The Greek Revolution

The Greek Revolution began in 1821 with a series of scattered uprisings and effectively ended with a naval battle. Then came the effort of creating the Greek state...

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The insupportable yoke of Ottoman tyranny has weighed down for over a century the unhappy Greeks of the Peloponnesos. So excessive had its rigors become that its fainting victims had scarcely strength enough to utter groans. In this state, deprived of all our rights, we have unanimously resolved to take up arms against our tyrants. Our hands having bursts their fetters, already signalize themselves against the barbarians. ...Our mouths are opened; heretofore silent or employed only in addressing useless supplications to our tormentors, they now celebrate a deliverance, which we have sworn to accomplish or else to perish. We invoke, therefore, the aid of all civilized nations of Europe, that we may, the more promptly attain to the goal of a just and sacred enterprise, reconquer our rights, and regenerate our unfortunate people. Greece, our mother, was the lamp that illuminated you; on this ground, she reckons on your philanthropy. Arms, money and counsel are what she expects from you. We promise you her lively gratitude, which she will prove by deeds in more prosperous times. Signed Petros Mavromihalis, given at the headquarters of Calamata on March 28, 1821. From Gordon's 1832 book "History of the Greek Revolution", volume I page 183. I'm Jen Glaubius and this is The Helonaki Deep Dive, a podcast about mapping and analysis for historical and archeological research. In this episode I will discuss the Greek revolution. Let's dive in. Last time. I talked about the century that elapsed between the end of the Venetian period in 1715. And the Greek revolution, which started in 1821. I just want to say, it's very interesting that in the first part of that in 1715, the people of the Morea did not help the Venetians against the Ottomans in any meaningful way. The Ottomans were able to take back the Peloponnesus very easily. But just over a century later, the people of the Peloponnesus this would lead the way in many ways in the revolution against Ottoman rule in Greece. And part of that was because of the weaknesses of the Ottoman empire. By that time, that led to more and more oppression of the people of the Morea and elsewhere in Greece. So just to review. Part of that was the rise of warlords who took over parts of the Ottoman empire. The strongest of these was Mehmed Ali, who had been part of the Ottoman effort to take back Egypt after Napoleon's invasion. But afterwards Mehmed Ali took power for himself. He was still under the Sultan's rule, but increasingly he ruled Egypt just for himself. On a lesser scale was Ali Pasha of Ioannina, who was in the area of now northwestern Greece and Southern Albania. Where he basically was ruling the area. But under more control of the Sultan. In addition to the weaknesses of basically parts of their empire breaking away. The Ottomans were fighting along their Eastern border against the Persians. And so they had a lot of resources going into there. And they had already been in trouble money-wise but they needed even more money to fight against the Persians. So the Ottomans imposed a war requisition tax in 1820, and they imposed this on the Morea specifically. With that tax, the total burden of taxes on Christian peasants in the Morea increased from between 1820 and 1821, by over 250%. Which is a huge amount of taxes to be taken from anyone. And of course, made the peasants really, really unhappy because how are they going to pay this? In addition to having more taxes. The years, 1816 to 1820 were not great for agriculture. This was due in part to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. Which across Northern Europe and North America led to what was called the year without a summer in 1816. While conditions were not as bad in Greece. It still hampered agricultural output in the years after the eruption. So you have more taxes. Less agricultural production. The people were not happy at all. And it really isn't surprising that there was an uprising. And it wasn't just the people of the Morea and elsewhere in Greece who were ready to revolt. There was the Society of Friends, in Greek, Philiki Etaireia, which was founded in the city of Odessa on the Black Sea in 1814. Philiki Etaireia was a secret society based on the Freemasons. They had different rituals are supposed to be very, very secret. You had to be inducted into membership. And in this seven years, between 1814 and 1821, they were able to build up a network of support across areas under Russian control and in the areas of Greece. They did build up support in the Morea itself. In 1820 though, it was a society without a leader. And so they approached Prince Alexander Konstantinovich Ypsilantis, who at that point was in the military in Russia. And they approached him, partly because they were hoping for Russian support. Which they did not have. Capodistrias, remember the Greek from the Ionian islands, was the foreign secretary for the Russian empire. At this point, he opposed any uprising. As did the tsar that he served. But conditions were right for uprising even without explicit Russian help. Ali Pasha of Ioannina was in revolt in 1820. And the new Ottoman governor of the Morea was sent to deal with him in late 1820. Before he left Muslim leaders in the Moria warned him about a possible uprising. They knew that people were unhappy but still he went north. Philiki Etaireia's plan was to start the uprising of the Greek revolution in the Morea where Christians vastly outnumbered Muslims. To make preparations for the uprising, in January, 1821, a priest associated with Philiki Etaireia, named Gregoris Dikaios, better known as Papaflessas, had a meeting in the town of Vostitsa, where they made preparations for the uprising to occur in late March with plans that the uprising could be pushed back to April 23rd. But Alexander Ypsilantis, who was now the leader of Philiki Etaireia, decided to switch the uprising to the Danube region where he had ties. So up north. And he launched an uprising on February 21st, 1821. Which at first seemed to go, all right. But then failed miserably. It ended up that Alexander Ypsilantis had to flee from Ottoman troops in June of 1821. He ended up being captured and imprisoned in Vienna until his death in 1828. But before the defeat in that area Ypsilantis sent his younger brother Demetris Ypsilantis, to the Mani. To the Morea. To get the uprising started there. But due to the uprising in the Danube region. The Ottomans knew something was up. And they ordered that more than 20 bishops and elites would have to come to the capital of the Morea at Tripolitsa in the center to serve as hostages. And they were supposed to be there by the beginning of March, 1821. The Ottoman officials definitely knew something was up when some of those hostages did not show up. And the ones that didn't go, some of them were from Achaia, the area around Vostitsa. Probably the ones that didn't show up were associated with that meeting in January in Vostitsa. And the people who didn't show up, they knew that the failure to comply meant that they would become Outlaws. And both their life and property would be forfeit. In addition to ordering hostages be taken at Tripolitsa, the Ottomans ordered all non-Muslims to surrender any firearms they had to the nearest Ottoman Garrison. And then afterwards, any Christians with guns would be considered as criminals. And could be executed. So the official beginning date given for the beginning of the Greek revolution is March 25th, but things happen before then and around then. In the north in Achaia, the town of Kalavryta was besieged and the Ottoman garrison surrendered. Afterwards, Bishop Germanos, who was leading the fighting. He led peasants on the city of Patras. Where they took much of the city, but were not able to take the fortress from the Ottoman garrison. And that would prove problematic later on. In the south, the Ottoman governor of the town of Kalamata took hostages. And that sparked Petrobey Mavromihalis from the Mani, to lead his troops into Kalamata. Where they got the Ottoman garrison to surrender on March 23rd. After the surrender of Kalamata. Is when Mavromihalis, on behalf of the Messenia Senate, released that proclamation, which I read in the introduction that was really a plea for European countries to take notice and to give the Greeks help in their uprising. Fighting wise after Kalamata surrendered, the forces split up. Mavromihalis led some of his forces to besiege the fortresses of Koroni, Methoni, and Navarino further to the west. While others led by Theodoros Kolokotronis, went north to besiege the capitol at Tripolitsa. And all's going well at first, within about a week, most of the Morea, except for the coastal fortresses, Tripolitsa the capitol, and a small area in the west where the inhabitants have converted to Islam. All except for those areas are in Greek hands. And this is partly because the Ottomans were a lot more concerned with Ali Pasha in Ioannina. None of this goes unanswered though. With the uprising near the Danube in February. The Ottomans execute leading Greek Phanariots in Istanbul. And they encourage Muslims to go around armed. And there's a lot of violence against non-Muslims in cities all around the Ottoman empire. Especially in Asia Minor and Thessaloniki, this eventually gets put down, but it definitely flared up. So after the uprising in the Morea, though, the Ottomans execute the Patriarch of Constantinople on the Orthodox Easter Sunday. And so this is a major thing that makes more and more people, who are Greek, who are Orthodox Christian rise up. And very quickly. It becomes a religious fight of Christian versus Muslim in many ways. But you have all these interconnections, people who have lived together with their neighbors, Muslim and Christian together. Not as much in the Morea, but in, especially in Rumelia and other places. I'm not going to go through all of the events of the Greek Revolution because there's a lot. I'm just going to talk about some of the notable things. The uprising spread quickly from the Morea to Rumeli, north of the Gulf of Corinth and elsewhere in Greece. However in Rumeli, there was already a strong Ottoman presence because that's the area near where the Ottomans were dealing with Ali Pasha. You also have uprisings on Crete, Thessaly, Macedonia and Cyprus. But those parts of the uprising were suppressed really quickly. You have uprisings on other islands, but not all of them. And that's important to remember that there isn't always unity during the Greek Revolution. In September of 1821. So after the summer of this uprising, Tripolitsa falls to the Greeks, led by Kolokotronis, who is establishing himself as a military leader. The Greeks take Tripolitsa and then have basically three days of massacre of the Muslim inhabitants. Some people were able to get away, but not all. But at this time you have a lot of different people trying to take leadership. There's no clear leader of the Greek revolution, but many who try. You've got Demetris Ypsilantis who was sent by his brother, but he never amasses total power. Partly because he's not local to the area, he's not from the Morea. You also have a lot of distrust between Greeks of different regions. So people from the Morea versus Rumeli versus the islands. You have a lot of looting and killing on both sides. Especially because there's this religious component. On the Ottoman side, something that's going to really inflame tensions. Is that the Ottomans take captives and they enslave them. They send them to different slave markets, especially in Egypt. For example In March 1822. So a year after the uprising began, there's a massacre on the island of Chios. And in some part sparked by fighters from the nearby island of Samos who would hold off the Ottomans for nearly 10 years, who tried to spread the uprising, to Chios. This uprising on Chios is put down very brutally. Of a population that had been 100 to 120,000 people. Approximately 25,000 were killed. And at least 45,000 were enslaved. Another thing that happens though with this uprising, The Greeks are self-organizing. They have these democratic assemblies, mostly of elites. And then the kind of strong men brigands, who had, fighting forces. But they have their first national assembly in December of 1821. And so they're trying to bring together to democracy, but you have the tension between peoples from different areas. And so even with their success in 1823 through 1825, there are two civil wars that happen. Especially with fighting in the Morea. And part of it is trying to juggle who has power, fighting for who's in control. And so you end up with some of their really good fighters. Like Kolokotronis, ends up exiled to an island for a while because he was on the losing side of this civil war. They don't get support from Russia. Who were sympathetic to their fellow Orthodox Christians. But the Russians also didn't want their own Muslim subjects to rise up against them. They did not want to encourage revolution at all. And so even though Kapodistrias had been the foreign minister in 1822, the Czar sidelines him because he's afraid that he is too pro Greek. Kapodistrias ends up going to Switzerland, leaves Russia entirely. We'll talk more about him later. You also have other European countries who wanted the Ottoman empire around. To be a check on Russia. And after the Congress of Vienna, in reaction to the Napoleonic Wars, they did not want to support uprisings and revolutions in any way, shape or form. In fact in 1820 and 1821, they suppressed other uprisings in Naples and Piedmont. And so there were like no uprisings, and they don't give official support. But you have a lot of people from Europe who are Philhellenes or friends of Greece. Many of them are German, some French and English, some had experience in the Napoleonic wars. There were a lot of these veterans of the Napoleonic wars around Europe. And so they came to help the Greeks. Some were very soon disillusioned. Conditions were not what they were expecting. And some of them just had this idea of the Greeks from the classical and Homeric literature. And so when they saw what people of Greece were like, they were like, these are not the people from this literature from 2000 years ago, which is really unfair. The most famous Philhellene was Lord Byron. Who's known very much as a writer, as a poet. And he had actually traveled around Greece in 1809. He lived in Athens for awhile, in the library of the Capuchin monastery in Athens, which was the Lysikrates monument, from the classical Hellenistic period,. which the monastery had incorporated. Lord Byron, ends up coming to Greece. to Mesolonghi, Mesolonghi which is in Rumeli. And would become a very important part of the story. It was besieged a few times by the Ottomans. Lord Byron dies in Mesolonghi in April of 1824, but not due to any wounds, but to illness. So. At first things went really well for the Greeks. Despite the civil wars, they basically hold most of the Morea. And they were really helped because the Ottomans were distracted first by Ali Pasha and Epirus. And then the Ottomans also were at war with Iran to the east until 1823. Even after fighting in those areas was over. The Ottoman Sultan knew that he needed help because his military was not modern. The janissaries were more of a hindrance than any type of a help. And the Sultan would end up getting rid of the janissaries rather permanently in 1826 by massacring a great number of them. Before that though. The Sultan decided to turn to Mehmed Ali of Egypt who technically was his vassal, but basically was running Egypt independently. Mehmed Ali had modernized Egyptian forces with the help of French officers after the Napoleonic Wars. So, the Sultan asked Mehmet Ali, to send his son, Ibrahim Pasha, who'll become governor of the Morea. Once the uprising has put down. So send him there with a force and then he will become governor. Ibrahim Pasha sets out from Alexandria, Egypt in July of 1824. But he's kept from landing in Greece due to Greek ships until February, 1825. When he does land, he ends up at Methoni in the southwestern Morea. Ibrahim soon able to take back Navarino. His very modern fighting force is able to just devastate the area. The Greeks really didn't have much for forces to stop Ibrahim Pasha. Kolokotronis, who had been their main military leader had been exiled to an island for his part on the losing side, in the civil wars. Kolokotronis is brought back from exile to the Morea, but he only had limited success confronting Ibrahim Pasha and his forces. In a few months, Ibrahim Pasha had most of the Morea, including the capital of Tripolitsa into his hands. Ibrahim Pasha has to send a force in 1826 to Mesolonghi, which finally fell to the Ottomans after 15 months siege. And this was a horrific thing where many fighters get away, but there's a massacre and many women and children are enslaved. There's a very famous painting by Eugene Delacroix about it and that helped inflame enthusiasm for getting the Ottomans out of Greece. After Mesolonghi, Ibrahim Pasha is focused again on the Morea. And he's just devastating the area. In 1827, he basically has control of most of the area. And he's really cutting off any taxes that might've come in to the Greek national assembly from that area. In 1827, he stationed Egyptian cavalry near Vostitsa to guard the harvest of currents And also in that year, Ibrahim Pasha was trying to get different regions to capitulate to him. And he took to actually destroying olive trees and fig groves. So near Kalamata they set fire. And then also tried to uproot these trees, which is very, very long-term devastation because. If you're trying to grow these trees from a seedling. It takes a super long time before they're actually productive. And so this is a really huge thing that was happening. Things looked really bad for the Greeks. Athens fell to the Ottomans in 1827 but. By that time. The so-called great powers of Europe, Britain, France, and Russia. They decided there had been enough killing going on and they set aside all their differences to try to get this war to stop. And so they decided to blockade the Morea. Each country sends navies. And you have this allied Navy. Sailing into the Bay of Navarino on October 20th, 1827. They weren't necessarily supposed to go into battle with the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet that was in the Bay of Navarino. But. There's a great battle. And. Most of the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet is destroyed. And this is basically the effective end of the war. There's still more fighting afterwards, but the battle of Navarino is seen as what gives victory to the Greeks, even though it's fought by the Europeans. In the next year, things are basically over, but the Ottomans have not actually settled anything. Russia declares war on the Ottomans in 1828. Soon after the battle of Navarino and by the next year in 1829. Reached Edirne/ Adrinople. Which is not that far from Istanbul. And so the Ottomans agree to a treaty and they agree to establish an independent Greek state. While all that had been going on. the Greek still try to have their own national assembly. And in 1827, they ask Kapodistrias, who is in Switzerland, had not been in Greece at any point during the revolution, but they ask him to lead the government. Remember he had been foreign minister of Russia and so had a lot of ties with these European nations. So Kapodistrias arrives in January 1828 at Nauplio. To add to all the misery and devastation of the revolution. There was also bubonic plague going around. And so Kapodistrias soon leaves Nauplio. And he goes to the government, which was headquartered on the island of Aegina. You also have the slow movement of getting the Ottomans and Egyptians out of the Morea. The French send an expedition in 1828. And their goal was to get Ibrahim Pashas forces out of the Morea. But just like with Napoleon, when he invaded Egypt, they send a scientific team alongside. And so the French expedition escorts, Ibrahim Pasha out very quickly. And. Over the next few years, the scientific exploration. Takes place. And it's published in a series of books about the expedition. They do botany. There's a lot of geology done. There's topographic maps, and a lot of archeological studies as well. That set up the scientific basis for the early Greek state. So Ibrahim Pasha goes back to Egypt. But in a couple of years, his father Mehmud Ali of Egypt would send Ibrahim's forces into Syria and Asia Minor attacking the Ottoman empire. And by 1841, the Ottomans have had enough. And Mehmed Ali was granted hereditary rule of Egypt and Sudan. Which his family would hold until the 1950s. So completely broke away from the Ottoman empire. In the meanwhile, you have the Ottomans and the Egyptians out. You have the Greeks with their national assemblies. But the Greek revolution really was won by Europeans. And so the question is what is Greece? Will it be autonomous, will it be an independent state? And really what are the boundaries of the state? Boundaries themselves are constructed by people, even natural boundaries change through time. It's something decided by people. And Greece is really one of the first nation states. It was a very new concept. What actually makes the nation? Is it that they share language? Ethnicity, which is something fluid and culturally constructed. Sharing culture, sharing religion. And religion is really what ends up being the focus of Greece, because you have people who speak Albanian, but are Christian as well. In many parts of what becomes Greece. The great powers did not necessarily want nations popping up. We can compare Greece with Serbia. Which began to revolt against the Ottomans in 1804. Almost 20 years before the Greeks. And they only received status of being autonomous within the Ottoman empire in 1831 and would not get statehood until 1878. The great powers did not really want this nation idea taking off. So. What would happen with Greece? Because the European countries had really saved the Greeks who were in dire straits before the battle of Navarino. The Europeans basically set the terms. The great powers were monarchies and they also made sure Greece would be a monarchy. Kapodistrias, the president of the Greek national assembly. Worked really closely with the great powers to sort out what would happen with Greece. At first, the great powers were afraid that he would be too pro-Russia because he had worked with the Russians, but that didn't end up being the case. He was just trying to get what was best for Greece. As he worked with the great powers, Kapodistrias set up a census, he set up other social programs. But he didn't work with the local peoples. Remember Kapodistrias wasn't from the Morea. He was from the Ionian islands, which was not part of Greece, at that point, and Kapodistrias had spent most of his adult life working in Russia. So as a result, Kapodistrias put more power into other people who are not local. And didn't work with the people locally. In Greece. Who already had connections, which made them very angry. And there was a fear that Kapodistrias was trying to become a tyrant. Mavromihalis decided to reject taxes that Kapodistrias put in and not pay. Members of the Mavromihalis family from the Mani were imprisoned. By the Kapodistrias government. And in response members of the Mavromihalis family assassinated Kapodistrias in Nauplio in September of 1831. So you have a lot of tumult just continuing to happen in the area. Around 1830, the great powers were looking around for some prince who can become the new king of Greece. They end up offering the throne to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. A little German principality. He ends up declining because the borders of what would become Greece, he thought it would be too small, he thought it would be too small of an area and he didn't want it. And soon after Leopold became the king of Belgium. Which was a new nation. So then they're back to square one. They're looking around the princes, these German princes, and they find prince Otto of Wittelsbach, who was only 17. So he was a minor. And he's named the Greek king. And arrives Nauplio in January of 1833. Soon after they moved the capital to Athens, which was really a backwater at that point. And they start building a palace. Before you have good roads, you have this palace arising. Thankfully this palace was not on the Acropolis, which was one of the early ideas that they would kind of level what was on the Acropolis at Athens put up a palace there, but that idea did not happen, thankfully. The palace was instead to the north of the Acropolis. And the Acropolis itself, became a ticketed archeological attraction in 1835. So just a few years after the revolution ended. And that's where we're going to stop. There's going to be one more episode on Greek history to take us into the 19 hundreds. For continued background and there's still a lot of tumult in Greece itself through this period. Now for some endnotes. One book. I just read, it's a new book from 2021 by Mark Mazower, is called The Greek revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe, which is a pretty good account of all the things that were going on in the Greek revolution, it's pretty easy to read. 2021 of course is 200 years since the beginning of the Greek revolution. So there are many books, films and documentaries that are out there commemorating the Greek revolution. Thanks for listening. Email questions or comments to deepdive@helonaki.com or ask them on the Helonaki Deep Dive Facebook page. Show notes with links to resources mentioned in this episode will be available at helonaki.com. That's H E L O N A K I.com. You can also find ways to support the show now, including merch such as t-shirts mugs and stickers with the Helonaki Deep Dive logo at helonaki.com/support. My thanks to Patreon supporters at the geospatial analyst level, Leah Varrell and Janice and Jerry Farrell. Your support keeps the Helonaki Deep Dive going. The Helonaki Deep Dive is written and produced by me, Jen Glaubius of the Helonaki. The theme music is Deep Ocean Instrumental by Dan-o of danosongs.com additional sounds from zapsplat.com. Thanks for listening.