First Hellenic Republic
Encyclopedia
The First Hellenic Republic is a name used to refer to the provisional Greek
state during the Greek War of Independence
against the Ottoman Empire
. It is a purely historiographical term, highlighting the constitutional and democratic nature of the revolutionary regime prior to the establishment of the independent Kingdom of Greece
, and associating this period of Greek history with the later Second
and Third Republics. The term "First Hellenic Republic" is hardly ever used in the Greek bibliography, while the term "Second Hellenic Republic" is scantly used and the term "Third Hellenic Republic" is in wide usage.
In the first stages of the 1821 uprising, various areas elected their own regional governing councils
. These were replaced by a central administration at the First National Assembly of Epidaurus in early 1822, which also adopted the first Greek Constitution
, marking the birth of the modern Greek state. The councils continued in existence however, and central authority was not firmly established until 1824/1825. The new state was not recognized by the Great Powers of the day, which, after initial successes, was threatened with collapse both from within due to civil war and from the victories of the Turko-Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha
.
However, by this time (1827), the Great Powers had come to agree to the formation of an autonomous Greek state under Ottoman suzerainty, as stipulated in the Treaty of London. Ottoman refusal to accept these terms led to the Battle of Navarino
, which effectively secured complete Greek independence.
In 1827, the Third National Assembly at Troezen
established the Hellenic State (Ἑλληνικὴ Πολιτεία) and selected Count Ioannis Capodistrias as Governor of Greece. (Therefore the state is often called Governorate.) After his arrival in Greece in January 1828, Capodistrias actively tried to create a functional state and redress the problems of a war-ravaged country, but was soon embroiled in conflict with powerful local magnates and chieftains. He was assassinated by political rivals in 1831, plunging the country into renewed civil strife. He was succeeded by his brother Augustinos
, who was forced to resign after six months. The Fifth National Assembly at Nafplion
drafted a new royal constitution, while the three "Protecting Powers" (Great Britain
, France
and Russia
) intervened, declaring Greece a Kingdom in the London Conference of 1832
, with the Bavarian Prince Otto of Wittelsbach
as king.
We, descendants of the wise and noble peoples of Hellas, we who are the contemporaries of the enlightened and civilized nations of Europe, we who behold the advantages which they enjoy under the protection of the impenetrable aegis of the law, find it no longer possible to suffer without cowardice and self-contempt the cruel yoke of the Ottoman power which has weighed upon us for more than four centuries,- a power which does not listen to reason and knows no other law than its own will, which orders and disposes everything despotically and according to its caprice. After this prolonged slavery we have determined to take arms to avenge ourselves and our country against a frightful tyranny, iniquitous in its very essence, - an unexampled despotism to which no other rule can be compared.
The war which we are carrying on against the Turk is not that of a faction or the result of sedition. It is not aimed at the advantage of any single part of the Greek people; it is a national war, a holy war, a war the object of which is to reconquer the rights of individual liberty, of property and honor, - rights which the civilized people of Europe, our neighbors, enjoy to-day; rights of which the cruel and unheard-of tyranny of the Ottomans would deprive us-us alone - and the very memory of which they would stifle in our hearts.
Are we, then, less reasonable than other peoples, that we remain deprived of these rights? Are we of a nature so degraded and abject that we should be viewed as unworthy to enjoy them, condemned to remain crushed under a perpetual slavery and subjected, like beasts of burden or mere automatons, to the absurd caprice of a cruel tyrant who, like an infamous brigand, has come from distant regions to invade our borders? Nature has deeply graven these rights in the hearts of all men; laws in harmony with nature have so completely consecrated them that neither three nor four centuries - nor thousands nor millions of centuries - can destroy them. Force and violence have been able to restrict and paralyze them for a season, but force may once more resuscitate them in all the vigor which they formerly enjoyed during many centuries; nor have we ever ceased in Hellas to defend these rights by arms whenever opportunity offered.
Building upon the foundation of our natural rights, and desiring to assimilate ourselves to the rest of the Christians of Europe, our brethren, we have begun a war against the Turks, or rather, uniting all our isolated strength, we have formed ourselves into a single armed body, firmly resolved to attain our end, to govern ourselves by wise laws, or to be altogether annihilated, believing it to be unworthy of us, as descendants of the glorious peoples of Hellas, to live henceforth in a state of slavery fitted rather for unreasoning animals than for rational beings.
Ten months have elapsed since we began this national war; the all-powerful God has succored us; although we were not adequately prepared for so great an enterprise, our arms have everywhere been victorious, despite the powerful obstacles which we have encountered and still encounter everywhere. We have had to contend with a situation bristling with difficulties, and we are still engaged in our efforts to overcome them. It should not, therefore, appear astonishing that we were not able from the very first to proclaim our independence and take rank among the civilized peoples of the earth, marching forward side by side with them. It was impossible to occupy ourselves with our political existence before we had established our independence. We trust these reasons may justify, in the eyes of the nations, our delay, as well as console us for the anarchy in which we have found ourselves….
EPIDAURUS, January 1822: the First Year of Independence.
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.* Hitchins, The Romanians, 149–150 Michael Soutzos
, then Prince of Moldavy and a member of Filiki Etaireia, set his guard at Ypsilantis' disposal. In the meanwhile, Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople
and the Synod had anathematized and excommunicated both Ypsilantis and Soutzos issuing many encyclicals, an explicit denounce of the Revolution in line with the Orthodox Church policy.
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, Ypsilantis remained in Iaşi
, and ordered the executions of several pro-Ottoman Moldavia
ns. In Bucharest
, where he had arrived in early April after some weeks delay, he decided that he could not rely on the Wallachia
n Pandurs
to continue their Oltenia
n-based revolt and assist the Greek cause. The Pandur leader was Tudor Vladimirescu
, who had already reached the outskirts of Bucharest on 16 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 26 May . 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 7 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.
, 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 Ottoman governor of the Morea
Mora valisi Hursid Pasha
and many of his troops, the situation was favourable for the Greeks to rise against Ottoman occupation. The crucial meeting was held at Vostitsa (modern Aigion), where chieftains and prelates from all over the Peloponnese assembled on 26 January. There, Papaflessas
, a pro-revolution priest who presented himself as representative of Filiki Eteria
clashed with most of the civil leaders and members of the senior clergy, such as Metropolitan Germanos of Patras, who were sceptical and demanded guarantees about a Russian intervention. 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. According to the tradition, the Revolution was declared on 25 March 1821 by Metropolitan Germanos who raised the banner with the cross in the Monastery of Agia Lavra
, although some historians question the historicity of the event.
On 17 March 1821, war was declared on the Turks by the Maniots in Areopoli
. The same day, a force of 2,000 Maniots under the command of Petros Mavromichalis
advanced on the Messenia
n town of Kalamata
, where they united with troops under Theodoros Kolokotronis
, Nikitaras
and Papaflessas
; Kalamata fell to the Greeks on 23 March.* Papageorgiou, "First Year of Freedom", p. 60. In Achaia, the town of Kalavryta
was besieged on 21 March, and in Patras
conflicts lasted for many days. The Ottomans launched sporadic attacks towards the city while the revolutionaries, led by Panagiotis Karatzas
, drove them back to the fortress.
By the end of March, the Greeks effectively controlled the countryside, while the Turks were confined to the fortresses, most notably those of Patras (recaptured by the Turks on April 3 by Yussuf Pasha), 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. Since May, Kolokotronis organized the siege of Tripolitsa, and, in the meantime, Greek forces twice defeated the Turks, who unsuccessfully tried to repulse the besiegers. Finally, Tripolitsa was seized by the Greeks on 23 September , and the city was given over to the mob for two days. After lengthy negotiations, the Turkish forces surrendered Actrocorinth on 14 January 1822.
were Phocis
(24 March), and Salona
(27 March). In Boeotia
, Livadeia
was captured by Athanasios Diakos
on 31 March, followed by Thebes
two days later. In mid-April revolutionary forces entered Athens
, and forced the Turkish garrison into the Acropolis. Missolonghi revolted in 25 May, and the revolution soon spread to other cities of western Central Greece.
However, these initial Greek successes were soon put in peril after two subsequent defeats at the battles of Alamana
and Eleftherohori against the army of Omer Vrioni. Another significant loss for the Greeks was the death of Diakos, a promising military leader, who was captured in Alamana and executed by the Turks, when he denied to declare allegiance to the Sultan. The Greeks managed to halt the Turkish advance at the Battle of Gravia
under the leadership of Odysseas Androutsos
, who, with a handful of men, inflicted heavy casualties upon the Turkish army. After his defeat and the successful retreat of Androutsos' force, Omer Vrioni postponed his advance towards Peloponnese awaiting reinforcements; instead, he invaded Livadeia, which he captured in 10 June, and Athens, where he lifted the siege of Acropolis. After a Greek force of 2,000 men managed to destroy at Vassilika
a Turkish relief army on its way to Turkish forces in Attica, Vrioni abandoned Attica
in September and retreated to Ioannina
. By the end of 1821, the revolutionaries had managed, after their victories at Vassilika and Gravia, to temporarily secure their positions in Central Greece.
had a long history of resisting Turkish rule, exemplified by the folk hero Daskalogiannis
who was killed while 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. Despite the Turkish reaction, the rebellion persisted, and thus Sultan Mahmud II
(r. 1808–1839) was forced to seek the aid of Muhammad Ali of Egypt
, trying to lure him with the pashalik of Crete. On 28 May 1822, an Egyptian fleet of 30 warships and 84 transports, led by Hasan Pasha, Mehmet Ali's son-in-law, arrived at Souda Bay
with the task of ending the rebellion and he did not waste any time in the burning of villages throughout Crete.
After Hasan's accidental death in February 1823, another son-in-law of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Hussein Bey
led a well-organised and well-armed joint Turkish-Egyptian force of 12,000 soldiers with the support of artillery and cavalry. He located his encampment at Ayia Varvara in Heraklion
. On 22 June 1823, Emmanouil Tombazis
, appointed Commissioner of Crete by the Greek revolutionary government, held the Convention of Arcoudaina in an attempt to reconcile the factions of local captains and unite them against the common threat. He then gathered 3,000 men in Gergeri
to face Hussein. However, the Cretans were defeated by the much larger, and better organised force, and lost 300 men at the battle of Amourgelles on 20 August 1823. By the spring of 1824, Hussein had managed to limit the Cretan resistance to just a few mountain enclaves.
Towards the summer of 1825, a body of three to four hundred Cretans, who had fought with other Greeks in the Peloponnese, arrived in Crete, and revitalized the Cretan insurgency (the so-called "Gramvousa period"). On 9 August 1825, led by Dimitrios Kallergis and Emmanouil Antoniadis, this group of Cretans captured the fort at Gramvousa
and other insurgents captured the fort at Kissamos
, and attempted to spread the insurgency further afield.
Although the Ottomans did not manage to retake the forts, they were successful in blocking the spread of the insurgency to western provinces. The insurgents were besieged in Gramvousa for more than two years and they had to resort to piracy to survive. Gramvousa became a hive of piratical activity that greatly affected Turkish–Egyptian and European shipping in the region. During that period the population of Gramvousa became organised and built a school and a church dedicated to the Panagia i Kleftrina ("Our Lady the piratess"), i.e. St. Mary as the patron of the klepht
s. In January 1828, the Epirote
Hatzimichalis Dalianis
together with 700 landed in Crete and in following March he took possession of Francocastello castle, Sfakia
region. Soon the local Ottoman ruler, Mustafa Naili Pasha, attacked Frangokastello
with an army of 8,000 men. The castle's defence was doomed after a seven day siege and Dalianis perished along with 385 men. During 1828, Kapodistrias sent Mavrocordatos with British and French fleets to Crete to deal with the klephts and the pirates. This expedition resulted in the destruction of all pirate ships at Gramvousa and the fort came under British command.
The economic ascent of Thessaloniki
and of the other urban centres of Macedonia
coincided with the cultural and political renaissance of the Greeks. The ideals and patriotic songs of Rigas Feraios and others had made a profound impression upon the Thessalonians. Α few years later, the revolutionary fervour 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 learned of the incidents at Polygyros and the spreading of the insurrection to 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. 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, Mehmed 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, Mehmed 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.
Kanaris brought with him the Cypriots who created the "Column of Cypriots" («Φάλαγγα των Κυπρίων»), led by General Chatzipetros, which fought with extraordinary heroism in Greece. In total, over 1000 Cypriots fought in the War of Independence, many of whom died. At Missolonghi many were killed, and at the Battle of Athens in 1827, around 130 were killed. General Chatzipetros, showing military decorations declared "These were given to me by the heroism and braveness of the Column of Cypriots". In the National Library, there is a list of 580 names of Cypriots who fought in the War between 1821 and 1829.
The Cypriot battalion brought with them their own distinctive war banner, consisting of a white flag with a large blue cross, and the words "GREEK FLAG OF THE MOTHERLAND CYPRUS" emblazoned in the top left corner. The flag was hoisted on a wooden mast, carved and pointed at the end to act as a lance in battle. The legendary battle flag is currently stored at the National Historical Museum of Athens.
Throughout the War of Independence, supplies were brought from Cyprus by the Filiki Etairia to aid the Greek struggle. The Greeks of Cyprus underwent great risk to provide these supplies, and secretly load them onto boats arriving at intervals from Greece, as the Ottoman Rulers in Cyprus at the time were very wary of Cypriot insurgency and sentenced to death any Greek Cypriots found aiding the Greek cause. Incidences of these secret loading trips from Cyprus were recorded by the French consul to Cyprus, Mechain.
Back in Cyprus during the war, the local population suffered greatly at the hands of the Ottoman rulers of the islands, who were quick to act with great severity at acts of patriotism and sympathy of the Greeks of Cyprus to the Revolution, fearing a similar uprising in Cyprus. The leader of the Greeks of the island at the time, Archbishop Kyprianos was initiated into the Filiki Etairia in 1818 and had promised to aid the cause of the Greek Elladites with food and money.
In early July 1821, the Cypriot Archimandrite Theofylaktos Thiseas arrived in Larnaca
as a messenger of the Filiki Etairia, bringing orders to Kyprianos, while proclamations were distributed in every corner of the island. However, the local pasha, Küçük Mehmet, intercepted these messages and reacted with fury, calling in reinforcements, confiscating weapons and arresting several prominent Cypriots. Archbishop Kyprianos was urged (by his friends) to leave the island as the situation worsened but refused to do so. Finally, on July 9, 1821 Küçük Mehmet had the gates to the walled city of Nicosia closed and executed, by beheading or hanging, 470 important Cypriots amongst them Chrysanthos (bishop of Paphos), Meletios (bishop of Kition) and Lavrentios of (bishop of Kyrenia). The next day, all abbots and monks of monasteries of Cyprus were executed. In addition, the Ottomans arrested all the Greek leaders of the villages and imprisoned them before executing them, as they were suspected of inspiring patriotism in their local population. In total, it is estimated that over 2,000 Greeks of Cyprus were slaughtered as an act of revenge for participating in the revolution. This was a very significant proportion of the population of the total island at the time. Küçük Mehmet had declared "I have in my mind to slaughter the Greeks in Cyprus, to hang them, to not leave a soul..." before undertaking these massacres. From the 9th to the 14th of July, the Ottomans killed all prisoners on the list of the pasha, and in the next 30 days, looting and massacres spread throughout Cyprus as 4,000 Turkish soldiers from Syria arrived on the island.
Archbishop Kyprianos was defiant in his death. He was aware of his fate and impending death, yet stood by the Greek cause. He is revered throughout Cyprus as a noble patriot and defender of the Orthodox faith and Hellenic cause. An English explorer by the name of Carne spoke to the Archbishop before the events of 9 July, who was quoted as saying: "My death is not far away. I know they [the Ottoman] are waiting for an opportunity to kill me". Kyprianos chose to stay, despite these fear, and provide protection and counsel for the people of Cyprus as their leader. To this day, his response (in the form of a poem) to Küçük Mehmet's declaration (seen in the previous paragraph) to kill the Greeks of Cyprus in mass purges maintains legendary status in Cyprus and Greece.
He was publicly hanged from a tree opposite the former palace of the Lusignan Kings of Cyprus on 9 July 1821. The events leading up to his execution were documented in an epic poem written in the Cypriot dialect by Vassilis Michaelides.
The revolutionaries didn't manage to profit from their early successes in 1821 and, consequently, the Ottomans took the offensive, organising two military campaigns in Western and Eastern Greece led by Mustafa Reshit Pasha and Mahmud Dramali Pasha
respectively. The latter crossed Roumeli and invaded Morea, but suffered a serious defeat in Dervenakia. The campaign in Western Greece ended alike: Mustafa Reshit's army was defeated in a battle near Karpenisi, during which the Souliot Markos Botsaris
was shot dead. The announcement of his death in Europe generated a wave of sympathy for the Greek cause.
in late December 1821, consisted almost exclusively of Peloponnesian notables. The Assembly drafted the first Greek Constitution
and appointed the members of an executive and a legislative body that were to govern the liberated territories. Mavrokordatos saved the office of president of the executive for himself, while Ypsilantis, who had called for the Assembly, was elected president of the legislative body, a place of limited significance. Military leaders and representatives of Filiki Eteria were marginalized, but gradually Kolokotronis' political influence grew, and he soon managed to control, along with the captains he influenced, the Peloponnesian Senate. The central administration tried to marginalize Kolokotronis who also had under his control the fort of Nafplion
. In November 1822, the central administration decided that the new National Assembly would take place in Nafplio, and asked Kolokotronis to return the fort to the government. Kolokotronis refused, and the Assembly was finally gathered in March 1823 in Astros
. Central governance was strengthened at the expense of regional bodies, a new constitution
was voted, and new members were elected for the executive and the legislative bodies.
Trying to coax the military leaders, the central administration proposed to Kolokotronis that he participate in the executive body as vice-president. Kolokotronis accepted, but he caused a serious crisis, when he prevented Mavrokordatos, who had been elected president of the legislative body, from assuming his position. His attitude towards Mavrokordatos caused outrage amongst the members of the legislative body. The crisis culminated, when the legislature, which was controlled by the Roumeliotes and the Hydriots, overturned the executive, and fired its president, Petros Mavromichalis. Kolokotronis and most of the Peloponnesian notables and captains supported Mavromichalis, who remained president of his executive in Tripolitsa. However, a second executive, supported by the islanders, the Roumeliotes, and some Achaean notables—Andreas Zaimis
and Andreas Londos
were the most prominent—was formed at Kranidi
with Kountouriotis
as president. In March 1824, the forces of the new executive besieged Nafplion and Tripolitsa. After one month of fighting and negotiations, an agreement was reached between Kolokotronis, from one side, and Londos and Zaimis, from the other side. In 22 May the first phase of the civil war officially ended, but most of the members of the new executive were displeased by the moderate terms of the agreement that Londos and Zaimis brokered.
During this period, the two first instalments of the English loan had arrived, and the position of the government was strengthened; but the infighting was not yet over. Zaimis and the other Peloponnesians who supported Kountouriotis came into conflict with the executive body, and allied with Kolokotronis who roused the residents of Tripolitsa against the local tax collectors of the government. Papaflessas and Makriyannis failed to suppress the rebellion, but Kolokotronis remained inactive for some period, overwhelmed by the death of his son, Panos. The government regrouped its armies, which now consisted mainly of Roumeliotes and Souliots, and were led by Ioannis Kolettis
who wanted a complete victory. Under Kolettis' orders, two bodies of Roumeliotes and Souliots invaded the Peloponnese: the first under Gouras occupied Corinth
and raided the province; the second under Karaiskakis, Kitsos Tzavelas
and others, attacked in Achaea Londos and Zaimis. In January 1825, a Roumeliote force, led by Kolettis himself arrested Kolokotronis, Deligiannis' family and others. In May 1825, under the pressure of the Egyptian intervention, those imprisoned were released and granted amnesty.
, 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 Kapudan Pasha. The total Ottoman fleet size consisted of 23 masted ships of the line
, each with about 80 guns and 7 or 8 frigate
s with 50 guns, 5 corvettes with about 30 guns and around 40 brig
s with 20 or fewer guns.
In the face of this situation, the Greeks decided to use fire ship
s , 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 an Ottoman 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, or 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.
's expansionist ambitions. Muhammad Ali finally agreed to send his son Ibrahim Pasha
to Greece in exchange not only for Crete and Cyprus, but for the Peloponnese and Syria
as well.* Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali, p. 206.
Ibrahim Pasha landed at Methoni
on 24 February 1825 and a month later he was joined by his army of 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. He 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 killed Papaflessas
at the Battle of Maniaki
. The Greek government, in an attempt to stop 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 defence of the city.
At the same time, the Turkish armies in Central Greece were besieging the city of Missolonghi for the third time. The siege had begun on 15 April 1825, the day on which Navarino had fallen to Ibrahim. 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. The Turks were joined by Ibrahim in mid-winter, but his army had no more luck in penetrating Missolonghi's defences.
In the spring of 1826, Ibrahim managed to capture the marshes around the city, although not without heavy losses. He thus 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 22 April 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 Bulgaria
n 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 21 June 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 tried several times to take Mani, but each time his forces were repulsed, and suffered much heavier casualties than the Greeks.
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 Kapodistrias
, who was of Greek origin. Kapodistrias demanded that Alexander declare war on the Ottomans in order to liberate Greece and increase the greatness of Russia. Metternich persuaded Alexander that Kapodistrias 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, Kapodistrias 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. On December 14, 1822, the Holy Alliance denounced the Greek Revolution, considering it audacious and clumsy.
was appointed by the British government as Foreign Secretary 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 cannot 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 send 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 would allow 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 at 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 with musket fire in retaliation and an Egyptian ship fired a cannon shot at the French flagship, the Sirene, which returned fire.
A full engagement was begun which 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.
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 surrendered all lands from Livadeia
to the Spercheios River
in exchange for safe passage out of Central Greece
. As George Finlay
stresses:
, 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 farther south 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. 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 Leopold
, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
and the future King of Belgium
. 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, he refused. 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, Kapodistrias put Petrobey in jail, sparking vows of vengeance from his clan.
The Τreaty of Constantinople was the product of the Constantinople Conference which opened in February 1832 with the participation of the Great Powers
(Britain
, France
and Russia
) on the one hand and the Ottoman Empire
on the other. The factors which shaped the treaty included the refusal of Léopold
, King of Belgium
, to assume the Greek
throne. He inter alia was not at all satisfied with the Aspropotamos-Zitouni borderline, which replaced the more favorable Arta-Volos line considered by the Great Powers earlier.
After the fall of Kalamata, the Messenian Senate, the first of the Greeks' local governing councils, held its inaugural session. At almost the same time, the Achean Directorate was summoned in Patras, but its members were soon forced to flee to Kalavryta. With the initiative of the Messenian Senate, a Peloponnesian assembly convened, and elected on May 26 a Senate. Most of the members of the Peloponnesian Senate were local notables (lay and ecclesiastical) or persons controlled by them. When Demetrios Ypsilantis arrived in Peloponnese as official representative of Filiki Eteria, he tried to assume control of the Revolution's affairs, and he thus proposed a new system of electing the members of the Senate, which was supported by the military leaders, but opposed by the notables. Assemblies convened also in Central Greece (November 1821) under the leadership of two Phanariots: Alexandros Mavrokordatos in the western part, and Theodoros Negris in the eastern part. These assemblies adopted two local statutes
, the Charter of Western Continental Greece and the Legal Order of Eastern Continental Greece, drafted mainly by Mavrokordatos and Negris respectively. The statutes provided for the creation of two local administrative organs in Central Greece, an Areopagus
in the east, and a Senate
in the west. The three local statutes were recognized by the First National Assembly
, but the respective administrative institutions were turned into administrative branches of the central government. They were later dissolved by the Second National Assembly
.
, a national representative political gathering of the Greek revolutionaries.
The assembly opened in December 1821 at Piada (today Nea (New) Epidaurus
). It was attended by representatives from regions involved in the revolution against Ottoman
rule.
The majority of the representatives were local notables and clergymen from the provinces of the Morea
, Rumeli and the islands. In addition, a number of Phanariotes
and academics attended. However, a number of prominent revolutionaries, including Alexandros Ypsilantis and the most prominent chieftains from Rumeli and the Peloponnese were absent. Of the 59 representatives at the assembly, 20 were landowners, 13 were ship-owners, 12 were intellectuals, 4 were military leaders, 3 were archpriests, 3 were merchants, with and 4 others.
The assembly passed a number of important documents, including the:
The Assembly elected a five-member executive on 15 January 1822, which was presided over by Alexandros Mavrocordatos
. The executive in turn appointed the first government which had 8 ministries.
The first legislature had 33 members.
Another characteristic of the First National Assembly is the absence of any reference in the Constitution to the Filiki Eteria
, although Dimitrios Ypsilantis, brother of Alexandros Ypsilantis and official representative of the Filiki Eteria
, was appointed president of the legislature, a body controlled by the local notables.
, a national representative body of the Greeks who had rebelled
against the Ottoman Empire
.
It convened at Astros
between 29 March and 18 April 1823 under the chairmanship of Petros Mavromichalis
. Its most important task was the revision of the Constitution of Epidaurus
, adopted in the First National Assembly. The new Constitution was voted on April 13, and was called the Epidaurus Law
to stress its continuity with the one of 1822. It was legally more articulate as compared to its predecessor. It allowed a slight superiority to the Legislative power as opposed to the Executive, given the fact that the latter's veto power was circumcised from an absolute to a suspending one. The new Constitution also marked an improvements as far as the protection of human rights
was concerned: property was protected, as was the honor and the security not only of Greeks but of all persons on Greek territory; it established the freedom of the press
and abolished slavery
. It also abolished local governments
. However, the great disadvantage of the yearly term of the Administrative branches remained unaltered, a result of the ever-growing distrust between politicians and the military. The Assembly of Astros passed a new electoral law, according to which the right to vote was bestowed to men rather than to seniors, while the voting age went down from 30 to 25 years.
at Troezen
was convened during the latter stages of the Greek Revolution.
The long-delayed Third National Assembly was initially convened in April 1826 at Piada
, but cut short by the news of the Fall of Missolonghi. Attempts to arrange a new Assembly in the autumn also failed due to disagreements among the various factions. Instead, two rival assemblies were established at Aegina
and Kastri
. Finally, after much deliberation, all parties agreed to participate in an assembly at Troezen. 168 delegates assembled there on 19 March 1827, under the chairmanship of Georgios Sisinis
.
Having suffered from internal dissensions, the Assembly decided to create a supreme post to preside over the Executive, creating thus the office of Governor of Greece, to which it elected the then most distinguished Greek, Count John Capodistria, for a seven-year term, on April 3. A Governmental Commission was set up to administer Greece until his arrival.
On 1 May, the Assembly approved by vote of the Political Constitution of Greece
. For the first time, the Constitution was not labeled "Provisional", signaling the Greek aspirations for complete independence from the Ottoman Empire
. This Constitution consisted of 150 articles. It established key principles in Greek Constitutional history which remain to this day, such as the statement "Sovereignty lies with the people; every power derives from the people and exists for the people". It established a strict separation of powers
, vesting the executive power to the Governor and assigning to the body of the representatives of the people, named Boule
, the legislative power. The Governor only had a suspending veto on the bills, and lacked the right to dissolve the Parliament. He was inviolable, while the Secretaries of the State, in other words the Ministers, assumed the responsibility for his public actions (thus introducing into the text of the 1827 Constitution the first elements of the so called parliamentary principle).
On 4 May 1827, a day before its dissolution, the Assembly also voted for establishing Nafplion
as the capital of Greece and seat of both parliament and government.
was a Greek
convention which sat at Argos
from 11 July to 6 August 1829, during the Greek War of Independence
.
The Fourth National Assembly followed on from the Third National Assembly at Troezen
(1827), which had adopted a new constitution
selected Ioannis Kapodistrias
as Governor of Greece with extensive powers for a seven-year term. The Assembly counted 236 representatives from all over Greece (including territories, such as Crete
or Macedonia
, that were still under Ottoman
control), for the first time elected via suffrage.
The Assembly adopted a series of reforms suggested by Kapodistrias, most notably:
on 5 December 1831, before relocating to Nafplion
in early 1832.
The Assembly, the last of a series of similar conventions of the Greek War of Independence
, approved the selection
, by the Great Powers, of the Bavaria
n prince Otto
as King of Greece. On 15 March 1832, it adopted a new constitution, titled the "Political Constitution of Greece" (Πολιτικόν Σύνταγμα της Ελλάδος) and often referred to as the "Hegemonic Constitution" (Ηγεμονικόν Σύνταγμα). In the event, the assembly disbanded soon after owing to intense differences among its members. After Otto's arrival in February 1833, the constitution was ignored by the Regency which exercised government until 1835, and after that by Otto himself, who ruled as an absolute monarch. Independent Greece received its first constitution
only after the 3 September 1843 Revolution.
system in Greece, which brought epidemics like typhoid fever
, cholera
and dysentery
under control for the first time since the start of the War of Independence; negotiated with the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire the borders and the degree of independence of the Greek state and signed the peace treaty that ended the War of Independence with the Ottomans; introduced the phoenix
, the first modern Greek currency; organised local administration; and, in an effort to raise the living standards of the population, introduced the cultivation of the potato
into Greece.
The way Kapodistrias introduced the cultivation of the potato remains famously anecdotal today. Having ordered a shipment of potatoes, at first he ordered that they be offered to anyone interested. However the potatoes were met with indifference by the population and the whole scheme seemed to be failing. Therefore Kapodistrias, knowing of the contemporary Greek attitudes, ordered that the whole shipment of potatoes be unloaded in public display on the docks of Nafplion, and placed severe-looking guards guarding it. Soon, rumours circulated that for the potatoes to be so well guarded they had to be of great importance. People would gather to look at the so-important potatoes and soon some tried to steal them. The guards had been ordered in advance to turn a blind eye to such behaviour, and soon the potatoes had all been "stolen" and Kapodistrias' plan to introduce them to Greece had succeeded.
Furthermore, as part of his programme he tried to undermine the authority of the traditional clans or dynasties which he considered the useless legacy of a bygone and obsolete era. However, he underestimated the political and military strength of the capetanei (καπεταναίοι – commanders) who had led the revolt against Turkey
in 1821, and who had expected a leadership role in the post-revolution Government. When a dispute between the capetanei of Laconia
and the appointed governor of the province escalated into an armed conflict, he called in Russian troops to restore order, because much of the army was controlled by capetanei who were part of the rebellion.
and Psara
. The Hydriots' customs dues were the chief source of the municipalities' revenue, so they refused to hand these over to Kapodistrias. It appears that Kapodistrias had refused to convene the National Assembly and was ruling as a despot, possibly influenced by his Russian experiences. The municipality of Hydra instructed Admiral Miaoulis
and Mavrocordatos
to go to Poros and to seize the Hellenic Navy's fleet there. This Miaoulis did, the intention being to prevent a blockade of the islands, so for a time it seemed as if the National Assembly would be called.
Kapodistrias called on the British and French residents to support him in putting down the rebellion, but this they refused to do, but Admiral Richord (or Ricord) took his ships north to Poros. Colonel (later General) Kallergis took a half-trained force of Greek Army regulars and a force of irregulars in support. With less than 200 men, Miaoulis was unable to make much of a fight; Fort Heidek on Bourtzi
Island was overrun by the regulars and the brig Spetses (once Laskaria Bouboulina's Agamemnon) sunk by Richord's force. Encircled by the Russians in the harbor and Kallergis's force on land, Poros surrendered. Miaoulis was forced to set charges in the flagship Hellas and the corvette Hydra, blowing them up when he and his handful of followers returned to Hydra. Kallergis's men were enraged by the loss of the ships and sacked Poros, carrying off plunder to Nauplion.
The loss of the best ships in the fleet crippled the Hellenic Navy for many years, but it also weakened Kapodistrias's position. He did finally call the National Assembly but his other actions triggered more opposition and that led to his downfall.
In 1831, Kapodistrias ordered the imprisonment of Petrobey Mavromichalis
, the Bey
of the Mani Peninsula
, one of the wildest and most rebellious parts of Greece. This was a mortal offence to the Mavromichalis family, and on October 9, 1831 (September 27 in the Julian Calendar
) Kapodistrias was assassinated by Petrobey's brother Konstantis
and son Georgios on the steps of the church of Saint Spyridon
in Nafplio.
Kapodistrias woke up early in the morning and decided to go to church despite the urges of his servants and bodyguards to stay at home. When he reached the church he saw his assassins waiting for him. When he reached the church steps, Konstantis and Georgios came close as if to greet him. Suddenly Konstantis drew his pistol and fired, missing, the bullet sticking in the church wall where it is still visible today. He then drew his dagger and stabbed Kapodistrias in the stomach while Georgios shot Kapodistrias in the head. Konstantis was shot by General Fotomaras, who watched the murder scene from his own window. Georgios managed to escape and hide in the French Embassy; after a few days he surrendered to the Greek authorities. He was sentenced to death by a court-martial and was executed by firing squad. His last wish was that the firing squad not shoot his face, and his last words were "Peace Brothers!"
Ioannis Kapodistrias was succeeded as Governor by his younger brother, Augustinos Kapodistrias
. Augustinos ruled only for six months, during which the country was very much plunged into chaos. Under the protocol
signed on May 7, 1832 between Bavaria and the protecting Powers, and basically dealing with 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 £2,400,000 sterling), Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of the territory. The borders of the Kingdom were reiterated in the London Protocol of August 30, 1832 signed by the Great Powers, which ratified the terms of the Constantinople Arrangement in connection with the border between Greece and the Ottoman Empire and marked the end of the Greek War of Independence
creating modern Greece as an independent state free of the Ottoman Empire.
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
state during the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. It is a purely historiographical term, highlighting the constitutional and democratic nature of the revolutionary regime prior to the establishment of the independent Kingdom of Greece
Kingdom of Greece
The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
, and associating this period of Greek history with the later Second
Second Hellenic Republic
The Second Hellenic Republic is the term used to describe the political regime of Greece from 1924 to 1935. It followed from the period of the constitutional monarchy under the monarchs of the House of Glücksburg, and lasted until its overthrow in a military coup d'état which restored the monarchy...
and Third Republics. The term "First Hellenic Republic" is hardly ever used in the Greek bibliography, while the term "Second Hellenic Republic" is scantly used and the term "Third Hellenic Republic" is in wide usage.
In the first stages of the 1821 uprising, various areas elected their own regional governing councils
Greek local statutes
The Greek Local Statutes were the local assemblies of Greece during the Greek War of Independence who codified certain 'proto-constitutions' ratified by local assemblies with the aim of eventually establishing a centralized Parliament under a...
. These were replaced by a central administration at the First National Assembly of Epidaurus in early 1822, which also adopted the first Greek Constitution
Greek Constitution of 1822
The Greek Constitution of 1822 was a document adopted by the First National Assembly of Epidaurus on January 1, 1822. Formally it was the Provisional Regime of Greece , sometimes translated as Temporary Constitution of Greece...
, marking the birth of the modern Greek state. The councils continued in existence however, and central authority was not firmly established until 1824/1825. The new state was not recognized by the Great Powers of the day, which, after initial successes, was threatened with collapse both from within due to civil war and from the victories of the Turko-Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
Ibrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...
.
However, by this time (1827), the Great Powers had come to agree to the formation of an autonomous Greek state under Ottoman suzerainty, as stipulated in the Treaty of London. Ottoman refusal to accept these terms led to the Battle of Navarino
Battle of Navarino
The naval Battle of Navarino was fought on 20 October 1827, during the Greek War of Independence in Navarino Bay , on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea. A combined Ottoman and Egyptian armada was destroyed by a combined British, French and Russian naval force...
, which effectively secured complete Greek independence.
In 1827, the Third National Assembly at Troezen
Third National Assembly at Troezen
The Third Greek National Assembly at Troezen was convened during the latter stages of the Greek Revolution.- Convening of the Assembly :The long-delayed Third National Assembly was initially convened in April 1826 at Piada, but cut short by the news of the Fall of Missolonghi. Attempts to arrange...
established the Hellenic State (Ἑλληνικὴ Πολιτεία) and selected Count Ioannis Capodistrias as Governor of Greece. (Therefore the state is often called Governorate.) After his arrival in Greece in January 1828, Capodistrias actively tried to create a functional state and redress the problems of a war-ravaged country, but was soon embroiled in conflict with powerful local magnates and chieftains. He was assassinated by political rivals in 1831, plunging the country into renewed civil strife. He was succeeded by his brother Augustinos
Augustinos Kapodistrias
Count Augustinos Ioannis Maria Kapodistrias was a Greek soldier and politician. He was born in Corfu. Kapodistrias was the younger brother of Ioannis Kapodistrias, first Governor of Greece...
, who was forced to resign after six months. The Fifth National Assembly at Nafplion
Fifth National Assembly at Nafplion
The Fifth National Assembly of the Greeks convened at Argos on 5 December 1831, before relocating to Nafplion in early 1832.The Assembly, the last of a series of similar conventions of the Greek War of Independence, approved the selection, by the Great Powers, of the Bavarian prince Otto as King...
drafted a new royal constitution, while the three "Protecting Powers" (Great Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
) intervened, declaring Greece a Kingdom in the London Conference of 1832
London Conference of 1832
The London Conference of 1832 was an international conference convened to establish a stable government in Greece. Negotiations between the three Great Powers resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece under a Bavarian Prince. The decisions were ratified in the Treaty of Constantinople...
, with the Bavarian Prince Otto of Wittelsbach
Otto of Greece
Otto, Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended...
as king.
The Greek Declaration of Independence (1822)
While Metternich and his allies were intervening to check reform in southern Europe, the Greeks rose against their masters and declared themselves a free and independent state. This was a source of deep satisfaction to the liberal parties in the West, who had suffered so many disappointments since the opening of the Congress of Vienna. A constitutional assembly was convoked in Greece, and, having completed a provisional constitution, it issued the following manifesto.]We, descendants of the wise and noble peoples of Hellas, we who are the contemporaries of the enlightened and civilized nations of Europe, we who behold the advantages which they enjoy under the protection of the impenetrable aegis of the law, find it no longer possible to suffer without cowardice and self-contempt the cruel yoke of the Ottoman power which has weighed upon us for more than four centuries,- a power which does not listen to reason and knows no other law than its own will, which orders and disposes everything despotically and according to its caprice. After this prolonged slavery we have determined to take arms to avenge ourselves and our country against a frightful tyranny, iniquitous in its very essence, - an unexampled despotism to which no other rule can be compared.
The war which we are carrying on against the Turk is not that of a faction or the result of sedition. It is not aimed at the advantage of any single part of the Greek people; it is a national war, a holy war, a war the object of which is to reconquer the rights of individual liberty, of property and honor, - rights which the civilized people of Europe, our neighbors, enjoy to-day; rights of which the cruel and unheard-of tyranny of the Ottomans would deprive us-us alone - and the very memory of which they would stifle in our hearts.
Are we, then, less reasonable than other peoples, that we remain deprived of these rights? Are we of a nature so degraded and abject that we should be viewed as unworthy to enjoy them, condemned to remain crushed under a perpetual slavery and subjected, like beasts of burden or mere automatons, to the absurd caprice of a cruel tyrant who, like an infamous brigand, has come from distant regions to invade our borders? Nature has deeply graven these rights in the hearts of all men; laws in harmony with nature have so completely consecrated them that neither three nor four centuries - nor thousands nor millions of centuries - can destroy them. Force and violence have been able to restrict and paralyze them for a season, but force may once more resuscitate them in all the vigor which they formerly enjoyed during many centuries; nor have we ever ceased in Hellas to defend these rights by arms whenever opportunity offered.
Building upon the foundation of our natural rights, and desiring to assimilate ourselves to the rest of the Christians of Europe, our brethren, we have begun a war against the Turks, or rather, uniting all our isolated strength, we have formed ourselves into a single armed body, firmly resolved to attain our end, to govern ourselves by wise laws, or to be altogether annihilated, believing it to be unworthy of us, as descendants of the glorious peoples of Hellas, to live henceforth in a state of slavery fitted rather for unreasoning animals than for rational beings.
Ten months have elapsed since we began this national war; the all-powerful God has succored us; although we were not adequately prepared for so great an enterprise, our arms have everywhere been victorious, despite the powerful obstacles which we have encountered and still encounter everywhere. We have had to contend with a situation bristling with difficulties, and we are still engaged in our efforts to overcome them. It should not, therefore, appear astonishing that we were not able from the very first to proclaim our independence and take rank among the civilized peoples of the earth, marching forward side by side with them. It was impossible to occupy ourselves with our political existence before we had established our independence. We trust these reasons may justify, in the eyes of the nations, our delay, as well as console us for the anarchy in which we have found ourselves….
EPIDAURUS, January 1822: the First Year of Independence.
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 22 February , he crossed the river PrutPrut
The Prut is a long river in Eastern Europe. In part of its course it forms the border between Romania and Moldova.-Overview:...
with his followers, entering the Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
. In order to encourage the local Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
Christians to join him, he announced that he had "the support of a Great Power", implying Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Two days after crossing the Prut, Ypsilantis issued a proclamation calling all Greeks and Christians to rise up against the Ottomans.* Hitchins, The Romanians, 149–150 Michael Soutzos
Michael Soutzos
Michael Soutzos , was a member of the Soutzos family of Phanariotes, he was the nephew of Mihai Suţu; he was in turn a Prince of Moldavia, between 12 June 1819 and 29 March 1821....
, then Prince of Moldavy and a member of Filiki Etaireia, set his guard at Ypsilantis' disposal. In the meanwhile, Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople
Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople
Gregory V was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1797 to 1798, from 1806 to 1808 and from 1818 to 1821. He was responsible for much restoration work to the Patriarchal Cathedral of St George, which had been badly damaged by fire in 1738...
and the Synod had anathematized and excommunicated both Ypsilantis and Soutzos issuing many encyclicals, an explicit denounce of the Revolution in line with the Orthodox Church policy.
| "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
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
, where he arguably could have prevented Ottoman armies from entering the Principalities, and where he might have forced Russia to accept a fait accompli, Ypsilantis remained in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, and ordered the executions of several pro-Ottoman Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
ns. In Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, where he had arrived in early April after some weeks delay, he decided that he could not rely on the Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n Pandurs
Pandurs
The Pandurs were Croatian Austrian frontier soldiers, who inhabited the areas of the Kingdom of Croatia and Military Frontier, and fought not only in the East-Turkish front, but also in the West-European front. They were a non-linear army, made out mainly of Croats...
to continue their Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
n-based revolt and assist the Greek cause. The Pandur leader was Tudor Vladimirescu
Tudor Vladimirescu
Tudor Vladimirescu was a Wallachian Romanian revolutionary hero, the leader of the Wallachian uprising of 1821 and of the Pandur militia. He is also known as Tudor din Vladimiri or — occasionally — as Domnul Tudor .-Background:Tudor was born in Vladimiri, Gorj County in a family of landed peasants...
, who had already reached the outskirts of Bucharest on 16 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
Scarlat Callimachi (hospodar)
Scarlat Callimachi was Grand Dragoman of the Sublime Porte 1801–1806, Prince of Moldavia between August 24 1806 – October 26 1806, August 4 1807 – June 13 1810, September 17 1812 – June 1819 and Prince of Wallachia between February 1821 – June 1821.A member of the Callimachi family, he was the son...
, trying to maintain relations with both Russia and the Ottomans.
At that point, Kapodistrias, the foreign minister of Russia, was ordered by Alexander I
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
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 26 May . 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
Battle of Dragashani
The Battle of Dragashani was fought on June 19, 1821 in Drăgăşani, Wallachia, between the Ottoman forces of Sultan Mahmud II and the Greek Filiki Etaireia insurgents...
and the destruction of the Sacred Band
Sacred Band (1821)
The Sacred Band was a battalion founded by Alexander Ypsilantis at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, in February 1821 in Wallachia, now part of Romania.-Origin and structure:...
on 7 June .
Alexander Ypsilantis, accompanied by his brother Nicholas and a remnant of his followers, retreated to Râmnicu Vâlcea
Râmnicu Vâlcea
Râmnicu Vâlcea is the capital city of Vâlcea County, Romania .-Geography and climate:Râmnicu Vâlcea is situated in the central-south area of Romania...
, 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
Te Deum
The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
to be sung in Cozia Monastery
Cozia Monastery
Cozia Monastery, erected close to Călimănești by Mircea cel Bătrân in 1388 and housing his tomb, is one of the most valuable monuments of national medieval art and architecture in Romania....
, and, on pretext of arranging measures with the Austrian commander-in-chief, he crossed the frontier. However, the reactionary policies of the Holy Alliance
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of...
were enforced by Francis II
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the Empire after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz...
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
Giorgakis Olympios
Giorgakis Olympios was a Greek armatolos and military commander during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. Noted for his activities with the Filiki Eteria in the Danubian Principalities, he is considered to be a leading figure of the Greek Revolution.-Early activities:He was...
and Yiannis Pharmakis
Yiannis Pharmakis
Yiannis Pharmakis or Ioannis Farmakis , born in Vlasti, Macedonia , was a Greek revolutionary leader of the Greek War of Independence, active in Wallachia and Moldavia....
but, by the end of the year, the provinces had been pacified by the Ottomans.
Peloponnese
The PeloponnesePeloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, 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 Ottoman governor of the Morea
Morea
The Morea was the name of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. It also referred to a Byzantine province in the region, known as the Despotate of Morea.-Origins of the name:...
Mora valisi Hursid Pasha
Hursid Pasha
Hurşid Ahmed Pasha was an Ottoman General and Grand Vizier during the early 19th century. He was of Georgian descent.- Early life :...
and many of his troops, the situation was favourable for the Greeks to rise against Ottoman occupation. The crucial meeting was held at Vostitsa (modern Aigion), where chieftains and prelates from all over the Peloponnese assembled on 26 January. There, Papaflessas
Papaflessas
Papaflessas , born Grigorios Demetrios Flessas , was a Greek patriot, priest, and government official of the old Flessas Family. The word papa- in the name "Papaflessas" indicates his status as a cleric since the word means "priest" in Greek...
, a pro-revolution priest who presented himself as representative of Filiki Eteria
Filiki Eteria
thumb|right|200px|The flag of the Filiki Eteria.Filiki Eteria or Society of Friends was a secret 19th century organization, whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece and to establish an independent Greek state. Society members were mainly young Phanariot Greeks from Russia and local...
clashed with most of the civil leaders and members of the senior clergy, such as Metropolitan Germanos of Patras, who were sceptical and demanded guarantees about a Russian intervention. 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. According to the tradition, the Revolution was declared on 25 March 1821 by Metropolitan Germanos who raised the banner with the cross in the Monastery of Agia Lavra
Agia Lavra
Agia Lavra is a monastery near Kalavryta, Achaea, Greece. It was built in 961 AD, on Helmos Mountain, at an altitude of 961 meters, and can be described as the symbolic birth-place of modern Greece. It stands as one of the oldest monasteries in the Peloponnese.It was built in 10th century but was...
, although some historians question the historicity of the event.
On 17 March 1821, war was declared on the Turks by the Maniots in Areopoli
Areopoli
Areopoli is a town on the Mani Peninsula, Laconia, Greece. The word Areopoli means "city of Ares", the ancient Greek god of war. It was the seat of Oitylo municipality. Areopoli was called Tsimova by the invading Slavs during the 7th century AD...
. The same day, a force of 2,000 Maniots under the command of Petros Mavromichalis
Petros Mavromichalis
Petros Mavromichalis , also known as Petrobey , was the leader of the Maniot people during the first half of the 19th century. His family had a long history of revolts against the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of what is now Greece...
advanced on the Messenia
Messenia
Messenia is a regional unit in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese region, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided by the Kallikratis plan, implemented 1 January 2011...
n town of Kalamata
Kalamata
Kalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...
, where they united with troops under Theodoros Kolokotronis
Theodoros Kolokotronis
Theodoros Kolokotronis was a Greek Field Marshal and one of the leaders of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire....
, Nikitaras
Nikitaras
Nikitaras was the nom de guerre of Nikitas Stamatelopoulos , a Greek revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence. Due to his fighting prowess, he was known as the "Τουρκοφάγος" , literally "Turk-Eater"....
and Papaflessas
Papaflessas
Papaflessas , born Grigorios Demetrios Flessas , was a Greek patriot, priest, and government official of the old Flessas Family. The word papa- in the name "Papaflessas" indicates his status as a cleric since the word means "priest" in Greek...
; Kalamata fell to the Greeks on 23 March.* Papageorgiou, "First Year of Freedom", p. 60. In Achaia, the town of Kalavryta
Kalavryta
Kalavryta is a town and a municipality in the eastcentral part of the peripheral unit of Achaea, Greece. It is the southern terminus of the Kalavryta - Diakopto Road and the eastern terminus of the Patras - Kalavryta Road. It is located approx...
was besieged on 21 March, and in Patras
Patras
Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
conflicts lasted for many days. The Ottomans launched sporadic attacks towards the city while the revolutionaries, led by Panagiotis Karatzas
Panagiotis Karatzas
Panagiotis Karatzas was a Greek revolutionary leader. During his childhood years, he show his and battled against the Turks and disrupt with the other Turks. He fled for the Ionian Islands which was than under English rule and moved to Zakynthos and enrolled into the British Army at the 3rd...
, drove them back to the fortress.
By the end of March, the Greeks effectively controlled the countryside, while the Turks were confined to the fortresses, most notably those of Patras (recaptured by the Turks on April 3 by Yussuf Pasha), Rio
Rio, Greece
Rio is a town and a former municipality in Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Patras, of which it is a municipal unit. The former municipality had a population of around 13,000.- Geography :...
, Acrocorinth
Acrocorinth
Acrocorinth , "Upper Corinth", the acropolis of ancient Corinth, is a monolithic rock overseeing the ancient city of Corinth, Greece. "It is the most impressive of the acropoleis of mainland Greece," in the estimation of George Forrest. Acrocorinth was continuously occupied from archaic times to...
, Monemvasia
Monemvasia
Monemvasia is a town and a municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a small peninsula off the east coast of the Peloponnese. The peninsula is linked to the mainland by a short causeway 200m in length. Its area consists mostly of a large plateau some 100 metres above sea level, up to...
, Nafplion
Nafplion
Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...
and the provincial capital, Tripolitsa
Tripoli, Greece
Tripoli is a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in the central part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture of Arcadia and the centre of the municipality of Tripolis, pop...
, 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. Since May, Kolokotronis organized the siege of Tripolitsa, and, in the meantime, Greek forces twice defeated the Turks, who unsuccessfully tried to repulse the besiegers. Finally, Tripolitsa was seized by the Greeks on 23 September , and the city was given over to the mob for two days. After lengthy negotiations, the Turkish forces surrendered Actrocorinth on 14 January 1822.
Central Greece
The first regions to revolt in Central GreeceCentral Greece
Continental Greece or Central Greece , colloquially known as Roúmeli , is a geographical region of Greece. Its territory is divided into the administrative regions of Central Greece, Attica, and part of West Greece...
were Phocis
Phocis
Phocis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth...
(24 March), and Salona
Amfissa
Amfissa is a town and a former municipality in Phocis, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Delphi, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It is also the capital of the regional unit of Phocis...
(27 March). In Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
, Livadeia
Livadeia
Livadeia is a city in central Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture Boeotia. Livadeia is located 130 km NW of Athens, E of Nafpaktos, ESE of Amfissa and Desfina, SE of Lamia and west of Chalkida. Livadeia is linked with GR-48 and several kilometres west of GR-3. The area around Livadeia...
was captured by Athanasios Diakos
Athanasios Diakos
Athanasios Diakos , a Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence and a national hero, was born Athanasios Nikolaos Massavetas in the village of Ano Mousounitsa, Phocis.-Early life:...
on 31 March, followed by Thebes
Thebes, Greece
Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...
two days later. In mid-April revolutionary forces entered Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, and forced the Turkish garrison into the Acropolis. Missolonghi revolted in 25 May, and the revolution soon spread to other cities of western Central Greece.
However, these initial Greek successes were soon put in peril after two subsequent defeats at the battles of Alamana
Battle of Alamana
The Battle of Alamana was fought between the Greeks and the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence on April 22nd, 1821.-Battle:...
and Eleftherohori against the army of Omer Vrioni. Another significant loss for the Greeks was the death of Diakos, a promising military leader, who was captured in Alamana and executed by the Turks, when he denied to declare allegiance to the Sultan. The Greeks managed to halt the Turkish advance at the Battle of Gravia
Battle of Gravia
The Battle of Gravia Inn was fought between Greek revolutionaries and the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence. The Greek leader, Odysseas Androutsos with a group of 120 men defeated a Ottoman army numbering 9,000 men and artillery under the command of Omer Vrioni.Following his...
under the leadership of Odysseas Androutsos
Odysseas Androutsos
Odysseas Androutsos ; was a hero of the Greek War of Independence.-Early life:He was born in Ithaca in 1788, however his family was from the village of Livanates in Phthiotis prefecture...
, who, with a handful of men, inflicted heavy casualties upon the Turkish army. After his defeat and the successful retreat of Androutsos' force, Omer Vrioni postponed his advance towards Peloponnese awaiting reinforcements; instead, he invaded Livadeia, which he captured in 10 June, and Athens, where he lifted the siege of Acropolis. After a Greek force of 2,000 men managed to destroy at Vassilika
Battle of Vassilika
The Battle of Vassilika was fought between Greek revolutionaries and the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence on August 25, 1821, near Thermopylae. The Greek insurgents managed to destroy an Ottoman relief army on its way to the forces of Omar Vrioni in Attica, and captured the...
a Turkish relief army on its way to Turkish forces in Attica, Vrioni abandoned Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
in September and retreated to Ioannina
Ioannina
Ioannina , often called Jannena within Greece, is the largest city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a population of 70,203 . It lies at an elevation of approximately 500 meters above sea level, on the western shore of lake Pamvotis . It is located within the Ioannina municipality, and is the...
. By the end of 1821, the revolutionaries had managed, after their victories at Vassilika and Gravia, to temporarily secure their positions in Central Greece.
Crete
Cretan participation in the revolution was extensive, but it failed to achieve liberation from Turkish rule due to Egyptian intervention. CreteCrete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
had a long history of resisting Turkish rule, exemplified by the folk hero Daskalogiannis
Daskalogiannis
Ioannis Vlachos , better known as Daskalogiannis was a wealthy shipbuilder and shipowner who led a Cretan revolt against Ottoman rule in the 18th century.-Life and career:...
who was killed while 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. Despite the Turkish reaction, the rebellion persisted, and thus Sultan Mahmud II
Mahmud II
Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...
(r. 1808–1839) was forced to seek the aid of Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
, trying to lure him with the pashalik of Crete. On 28 May 1822, an Egyptian fleet of 30 warships and 84 transports, led by Hasan Pasha, Mehmet Ali's son-in-law, arrived at Souda Bay
Souda Bay
Souda Bay is a bay and natural harbour on the northwest coast of the Greek island of Crete. The bay is about 15 km long and only two to four km wide, and a deep natural harbour. It is formed between the Akrotiri peninsula and Cape Drapano, and runs west to east...
with the task of ending the rebellion and he did not waste any time in the burning of villages throughout Crete.
After Hasan's accidental death in February 1823, another son-in-law of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Hussein Bey
Bey
Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...
led a well-organised and well-armed joint Turkish-Egyptian force of 12,000 soldiers with the support of artillery and cavalry. He located his encampment at Ayia Varvara in Heraklion
Heraklion
Heraklion, or Heraclion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete, Greece. It is the 4th largest city in Greece....
. On 22 June 1823, Emmanouil Tombazis
Emmanouil Tombazis
Emmanouil Tombazis was a Greek naval captain from Hydra, active during the Greek War of Independence, who was appointed Commissioner of Crete for the Greek provisional government in 1823–1824 and naval minister for a short period in 1828....
, appointed Commissioner of Crete by the Greek revolutionary government, held the Convention of Arcoudaina in an attempt to reconcile the factions of local captains and unite them against the common threat. He then gathered 3,000 men in Gergeri
Gergeri
Gergeri is the seat of Rouvas municipality in Heraklion Prefecture in the Greek island of Crete. The population was 1,809. Gergeri's location is at a region called "Pano Riza" of Psiloreiti's, and in that region there are also the villages Panasos,Nivritos,Zaros,Vorizia and Kamares...
to face Hussein. However, the Cretans were defeated by the much larger, and better organised force, and lost 300 men at the battle of Amourgelles on 20 August 1823. By the spring of 1824, Hussein had managed to limit the Cretan resistance to just a few mountain enclaves.
Towards the summer of 1825, a body of three to four hundred Cretans, who had fought with other Greeks in the Peloponnese, arrived in Crete, and revitalized the Cretan insurgency (the so-called "Gramvousa period"). On 9 August 1825, led by Dimitrios Kallergis and Emmanouil Antoniadis, this group of Cretans captured the fort at Gramvousa
Gramvousa
Gramvousa, also Grambousa, Grampousa or Krampouza , further names include Akra, Cavo Buso, Cavo Bouza, Garabusa and Grabusa, are names used for two small uninhabited islands off the coast of north-western Crete in the prefecture of Chania...
and other insurgents captured the fort at Kissamos
Kissamos
Kissamos is a town and municipality in the west of the island of Crete, Greece. It is part of the Chania peripheral unit and of the former Kissamos Province which covers the northwest corner of the island. The city of Kissamos is also known as Kastelli-Kissamou and often known simply as Kastelli...
, and attempted to spread the insurgency further afield.
Although the Ottomans did not manage to retake the forts, they were successful in blocking the spread of the insurgency to western provinces. The insurgents were besieged in Gramvousa for more than two years and they had to resort to piracy to survive. Gramvousa became a hive of piratical activity that greatly affected Turkish–Egyptian and European shipping in the region. During that period the population of Gramvousa became organised and built a school and a church dedicated to the Panagia i Kleftrina ("Our Lady the piratess"), i.e. St. Mary as the patron of the klepht
Klepht
Klephts were self-appointed armatoloi, anti-Ottoman insurgents, and warlike mountain-folk who lived in the countryside when Greece was a part of the Ottoman Empire...
s. In January 1828, the Epirote
Epirus
The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...
Hatzimichalis Dalianis
Hatzimichalis Dalianis
Hatzimichalis Dalianis was a hero of the Greek War of Independence and the revolutionary leader of Crete in 1828.-Greek War of Independence:Dalianis was born in the town of Delvinaki, Epirus, when the region was under Ottoman rule...
together with 700 landed in Crete and in following March he took possession of Francocastello castle, Sfakia
Sfakia
Sfakiá is a mountainous area in the southwestern part of the island of Crete, in the Chania peripheral unit. It is considered one of the few places in Greece to never have been fully occupied by foreign powers...
region. Soon the local Ottoman ruler, Mustafa Naili Pasha, attacked Frangokastello
Frangokastello
Frangokastello is the location of a castle and scattered settlement on the south coast of Crete, Greece, about 12 km. east of Chora Sfakion and within the prefecture of Chania....
with an army of 8,000 men. The castle's defence was doomed after a seven day siege and Dalianis perished along with 385 men. During 1828, Kapodistrias sent Mavrocordatos with British and French fleets to Crete to deal with the klephts and the pirates. This expedition resulted in the destruction of all pirate ships at Gramvousa and the fort came under British command.
Macedonia
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
and of the other urban centres of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
coincided with the cultural and political renaissance of the Greeks. The ideals and patriotic songs of Rigas Feraios and others had made a profound impression upon the Thessalonians. Α few years later, the revolutionary fervour 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
Emmanouel Pappas
Emmanouel Pappas , prominent member of Filiki Etaireia and leader of the Greek War of Independence in Macedonia was one of the most heroic figures of the Struggle....
from the village of Dobista
Emmanouil Pappas
Emmanouil Pappas is a municipality in the Serres regional unit, Greece. The seat of the municipality is in Chryso. The municipality takes its name after a local historical figure who played an important part as a leader in the war of the Greek revolution against Ottoman rule. Sadly, he met his...
, Serres
Serres Prefecture
Serres is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the Region of Central Macedonia. Its capital is the town of Serres. The total population reaches just over 200,000.-Geography:...
, 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
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...
, 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
Psara
Psara is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Together with the small uninhabited island of Antipsara it forms the municipality of Psara. It is part of the Chios peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The only town of the island and seat of the municipality is also called...
at Tsayezi
Stomio, Larissa
Stomio is a coastal town in Thessaly, central Greece. It was the seat of the former municipality of Evrymenes in the Larissa Prefecture...
, 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
Polygyros
Polygyros is a town and municipality in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is the capital of Chalkidiki.-Geography:Polygyros town is built in the shape of an amphitheatre on a plateau on the south west side of the mountain Cholomontas. It is south of Greek National Road 16...
, 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 learned of the incidents at Polygyros and the spreading of the insurrection to 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:
Thasos
Thasos or Thassos is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, close to the coast of Thrace and the plain of the river Nestos but geographically part of Macedonia. It is the northernmost Greek island, and 12th largest by area...
joined it. Meanwhile, the revolt in Chalkidiki was progressing slowly and unsystematically. In June 1821 the insurgents tried to cut communications between Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
and the south, attempting to prevent the serasker
Serasker
Serasker or Seraskier is a title formerly used in the Ottoman Empire for a Vizier who commanded the army, and later for the National Minister of Defence....
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
Rentina, Thessaloniki
Rentina is a former municipality in the Thessaloniki regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been a municipal unit within the municipality of Volvi. Its population was 6,364 in 2001. The seat of the municipality was in Stavros....
.
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
Skiathos
Skiathos is a small Greek island in the northwest Aegean Sea. Skiathos is the westernmost island in the Northern Sporades group, east of the Pelion peninsula in Magnesia on the mainland, and west of the island of Skopelos.-Geography:...
, Skopelos
Skopelos
Skopelos , ancient Peparethos or Peparethus , is a Greek island in the western Aegean Sea. Skopelos is one of several islands which comprise the Northern Sporades island group. The island is located east of mainland Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea and is part of the Thessaly Periphery....
and Skyros
Skyros
Skyros is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes where the Magnetes used to live and later Pelasgia and Dolopia and later Skyros...
. However, Papas died en route to join the revolution at Hydra
Hydra, Saronic Islands
Hydra is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece, located in the Aegean Sea between the Saronic Gulf and the Argolic Gulf. It is separated from the Peloponnese by narrow strip of water...
. Sithonia
Sithonia
Sithonia is a peninsula located south of the central part of Chalkidiki which is also in the south-central part of the Chalkidiki peninsula. The Kassandra Peninsula lies to the west and the Mount Athos peninsula at the east. Sithonia is also a municipality, covering the Sithonia peninsula...
, Mount Athos and Thasos subsequently surrendered on terms.
Nevertheless, the revolt spread from Central
Central Macedonia
Central Macedonia is one of the thirteen regions of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. With a population of over 1.8 million, it is the second most populous in Greece after Attica.- Administration :...
to Western Macedonia, from Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
to Pieria and Vermion
Vermion Mountains
The Vermio Mountains is a mountain range between Imathia and Kozani Prefecture in west-central Macedonia. The range is west of the plain of Kambania. The town of Veria, which is the capital of Imathia prefecture, is built οn the foot of these mountains...
. In the autumn of 1821, Nikolaos Kasomoulis was sent to southern Greece as the "representative of South-East Macedonia", and met Demetrius 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
Anastasios Karatasos
Anastasios Karatasos was a Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence was born in the village of Dovras, Imathia Prefecture and is considered to be the most important revolutionary from Macedonia....
and Aggelis Gatsos
Aggelis Gatsos
Aggelis Gatsos was a Slavophone Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence. He was born in the village of Sarakinovo, today known as Sarakini , in the Moglena region....
arranged a meeting with other armatoloi; they decided that the insurrection should be based on three towns: Naoussa
Naousa, Imathia
Naousa or Naoussa is a city in the Imathia peripheral unit of Macedonia, Greece. Population 34,441.It is famous for its parks and for its ski resorts...
, Kastania
Kastania (Pieria), Greece
Kastania is a village in Pieria, Greece. It is part of the municipal unit of Kolindros. Its population as of the 2001 census was 423. It dates from Byzantine times, and Byzantine churches are still in evidence. It is a picturesque mountain village situated at the beginning of a large gorge leading...
, and Siatista
Siatista
Siatista is a town and a former municipality in Kozani peripheral unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Voio, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It lies 28 km southwest of the city Kozani. It was built on the austral...
.
In March 1822, Mehmed Emin secured decisive victories at Kolindros
Kolindros
Kolindros is a town and a former municipality in Pieria regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pydna-Kolindros, of which it is a municipal unit. Based on a 2001 census, the municipal unit contained 5,223 inhabitants.-External links:**...
and Kastania. Further north, in the vicinity of Naousa, Zafeirakis Theodosiou
Zafeirakis Theodosiou
Zafeirakis Theodosiou was a Greek prokritos , meaning political leader of Greeks during Ottoman rule, of Naousa, Imathia and an important figure of the Greek War of Independence in the region of Macedonia.-Life:...
, 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, Mehmed 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
Kozani
Kozani is a city in northern Greece, capital of Kozani regional unit and of West Macedonia region. It is located in the western part of Macedonia, in the northern part of the Aliakmonas river valley...
, Siatista and Aspropotamos River, or were carried by the Psarian fleet to the northern Aegean islands.
Cyprus
On June 9, 1821 3 ships sailed from Cyprus with General Konstantinos Kanaris. They landed at Asprovrisi, of Lapithou. Kanaris brought with him papers from the Filiki Etaireia, and the ships were welcomed with rapturous applause and patriotic cries from the local Greeks of the area, who helped Kanaris and the soldiers from Cyprus as much as they could.Kanaris brought with him the Cypriots who created the "Column of Cypriots" («Φάλαγγα των Κυπρίων»), led by General Chatzipetros, which fought with extraordinary heroism in Greece. In total, over 1000 Cypriots fought in the War of Independence, many of whom died. At Missolonghi many were killed, and at the Battle of Athens in 1827, around 130 were killed. General Chatzipetros, showing military decorations declared "These were given to me by the heroism and braveness of the Column of Cypriots". In the National Library, there is a list of 580 names of Cypriots who fought in the War between 1821 and 1829.
The Cypriot battalion brought with them their own distinctive war banner, consisting of a white flag with a large blue cross, and the words "GREEK FLAG OF THE MOTHERLAND CYPRUS" emblazoned in the top left corner. The flag was hoisted on a wooden mast, carved and pointed at the end to act as a lance in battle. The legendary battle flag is currently stored at the National Historical Museum of Athens.
Throughout the War of Independence, supplies were brought from Cyprus by the Filiki Etairia to aid the Greek struggle. The Greeks of Cyprus underwent great risk to provide these supplies, and secretly load them onto boats arriving at intervals from Greece, as the Ottoman Rulers in Cyprus at the time were very wary of Cypriot insurgency and sentenced to death any Greek Cypriots found aiding the Greek cause. Incidences of these secret loading trips from Cyprus were recorded by the French consul to Cyprus, Mechain.
Back in Cyprus during the war, the local population suffered greatly at the hands of the Ottoman rulers of the islands, who were quick to act with great severity at acts of patriotism and sympathy of the Greeks of Cyprus to the Revolution, fearing a similar uprising in Cyprus. The leader of the Greeks of the island at the time, Archbishop Kyprianos was initiated into the Filiki Etairia in 1818 and had promised to aid the cause of the Greek Elladites with food and money.
In early July 1821, the Cypriot Archimandrite Theofylaktos Thiseas arrived in Larnaca
Larnaca
Larnaca, is the third largest city on the southern coast of Cyprus after Nicosia and Limassol. It has a population of 72,000 and is the island's second largest commercial port and an important tourist resort...
as a messenger of the Filiki Etairia, bringing orders to Kyprianos, while proclamations were distributed in every corner of the island. However, the local pasha, Küçük Mehmet, intercepted these messages and reacted with fury, calling in reinforcements, confiscating weapons and arresting several prominent Cypriots. Archbishop Kyprianos was urged (by his friends) to leave the island as the situation worsened but refused to do so. Finally, on July 9, 1821 Küçük Mehmet had the gates to the walled city of Nicosia closed and executed, by beheading or hanging, 470 important Cypriots amongst them Chrysanthos (bishop of Paphos), Meletios (bishop of Kition) and Lavrentios of (bishop of Kyrenia). The next day, all abbots and monks of monasteries of Cyprus were executed. In addition, the Ottomans arrested all the Greek leaders of the villages and imprisoned them before executing them, as they were suspected of inspiring patriotism in their local population. In total, it is estimated that over 2,000 Greeks of Cyprus were slaughtered as an act of revenge for participating in the revolution. This was a very significant proportion of the population of the total island at the time. Küçük Mehmet had declared "I have in my mind to slaughter the Greeks in Cyprus, to hang them, to not leave a soul..." before undertaking these massacres. From the 9th to the 14th of July, the Ottomans killed all prisoners on the list of the pasha, and in the next 30 days, looting and massacres spread throughout Cyprus as 4,000 Turkish soldiers from Syria arrived on the island.
"Hellenism is the true contemporary race of the world, Nobody could be found to eliminate it, Nobody, for it is protected from above by my God, If Hellenism is lost, truly the whole world shall weep." |
| Archbishop Kyprianos' response to Kucuk Mehmet's threat to wipe out the Greeks of Cyprus |
Archbishop Kyprianos was defiant in his death. He was aware of his fate and impending death, yet stood by the Greek cause. He is revered throughout Cyprus as a noble patriot and defender of the Orthodox faith and Hellenic cause. An English explorer by the name of Carne spoke to the Archbishop before the events of 9 July, who was quoted as saying: "My death is not far away. I know they [the Ottoman] are waiting for an opportunity to kill me". Kyprianos chose to stay, despite these fear, and provide protection and counsel for the people of Cyprus as their leader. To this day, his response (in the form of a poem) to Küçük Mehmet's declaration (seen in the previous paragraph) to kill the Greeks of Cyprus in mass purges maintains legendary status in Cyprus and Greece.
He was publicly hanged from a tree opposite the former palace of the Lusignan Kings of Cyprus on 9 July 1821. The events leading up to his execution were documented in an epic poem written in the Cypriot dialect by Vassilis Michaelides.
1822–1824
Until 1825, revolutionary activity was fragmented, because of the lack of a strong central leadership and guidance. However, the Greek side withstood the Turkish attacks, because, during the same period, the Ottoman military campaigns were periodic, and the Ottoman presence in the rebel areas uncoordinated due to logistical problems. The Greek military leaders preferred battlefields, where they could annihilate the numerical superiority of the opponent, and, at the same time, the lack of artillery hampered Ottoman military efforts.The revolutionaries didn't manage to profit from their early successes in 1821 and, consequently, the Ottomans took the offensive, organising two military campaigns in Western and Eastern Greece led by Mustafa Reshit Pasha and Mahmud Dramali Pasha
Mahmud Dramali Pasha
Mahmud Pasha, called Dramalı was a Beyzade, an Ottoman Vizier, Serdar-ı Ekrem, Pasha and governor of Larissa, Drama and the Morea. In 1822, he was tasked with suppressing the Greek Revolution, but was defeated and died shortly after....
respectively. The latter crossed Roumeli and invaded Morea, but suffered a serious defeat in Dervenakia. The campaign in Western Greece ended alike: Mustafa Reshit's army was defeated in a battle near Karpenisi, during which the Souliot Markos Botsaris
Markos Botsaris
Markos Botsaris was a Souliote captain and a hero of the War of Greek Independence. Markos Botsaris is among the most revered national heroes in Greece.-Early life:...
was shot dead. The announcement of his death in Europe generated a wave of sympathy for the Greek cause.
Revolution in peril: Infighting
The First National Assembly was formed at EpidaurusEpidaurus
Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...
in late December 1821, consisted almost exclusively of Peloponnesian notables. The Assembly drafted the first Greek Constitution
Greek Constitution of 1822
The Greek Constitution of 1822 was a document adopted by the First National Assembly of Epidaurus on January 1, 1822. Formally it was the Provisional Regime of Greece , sometimes translated as Temporary Constitution of Greece...
and appointed the members of an executive and a legislative body that were to govern the liberated territories. Mavrokordatos saved the office of president of the executive for himself, while Ypsilantis, who had called for the Assembly, was elected president of the legislative body, a place of limited significance. Military leaders and representatives of Filiki Eteria were marginalized, but gradually Kolokotronis' political influence grew, and he soon managed to control, along with the captains he influenced, the Peloponnesian Senate. The central administration tried to marginalize Kolokotronis who also had under his control the fort of Nafplion
Nafplion
Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...
. In November 1822, the central administration decided that the new National Assembly would take place in Nafplio, and asked Kolokotronis to return the fort to the government. Kolokotronis refused, and the Assembly was finally gathered in March 1823 in Astros
Astros, Greece
Astros is a town near the Argolic Gulf in the northeast Peloponnese in eastern Arcadia. The name and the settlement both date back to ancient times, when it was known as Astron. Astros is the seat of North Kynouria municipality , which is the largest in Arcadia and has the greatest number of...
. Central governance was strengthened at the expense of regional bodies, a new constitution
Greek Constitution of 1823
Greek Constitution of 1823 is the second constitutional text adopted during the Greek War of Independence, which started in 1821. In the spring of 1823 took place the 2nd National Assembly, which adopted the new constitution, named "Law of Epidauros"...
was voted, and new members were elected for the executive and the legislative bodies.
Trying to coax the military leaders, the central administration proposed to Kolokotronis that he participate in the executive body as vice-president. Kolokotronis accepted, but he caused a serious crisis, when he prevented Mavrokordatos, who had been elected president of the legislative body, from assuming his position. His attitude towards Mavrokordatos caused outrage amongst the members of the legislative body. The crisis culminated, when the legislature, which was controlled by the Roumeliotes and the Hydriots, overturned the executive, and fired its president, Petros Mavromichalis. Kolokotronis and most of the Peloponnesian notables and captains supported Mavromichalis, who remained president of his executive in Tripolitsa. However, a second executive, supported by the islanders, the Roumeliotes, and some Achaean notables—Andreas Zaimis
Andreas Zaimis
Andreas Asimakou Zaimis was a Greek freedom fighter and government leader during the Greek War of Independence.Born in Kalavryta, in the northern Peloponnesos, Zaimis was a leader of armed men who fought the Ottoman Turks, ultimately securing Greece's freedom.In 1826, Zaimis was chosen as the...
and Andreas Londos
Andreas Londos
Andreas Londos was a Greek military leader and politician. Born in Vostitsa in 1786, he was initiated into the Filiki Eteria in 1818 and was one of the first military leaders to raise the banner of revolt in the Peloponnese during the Greek War of Independence.On 26 January 1821, under the ruse of...
were the most prominent—was formed at Kranidi
Kranidi
Kranidi is a town and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Ermionida, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. Some say the name is derived from the word Koronida, while others claim it is from the word...
with Kountouriotis
Georgios Kountouriotis
Georgios Kountouriotis was a Greek ship-owner and politician who served as prime minister from March to October 1848. He was born in 1782 on the Saronic island of Hydra to an Arvanite family...
as president. In March 1824, the forces of the new executive besieged Nafplion and Tripolitsa. After one month of fighting and negotiations, an agreement was reached between Kolokotronis, from one side, and Londos and Zaimis, from the other side. In 22 May the first phase of the civil war officially ended, but most of the members of the new executive were displeased by the moderate terms of the agreement that Londos and Zaimis brokered.
During this period, the two first instalments of the English loan had arrived, and the position of the government was strengthened; but the infighting was not yet over. Zaimis and the other Peloponnesians who supported Kountouriotis came into conflict with the executive body, and allied with Kolokotronis who roused the residents of Tripolitsa against the local tax collectors of the government. Papaflessas and Makriyannis failed to suppress the rebellion, but Kolokotronis remained inactive for some period, overwhelmed by the death of his son, Panos. The government regrouped its armies, which now consisted mainly of Roumeliotes and Souliots, and were led by Ioannis Kolettis
Ioannis Kolettis
Ioannis Kolettis was a Greek politician who played a significant role in Greek affairs from the Greek War of Independence through the early years of the Greek Kingdom, including as Minister to France and serving twice as Prime Minister....
who wanted a complete victory. Under Kolettis' orders, two bodies of Roumeliotes and Souliots invaded the Peloponnese: the first under Gouras occupied Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
and raided the province; the second under Karaiskakis, Kitsos Tzavelas
Kitsos Tzavelas
Kitsos Tzavelas was a fighter in the Greek War of Independence and later Greek Army General and Prime Minister of Greece.-Early years and Greek War of Independence:...
and others, attacked in Achaea Londos and Zaimis. In January 1825, a Roumeliote force, led by Kolettis himself arrested Kolokotronis, Deligiannis' family and others. In May 1825, under the pressure of the Egyptian intervention, those imprisoned were released and granted amnesty.
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 NavyOttoman Navy
The Ottoman Navy was established in the early 14th century. During its long existence it was involved in many conflicts; refer to list of Ottoman sieges and landings and list of Admirals in the Ottoman Empire for a brief chronology.- Pre-Ottoman:...
, it would be able to resupply the isolated Ottoman garrisons and land reinforcements from the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
's Asian provinces at will, crushing the rebellion. The Greek fleet was primarily outfitted by prosperous Aegean islanders, principally from three islands: Hydra
Hydra, Saronic Islands
Hydra is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece, located in the Aegean Sea between the Saronic Gulf and the Argolic Gulf. It is separated from the Peloponnese by narrow strip of water...
, Spetses
Spetses
Spetses is an island and a municipality in the Islands regional unit, Attica, Greece. It is sometimes included as one of the Saronic Islands. Until 1948, it was part of the old prefecture of Argolidocorinthia, which is now split into Argolis and Corinthia...
and Psara
Psara
Psara is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Together with the small uninhabited island of Antipsara it forms the municipality of Psara. It is part of the Chios peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The only town of the island and seat of the municipality is also called...
. 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 Kapudan Pasha. The total Ottoman fleet size consisted of 23 masted ships of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
, each with about 80 guns and 7 or 8 frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
s with 50 guns, 5 corvettes with about 30 guns and around 40 brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
s with 20 or fewer guns.
In the face of this situation, the Greeks decided to use fire ship
Fire ship
A fire ship, used in the days of wooden rowed or sailing ships, was a ship filled with combustibles, deliberately set on fire and steered into an enemy fleet, in order to destroy ships, or to create panic and make the enemy break formation. Ships used as fire ships were usually old and worn out or...
s , which had proven themselves effective for the Psarians during the Orlov Revolt
Orlov Revolt
The Orlov Revolt was a precursor to the Greek War of Independence , which saw a Greek uprising in the Peloponnese at the instigation of Count Orlov, commander of the Russian Naval Forces of the Russo-Turkish War...
in 1770. The first test was made at Eresos
Eresos
Eresos and its twin beach village Skala Eresou are located in the southwest part of the Greek island of Lesbos. They are villages visited by considerable number of tourists...
on May 27, 1821, when an Ottoman frigate was successfully destroyed by a fire ship under Dimitrios Papanikolis
Dimitrios Papanikolis
Dimitrios Papanikolis was a naval hero of the Greek Revolution, famous for being the first to successfully employ a fireship to destroy an Ottoman ship of the line.- Life :Papanikolis was born on the island of Psara in 1790...
. 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
Constantine Kanaris
Constantine Kanaris or Canaris was a Greek Prime Minister, admiral and politician who in his youth was also a freedom fighter, pirate, privateer and merchantman.-Early life:...
at Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
, after the massacre of the island's population in June 1822
Chios Massacre
The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. Greeks from neighbouring islands arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chians to join the struggle for independence. In response, Ottoman...
, 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
Andreas Vokos Miaoulis
Andreas Vokos, nicknamed Miaoulis , was an admiral and politician who commanded Greek naval forces during the Greek War of Independence ....
, Nikolis Apostolis
Nikolis Apostolis
Nikolis Apostolis was a Greek naval commander during the Greek War of Independence. Apostolis was born on the island of Psara in 1770. He was initiated into the Filiki Eteria in 1818...
, Iakovos Tombazis
Iakovos Tombazis
Iakovos "Yiakoumakis" Tombazis was a merchant and ship-owner from the Greek island of Hydra who became the first Admiral of the Greek Navy during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire . Tombazis' date of birth is not known but some historians suggest 1782. He was the son of...
and Antonios Kriezis
Antonios Kriezis
Antonios Kriezis was a Prime Minister of Greece from 1849 to 1854. Kriezis was descended from a well-known Arvanite family from the island of Hydra and was born in Troezen in 1796. In July 1821, he served in the Greek navy during the Greek War of Independence and took part in the naval battles...
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
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
, the Sultan called upon his strongest subject, Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
, 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
Kasos
Kasos is a Greek island municipality in the Dodecanese. It is the southernmost island in the Aegean Sea, and is part of the Karpathos peripheral unit. As of 2001, its population was 990. The island has been called in , .-Geography:...
and Psara
Destruction of Psara
The Destruction of Psara was an event in which the Ottomans destroyed the civilian population of the Greek island of Psara on July 5, 1824. According to George Finlay, the entire population of the island Psara before the massacre was about 7,000....
in 1824, or the landing of the Egyptian army at Methoni
Methoni, Messenia
Methoni is a village and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is a municipal unit. Its name may be derived from Mothona, a mythical rock. It is located 11 km south of Pylos and...
. Despite victories at Samos
Samos Island
Samos is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region, and the only municipality of the regional...
and Gerontas, the Revolution was threatened with collapse until the intervention of the Great Powers in the Battle of Navarino
Battle of Navarino
The naval Battle of Navarino was fought on 20 October 1827, during the Greek War of Independence in Navarino Bay , on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea. A combined Ottoman and Egyptian armada was destroyed by a combined British, French and Russian naval force...
in 1827.
Egyptian intervention
Egyptian intervention was initially limited to Crete and Cyprus. However, the success of Muhammad Ali's troops in both places settled the Turks on the horns of a very difficult dilemma, since they were afraid of their wāliWali
Walī , is an Arabic word meaning "custodian", "protector", "sponsor", or authority as denoted by its definition "crown". "Wali" is someone who has "Walayah" over somebody else. For example, in Fiqh the father is wali of his children. In Islam, the phrase ولي الله walīyu 'llāh...
's expansionist ambitions. Muhammad Ali finally agreed to send his son Ibrahim Pasha
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
Ibrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...
to Greece in exchange not only for Crete and Cyprus, but for the Peloponnese and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
as well.* Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali, p. 206.
Methoni, Messenia
Methoni is a village and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is a municipal unit. Its name may be derived from Mothona, a mythical rock. It is located 11 km south of Pylos and...
on 24 February 1825 and a month later he was joined by his army of 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. He proceeded to defeat the Greek garrison
Battle of Sphacteria (1825)
The Battle of Sphacteria was fought on 8 May 1825 in Sphacteria, Greece between the Egyptian forces of Ibrahim Pasha and Greek forces led by Captain Tsamados along with Mavrocordatos.-Battle:...
on the small island of Sphacteria
Sphacteria
Sphacteria Sphacteria Sphacteria (Sphacteria (Sphacteria is a small island at the entrance to the bay of Pylos in the Peloponnese, Greece. It was the site of three battles:*the 425 BC Battle of Sphacteria in the Peloponnesian war....
off the coast of Messenia. With the Greeks in disarray, Ibrahim ravaged the Western Peloponnese and killed Papaflessas
Papaflessas
Papaflessas , born Grigorios Demetrios Flessas , was a Greek patriot, priest, and government official of the old Flessas Family. The word papa- in the name "Papaflessas" indicates his status as a cleric since the word means "priest" in Greek...
at the Battle of Maniaki
Battle of Maniaki
The Battle of Maniaki was fought on June 1, 1825 in Maniaki, Greece between Egyptian forces led by Ibrahim Pasha and Greek forces led by Papaflessas.-Battle:...
. The Greek government, in an attempt to stop the Egyptians, released Kolokotronis from captivity, but he too was unsuccessful. By the end of June, Ibrahim had captured the city of Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
and was within striking distance of Nafplion
Nafplion
Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...
. The city was saved by Commodore Gawen Hamilton of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
who placed his ships in a position which looked like he would assist in the defence of the city.
At the same time, the Turkish armies in Central Greece were besieging the city of Missolonghi for the third time. The siege had begun on 15 April 1825, the day on which Navarino had fallen to Ibrahim. In early autumn, the Greek navy under the command of Miaoulis
Miaoulis
The surname Miaoulis belongs to an illustrious family of Hydriot origin, whose original name was Vokos . Its members include:*Andreas Miaoulis, the most significant naval leader of the Greek War of Independence of 1821...
forced the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Corinth
Gulf of Corinth
The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece...
to retreat, after attacking it with fire ships. The Turks were joined by Ibrahim in mid-winter, but his army had no more luck in penetrating Missolonghi's defences.
In the spring of 1826, Ibrahim managed to capture the marshes around the city, although not without heavy losses. He thus 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 22 April 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 Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n 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 21 June 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 tried several times to take Mani, but each time his forces were repulsed, and suffered much heavier casualties than the Greeks.
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 EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
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
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCH, PC, PC , usually known as Lord CastlereaghThe name Castlereagh derives from the baronies of Castlereagh and Ards, in which the manors of Newtownards and Comber were located...
, as well as the Austrian foreign minister, Prince Metternich, and the Tsar of Russia, Alexander I
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
, 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
Concert of Europe
The Concert of Europe , also known as the Congress System after the Congress of Vienna, was the balance of power that existed in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of World War I , albeit with major alterations after the revolutions of 1848...
.
Metternich also tried to undermine the Russian foreign minister, Ioannis Kapodistrias
Ioannis Kapodistrias
Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias |Academy of Athens]] Critical Observations about the 6th-Grade History Textbook"): "3.2.7. Σελ. 40: Δεν αναφέρεται ότι ο Καποδίστριας ήταν Κερκυραίος ευγενής." "...δύο ιστορικούς της Aκαδημίας κ.κ...
, who was of Greek origin. Kapodistrias demanded that Alexander declare war on the Ottomans in order to liberate Greece and increase the greatness of Russia. Metternich persuaded Alexander that Kapodistrias was in league with the Italian Carbonari
Carbonari
The Carbonari were groups of secret revolutionary societies founded in early 19th-century Italy. The Italian Carbonari may have further influenced other revolutionary groups in Spain, France, Portugal and possibly Russia. Although their goals often had a patriotic and liberal focus, they lacked a...
(an Italian revolutionary group) leading Alexander to disavow him. As a result of the Russian reaction to Alexander Ypsilantis, Kapodistrias resigned as foreign minister and moved to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. 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. On December 14, 1822, the Holy Alliance denounced the Greek Revolution, considering it audacious and clumsy.
Change of stance
In August 1822, George CanningGeorge Canning
George Canning PC, FRS was a British statesman and politician who served as Foreign Secretary and briefly Prime Minister.-Early life: 1770–1793:...
was appointed by the British government as Foreign Secretary 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 cannot 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
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
succeeded Alexander in December 1825, Canning decided to act immediately: he sent the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
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 send the plenipotentiaries, and on October 7, 1826 signed the Akkerman Convention
Akkerman Convention
The Akkerman Convention was a treaty signed on October 7, 1826 between the Russian and the Ottoman Empires in the Budjak citadel of Akkerman . It imposed that the hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia be elected by their respective Divans for seven-year terms, with the approval of both Powers...
, in which Russian demands concerning Serbia and the principalities were accepted.
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
and sailing towards Navarino
Pylos
Pylos , historically known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former...
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
Edward Codrington
Admiral Sir Edward Codrington GCB RN was a British admiral, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Navarino.-Early life and career:...
and Admiral Henri de Rigny
Henri de Rigny
Marie Henri Daniel Gauthier, comte de Rigny was the commander of the French squadron at the Battle of Navarino in the Greek War of Independence.-Biography:...
sailed into the Gulf of Argos and requested to meet with Greek representatives onboard the HMS Asia
HMS Asia (1824)
HMS Asia was an 84-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 January 1824 at Bombay Dockyard.She was Codrington's flagship at the Battle of Navarino....
.
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
Login Geiden
Imperial Count Lodewijk Sigismund Vincent Gustaaf van Heiden was a Dutch Admiral who commanded a squadron of the Imperial Russian Navy in the Battle of Navarino .-Personal life:...
. 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
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
sent a boat to request the Egyptians to move their fire ships, the officer onboard was shot by the Egyptians. The frigate responded with musket fire in retaliation and an Egyptian ship fired a cannon shot at the French flagship, the Sirene, which returned fire.
A full engagement was begun which 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
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
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
Nicolas Joseph Maison
Nicolas Joseph Maison, 1er Marquis Maison was a Marshal of France and Minister of War.-French revolution and Napoléon:Maison was born at born in Épinay-sur-Seine, near Paris....
, who was given command of the French expeditionary Corps, landed on August 30, 1828 at Petalidi
Petalidi
Petalidi , is a village and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Messene, of which it is a municipal unit. Petalidi is situated on the western shore of the Messenian Gulf...
, 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.
The final major engagement of the war was the Battle of Petra
Battle of Petra
The Battle of Petra was the final battle fought in the Greek War of Independence.-Background:By the summer of 1829, the Peloponnese, parts of Central Greece and several islands had been liberated by Greek revolutionary forces...
, which occurred north of Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
. 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 surrendered all lands from Livadeia
Livadeia
Livadeia is a city in central Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture Boeotia. Livadeia is located 130 km NW of Athens, E of Nafpaktos, ESE of Amfissa and Desfina, SE of Lamia and west of Chalkida. Livadeia is linked with GR-48 and several kilometres west of GR-3. The area around Livadeia...
to the Spercheios River
Spercheios River
The Spercheios is a river in the Central Greece geographical region, of Greece. The river begins in Eurytania Prefecture in the Panaitoliko mountains and flows northeast from near Megalo Chorio and into Karpenisi and flows within GR-38 and through Agios Georgios Tymfistos south of the Tymfistos...
in exchange for safe passage out of Central Greece
Central Greece
Continental Greece or Central Greece , colloquially known as Roúmeli , is a geographical region of Greece. Its territory is divided into the administrative regions of Central Greece, Attica, and part of West Greece...
. As George Finlay
George Finlay
George Finlay was a Scottish historian. He was the brother of Kirkman Finlay.Finlay was born at Faversham, Kent, where his Scottish father, Captain John Finlay FRS, an officer in the Royal Engineers, was inspector of government powder mills. His father died in 1802, and his Scottish mother and...
stresses:
From autonomy to independence
On 21 December 1828 the ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Russia, and France met in the island of PorosPoros
Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about and it has 4,117...
, 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
Arta, Greece
Arta is a city with a rich history in northwestern Greece, capital of the peripheral unit of Arta, which is part of Epirus region. The city was known in ancient times as Ambracia . Arta is famous for its old bridge located over the Arachthos River, situated west of downtown...
to Volos
Volos
Volos is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about 326 km north of Athens and 215 km south of Thessaloniki...
, and, despite Kapodistrias' efforts, the new state would include only the islands of Cyclades
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
, Sporades
Sporades
The Sporades are an archipelago along the east coast of Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea, in the Aegean Sea. It consists of 24 islands, of which four are permanently inhabited: Alonnisos, Skiathos, Skopelos and Skyros.-Administration:...
, Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, and maybe Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. 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 farther south than the initial proposal, and did not include Samos and Crete in the new state.
Leopold I of Belgium
Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha served as the collective name of two duchies, Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, in Germany. They were located in what today are the states of Bavaria and Thuringia, respectively, and the two were in personal union between 1826 and 1918...
and the future King of Belgium
Monarchy of Belgium
Monarchy in Belgium is constitutional and popular in nature. The hereditary monarch, at present Albert II, is the head of state and is officially called King of the Belgians .-Origins:...
. 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, he refused. Negotiations temporarily stalled after Kapodistrias was assassinated in 1831 in Nafplion
Nafplion
Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...
by the Mavromichalis' clan after having demanded that they unconditionally submit to his authority. When they refused, Kapodistrias put Petrobey in jail, sparking vows of vengeance from his clan.
The Τreaty of Constantinople was the product of the Constantinople Conference which opened in February 1832 with the participation of the Great Powers
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
(Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, France
July Monarchy
The July Monarchy , officially the Kingdom of France , was a period of liberal constitutional monarchy in France under King Louis-Philippe starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848...
and Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
) on the one hand and the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
on the other. The factors which shaped the treaty included the refusal of Léopold
Leopold I of Belgium
Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
, King of Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, to assume the Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
throne. He inter alia was not at all satisfied with the Aspropotamos-Zitouni borderline, which replaced the more favorable Arta-Volos line considered by the Great Powers earlier.
First administrative and political institutions
Greek local statutes
The Greek Local Statutes were the local assemblies of Greece during the Greek War of Independence who codified certain 'proto-constitutions' ratified by local assemblies with the aim of eventually establishing a centralized Parliament under a...
, the Charter of Western Continental Greece and the Legal Order of Eastern Continental Greece, drafted mainly by Mavrokordatos and Negris respectively. The statutes provided for the creation of two local administrative organs in Central Greece, an Areopagus
Areopagus of Eastern Continental Greece
The Areopagus of Eastern Continental Greece was a provisional regime that existed in eastern Central Greece during the Greek War of Independence.- Background :...
in the east, and a Senate
Senate of Western Continental Greece
The Senate of Western Continental Greece was a provisional regime that existed in western Central Greece during the early stages of the Greek War of Independence.- History :...
in the west. The three local statutes were recognized by the First National Assembly
First National Assembly at Epidaurus
The First National Assembly of Epidaurus was the first meeting of the Greek National Assembly, a national representative political gathering of the Greek revolutionaries.The assembly opened in December 1821 at Piada...
, but the respective administrative institutions were turned into administrative branches of the central government. They were later dissolved by the Second National Assembly
Second National Assembly at Astros
The Second National Assembly at Astros was the second Greek National Assembly, a national representative body of the Greeks who had rebelled against the Ottoman Empire....
.
National Assemblies
First National Assembly of Epidaurus
The First National Assembly of Epidaurus was the first meeting of the Greek National AssemblyGreek National Assembly
The Greek National Assemblies are representative bodies of the Greek people. During and in the direct aftermath of the Greek War of Independence , the name was used for the insurgents' proto-parliamentary assemblies...
, a national representative political gathering of the Greek revolutionaries.
The assembly opened in December 1821 at Piada (today Nea (New) Epidaurus
Epidaurus
Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...
). It was attended by representatives from regions involved in the revolution against Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
rule.
The majority of the representatives were local notables and clergymen from the provinces of the Morea
Morea
The Morea was the name of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. It also referred to a Byzantine province in the region, known as the Despotate of Morea.-Origins of the name:...
, Rumeli and the islands. In addition, a number of Phanariotes
Phanariotes
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...
and academics attended. However, a number of prominent revolutionaries, including Alexandros Ypsilantis and the most prominent chieftains from Rumeli and the Peloponnese were absent. Of the 59 representatives at the assembly, 20 were landowners, 13 were ship-owners, 12 were intellectuals, 4 were military leaders, 3 were archpriests, 3 were merchants, with and 4 others.
The assembly passed a number of important documents, including the:
- The Provisional Regime of Greece (Προσωρινό Πολίτευμα της Ελλάδος), sometimes translated as Temporary Constitution of Greece (more commonly known as the Greek Constitution of 1822Greek Constitution of 1822The Greek Constitution of 1822 was a document adopted by the First National Assembly of Epidaurus on January 1, 1822. Formally it was the Provisional Regime of Greece , sometimes translated as Temporary Constitution of Greece...
), which also included a Declaration of IndependenceDeclaration of independenceA declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
The Assembly elected a five-member executive on 15 January 1822, which was presided over by Alexandros Mavrocordatos
Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos
Alexandros Mavrokordatos was a Greek statesman and member of the Mavrocordatos family of Phanariotes....
. The executive in turn appointed the first government which had 8 ministries.
The first legislature had 33 members.
Another characteristic of the First National Assembly is the absence of any reference in the Constitution to the Filiki Eteria
Filiki Eteria
thumb|right|200px|The flag of the Filiki Eteria.Filiki Eteria or Society of Friends was a secret 19th century organization, whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece and to establish an independent Greek state. Society members were mainly young Phanariot Greeks from Russia and local...
, although Dimitrios Ypsilantis, brother of Alexandros Ypsilantis and official representative of the Filiki Eteria
Filiki Eteria
thumb|right|200px|The flag of the Filiki Eteria.Filiki Eteria or Society of Friends was a secret 19th century organization, whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece and to establish an independent Greek state. Society members were mainly young Phanariot Greeks from Russia and local...
, was appointed president of the legislature, a body controlled by the local notables.
Second National Assembly at Astros
The Second National Assembly at Astros was the second Greek National AssemblyGreek National Assembly
The Greek National Assemblies are representative bodies of the Greek people. During and in the direct aftermath of the Greek War of Independence , the name was used for the insurgents' proto-parliamentary assemblies...
, a national representative body of the Greeks who had rebelled
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
It convened at Astros
Astros, Greece
Astros is a town near the Argolic Gulf in the northeast Peloponnese in eastern Arcadia. The name and the settlement both date back to ancient times, when it was known as Astron. Astros is the seat of North Kynouria municipality , which is the largest in Arcadia and has the greatest number of...
between 29 March and 18 April 1823 under the chairmanship of Petros Mavromichalis
Petros Mavromichalis
Petros Mavromichalis , also known as Petrobey , was the leader of the Maniot people during the first half of the 19th century. His family had a long history of revolts against the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of what is now Greece...
. Its most important task was the revision of the Constitution of Epidaurus
Greek Constitution of 1822
The Greek Constitution of 1822 was a document adopted by the First National Assembly of Epidaurus on January 1, 1822. Formally it was the Provisional Regime of Greece , sometimes translated as Temporary Constitution of Greece...
, adopted in the First National Assembly. The new Constitution was voted on April 13, and was called the Epidaurus Law
Greek Constitution of 1823
Greek Constitution of 1823 is the second constitutional text adopted during the Greek War of Independence, which started in 1821. In the spring of 1823 took place the 2nd National Assembly, which adopted the new constitution, named "Law of Epidauros"...
to stress its continuity with the one of 1822. It was legally more articulate as compared to its predecessor. It allowed a slight superiority to the Legislative power as opposed to the Executive, given the fact that the latter's veto power was circumcised from an absolute to a suspending one. The new Constitution also marked an improvements as far as the protection of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
was concerned: property was protected, as was the honor and the security not only of Greeks but of all persons on Greek territory; it established the freedom of the press
Freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
and abolished slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
. It also abolished local governments
Greek local statutes
The Greek Local Statutes were the local assemblies of Greece during the Greek War of Independence who codified certain 'proto-constitutions' ratified by local assemblies with the aim of eventually establishing a centralized Parliament under a...
. However, the great disadvantage of the yearly term of the Administrative branches remained unaltered, a result of the ever-growing distrust between politicians and the military. The Assembly of Astros passed a new electoral law, according to which the right to vote was bestowed to men rather than to seniors, while the voting age went down from 30 to 25 years.
Third Greek National Assembly at Troezen
The Third Greek National AssemblyGreek National Assembly
The Greek National Assemblies are representative bodies of the Greek people. During and in the direct aftermath of the Greek War of Independence , the name was used for the insurgents' proto-parliamentary assemblies...
at Troezen
Troezen
Troezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....
was convened during the latter stages of the Greek Revolution.
The long-delayed Third National Assembly was initially convened in April 1826 at Piada
Epidaurus
Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...
, but cut short by the news of the Fall of Missolonghi. Attempts to arrange a new Assembly in the autumn also failed due to disagreements among the various factions. Instead, two rival assemblies were established at Aegina
Aegina
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
and Kastri
Ermioni
Ermioni is a small town and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Ermionida, of which it is a municipal unit. It is a popular tourist resort. It is on a very small out-cropping of the land facing the island of...
. Finally, after much deliberation, all parties agreed to participate in an assembly at Troezen. 168 delegates assembled there on 19 March 1827, under the chairmanship of Georgios Sisinis
Georgios Sisinis
Georg Sisinis was a Greek politician and a Greek revolutionary leader.-Biography:He was born in Gastouni in the modern Ilia Prefecture and descended from a rich and historic family of the area. During the Ottoman rule, he was a chief of Gastouni. He had participated in the Secret Society in 1819...
.
Having suffered from internal dissensions, the Assembly decided to create a supreme post to preside over the Executive, creating thus the office of Governor of Greece, to which it elected the then most distinguished Greek, Count John Capodistria, for a seven-year term, on April 3. A Governmental Commission was set up to administer Greece until his arrival.
On 1 May, the Assembly approved by vote of the Political Constitution of Greece
Greek Constitution of 1827
The Greek Constitution of 1827 was signed and ratified in June 1827 by the Third National Assembly at Troezen during the latter stages of the Greek War of Independence and represented the first major step towards realizing a centralised system of Government pooling together some of the more...
. For the first time, the Constitution was not labeled "Provisional", signaling the Greek aspirations for complete independence from the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. This Constitution consisted of 150 articles. It established key principles in Greek Constitutional history which remain to this day, such as the statement "Sovereignty lies with the people; every power derives from the people and exists for the people". It established a strict separation of powers
Separation of powers
The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...
, vesting the executive power to the Governor and assigning to the body of the representatives of the people, named Boule
Boule (Ancient Greece)
In cities of ancient Greece, the boule meaning to will ) was a council of citizens appointed to run daily affairs of the city...
, the legislative power. The Governor only had a suspending veto on the bills, and lacked the right to dissolve the Parliament. He was inviolable, while the Secretaries of the State, in other words the Ministers, assumed the responsibility for his public actions (thus introducing into the text of the 1827 Constitution the first elements of the so called parliamentary principle).
On 4 May 1827, a day before its dissolution, the Assembly also voted for establishing Nafplion
Nafplion
Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...
as the capital of Greece and seat of both parliament and government.
Fourth National Assembly at Argos
The Fourth National Assembly at ArgosArgos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
was a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
convention which sat at Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
from 11 July to 6 August 1829, during the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
.
The Fourth National Assembly followed on from the Third National Assembly at Troezen
Third National Assembly at Troezen
The Third Greek National Assembly at Troezen was convened during the latter stages of the Greek Revolution.- Convening of the Assembly :The long-delayed Third National Assembly was initially convened in April 1826 at Piada, but cut short by the news of the Fall of Missolonghi. Attempts to arrange...
(1827), which had adopted a new constitution
Greek Constitution of 1827
The Greek Constitution of 1827 was signed and ratified in June 1827 by the Third National Assembly at Troezen during the latter stages of the Greek War of Independence and represented the first major step towards realizing a centralised system of Government pooling together some of the more...
selected Ioannis Kapodistrias
Ioannis Kapodistrias
Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias |Academy of Athens]] Critical Observations about the 6th-Grade History Textbook"): "3.2.7. Σελ. 40: Δεν αναφέρεται ότι ο Καποδίστριας ήταν Κερκυραίος ευγενής." "...δύο ιστορικούς της Aκαδημίας κ.κ...
as Governor of Greece with extensive powers for a seven-year term. The Assembly counted 236 representatives from all over Greece (including territories, such as Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
or Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, that were still under Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
control), for the first time elected via suffrage.
The Assembly adopted a series of reforms suggested by Kapodistrias, most notably:
- the replacement of the Panellinion advisory council with a 27-member SenateGreek SenateThe Greek Senate was the upper chamber of the parliament in Greece, extant several times in the country's history.-Local senates during the War of Independence:...
- the adoption of the phoenixGreek phoenixThe phoenix was the first currency of the modern Greek state. It was introduced in 1828 by Governor John Capodistria and was subdivided into 100 lepta. The name was that of the mythical phoenix bird and was meant to symbolize the rebirth of Greece...
as the country's currency
Fifth National Assembly
The Fifth National Assembly of the Greeks convened at ArgosArgos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
on 5 December 1831, before relocating to Nafplion
Nafplion
Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...
in early 1832.
The Assembly, the last of a series of similar conventions of the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
, approved the selection
London Conference of 1832
The London Conference of 1832 was an international conference convened to establish a stable government in Greece. Negotiations between the three Great Powers resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece under a Bavarian Prince. The decisions were ratified in the Treaty of Constantinople...
, by the Great Powers, of the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n prince Otto
Otto of Greece
Otto, Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended...
as King of Greece. On 15 March 1832, it adopted a new constitution, titled the "Political Constitution of Greece" (Πολιτικόν Σύνταγμα της Ελλάδος) and often referred to as the "Hegemonic Constitution" (Ηγεμονικόν Σύνταγμα). In the event, the assembly disbanded soon after owing to intense differences among its members. After Otto's arrival in February 1833, the constitution was ignored by the Regency which exercised government until 1835, and after that by Otto himself, who ruled as an absolute monarch. Independent Greece received its first constitution
Greek Constitution of 1844
The first constitution of the Kingdom of Greece was the Greek Constitution of 1844. On 3 September 1843, the military garrison of Athens, with the help of citizens, rebelled and demanded from King Otto the concession of a Constitution....
only after the 3 September 1843 Revolution.
Administration of Ioannis Kapodistrias
On his arrival, Kapodistrias launched a major reform and modernisation programme that covered all areas. He re-established military unity, bringing an end to the second phase of the civil war; re-organised the military, which was then able to reconquer territory lost to the Ottoman military during the civil wars; introduced the first modern quarantineQuarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
system in Greece, which brought epidemics like typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
, cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
and dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
under control for the first time since the start of the War of Independence; negotiated with the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire the borders and the degree of independence of the Greek state and signed the peace treaty that ended the War of Independence with the Ottomans; introduced the phoenix
Greek phoenix
The phoenix was the first currency of the modern Greek state. It was introduced in 1828 by Governor John Capodistria and was subdivided into 100 lepta. The name was that of the mythical phoenix bird and was meant to symbolize the rebirth of Greece...
, the first modern Greek currency; organised local administration; and, in an effort to raise the living standards of the population, introduced the cultivation of the potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
into Greece.
The way Kapodistrias introduced the cultivation of the potato remains famously anecdotal today. Having ordered a shipment of potatoes, at first he ordered that they be offered to anyone interested. However the potatoes were met with indifference by the population and the whole scheme seemed to be failing. Therefore Kapodistrias, knowing of the contemporary Greek attitudes, ordered that the whole shipment of potatoes be unloaded in public display on the docks of Nafplion, and placed severe-looking guards guarding it. Soon, rumours circulated that for the potatoes to be so well guarded they had to be of great importance. People would gather to look at the so-important potatoes and soon some tried to steal them. The guards had been ordered in advance to turn a blind eye to such behaviour, and soon the potatoes had all been "stolen" and Kapodistrias' plan to introduce them to Greece had succeeded.
Furthermore, as part of his programme he tried to undermine the authority of the traditional clans or dynasties which he considered the useless legacy of a bygone and obsolete era. However, he underestimated the political and military strength of the capetanei (καπεταναίοι – commanders) who had led the revolt against Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
in 1821, and who had expected a leadership role in the post-revolution Government. When a dispute between the capetanei of Laconia
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
and the appointed governor of the province escalated into an armed conflict, he called in Russian troops to restore order, because much of the army was controlled by capetanei who were part of the rebellion.
Hydriot rebellion and the Battle of Poros
George Finlay's 1861 History of Greek Revolution records that by 1831 Kapodistrias's government had become hated, chiefly by the independent Maniates, but also by the Roumeliotes and the rich and influential merchant families of Hydra, SpetsesSpetses
Spetses is an island and a municipality in the Islands regional unit, Attica, Greece. It is sometimes included as one of the Saronic Islands. Until 1948, it was part of the old prefecture of Argolidocorinthia, which is now split into Argolis and Corinthia...
and Psara
Psara
Psara is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Together with the small uninhabited island of Antipsara it forms the municipality of Psara. It is part of the Chios peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The only town of the island and seat of the municipality is also called...
. The Hydriots' customs dues were the chief source of the municipalities' revenue, so they refused to hand these over to Kapodistrias. It appears that Kapodistrias had refused to convene the National Assembly and was ruling as a despot, possibly influenced by his Russian experiences. The municipality of Hydra instructed Admiral Miaoulis
Miaoulis
The surname Miaoulis belongs to an illustrious family of Hydriot origin, whose original name was Vokos . Its members include:*Andreas Miaoulis, the most significant naval leader of the Greek War of Independence of 1821...
and Mavrocordatos
Mavrocordatos
Mavrocordatos was the name of a family of Phanariot Greeks, distinguished in the history of the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia, Moldavia, and modern Greece...
to go to Poros and to seize the Hellenic Navy's fleet there. This Miaoulis did, the intention being to prevent a blockade of the islands, so for a time it seemed as if the National Assembly would be called.
Kapodistrias called on the British and French residents to support him in putting down the rebellion, but this they refused to do, but Admiral Richord (or Ricord) took his ships north to Poros. Colonel (later General) Kallergis took a half-trained force of Greek Army regulars and a force of irregulars in support. With less than 200 men, Miaoulis was unable to make much of a fight; Fort Heidek on Bourtzi
Bourtzi
The castle of Bourtzi is located in the middle of the harbour of Nafplio. The Venetians completed its fortification in 1473 to protect the city from pirates and invaders from the sea. The Greeks regained it from the Turks on June 18, 1822, from where they assisted in the siege of Nafplio. Until...
Island was overrun by the regulars and the brig Spetses (once Laskaria Bouboulina's Agamemnon) sunk by Richord's force. Encircled by the Russians in the harbor and Kallergis's force on land, Poros surrendered. Miaoulis was forced to set charges in the flagship Hellas and the corvette Hydra, blowing them up when he and his handful of followers returned to Hydra. Kallergis's men were enraged by the loss of the ships and sacked Poros, carrying off plunder to Nauplion.
The loss of the best ships in the fleet crippled the Hellenic Navy for many years, but it also weakened Kapodistrias's position. He did finally call the National Assembly but his other actions triggered more opposition and that led to his downfall.
Assassination and creation of the greek kingdom
Petros Mavromichalis
Petros Mavromichalis , also known as Petrobey , was the leader of the Maniot people during the first half of the 19th century. His family had a long history of revolts against the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of what is now Greece...
, the Bey
Bey
Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...
of the Mani Peninsula
Mani Peninsula
The Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...
, one of the wildest and most rebellious parts of Greece. This was a mortal offence to the Mavromichalis family, and on October 9, 1831 (September 27 in the Julian Calendar
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
) Kapodistrias was assassinated by Petrobey's brother Konstantis
Konstantinos Mavromichalis
Konstantinos Mavromichalis , brother of the Bey of Mani Petros Mavromichalis, was a commander of Maniot forces during the Greek War of Independence and the assassin of the first head of state of Greece, Ioannis Capodistrias. Along with Demetrius Ypsilanti, he commanded the forces that saved Nauplio...
and son Georgios on the steps of the church of Saint Spyridon
Saint Spyridon
Saint Spyridon, Bishop of Trimythous also sometimes written Saint Spiridon is a saint honoured in both the Eastern and Western Christian traditions.-Life:...
in Nafplio.
Kapodistrias woke up early in the morning and decided to go to church despite the urges of his servants and bodyguards to stay at home. When he reached the church he saw his assassins waiting for him. When he reached the church steps, Konstantis and Georgios came close as if to greet him. Suddenly Konstantis drew his pistol and fired, missing, the bullet sticking in the church wall where it is still visible today. He then drew his dagger and stabbed Kapodistrias in the stomach while Georgios shot Kapodistrias in the head. Konstantis was shot by General Fotomaras, who watched the murder scene from his own window. Georgios managed to escape and hide in the French Embassy; after a few days he surrendered to the Greek authorities. He was sentenced to death by a court-martial and was executed by firing squad. His last wish was that the firing squad not shoot his face, and his last words were "Peace Brothers!"
Ioannis Kapodistrias was succeeded as Governor by his younger brother, Augustinos Kapodistrias
Augustinos Kapodistrias
Count Augustinos Ioannis Maria Kapodistrias was a Greek soldier and politician. He was born in Corfu. Kapodistrias was the younger brother of Ioannis Kapodistrias, first Governor of Greece...
. Augustinos ruled only for six months, during which the country was very much plunged into chaos. Under the protocol
London Conference of 1832
The London Conference of 1832 was an international conference convened to establish a stable government in Greece. Negotiations between the three Great Powers resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece under a Bavarian Prince. The decisions were ratified in the Treaty of Constantinople...
signed on May 7, 1832 between Bavaria and the protecting Powers, and basically dealing with the way in which the Regency was to be managed until Otto
Otto of Greece
Otto, Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended...
reached his majority (while also concluding the second Greek loan, for a sum of £2,400,000 sterling), Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of the territory. The borders of the Kingdom were reiterated in the London Protocol of August 30, 1832 signed by the Great Powers, which ratified the terms of the Constantinople Arrangement in connection with the border between Greece and the Ottoman Empire and marked the end of the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
creating modern Greece as an independent state free of the Ottoman Empire.
Heads of State
- Ioannis KapodistriasIoannis KapodistriasCount Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias |Academy of Athens]] Critical Observations about the 6th-Grade History Textbook"): "3.2.7. Σελ. 40: Δεν αναφέρεται ότι ο Καποδίστριας ήταν Κερκυραίος ευγενής." "...δύο ιστορικούς της Aκαδημίας κ.κ...
(January 24, 1828 - October 9, 1831) - Augustinos KapodistriasAugustinos KapodistriasCount Augustinos Ioannis Maria Kapodistrias was a Greek soldier and politician. He was born in Corfu. Kapodistrias was the younger brother of Ioannis Kapodistrias, first Governor of Greece...
(October 9, 1831 - April 9, 1832) - Governmental Commission (April 9, 1832 - February 2, 1833)