderline.
However, the secret
note on Crete
, which the
Bavarian plenipotentiary communicated to the Courts of the United
Kingdom, France and Russia, bore no fruit.
In May 1832, Palmerston convened the
London Conference. The three Great
Powers (the United Kingdom,
France and
Russia) offered the throne to the
Bavarian prince,
Otto of Wittelsbach, without taking Greek
opinion into consideration. As co-guarantors of the monarchy, the
Great Powers also agreed to guarantee a loan of
60,000,000 francs to the new king, empowering their
Ambassadors in the Ottoman capital to secure the end of the war.
Under the Protocol signed on May 7, 1832 between Bavaria and
the protecting Powers, Greece was defined as a "monarchical and
independent state" but was to pay an indemnity to the Porte. The
protocol outlined the way in which the Regency was to be managed
until Otto reached his majority, while also concluding the second
Greek loan for a sum of £2.4 million.Clogg,
A Short History of
Modern Greece, pp. 68–69
*
* See the full text of the Protocol in Dodsley,
Annual
Register, p. 388.
On 21 July 1832,
British
Ambassador to the Sublime Porte Sir
Stratford Canning and the other representatives of the Great
Powers signed the
Treaty
of Constantinople, which set the boundaries of the new Greek
Kingdom at the Arta–Volos line. The borders of the kingdom were
reiterated in the
London Protocol
of August 30, 1832, also signed by the Great Powers, which
ratified the terms of the Constantinople arrangement.
Massacres
Almost as soon as the revolution began, there were large scale
massacres of civilians by both Greek revolutionaries and Ottoman
authorities. Greek revolutionaries massacred Turks, Muslims and
Jews, mainly inhabitants of the Peloponnese and
Attica where Greek forces were dominant, identifying them with the
Ottoman rule. On the other hand, the Turks massacred Greeks
identified with the revolution especially in Anatolia, Crete,
Constantinople and the Aegean islands, where the revolutionary
forces were weaker. Some of the more infamous atrocities include
the
Chios Massacre, the
Destruction of Psara, the massacres
following the
Tripolitsa
Massacre, and the
Navarino
Massacre. There is a debate among scholars over whether the
massacres committed by the Greeks should be regarded as a response
to prior events (such as the massacre of the Greeks of Tripoli,
after the failed
Orlov Revolt of 1770
and the destruction of the
Sacred
BandBooras,
Hellenic Independence and America's
Contribution to the Cause. p. 24.
* Brewer,
The Greek War of Independence, p. 64.) or as
separate atrocities, which started simultaneously with the outbreak
of the revolt.Finlay,
History of the Greek Revolution, I,
171–172
* Jelavich,
History of the Balkans, p. 217
* St. Clair,
That Greece Might still Be Free, pp. 1–3,
12
During the war, tens of thousands of Greek civilians were killed,
left to die or taken into slavery. A large number of Christian
clergymen were also killed, including the
Ecumenical Patriarch
Gregory V. Sometimes identified with Ottoman rule in the
Peloponnese, Jewish settlements were also massacred by Greeks in
the area. However, many Jews around Greece and throughout Europe
were supporters of the Greek revolt, using their resources (as in
the case of the
Rothschild family)
as well as their political and public influence to assist the Greek
cause. In turn, the success of the Greek Revolution was to
stimulate the incipient stirrings of Jewish nationalism, later
called
Zionism. Following its establishment,
the new state attracted a number of Jewish immigrants from the
Ottoman Empire, as it was one of the first countries to grant legal
equality to Jews.
Aftermath
The consequences of the Greek revolution were somewhat ambiguous in
the immediate aftermath. An independent Greek state had been
established, but with Britain, Russia and France claiming a major
role in Greek politics, an imported Bavarian dynast as ruler, and a
mercenary army. The country had been ravaged by ten years of
fighting, was full of displaced refugees and empty Turkish estates,
necessitating a series of land reforms over several decades.
The population of the new state numbered 800,000, representing less
than one-third of the 2.5 million Greek inhabitants of the Ottoman
Empire. During a great part of the next century, the Greek state
was to seek the liberation of the "
unredeemed" Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, in
accordance with the
Megali Idea, i.e.
the goal of uniting all Greeks in one country.
"Today the fatherland is reborn, that
for so long was lost and extinguished. Today are raised from the
dead the fighters, political, religious, as well as military, for
our King has come, that we begat with the power of God. Praised be
your most virtuous name, omnipotent and most merciful Lord." |
Makriyannis'
Memoirs on the arrival of King Otto. |
As a people, the Greeks no longer provided the princes for the
Danubian Principalities and were regarded within the Ottoman
Empire, especially by the Muslim population, as traitors.
Phanariotes, who had until then held high office within the Ottoman
Empire, were thenceforth regarded as suspect and lost their
special, privileged status. In Constantinople and the rest of the
Ottoman Empire where Greek banking and merchant presence had been
dominant, Armenians mostly replaced Greeks in banking and Bulgarian
merchants gained importance.
In the long-term historical perspective, this marked a seminal
event in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, despite the small size
and the impoverishment of the new Greek state. For the first time,
a Christian subject people had achieved independence from the
Ottoman rule and established a fully independent state, recognized
by Europe. This would give hope to the other subject peoples of the
Ottoman Empire, as
Serbs,
Bulgars,
Romanians and
Arabs would all successfully fight for and
achieve independence.
Kurds and
Armenians were not as successful.
Shortly after the war
finished, the people of the Russian-dependent Poland
,
encouraged by the Greek victory, started the November Uprising, hoping to regain their
independence. The uprising, however, fell and the Polish
freedom was to wait until
1918.
The newly established
Greek state would become a springboard for further expansion and,
over the course of a century, parts of Macedonia
, Crete
, Epirus, the Aegean and other Greek-speaking territories
would unite with the new Greek state. The Greek lands, poor
and underdeveloped during the Ottoman occupation, achieved
satisfactory economic growth during the later 19th century, laying
the foundations of what, in the twentieth century, was to become
the largest merchant fleet in the world.
Gallery
Revolutionaries
File:Kolokotronis_Theodore.JPG|Theodoros KolokotronisFile:Alexander
Ypsilantis.jpg|Alexander
YpsilantisImage:Bouboulina Friedel engraving 1827.jpg|Laskarina BouboulinaFile:Konstantinos
Kanaris.jpg|Konstantinos
KanarisImage:Manto Mavrogenous2.jpg|Manto
MavrogenousImage:Makrigiannis.jpg|Yannis
MakriyannisFile:Kriezis.jpg|Antonios
KriezisImage:Karaiskakis-Tsokos.jpg|Georgios
KaraiskakisFile:Miaoulis.jpg|Andreas Vokos MiaoulisFile:Athanasios
Diakos.JPG|Athanasios
DiakosFile:Odysseas-androutsos.jpg|Odysseas
AndroutsosFile:MarkosBotsaris.jpg|Markos Botsaris
Events
Image:Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix 017.jpg|Greece on
the Ruins of Messolonghi. Eugène
Delacroix, 1826.Image:Greek boy.jpg|Greek boy defending his
wounded father. Ary Scheffer,
1827.File:Otto's entry in Athens.jpg|"The Entry of King Otto of Greece in Athens". Peter von Hess, 1839.
Notes
Citations
- Barker, Religious Nationalism in Modern Europe, p.
118
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Sources
Primary sources
Secondary sources
See also
External links