The importance of the Greek Revolution is indisputable, in principle for the Greeks, with Greece being formed as a state for the first time in history, but it is also a European and global event of the greatest importance with a great impact, at a time when Europe was the center of the world .
The international consequences of the Greek Revolution and Greek independence could be placed on four levels:(1) those concerning the international system of great powers, (2) those concerning the Ottoman Empire, (3) in relation to the other nations and nationalism in the Balkans, and (4) the long-term implications for international norms and principles.
The Greek Revolution and its result also brought to the fore the Eastern Question as never before, as an intractable international problem
In the context of the Conference System (of the five great powers), which later evolved into the more relaxed European Council (Concert of Europe), as well as in the context of the Holy Alliance (of the three conservative great powers) the goal was, the day after the Napoleonic Wars , the enforcement of international order, primarily by protecting the sovereign European states and their regimes from insurgencies of all kinds, if necessary by the use of armed force. The Greek Revolution came to question this reasoning of the European international order which was based on the balance of power of the five great powers.
The Greek Revolution and its result brought to the fore the Eastern Question as never before, as an intractable international problem, and a "big headache" for the great powers, i.e. the fate of the Ottoman Empire (the "Great Sick") and of its parts, if and when it would be dissolved.
Regarding the second category of consequences, for the Ottoman Empire the Greek Revolution-independence was a landmark event. And this is because it was the first time that the Ottoman Empire suffered a military defeat and lost territory in the Balkans, which were its oldest possessions in Europe (from the second half of the 14 th century). Moreover, this was the first breach in the legitimization of Ottoman power in southeastern Europe and showed that nationalist ideas were not, as the Ottoman rulers had believed until then, just "distant oddities of the French Revolution", but had resonance and power. It has also been argued by Turkish Ottomanologists that the Tanzimat reforms, from 1839 onwards, were essentially the result of Greek independence, and this is because until the outcome of the Greek Revolution, the Ottoman Empire had given no signs that such sweeping reforms were imminent.
Regarding the other nations and nationalism in the Balkans, the Greek case was a source of inspiration and a model for the other potential nations of the region, and primarily for the Serbs (who had not won independence, but autonomy), the Montenegrins, the Romanians, the Bulgarians, and later the Albanians and the Armenians and finally, after a hundred years, the Turks. In fact, the Greek Revolution, independence and Greek liberationism influenced other Balkan nationalisms, but there was also a reaction to Greek nationalism and liberationism that was perceived as a threat to these new nations. And the external threat from other nationalisms is a preeminent motivation for the emergence of a new nationalism, based on Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser's well-known saying that external threat creates internal cohesion. One of the positive aspects of the Greek Revolution and the Greek state that emerged and that made it function as a model in the region was its liberal character and its liberal democratic institutions.
The intervention of three of the five Great Powers – Britain, France and Russia – in the Greek Revolution, Navarino, the French expeditionary force and the Russo-Ottoman War of 1828-29 contributed decisively so that, a few years later , to formulate the new idea-doctrine of humanitarian intervention, with the Greek example as the only point of reference.
The consequences of the Greek Revolution with a more timeless character are three and touch on important innovative international issues, with a normative (normative ) dimension, which were to preoccupy the international community from then until today. One is the new principle-doctrine of humanitarian intervention, the second is the new principle of ethnicities, and the third is practical support for separatist (liberation) movements.
The intervention of three of the five Great Powers – Britain, France and Russia – in the Greek Revolution, Navarino, the French expeditionary force and the Russo-Ottoman War of 1828-29 contributed decisively so that, a few years later, it was formulated the new idea-doctrine of humanitarian intervention, with the Greek example as a unique point of reference. Humanitarian intervention, which became popular in international law from the 1830s to the 1930s (with two out of three legal internationalists supporting it), was the brainchild of Henry Wheaton, the father of international law in the US, who conceived it, the 1836 (in his treatise on international law), inspired by the Greek case. According to Wheaton:
The intervention of the Christian powers of Europe in favor of the Greeks, who, after suffering centuries of brutal oppression, threw off the Turkish yoke, is a further example of the principles of international law which legitimize such intervention, not only where the interests and security of of other powers are directly affected by the internal actions of a particular state, but where the general interests of mankind are violated by the atrocities of a barbarous and despotic government.
The flagship of the Greek argumentation against the great powers to bend them was precisely that their own case differed from the revolts in the Italian and Iberian peninsula (1820-1821) because they did not seek the overthrow of the regime and the disruption of order, but the throwing off of a "foreign illegitimate yoke" by "barbaric Muslims/Turks"
The armed and other practical (diplomatic and tangible) intervention in favor of the Greeks literally gave birth to the concept of humanitarian intervention in order to save human lives, in cases where there are "acts abominable to humanity", in the expression of John Stuart Mill, who mentions the Greek case. According to a calculation I have made by looking at the works of eminent legal internationalists from 1836 to 1939, many who deal with humanitarian intervention refer to the Greek case as the first in the world. The interesting thing is that they also include jurists who, while opposing the whole idea of humanitarian intervention, nevertheless extol the intervention in favor of the Greeks as necessary and as an example of undivided international humanitarian interest. Then, from 1945 until today, most works dealing with humanitarian intervention mention the Greek case as the first historically.
The new principle of ethnicities (later known as national self-determination), the normative side of nationalism, which advocated that every nation must, if it wants to, correspond to a state, be a "national state" ("nation- state" in the narrow sense of the term). This principle had emerged with the American Revolution and the French Revolution, but its content remained nebulous, with the whole idea in its infancy, without many supporters before 1848, the "Year of Revolutions" (or "Spring of the Nations"). · it had just been formulated as an idea for the future by Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Jeremy Bentham and some others. At the international diplomatic level, it was ignored or rejected, especially after the Napoleonic Wars, by the dominant five major powers, which considered any form of rebellion, whether for constitutional democratic governance or for independence, to be an illegal, impermissible rebellion against legitimate authority. As for any national uprising by minorities on the basis of this new revolutionary principle, it was considered unheard of especially by the great powers.
Nevertheless, the flagship of the Greek argumentation against the great powers to bend them was precisely that their own case differed from the revolts in the Italian and Iberian peninsula (1820-1821) because they did not seek the overthrow of the regime and the destabilization of order, but the throwing off of a "foreign illegitimate yoke" by "barbaric Muslims/Turks".
With these data, the Greek case was the first successful application of the principle of ethnicities, the first national separatist nationalism in the narrow sense of the term. All other independences after armed struggle like those in North and South America were not by nations fighting for their freedom, but by settlers against their "ruthless motherland." And the case of Haiti (Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804) was a heroic struggle of former African slaves, not a nation that won their independence. There is of course the case of the Serbian Revolution (1804-1813, 1815-1817), with which they gained autonomy in the 1830s, but before the 1840s the national sentiment of the Serbs was very limited and almost non-existent. As for Belgium (Belgian Revolution of 1830) it was about the independence of two potential nations, the Flemish and the Walloons, in a common alliance that did not create a national state or nation-state neither then nor ever in the future.
Finally, there is the whole discussion of practical assistance to liberation movements that have suffered oppression or even massacres, which despite their heroic armed struggle, find it difficult to gain their independence on their own without practical foreign intervention, mediating or armed. Aid to such righteous liberation movements, even armed intervention, had been supported by her, during the 19 o century, some liberal legal internationalists, mainly Italians, as well as Giuseppe Mazzini and John Stuart Mill.
Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Greek Revolution, as it was carried out, with the intervention of the three great powers and its outcome, Greek independence, made the Greek case the first worldwide study of all three of these international issues. These three issues are today and for the future complex and intractable international problems, with conflicting positions in the theory and practice of international politics, normative international relations and international law. All three attempt to provide convincing, valuable and effective answers to problems affecting international peace, international justice and international ethics.
*Alexis Heraklides is O Honorary Professor of the Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University.