Of the series of insurrections which took place in the 19th century, the first in order of time was the Servian, which broke out in 1804; the second was the Greek, which began in 1821. In both these movements the influence of Russia played a considerable part. In the case of the Servians Russian aid was mainly diplomatic, in that of the Russian influence. Greeks it eventually took a more material form. Since the days of Peter the Great, the eyes of Russia had been fixed on Constantinople, the great metropolis of the Orthodox faith. The policy of inciting the Greek Christians to revolt against their oppressors, which was first adopted in the reign of the empress Anna, was put into practical operation by the empress Catharine II., whose favourite, Orlov, appeared in the Aegean with a fleet in 1769 and landed in the Morea, where he organized a revolt. The attempt proved a failure; Orlov re-embarked, leaving the Greeks at the mercy of the Turks, and terrible massacres took place at Tripolitza, Lemnos and elsewhere. By the treaty of Kutchuk-Kainarji (July 21, 1774) Russia obtained a vaguely-defined protectorate over the Orthodox Greek subjects of Turkey, and in 1781 she arrived at an arrangement with Austria, known as the “Greek project,” for a partition of Turkish territory and the restoration of the Byzantine empire under Constantine, the son of Catharine II. The outbreak of the French Revolution distracted the attention of the two empires, but Russia never ceased to intrigue among the Christian subjects of Turkey. A revolt of the inhabitants of Suli in 1790 took place with her connivance, and in the two first decades of the 19th century her agents were active and ubiquitous.
The influence of the French Revolution, which pervaded all Europe, extended to the shores of the Aegean. The Greeks, who had hitherto been drawn together mainly by a common religion, were now animated by the sentiment of nationality and by an ardent desire for political freedom. The national awakening, as in the case of Greek revolutionary activity. the other subject Christian nations, was preceded by a literary revival. Literary and patriotic societies, the Philhellenes, the Philomousi, came into existence; Greek schools were founded everywhere; the philological labours of Coraës, which created the modern written language, furnished the nation with a mode of literary expression; the songs of Rhigas of Velestino fired the enthusiasm of the people. In 1815 was founded the celebrated Philiké Hetaerea, or friendly society, a revolutionary organization with centres at Moscow, Bucharest, Triest, and in all the cities of the Levant; it collected subscriptions, issued manifestos, distributed arms and made preparations for the coming insurrection. The revolt of Ali Pasha of Iannina against the authority of the sultan in 1820 formed the prelude to the Greek uprising; this despot, who had massacred the Greeks by hundreds, now declared himself their friend, and became a member of the Hetaerea. In March 1821 Alexander Ypsilanti, a former aide-de-camp of the tsar Alexander I., and president of the Hetaerea, entered Moldavia from Russian territory at the head of a small force; in the same month Archbishop Germanos of Patras unfurled the standard of revolt at Kalavryta in the Morea.
For the history of the prolonged struggle which followed
see Greek War of Independence. The warfare was practically
brought to a close by the annihilation of the Egyptian
fleet at Navarino by the fleets of Great Britain, France
and Russia on the 20th of October 1827. Nine months
previously, Count John Capo d’Istria (q.v.), formerly
Independence
of Greece.
minister of foreign affairs of the tsar Alexander, had been
elected president of the Greek republic for seven years beginning
on January 18, 1828. By the protocol of London (March 22,
1829) the Greek mainland south of a line drawn from the Gulf
of Arta to the Gulf of Volo, the Morea and the Cyclades were
declared a principality tributary to the sultan under a Christian
prince. The limits drawn by the protocol of London were
confirmed by the treaty of Adrianople (September 14, 1829),
by which Greece was constituted an independent monarchy.
The governments of Russia, France and England were far
from sharing the enthusiasm which the gallant resistance of the
Greeks had excited among the peoples of Europe, and which
inspired the devotion of Byron, Cochrane, Sir Richard Church,
Fabvier and other distinguished Philhellenes; jealousies
prevailed among the three protecting powers, and the newly-liberated
nation was treated in a niggardly spirit; its narrow
limits were reduced by a new protocol (February 3, 1830), which
drew the boundary line at the Aspropotamo, the Spercheios and
the Gulf of Lamia. Capo d’Istria, whose Russian proclivities
and arbitrary government gave great offence to the Greeks, was
assassinated by two members of the Mavromichalis family
(October 9, 1831), and a state of anarchy followed. Before his
death the throne of Greece had been offered to Prince Leopold
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, afterwards king of the Belgians, who
declined it, basing his refusal on the inadequacy of the limits
assigned to the new kingdom and especially the exclusion of
Crete.
By the convention of London (May 7, 1832) Greece was declared an independent kingdom under the protection of Great Britain, France and Russia with Prince Otto, son of King Louis I. of Bavaria, as king. The frontier line, now traced from the Gulf of Arta to the Gulf of Lamia, was fixed by the arrangement of Constantinople (July 21, 1832). King Otto. King Otto, who had been brought up in a despotic court, ruled absolutely for the first eleven years of his reign; he surrounded himself with Bavarian advisers and Bavarian troops, and his rule was never popular. The Greek chiefs and politicians, who found themselves excluded from all influence and advancement, were divided into three factions which attached themselves respectively to the three protecting powers. On the 15th of September 1843 a military revolt broke out which compelled the king to dismiss the Bavarians and to accept a constitution. A responsible ministry, a senate nominated by the king, and a chamber elected by universal suffrage were now instituted. Mavrocordatos, the leader of the English party, became the first prime minister, but his government was overthrown at the ensuing elections, and a coalition of the French and Russian parties under Kolettes and Metaxas succeeded to power. The warfare of factions was aggravated by the rivalry between the British and French ministers, Sir Edmond Lyons and M. Piscatory; King Otto supported the French party, and trouble arose with the British government, which in 1847 despatched warships to enforce the payment of interest on the loan contracted after the War of Independence. A British fleet subsequently blockaded the Peiraeus in order to obtain satisfaction for the claims of Pacifico, a Portuguese Jew under British protection, whose house had been plundered during a riot. On the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey in 1853 the Greeks displayed sympathy with Russia; armed bands were sent into Thessaly, and an insurrection was fomented in Epirus in the hope of securing an accession of territory. In order to prevent further hostile action on the part of Greece, British and French fleets made a demonstration against the Peiraeus, which was occupied by a French force during the Crimean War. The disappointment of the national hopes increased the unpopularity of King Otto, who had never acquiesced in constitutional rule. In 1862 a military revolt broke out, and a national assembly pronounced his deposition. The vacant throne was offered by the assembly to Duke Nicholas of Leuchtenberg, a cousin of the tsar, but the mass of the people desired a constitutional monarchy of the British type; a plebiscite was taken, and Prince Alfred of England was elected by an almost unanimous vote. The three protecting powers, however, had bound themselves to the exclusion of any member of their ruling houses. In the following year Prince William George of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, whom the British government had designated as a suitable candidate, was elected by the National Assembly with the title “George I., king of the Hellenes.” Under the treaty of London (July 13, 1863) the change of dynasty was sanctioned by the three protecting powers, Great Britain undertaking to cede to Greece the seven Ionian Islands, which since 1815 had formed a commonwealth under British protection.
