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Greek War of Independence

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Pre 1900 Military

   Greek War of Independence
   Part of Wars of Independence
   Monastery Agia Lavra, Peloponnese, 1821. "Germanos blessing the flag".
   Theodoros Vryzakis, 1865.

     Date   1821 – 1831
   Location The Balkans (mainly Greece) and the Aegean Sea.
    Result  Greek Victory, Establishment of the modern Greek state.
   Combatants
   Greek revolutionaries
   United Kingdom
   France
   Russian Empire Ottoman Empire
   Egyptian Khedivate
   Commanders
   Theodoros Kolokotronis,
   Alexander Ypsilanti Omer Vryonis,
   Dramalis,
   Ibrahim Pasha.
   Strength
   100,000 Greek
   400,000 Ottoman
   12,000 Egyptian
   Casualties
   50,000 Greek, 181 British, French and Russians
   115,000 Ottoman; 5,000 Egyptian
   Greek War of Independence
   Dragashani – Skuleni – Tripoli – Alamana – Gravia – Gravia – Valtesi –
   Doliana – Chios – Dervenakia – Pea – Karpenisi – Gerontas – Maniaki –
   Mills of Lerna – Missolonghi – Mani – Arachova – Phaleron – Navarino –
   Petra

   The Greek War of Independence ( 1821– 1831), also known as the Greek
   Revolution ( Greek: Ελληνική Επανάσταση Elliniki Epanastasi, Ottoman
   Turkish: يؤنان ئسياني Yunan İsyanı, i.e. "Greek insurgence"), was a
   successful war waged by the Greeks to win independence for Greece from
   the Ottoman Empire. Independence was finally granted by the Treaty of
   Constantinople in July 1832 when Greece (Hellas) was recognized as a
   free country. The Greeks were the first of the subject peoples of the
   Ottoman Empire to secure recognition as a sovereign power. Greeks
   celebrate their independence day annually on March 25.

Background

   The Ottoman Empire had ruled almost all of Greece, with the exception
   of the Ionian Islands since its conquest of the Byzantine Empire over
   the course of the 14th and 15th centuries. However, in the 18th and
   19th centuries, as revolutionary nationalism grew across Europe (due,
   in part, to the influence of the French Revolution), and the power of
   the Ottoman Empire declined, Greek nationalism began to assert itself
   and drew support from Western European "philhellenes".

   It is important to note that the Greek Revolution was not an isolated
   event, but that there were numerous failed attempts at regaining
   independence throughout the history of the Ottoman occupation of
   Greece. For example, in 1603 there was an attempt in the Peloponnesos
   to restore the Byzantine Empire, and throughout the 17th century there
   was great resistance to the Turks in the Peloponnesus. Perhaps the most
   famous of these is the Orlov Revolt of 1770. The Mani Peninsula of
   Peloponnesos also continually resisted Turkish rule, defeating several
   Turkish incursions into the region, the most famous of which was the
   Ottoman Invasion of Mani (1780).

   One of the early writers who helped shape opinion among the Greek
   population in and out of the Ottoman Empire was Rigas Feraios (Ρήγας
   Φεραίος). Born in Thessaly and educated in Constantinople, Feraios
   published a Greek-language newspaper Ephimeris in Vienna in the 1790s.
   He was deeply influenced by the French Revolution and he published
   revolutionary tracts and proposed republican constitutions for Greek
   and pan-Balkan nations. He was arrested by Austrian officials in
   Trieste in 1797 when he was betrayed by a Greek merchant in that city.
   He was handed over to Ottoman officials and was transported to Belgrade
   with his co-conspirators. They were all strangled to death and their
   bodies dumped in the Danube River in June, 1798. Instead of diminishing
   support for Feraios's ideas, his death fanned the flames of Greek
   independence. His nationalist poem which is today memorized by Greek
   schoolchildren, the thourios (war-song) was translated into many Balkan
   and European languages, and served as a rallying cry for Greeks against
   Ottoman rule:

   Ως πότε παλληκάρια θά ζούμε στά στενά
   Until when brave warriors, shall we live under constraints ,
   μονάχοι σάν λιοντάρια στίς ράχες τά βουνά
   Lonely like the lions in the ridges of the mountains,

   Καλύτερα μιάς ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή
   It is better an hour of free life,
   παρά σαράντα χρόνια σκλαβιά καί φυλακή.
   Than forty years of slavery and jail.
   Portrait of Rigas on a 10 cent Greek euro coin
   Portrait of Rigas on a 10 cent Greek euro coin

The movement for independence

   The reasons why the Greeks were the first to break away from the
   multi-ethnic, multi-religious Ottoman Empire and secure recognition as
   a sovereign power are several. The fact that the Ottoman Empire was in
   manifest decline made such a revolt feasible. Some Greeks enjoyed a
   privileged position in the Ottoman state, and Ottoman Turks had always
   afforded a specific class of Greeks a degree of power. Since the
   Hellenisation of the Byzantine Empire they had controlled the affairs
   of the Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, based in
   Constantinople, and the higher clergy were always Greek. From the 18th
   century onwards Phanariot Greek notables (Turkish-appointed Greek
   administrators from the Phanar district of Constantinople) played an
   influential role in the governance of the Ottoman Empire.

   A strong maritime tradition in the islands of the Aegean together with
   the emergence in the 18th century of an influential merchant class
   generated the wealth necessary to found schools and libraries and to
   pay for young Greeks to study in the universities of Western Europe.
   Here they came into contact with the radical ideas of the European
   Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In 1814 three young Greeks,
   much influenced by the martyrdom of Rigas, founded the Filiki Eteria,
   the secret "Friendly Society" which laid the organizational groundwork
   for the revolt. The society was founded in Odessa, an important centre
   of the Greek mercantile diaspora. The Greeks' success marked the
   beginning of the gradual break-up of the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the
   other peoples of the Balkan peninsula were to follow the Greek example
   in seeking their freedom from Ottoman rule.

   This article is part of the series on:

   History of Greece
   Prehistory of Greece
   Cycladic Civilization
   Minoan Civilization
   Mycenaean Civilization
   Ancient Greece
   Ancient Greece
   Hellenistic Greece
   Roman Greece
   Medieval Greece
   Byzantine Empire
   Ottoman Greece
   Modern Greece
   Greek War of Independence
   Kingdom of Greece
   Axis Occupation of Greece
   Greek Civil War
   Military Junta
   The Hellenic Republic

Philhellenism

   Due to Greece's classical past, there was tremendous sympathy for the
   Greek cause throughout Europe. Many European aristocrats and wealthy
   Americans, such as the renowned poet Lord Byron, who died during the
   Siege of Missolonghi, took up arms to join the Greek revolutionaries.
   Many more also financed the revolution, and the Scottish historian and
   Philhellene Thomas Gordon took part in the revolutionary struggle and
   wrote one of the first histories of the revolution in English.
   Lord Byron was a prominent English Philhellene who was killed in the
   Greek revolution
   Lord Byron was a prominent English Philhellene who was killed in the
   Greek revolution

   Once the revolution broke out, Ottoman atrocities were given wide
   coverage in Europe and drew sympathy for the Greek cause in western
   Europe — although the British and French governments suspected that the
   uprising was a Russian plot to seize Greece (and possibly
   Constantinople) from the Ottomans. The Greeks were unable to establish
   a coherent government in the areas they controlled, and soon fell to
   fighting among themselves. Inconclusive fighting between Greeks and
   Ottomans continued until 1825, when Sultan Mahmud II asked for help
   from his most powerful vassal, Egypt.
   The sortie of Messolonghi by Theodoros Vryzakis
   The sortie of Messolonghi by Theodoros Vryzakis

   In Europe, the Greek revolt aroused widespread sympathy among the
   public but at the beginning was met with lukewarm reception by the
   Great Powers, with Britain supporting the insurrection only after 1823
   when the Ottomans failed to assert their power despite a Greek civil
   war and Russia adding their support after Britain, to limit the British
   influence over the Greeks. Greece was viewed as the cradle of western
   civilization, and it was especially lauded by the spirit of romanticism
   that was current at the time. The sight of a Christian nation
   attempting to cast off the rule of a Muslim Empire also appealed to the
   western European public.

   One of those who heard the call was the poet Lord Byron who spent time
   in Albania and Greece, organising funds and supplies (including the
   provision of several ships), but died from fever at Messolonghi in
   1824. Byron's death did even more to augment European sympathy for the
   Greek cause. This eventually led the western powers to intervene
   directly.

Beginning of the Revolution

   In 1814, Greek nationalists formed a secret organization called the
   Friendly Society (Filiki Eteria) in Odessa. With the support of wealthy
   Greek exile communities in Britain and the United States, the aid of
   sympathizers in Western Europe and covert assistance from Russia, they
   planned a rebellion. The basic objective of the society was a revival
   of the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as the capital, not the
   formation of a national state. John Capodistria, an official from the
   Ionian Islands who had become the Russian Foreign Minister, was secured
   as the leader of the planned revolt. In 1821, the Ottoman Empire was
   occupied with war against Persia and with the revolt of Ali Pasha in
   the Balkans. The Great Powers, who opposed revolutions in principle in
   the aftermath of Napoleon were preoccupied with revolts in Italy and
   Spain and the revolutionaries started their actions. The planned revolt
   originally involved uprisings in three places, Peloponnese, the
   Danubian Principalities and Constantinople. The start of the uprising
   can be set in 1821 on March 6 when Alexander Ypsilanti accompanied by
   several other Greek officers of the Russian army crossed the river Prut
   in Romania.

   In the Peloponnese the main seats of the revolt where Achaia, and Mani.
   Early incidents of the revolt occurred in the form of scattered attacks
   against organs of the Ottoman administration around Kalavryta, the town
   itself was sieged on March 21. In Patras in an already tense
   atmosphere, the Ottomans transferred their belongings to the fortress
   on February 28 and their families on March 18. On March 23 the Ottomans
   launched sporadic attacks towards the town while the revolutionaries,
   led by Karatzas and using guns drove them back to the fortress.
   Makryiannis who had been hiding in the town referred to the scene in
   his memoirs:
   Σε δυο ημέρες χτύπησε ντουφέκι ’στην Πάτρα. Οι Tούρκοι κάμαν κατά το
   κάστρο και οι Ρωμαίγοι την θάλασσα.
   Shooting broke out two days later in Patras. The Turks had seized the
   fortress, and the Greeks had taken the seashore.

   On March 25 the revolutionaries declared the Revolution in the square
   of Agios Georgios in Patras. On the next day the leaders of the
   Revolution in Achaia sent a document to the foreign consulates
   explaining the reasons of the Revolution. The Maniots declared war of
   the Ottomans on the March 17. On March 23 revolutionaries took control
   of Kalamata in Peloponnese. Simultaneous risings were planned across
   Greece, including in Macedonia, Crete and Cyprus. According to the
   tradition, the Revolution in Greece and Peloponnese was declared on
   March 25 in the Monastery of Aghia Lavra by the archbishop of Patras
   Germanos, however there is no concrete evidence to support this
   assertion.

The Sacred Battalion

   Ypsilantis was the elected head of the Filiki Eteria, and in 1821, he
   placed himself at the head of the insurrection against the Ottoman
   Empire in the Danubian Principalities raising the "Sacred Battalion" of
   Greek exiles vowing to fight for a free Greece. Accompanied by several
   other Greek officers in the Russian service he crossed the Prut on
   March 6, announcing that he had "the support of a great power" and also
   under the impression that the local Romanian Christians would support
   the revolution.

   Instead of advancing on Brăila, where he arguably could have prevented
   Ottoman armies entering the Principalities, and might have forced
   Russia to accept a fait accompli, he remained in Iaşi, where he ordered
   the executions of several pro-Ottoman Moldavians. In Bucharest, where
   he had arrived after some weeks delay, it became plain that he could
   not rely on the Wallachian Pandurs to continue their Oltenian-based
   revolt as assistance to the Greek cause; Ypsilantis was met with
   mistrust by the Pandur leader Tudor Vladimirescu, who, as a nominal
   ally to the Eteria, had started the rebellion as a move to prevent
   Scarlat Callimachi from reaching the throne in Bucharest, while trying
   to maintain relations with both Russia and the Ottomans.

   Then, unexpectedly, came a letter from former Russian Foreign Minister,
   Kerkyra-born Kapodistrias' upbraiding Ypsilantis for misusing the
   mandate received from the Russian Emperor, announcing that his name had
   been struck off the army list, and commanding him to lay down his arms.
   Ypsilanti's decision to explain away the emperor's letter could only
   have been justified by the success of a cause which was rendered
   hopeless. When Vladimirescu took this to mean that his commitment to
   the Eteria was over, a conflict erupted inside his camp, and he was
   tried and killed by the pro-Greeks and the Eteria. The loss of their
   Romanian allies, followed an Ottoman intervention on Wallachian soil
   sealed defeat for the Greek exiles, culminating in that of Drăgăşani on
   June 19.

   Alexander, accompanied by his brother Nicholas and a remnant of his
   followers, retreated to Râmnic, where he spent some days in 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 the church of Cozia, and, on pretext of arranging measures with
   the Austrian commander-in-chief, crossed the frontier. But the
   reactionary policies of the Holy Alliance were enforced by Francis I
   and Klemens Metternich, and the country refused to give asylum for
   leaders of revolts in neighboring countries. Ypsilantis was kept in
   close confinement for seven years.

The Peleponnesos and Sterea Ellada

   Equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis in Nafplion, Greece
   Equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis in Nafplion, Greece

   Theodoros Kolokotronis, a Greek klepht who had served in the British
   army in the Ionian Islands during the Napoleonic Wars returned to
   Greece and went the Mani Peninsula, a largely unsubdued area of the
   Peloponnese in early March. Once the Turks found out about the
   Kolokotronis' arrival, they demanded Petros Mavromichalis surrender
   him. Mavromichalis refused saying he was just an old man.

   On the 17th March 1821, war was declared on the Turks by the Maniots at
   Areopoli. An army of 2,000 Maniot under the command of Petros
   Mavromichalis, which included Kolokotronis, his nephew Nikitaras and
   Papaflessas advanced on the Messenian town of Kalamata. The Maniots
   managed to reached Kalamata on the 21 March and after a brief two day
   siege it fell to the Greeks. On the same day, Andreas Londos, a Greek
   primate captured Vostitsa.
   The most popular revolutionary flag, that of Kolokotronis
   The most popular revolutionary flag, that of Kolokotronis

European intervention

   The Battle of Navarino--The Destruction of the Turco-Egyptian Fleet
   The Battle of Navarino--The Destruction of the Turco-Egyptian Fleet

   On 20 October 1827 the British, Russian and French fleets, on the
   initiative of local commanders but with the tacit approval of their
   governments, attacked and destroyed the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of
   Navarino (Πύλος). This was the decisive moment in the war of
   independence, although the British Admiral Edward Codrington nearly
   ruined his career, since he wasn't ordered to achieve such a victory or
   destroy completely the Turko/Egyptian fleet. In October 1828, the
   Greeks regrouped and formed a new government under John Capodistria
   (Καποδíστριας). They then advanced to seize as much territory as
   possible, including Athens and Thebes, before the western powers
   imposed a ceasefire. The Greeks seized the last Turkish strongholds in
   the Peloponnese with the help of the French general, Nicolas Joseph
   Maison.

Massacres during the revolution

   Almost as soon as the revolution began, there were large scale
   massacres of civilians by both the Greek revolutionaries and the
   Ottoman authorities. The Greek revolutionaries massacred many Muslims
   inhabiting the Peloponnese and Attica where Greek forces were dominant,
   whereas the Turks massacred many Greeks especially in Ionia ( Asia
   Minor), Crete, Constantinople and the Aegean islands where the
   revolutionary forces were weaker.

   According to a number of sources, massacres of the Turkish civilian
   population started simultaneously with the outbreak of the revolt.
   William St. Clair said: " The bishops and priests exhorted their
   parishioners to exterminate infidel Moslems. The klepths and armatoli
   came down from the mountains and ravaged the Turkish settlements and
   the whole country was overrun by bands of armed men killing and
   plundering. The Turks of Greece paid the penalty for centuries of
   wrongs, real and imagined, and for their inherited religious beliefs."
   George Finlay, who was himself a Philhellene, wrote in 1861: "In the
   meantime the Christian population had attacked and murdered the
   Mussulman population in every part of the peninsula. The towers and
   country homes of the Mussulmans were burned down, and their property
   was destroyed, in order to render the return of those who had escaped
   into the fortresses hopeless. From the 26th of March until Easter
   Sunday, which fell, in the year 1821, on the 22nd of April, it is
   supposed that fifteen thousand Mussulman souls perished in cold blood
   and that about three thousand farmhouses or Turkish dwellings were laid
   waste.", followed by all but 22 in Missolonghi, 500 families in
   Vrachori, almost all the men, women, and children in Navarino.

   The Ottoman response to the Greek revolution took place throughout the
   empire. St. Clair wrote: "The Ottoman Government in Constantinople,
   faced with violent revolutions in different parts of the Empire,
   decided to answer terror with terror... Turkish counter-terror which
   began with the hanging of the Patriarch at Constantinople on Easter
   day, started before the Ottoman government realized full extent of what
   was happening in the Peloponnese, but soon it was in full swing." In
   addition to this hanging of Patriarch Gregory IV on Easter Sunday,
   1821., his body was mutilated and thrown into the sea, where it was
   rescued by Greek sailors. This was followed by the execution of two
   metropolitans and twelve Bishops by the Turkish authorities.In June,
   Turkish massacres of Greek civilians began in earnest in Ionia. In the
   town of Kydonia in Ionia, the Turkish garrison began plundering houses
   and massacred an estimated 25,000 people. After the beginning of the
   Greek War of Independence, Ottoman soldiers began the massacre of
   thousands of Greeks around the Ottoman Empire. In the great massacre of
   Heraklion on 24th June 1821, that people remember as "the great ravage"
   ("o megalos arpentes"), the enraged Turks massacred the metropolite of
   Crete, Gerasimos Pardalis, and five more bishops: Neofitos of Knossos,
   Joachim of Herronissos, Ierotheos of Lambis, Zacharias of Sitia and
   Kallinikos, the titular bishop of Diopolis.Jelavich states: "As a rule,
   Ottoman actions were fully reported in Europe, with all the gruesome
   details; Christian atrocities tended to be ignored."

   Some of the first Greek actions were taken against unarmed Ottoman
   civilians and according to William St. Clair, upwards of twenty
   thousand Turkish men, women and children were killed by their Greek
   neighboors in a few weeks of slaughter. Other estimates of the Turkish
   and Muslim Albanian civilian deaths by the rebels range from 15,000 out
   of 40,000 Muslim residents to 30,000 only in Tripolis to 60,000
   (Turkish claim), but the revolution was successful in removing the
   entire Turkish and Muslim Albanian population from the Peloponnese,
   whether through death or displacement. The Turkish and Moslem Albanian
   population of the Peloponnese had ceased to exist as a settled
   community.Historian W. Alison Phillips wrote in 1897: "Everywhere, as
   though at a preconcerted signal, the peasantry rose, and massacred all
   the Turks —men,women and children— on whom they could lay hands.. The
   Mussulman population of the Morea had been reckoned at twenty-five
   thousand souls. Within three weeks of the outbreak of the revolt, not a
   moslem was left, save those who had succeeded in escaping into the
   towns." St. Clair said "The orgy of genocide exhausted itself in the
   peloponnese only when there were no more Turks to kill."
   Eugène Delacroix's Massacre of Chios
   Eugène Delacroix's Massacre of Chios

   The Ottoman authorities soon began massacring Greek islanders, whose
   fleets were instrumental to the Greek cause. During the Chios Massacre,
   one of the most notorious occurrences, during 1822, about 42,000 Greek
   islanders of Chios were hanged, butchered, starved or tortured to
   death; 50,000 were enslaved; and 23,000 were exiled. The French painter
   Eugène Delacroix immortalised this massacre in his famous painting The
   Massacre of Chios. While Greek atrocities against civilians were
   largely limited to the opening phase of the conflict, they largely
   stopped after rage had died down over the killing of Patriarch Gregory
   on Eastern Monday. To the contrary, Ottoman atrocities against
   civilians continued as official policy. The Egyptians were especially
   brutal in the Peleponnesos. On May 17, 1824, one of the worst
   atrocities was committed by Turkish, Egyptian and Albanian forces which
   is today etched in the Greek national psyche — the destruction of
   Psara. The entire male civilian population over the age of eight in
   Psara was wiped out, and the women and small children were sold into
   slavery. Every building was razed to the ground. In the castle of this
   city, 150 Greeks, seeing the tortures that their compatriots faced when
   captured by the Turks, set alight their powder stores, killing
   themselves along with many Turks. The epigram by Dionysios Solomos
   commemorates this brave act of defiance:

   Στων Ψαρών την ολόμαυρη ράχη,
   Οn the all- black Psaran ridge
   Περπατώντας η δόξα μονάχη,
   Glory, walking alone,
   Μελετά τα λαμπρά παλλικάρια,
   Contemplates the splendid brave lads,
   Και στην κόμη στεφάνι φορεί,
   And on her hair she wears a crown
   Γινωμένο απο λίγα χορτάρια,
   Made of the few remaining green shoots,
   Που είχαν μείνει στην έρημη γη.
   That remained on the deserted earth.

   According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Jews curried disfavour with
   the Greeks by supporting the Ottoman Empire and during the Greek War of
   Independence, thousands of Jews were massacred alongside the Ottoman
   Turks by the Greek rebels and the Jewish communities of Mistras,
   Tripolis, Kalamata and Patras were completely destroyed. A few
   survivors moved north to areas still under Ottoman rule. Greek bishops
   and priests had exhorted their flocks to exterminate the Turkish and
   Jewish minoties. Despite the fact that many Jews were killed, they were
   not targeted specifically: "Such a tragedy seems to be more a
   side-effect of the butchering of the Turks of Tripolis, the last
   Ottoman stronghold in the South where the Jews had taken refuge from
   the fighting, than a specific action against Jews per se."
   Nevertheless, many Jews within Greece and throughout Europe were
   supporters of the Greek revolt, using their wealth (as in the case of
   the Rothschilds) as well as their political and public influence to
   assist the Greek cause. The Greek state also attracted many Jewish
   immigrants from the Ottoman Empire following its establishment, being
   one of the first countries in the world to grant legal equality to
   Jews.

Diplomatic endgame

   John Capodistria was assassinated in 1831 in Nafplion. As a state of
   confusion continued in the Greek peninsula, the Great Powers sought a
   formal end of the war and a recognized government in Greece. The Greek
   throne was initially offered to Léopold I of Belgium, but he refused,
   as he was not at all satisfied with the Aspropotamos-Zitouni
   borderline, which replaced the more favourable Arta-Volos line
   considered by the Great Powers earlier.
   Map of the boundaries of the Greek Kingdom after the Treaty of
   Constantinople
   Map of the boundaries of the Greek Kingdom after the Treaty of
   Constantinople

   The withdrawal of Léopold as a candidate for the throne of Greece, and
   the July Revolution in France, delayed the final settlement of the
   frontiers of the new kingdom until a new government was formed in the
   United Kingdom. Lord Palmerston, who took over as British Foreign
   Secretary, agreed to the Arta-Volos borderline. However, the secret
   note on Crete, which the Bavarian plenipotentiary communicated to the
   Courts of the United Kingdom, France and Russia, bore no fruit.

   In May 1832, Palmerston convened the London Conference of 1832. The
   three Great Powers ( United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, July
   Monarchy France and the Russian Empire) offered the throne to the
   Bavarian prince, Otto Wittelsbach, without regard to Greek views on
   this. The line of succession was also established which would pass the
   crown to the heirs of Otto, or his younger brothers in succession,
   should he have no heirs. In no case would the crowns of Greece and
   Bavaria be joined. As co-guarantors of the monarchy, the Great Powers
   also empowered their Ambassadors in the Ottoman capital to secure the
   end of the war. Under the protocol signed on May 7, 1832 between
   Bavaria and the protecting Powers, 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 given
   40,000,000 piastres in compensation for the loss of the territory.

   On July 21, 1832 British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte Sir Stratford
   Canning and the other representatives of the Great Powers concluded the
   Treaty of Constantinople, which set the boundaries of the new Greek
   Kingdom at a line running from Arta (Αρτα) to Volos (Βολος). 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.

Aftermath

   The first national flag of Greece adopted 1828
   The first national flag of Greece adopted 1828

   The consequences of the Greek revolution were somewhat ambiguous in the
   immediate aftermath. An independent Greek state had been established,
   but with Britain, Russia and France claiming a major role in Greek
   politics afterwards and with the import of a Bavarian dynasty as the
   ruler and a mercenary army. The country had been ravaged by ten years
   of fighting, was full of displaced refugees and empty Turkish estates,
   necessitating a series of land reforms over several decades.

   The new state also contained 800,000 people, fewer than one third of
   the two and a half million Greek inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire and
   for much of the next century the Greek state was to seek the liberation
   of the “ unredeemed” Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, following Megale
   Idea, the goal of uniting all Greeks in one country.

   As a people, the Greeks no longer provided the princes for the Danubian
   Principalities and were regarded within the Ottoman Empire, especially
   by the Muslim population, as traitors. Phanariots who had up to then
   held high office within the Ottoman Empire were henceforth regarded as
   suspect and lost their special, privileged category. In Constantinople
   and the rest of the Ottoman Empire where Greek banking and merchant
   presence had been dominant, Armenians mostly replaced Greeks in banking
   and Bulgarian merchants gained importance.

Gallery of paintings glorifying the uprisings

   Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi. Eugène Delacroix, 1826.

   Greek boy defending his wounded father. Ary Scheffer, 1827.

   Detail of "The Entry of King Othon of Greece in Athens". Peter von
   Hess, 1839.

   Monastery Agia Lavra, Peloponnese, 1821. "Germanos blessing the flag".
   Theodoros Vryzakis, 1865. Subject: Hellas' rebirth.

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