Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule From the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence

by David Brewer

  By the end of March 1821 the sparks of revolution had led to a general conflagration in the Peloponnese. In April the three main naval islands of Hydra, Spétses and Psará joined the rising, and on land it spread as far as northern Greece. The years of warfare that followed can perhaps be seen as a wave of three curves. First, an upward curve in the first three years from 1821, years mainly of Greek successes. Then a downward curve from 1824, of civil war and Greek reverses. Finally, after the battle of Navarino in 1827, a struggling upward curve of attempts to repair the ravages and dissensions of war, culminating in 1833 with the arrival of King Otho and the establishment of Greek independence.

  The curve of Greek fortunes was at first decidedly upward. They had two initial aims. One was to capture the Turkish fortresses in the Peloponnese. Most were on the coast, and the Greeks took Monemvasía and Old and New Navarino in 1821, and Corinth and Navplion plus Athens in the following year. The Turks were now confined to Methóni and Koróni in the south and in the north Pátras with the nearby castles on either side of the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. The one central Turkish stronghold was at Tripolis, the seat of Turkish government, and Kolokotrónis consistently urged the importance of taking it: if the Turks held it they could attack outward from the centre, without it they could attack only inward from the edge. Tripolis fell to the Greeks under Kolokotrónis’ leadership, amid terrible scenes of slaughter and destruction, in October 1821. The other Greek military aim was to block the passage of Turkish troops to the Peloponnese from the north down either side of Roumeli. On the west side they achieved this by persistent skirmishing, and on the east side by a victory near Thermopylae, where in 480 BC Leonidas and his 300 Spartans heroically resisted the Persians under Xerxes.

  In the war at sea both sides were initially on the defensive. One aim of Turkish naval strategy in 1821 was to provision their remaining coastal strongholds, and the other was to prevent other Aegean islands joining the revolution. In both operations they were harried with some success by ships from the three Greek naval islands, and the Greeks used fireships against them with devastating effect. But in 1822 the Turks became more aggressive in the Aegean, using excessive force to suppress revolt on Chíos. This left about a quarter of the island’s population dead and nearly half taken into slavery, and was condemned by Britain’s foreign secretary Castlereagh as ‘the most ferocious and hateful barbarism’.3 The one consolation for the Greeks was the night attack by a combined fleet from Hydra, Spétses and Psará on the Turkish fleet anchored off the main harbour of Chíos. Greek fireships destroyed the kapitan pasha’s flagship in a fireball that could be seen from Smyrna 50 miles away. The kapitan pasha was fatally injured and died next day, and nearly all on board his flagship were killed. In 1822 Turkish action on land also became more aggressive. They mounted a massive expedition under Dramali that moved into the Peloponnese by the Corinth isthmus, but Dramali’s troops were eventually forced to retreat. They were trapped and virtually destroyed in the narrow pass between Argos and Corinth by Greek forces again under Kolokotrónis.

  Kolokotrónis had by now been recognised as overall leader of the Greek forces. ‘It would be impossible’, wrote Thomas Gordon, ‘for a painter or novelist to trace a more romantic delineation of a robber chieftain, than the figure of Colocotroni presented; tall and athletic, with a profusion of black hair and expressive features, alternately lighted up with boisterous gaiety, or darkened by bursts of passion: among his soldiers he seemed born to command, having just the manners and bearing calculated to gain their confidence.’4 Kolokotrónis had no doubt of his own abilities: ‘If Wellington had given me an army of forty thousand,’ he wrote, ‘I could have governed it, but if five hundred Greeks had been given to him to lead, he could not have governed them for an hour.’5

  The outbreak of the Greek revolution created enormous interest abroad. Idealistic young men flocked to Marseille from as far north as Denmark to take ship for Greece. In the United States, prompted by an appeal from Koraḯs in Paris, large sums were raised for the Greeks, notably at a spectacular fund-raising ball in New York, and food supplies were shipped to them. Russians, from the Tsar and his court to humble peasants, contributed money for the relief of refugees and the ransoming of captives – though not for military supplies. In Britain the London Greek Committee was actively involved in arranging two separate loans for the Greeks, raised from private investors, and British support for the Greek cause was dramatically emphasised by Byron’s arrival in Mesolongi. But helpful and encouraging as these various initiatives were, Greece would ultimately need more direct help from foreign powers to achieve success.

  The first days of 1822 saw the establishment of the first provisional national government of Greece by a national assembly near Epídhavros, east of Navplion. It was essential for Greece to have a single national government. At the time of the Orlov revolt 50 years earlier there had been short-lived efforts to create such a national government. Now it was essential. If foreign powers were to provide support, diplomatic, financial or military, they would do so only for a government that could claim to represent the Greek people as a whole. Support would not be granted to the leader of a faction.

  The national government was made up of a Senate, elected by the people, to pass laws, and an Executive, appointed by the national assembly, to run the government and prosecute the war. The first president of the Executive, in effect the national president, was Alexander Mavrokordhátos, a Greek with a thoroughly west European background and outlook. There could hardly have been a greater contrast than between Mavrokordhátos and Kolokotrónis. Samuel Howe described Mavrokordhátos:

  His manners are perfectly easy and gentlemanlike, and though the first impression would be from his extreme politeness and continual smiles that he was a good-natured silly fop, yet one soon sees from the keen inquisitive glances which involuntarily escape from him, that he is concealing, under an almost childish lightness of manner, a close and accurate study of his visitor. His friends ascribe every action to the most disinterested patriotism; but his enemies hesitate not to pronounce them all to have for their end his party or private interest. Here, as is often the case, truth lies between the two extremes.6

  One of the aims of the westernisers in the government was to develop the small body of regular troops that already existed into a regular army, paid and controlled by the government and trained on western European lines. The military class thought otherwise, believing that irregular bands, operating as klephts had always done, were the best means of defeating the Turks.

  Western military methods were soon put to the test. In the summer of 1822 Mavrokordhátos led north towards the Turkish military base at Árta a mixed body of hastily trained regulars and philhellene volunteers from abroad. These were joined by some of the local captains and in mid-July, in a well-prepared defensive position at Péta within sight of Árta, they faced attack from a much larger Turkish force. Though the western tactic of holding fire until the enemy was close was initially successful, the outcome was total defeat for the Greeks. This confirmed the captains’ distrust of a regular army, and brought the end of widespread enthusiasm among foreign philhellenes to come and fight for the Greek cause.

  However, for the Turks it was the major defeat of Dramali in 1822 rather than their lesser successes at Péta and at Chíos that determined their cautious strategy in 1823. To send another army into the Peloponnese from the north would be putting the burned hand back into the fire, and in the course of 1823 not a single additional Turkish soldier entered the Peloponnese. This lull brought Greek dissensions out into the open.

  These dissensions became clear at the second national assembly, held near Navplion in April 1823, to restructure the government. At this second assembly, wrote a contemporary, ‘Everything was irregular, disorderly and alarming, and it was as rowdy as the first was tranquil.’7 The underlying conflict was between the civilian politicians and the military leaders, and it became overt in clashes between the Senate, whose pow
ers had been strengthened at the 1823 assembly, and the Executive.

  By the end of the year there were two bodies claiming to be the government of Greece. One, dominated by the politicians and representing the Senate, was based at Kranídhi, south-east of Navplion, and the other, mainly composed of the military led by Kolokotrónis and representing the Executive, was at Tripolis. It was the Senate that had the better title to being the legal government and its opponents were in effect rebels.

  The year 1824 was consumed in civil war between government and rebels, and the downward curve began. Byron reached Mesolongi in early January, and one of his projects was to attend a unifying congress of Greek leaders at Sálona near Delphi, but bad weather prevented him going. After little more than 100 days in Mesolongi Byron was dead, and we shall never know whether a combination of his charm, his perspicacity and his money might have mitigated or even resolved the civil strife.

  Money in fact reached the government in July 1824 from another source: the first English loan. Much of it was wasted. At the seat of government, wrote Thomas Gordon, there was ‘a continual bustle, civil and military adventurers, scribes, and parasites flocking thither, heaping adulation on the men in office, and gaping to catch some drops of the golden shower that was at their disposal’.8 But this new money strengthened the government’s hand, and in particular enabled it to induce captains in Roumeli to come to the Peloponnese in its support. By the beginning of 1825 the government was victorious and Kolokotrónis, with other leaders of the rebels, was in prison on Hydra.

  In 1824, while the Greeks were racked by internal conflict, the Turks had devised a much more coherent strategy. The Sultan called on the aid of his most powerful viceroy Mehmed Ali, pasha of Egypt, who in a twenty-year reform programme had transformed his country, in particular by the creation of an army and navy on European lines, trained by foreign military experts, particularly from France. The strategy was for Egyptian forces to destroy the three Greek naval islands of Hydra, Spétses and Psará and then, secure from attack by them, to invade the Peloponnese by sea from the south. The inducement to the Egyptians was that Mehmed Ali’s son Ibrahim, who was to lead the expedition, would be given the pashalik of the Peloponnese – once he had conquered it.

  The Egyptian fleet began this operation in the summer of 1824, and successfully took the smallest of the naval islands, Psará, but harassment by Greek ships prevented them doing more, and the onset of winter drove them back to Alexandria, where they intended to wait for spring before resuming operations. But this plan was brought forward: a French officer advised Ibrahim to forget about Hydra and Spétses for the moment, and not to wait for the spring. If Ibrahim crossed to the Peloponnese in the winter the winds would be too strong for the lighter Greek ships but would give his own larger vessels better manoeuvrability than in summer calms. Also the Greeks would not be expecting a winter invasion. Ibrahim took the advice.

  Thus at the end of February 1825 the first contingent of Ibrahim’s troops landed at Methóni, and the downward curve of the Greeks’ fortunes became steeper. The invasion did surprise the Greeks, who had made no preparations to resist it, and in any case they despised the Egyptians: ‘We will dig their graves with their own bayonets,’9 said the Greek soldiers. Greek confidence was wildly misplaced. By the end of May Ibrahim was master of the fortresses of Methóni, Koróni and Old and New Navarino, and by the end of 1825 of all the major towns of the Peloponnese except Navplion and the rocky stronghold of Monemvasía. Kolokotrónis, released from prison and appointed commander-in-chief of the Greek forces, could do little more than skirmish with Ibrahim’s troops on land. At sea a fleet from Hydra under Andhréas Miaoúlis used fireships to destroy seven Egyptian warships and a dozen other vessels at Methóni, and a Greek fleet under Konstantínos Kanáris even got into the Egyptians’ home port of Alexandria but did little damage. Neither of these exploits interrupted Ibrahim’s operations.

  During 1826 and 1827 Turkish gains continued. The last siege of Mesolongi had been begun in April 1825 by Reshid Pasha with troops from Árta in the north. At the beginning of 1826, with the Greeks still holding out, Reshid was joined by Ibrahim with troops brought in from the Peloponnese, and in April 1826 their combined forces took the town after a final and dramatic exodus by the Greeks.

  In June 1826 Reshid, after his success at Mesolongi, began a siege of Athens, which had been in Greek hands since 1822. Greek forces were assembled to support the beleaguered garrison of the Akropolis, under British commanders recently appointed in response to the crisis in Greek fortunes: General Sir Richard Church to command on land, and at sea Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane. At Athens, Church and Cochrane were expected to coordinate not only their own actions on land and sea but also the operations of the Greek captains under their nominal command. In neither were they successful, and in May 1827 a massive but disorganised attack on the Turkish forces besieging Athens was heavily defeated. The Greek forces and their British commanders withdrew, and a month later the Akropolis garrison surrendered.

  The Greek reaction to the Turkish successes following Ibrahim’s invasion was twofold: to seek help from abroad, and to reform the system of government. One form of help from abroad was already on its way: a second English loan was floated in London in February 1825, the same month as Ibrahim’s first landing in the Peloponnese. The money from this loan was not to be passed directly to the Greeks, to be wasted as much of the first loan money had been, but disbursed to help the Greek war effort by a board of control in London. The controllers used part of the loan to secure the services of Cochrane as commander of Greek naval forces, who demanded substantial pay for himself and a fleet of six expensive steamships to be built in England. One of these, after many engine breakdowns, reached Greece in September 1826, two more arrived later when the fighting was virtually over, one blew up during trials and two were never completed but left to rot in the Thames. The plan to build two frigates in the United States fared little better: in spite of help from the American government only one was completed, at a disastrously high cost.

  The Greeks sought political as well as financial help from abroad. In September 1825 a Greek delegation to London presented to George Canning, now Britain’s foreign secretary, an Act of Submission. This remarkable document stated; ‘In virtue of the present act, the Greek nation (éthnos) places the sacred deposit of its liberty, independence, and political existence under the absolute protection of Great Britain.’10 Canning, of course, had to reject it. It would have meant war with Turkey, a step that Canning was not yet ready to risk.

  The reform of the Greek government was prompted by the realisation that the present system was too cumbersome for these dangerous times. In particular the Executive could not be effective because it was hobbled by its dependence on the Senate. In April 1826 both were abolished and replaced by two temporary bodies: an eleven-man Government Commission to conduct the war, its edicts to have the force of law, and a thirteen-strong Assembly Commission to negotiate with foreign powers. In April of the following year a further step was taken: under a new constitution Kapodhístrias was appointed first president of Greece, though his powers were designed to be tightly restricted by the Senate. Kapodhístrias did not reach Greece until early 1828, and meanwhile the president’s duties were to be carried out by a three-man Vice-Presidential Commission, derisively described as a boy, a sailor and a cuckold.

  Thus by the summer of 1827 the Greeks were in utter disarray. They were heavily defeated on land, and their fleets could achieve little. Money from abroad was controlled by others, and much of it was misspent, while political support from abroad was refused. Their own government was ineffective, and attempts to reform it made it worse. It was the low point in the downward curve of Greek fortunes. They were not going to win without outside help.

  Appeals for such help had been made from the very beginning of the war. When the Greeks took the town of Kalamáta in March 1821 they immediately issued a call to the powers of Europe: ‘Greece, our mot
her, was the lamp that illuminated you and she now reckons on your active philanthropy.’11 Money arrived from abroad through the two English loans of 1824 and 1825, though in neither case was the money effectively used. Individual philhellenes came to Greece to support their cause, but governments were not prepared to move. The Quintuple Alliance of Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia and France was committed to maintaining the peace of Europe, and in any case all of them had at the time peaceful if wary relations with Turkey.

  The arbiters of Britain’s relations with Greece from the beginning of the war of independence were Castlereagh, foreign secretary until his death in September 1822, and Canning, foreign secretary from then until April 1827, when he briefly became prime minister until his own death in August. The two are often contrasted in character, Castlereagh as a cold fish and Canning as a charmer, and in 1809 they had actually fought a duel with pistols at dawn on Putney Heath (Canning was wounded in the thigh, Castlereagh was unscathed). Their policies too are often seen as contrasting, Castlereagh as champion of authority and Canning as champion of liberty, but this is a mistake. Neither wanted to be dragged into decisions by the Quintuple Alliance, and Castlereagh explicitly rejected the idea that the alliance should support established authority, however much that authority was abused. Castlereagh was if anything more sympathetic than Canning to the Greeks. ‘Ought the Turkish yoke’, Castlereagh asked, ‘to be for ever riveted upon the necks of the suffering Greeks? It is impossible not to feel the appeal.’12 Canning, however, wrote of the Greeks: ‘There is no denying they are the most rascally set.’13