Exit from Missolonghi, by Theodoros Vryzakis, 1853. National Gallery, Athens • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS The Greek War of Independence lasted almost a decade, from 1821 to 1832, if we stick to a chronology that does not take into account its premises and its immediate aftermath. From this long and complex conflict, we will detach here the major adventures to then evoke two essential aspects, the philhellenic current exalting the Greek cause and the diplomatic game which made it triumph. A market society that aspires to freedom In 1821, Greece was attached to the Ottoman Empire since the great Turkish conquests of the 15th th century. A census then gives it a population of 675,000 Christians and 91,000 Muslims. After a remarkable expansion, in particular in the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire entered a phase of stabilization and withdrawal which we generally date from its defeat before Vienna in 1683. It is made up of multiple nations, or rather of "millets", an almost untranslatable word which designates legally subjugated and protected religious communities. Such is the status of the Romanians, Vlachs, Moldavians, Albanians, Greeks... Far from being condemned, the Greek elites strongly participated in the high administration of the Empire. Established in the district of Phanar in Istanbul, about fifty families, the phanariotes, use and enjoy the confidence of the sultan. In the islands of the Aegean, other families, dedicated to trade, prosper. This is not the case for the inhabitants of mainland Greece, isolated in mountainous regions and subject to the whims of an administration as loose as it is corrupt. On the islands, in Hydra, Spetses, Mykonos, Psara or Chios, merchants have benefited from the protection of the tsar since 1774. Of more than 1,000 Russian ships cruising in the Mediterranean, at least half are manned by Greeks. A whole market society rubbed with the world and which aspires to more freedom. It can count on active recourses outside the Ottoman Empire. Thus, in Russia, Ioánnis Kapodístrias (Jean Capodistria, in French), originally from Corfu, Foreign Minister of Alexander I st , or Dimitrius Ypsilántis, a Phanariot aide-de-camp to the tsar. While the Orthodox faith is maintained by the powerful and wealthy clergy in Greece, it is more tenuous in the diaspora and the merchant world where commercial ties mainly count. Added to this is a political culture derived from the Enlightenment and the French and American revolutions. Mountaineers at war In September 1814, three members of the Greek merchants of Odessa founded a secret society, the Filikí Etería, the Hetairiy of Friends, on the model of Freemasonry. Five years later, it has 452 affiliates spread throughout the Greek area. The Hetairie has set itself the sole objective of the emancipation and regeneration of Greece. It is at the origin of an uprising which is born on the margins of the Ottoman Empire. In February 1821, Ypsilántis led a small army which, from Moldavia and Wallachia, had to reach the heart of Greece to unite with the insurgents in the interior. At the same time – if we stick to the official date, March 25, 1821 – at the monastery of Agia Laura in Kalavryta, in the northern Peloponnese, Germanos, Metropolitan of Patras, called to arms thousands of peasants and exhorts them to a holy war against the Turks. A gesture magnified in Europe where his appeal is published in the press. What follows highlights both the confusion and the ferocity of a two-headed uprising that goes awry for its first instigator Ypsilántis. For a time allied with the Romanian separatists of Tudor Vladimirescu, he separated from them and had to face the Turks with his own strength. He was crushed on June 19, 1821 at Dragatsani, where most of his “sacred battalion” perished. He himself fled to Austria where he remained imprisoned until his death in 1828. In the northern Peloponnese, the Metropolitan of Patras calls thousands of peasants to arms and urges them to a holy war against the Turks. A gesture magnified in Europe where his appeal is published in the press. In Greece itself, the war was waged by bands of mountain dwellers led by klephtes, a kind of bandits of honor who were more inclined to conduct raids, a source of looting and massacres, than to practice pitched warfare. Few rose to the rank of real leaders, such as Theódoros Kolokotrónis, nicknamed the “Old Man of Morea”, who had served in the European armies during the Napoleonic era. He largely contributed to the siege and capture of Tripolizza, from May to October 1821, where he allowed the massacre of 8,000 Muslims to be carried out before seizing their wealth. This drift, which can be found almost everywhere, testifies to the inconsistency of the political power supposed to lead the war of independence. Admittedly, an assembly meeting at Epidaurus adopted a Constitution inspired to the letter by the great American and French texts. But the cleavage between politicians and military leaders quickly poisons the climate and the assembly of Epidaurus only puts in place a senate and an executive power which do not agree on anything, until a first then a second civil war between 1823 and 1825. Serial killings The massacre of Chios, perpetrated by the Turks in April 1822, highlights many ambiguities. This island, very populated, profited from its commercial activities. Its rallying to the independence cause is long overdue, to the point that it is necessary to dispatch small corps of sailors and then of klephtes to influence the course of action of the inhabitants. The sultan responds with a repression that turns into a general massacre and the enslavement of the survivors. To put an end to the uprising, Mahmud II appealed to the most powerful of his vassals, Pasha Mehemet-Ali, master of Egypt. The latter had a solid army, trained and supervised by European officers, often French, such as Boyer and Sève. He agrees to send an expeditionary force to Greece and entrusts it to his own son, Ibrahim Pasha. He decides to occupy the Peloponnese – we say at the time the Morea – by landing on its western coast with nearly 20,000 men. After having won several fights against the klephtes, the Egyptian goes after Missolonghi, a stronghold of the Greeks, where Lord Byron succumbed, victim of his fatigues, on April 19, 1824. Retaken, Missolonghi undergoes a massacre in order. In the spring of 1827, the war moved north, to Attica, the last redoubt of the insurgents who were beaten at Phaleron on May 6. All that remained for the Ottomans was to take Athens and its Acropolis defended by General Fabvier, Richard Church and Thomas Cochrane. Once Athens fell on June 5, insurgent Greece only survived at a few points, expiring as depicted by the painter Eugène Delacroix. The great powers unite The great powers finally agree to increase their pressure on the Turks. On July 6, 1829, England, France and Russia demanded that the Sultan sign an armistice with the insurgents and negotiate with them to grant them, at a minimum, autonomy. A naval blockade is envisaged and a tripartite fleet reaches the Ionian Sea. She presented herself before Navarino and won a spectacular and unexpected victory over the Turkish-Egyptian fleet. His naval means lost, the Egypt of Mehemet-Ali ready to disengage, Mahmud II must face the facts:he is about to lose Greece, in any case a good part. His call for holy war, on December 20, 1827, is a symbolic act, without any effect. In July 1828, France and England agreed to send an expeditionary force to the Morea to dislodge Ibrahim Pasha. It will be exclusively French, 8,000 strong, under the command of General Maison. Once landed, the French obtained practically without fighting the re-embarkation of the Egyptian forces, reduced to 14,000 men after the withdrawal of the Albanians. At the other end of the Ottoman Empire, the Russians went on the offensive. Generals Wittgenstein and Diebitsch push as far as Adrianople, while Paskievich, in Transcaucasia, seizes Erzeroum. We are therefore moving towards an independent Greece, reduced moreover to the Morea and the Cyclades alone, without being sure of attaching Athens to it. The protocol of March 22, 1829, signed in London by the three adversaries of Turkey, decides the creation of an independent kingdom of Greece, subject to paying a tribute to the sultan. He rejects these conditions and the war resumes with Russia. The Russian army achieves successes that bring it within reach of the straits and of Constantinople. On August 7, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Adrianople, which moreover insisted more on the recognized autonomy of Wallachia, Moldavia and Serbia than on the independence of the Greeks still subject to restrictive clauses. . It will be necessary to wait for Greece, recognized in its borders (without the Sporades, Epirus, Thessaly…), to be handed over to a prince of the house of Wittelsbach, Othon I st . Diplomatic outcome During this war, the Greeks benefited from a current of sympathy and solidarity which continued to grow in strength. Philhellenes are recruited from liberal circles fighting against authoritarian monarchs, in Italy, Spain, Germany… Pursued, proscribed, the liberals see in Greece the emblematic space of their ideals. Several hundred officers who had served the French Empire left for Greece. From July 1821, Ypsilánti can count on 80 volunteers; there are soon 300 of them with veteran chefs from the Napoleonic campaigns, the French Coste, Raybaud, Regnaud de Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Baleste, the Piedmontese Tarella, Gubernatis, the Pole Mierzewki. The most remarkable is undoubtedly Charles Nicolas Fabvier (1782-1855), a polytechnician, artilleryman, diplomat and connoisseur of the Orient. On the ground, these philhellenes pay dearly for their commitment. They support undisciplined bands and struggle to form the core of a regular army. They suffer many disappointments as in Peta, in July 1822, when, released by their men, they are massacred. More than a third of these volunteers will leave their lives in Greece. The fate of the Greek fighters finds an echo thanks to the powerful philhellenic currents of Europe, but also to artists like Delacroix, or writers like Victor Hugo. They have benefited from the support of committees spread across Europe. That of Paris brings together eminent members of the liberal current, the bankers Laffitte and Rothschild, the Orleans, generals Sébastiani, Gérard… Freemasonry is also committed to the Greek cause. The Grand Secretary of the Grand Orient calls on his brothers to deliver Greece because "there is the cradle of initiation". The Carbonari secret society is also on board with Guglielmo Pepe. This enthusiasm and this commitment affect letters and the arts, transcending political divisions. The young writers Victor Hugo and Lamartine deliver fiery verses. Delacroix donates several of his most beautiful paintings. But these elites feed on an imaginary far from reality. Their Greece is marmoreal, rebuilt, as a possible rebirth of the prestigious “century of Pericles”. She does not want to take into account the clan mentalities of the klephtes, the divisions to the point of absurdity of a clientelist political microclass. It was the diplomats who came to the end of the Greek imbroglio. With obvious ulterior motives, the powers ended up finding an agreement to snatch the Greeks from the Turkish yoke. London is always concerned with controlling the Mediterranean area, monitoring the Russian advance and the strong comeback of France which, after Spain, is meddling in Greek affairs. Only the Empire of Austria stands at a distance, under the influence of Chancellor Metternich, vigilant guardian of the principles of the Holy Alliance:never destabilize a legitimate state, including the Ottoman Empire. But Austria found itself isolated, and the unforeseen victory of Navarino and the Russian successes favored the birth of a Greece, certainly rump, but handed over to a prince, Otho I st , to whom all that remained was to familiarize himself with his subjects. A thankless task, which will lead him to exile in 1863, faced with the chaotic emancipation of a country whose upheavals still continue today. Find out more The Romantic Nations, J. Plumyène, Fayard, 1979.The Great Army of Freedom, W. Bruyère-Ostells, Tallandier, 2009. Navarino sounds the Turkish hallali Navarino Bay is located at the western tip of the Peloponnese. The Turkish fleet obstructs the entrance. The English, French and Russian admirals must intimidate the Ottomans:we will only open fire as a last resort. It all starts with a machine-gunned English canoe; the cannonade spreads, almost point-blank. A devastation without the slightest tactical move. All Turkish ships are sent by the bottom. Navarin will be the last battle of the old sailing navy. Delacroix paints the misfortunes of Greece Eugène Delacroix is horrified by the massacres committed in Greece. At the Salon des Beaux-Arts in 1824, he exhibited the terrible Scenes of the massacres of Scio . He also painted the Young orphan girl in the cemetery and did it again in 1826 with Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi . Political paintings in the noble sense of the term, which sublimate, by their modernity, the fight of the Greeks. With this plea:Europe must stand up against a barbaric Turkish Empire, which combines despotism and fanaticism.
