The beginning of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832)
Stefanos Katsikas, Associate Professor in Modern and Contemporary History, University of Cyprus
Fight for Faith and Fatherland! The time has come, O Hellenes. Long ago the people of Europe, fighting for their own rights and liberties, invited us to imitation … the enlightened peoples of Europe are occupied in restoring the same well-being, and, full of gratitude for the benefactions of our forefathers towards them, desire for the liberation of Hellas. We seemingly worthy of ancestral virtue and of the present century, are hopeful that we will achieve their defence and help. Many of these freedom-lovers want to come and fight alongside us … Who then hinders your manly arms? Our cowardly enemy is sick and weak. Our generals are experienced, and all our fellow countrymen are full of enthusiasm. Unite, then, O brave and magnanimous Hellenes! Let national phalanxes be formed, let patriotic legions appear and you will see those old giants of despotism fall themselves, before our triumphant banners.
Fight for the Faith and the Motherland, Alexander Ypsilantis’s Revolutionary Proclamation, Iaşi, 24 February 1821
Introduction
The Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453 and the subsequent collapse of the successor states of the Byzantine Empire marked the end of Byzantine sovereignty both in the Balkans and Anatolia (Asia Minor). Following this momentous event the region, with some exceptions, was henceforth ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The remaining Orthodox Christians were granted some political rights by their new Ottoman overlords, although they were still considered second class citizens. Moreover, the majority of these Orthodox Christians, including the Greek-speaking element, were called Rayah by the Ottomans. This was a name used to describe the large mass of non-Muslim subjects under Ottoman domination.
Jean le Tavernier, ‘The siege of Constantinople’ (after 1455)
In the ensuing years Greek intellectuals and humanists, who had migrated west before or during the Ottoman invasions, began agitating for the liberation of their homeland. Among them was Demetrios Chalkokondyles (1423–1511). He called on Venice and ‘all of the Latins’ to aid the Greeks against ‘the abominable, monstrous and impious barbarian Turks’. But the lands which later formed the independent Kingdom of Hellas (1832) were to remain under Ottoman rule for several centuries.
Demetrios Chalkokondyles (1423–1511)
It should be stressed that the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832) was not an isolated event, for there had been numerous failed attempts at overthrowing Ottoman rule or changing the status quo throughout Ottoman era. Indeed, during the seventeenth century in particular there had been considerable resistance to the Ottomans in the Morea and elsewhere. After the Morean War (1684–1699) between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, the Peloponnese came under Venetian rule. It would remain so for thirty years. Yet the Morea remained a tumultuous region throughout the period as bandits, anti-Ottoman insurgents and criminal groups gained increasing strength.
The first great uprising, and a major precursor to the Greek War of Independence, was the Orlov Revolt of February 1770 – June 1771 in the Peloponnese and Crete. Named after Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov (1737–1808), commander of the Imperial Russian navy during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, it was eventually suppressed by the Ottomans. After this uprising was crushed Muslim Albanians ravaged many areas within the Peloponnese as well as other parts of mainland Greece. The people of the Mani Peninsula in the southern Peloponnese, however, continually resisted Ottoman rule. They repulsed several Ottoman incursions into their region, the most famous of which was the invasion of 1770.
Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) and Greek uprisings
During the Second Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), the Greek community of Trieste financed a small fleet under Lambros Katsonis which proved a nuisance for the Ottoman navy. In addition, during the war guerilla fighters in mountainous areas came to the fore once more.
At the same time, a number of Greeks enjoyed a privileged position within the Ottoman state as members of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Thus Greeks controlled the affairs of the Orthodox Church through the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople since the higher clergy of the Orthodox Church was mostly of Greek origin and/or Greek-educated. Consequently, the predominantly Greek hierarchy of the Patriarchate enjoyed control over the Empire’s Orthodox subjects known as the Rum millet (‘Roman nation’). It should also be noted that from the early eighteenth century onwards, members of prominent Greek families in Constantinople, known as Phanariotes (after the Phanar district of the city), gained considerable control over Ottoman foreign policy and, eventually, over the bureaucracy as a whole.
The Beginning
In the winter of 1820–1821, the Ottoman sultan Mahmud II (1785–1839) sought to destroy Ali Pasha of Tepelena (1740–1822), the Muslim warlord who controlled much of what is present-day Albania and mainland Greece. This offensive was part of Mahmud’s efforts to restore the depleted authority of the Ottoman central government, which was then being challenged by various warlords operating in the Balkans, Anatolia, and Middle East.
Ali Pasha (1740–1822)
The military operations against Ali Pasha necessitated the use of substantial armed forces and focused the Ottoman’s attention on the areas adjacent to Ali Pasha’s territory. As a result the Ottomans left exposed areas prone to rebellion, particularly in the Balkans. This presented an opportunity for the Filiki Etaireia, or Society of Friends. A secret nineteenth-century organisation founded at Odessa in 1814, the Filiki Etaireia recruited widely from among the inhabitants of the Greek-speaking world, but also, broadly speaking, from the Christian Orthodox world. Their aim was purging the Ottoman rulers from the ‘Motherland’ through armed revolt.
Influenced by the revolutionary fervour gripping Europe at that time, the Filiki Etaireia planned to launch revolts in the Peloponnese, the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and Istanbul itself. Besides Ali Pasha’s revolt, two other factors created the necessary pre-conditions for an insurrection. Firstly, from 1821 to 1823 the Ottoman Empire was at war with Qajar Persia. Like the Ali Pasha revolt, this conflict engaged a significant proportion of the Ottoman armed forces. Secondly, Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia – that is the Great European Powers of the day – were united in their opposition to uprisings in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars (the 1820s was a decade of Revolution, notably the 1820 revolution in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as well as the Trienio Liberal in Spain).
The insurrection was planned for 25 March 1821, the Orthodox Christian feast of the Annunciation (known to the Greek Orthodox as Evangelismos). The symbolic date was carefully chosen since it helped promote the idea among Orthodox Christian subjects under Ottoman rule that the rebellion had divine approval and would therefore be successful. And just as Jesus’s birth had been foretold in the Annunciation, so it was hoped that a rebellion begun on that day would presage the birth of a new nation.
All the same, the Ottomans got wind of the Filiki Etaireia’s objectives, forcing its leadership to start their insurrection earlier than planned. On 6 March 1821 Alexander Ypsilantis (1792–1828), a prominent Phanariot, that is a member of Constantinople’s Orthodox Christian elite, as well as a high-ranking Russian cavalry officer and leader of the Filiki Etaireia, launched his small army across the River Pruth, which marked the border between Russian Bessarabia and Moldavia.
Alexander Ypsilantis (1792–1828)
Ypsilantis hoped to take advantage of a simultaneous uprising led by Tudor Vladimirescu (c.1780–1821), who had likewise served in the Russian army. This uprising by the Aromanian inhabitants of the Ottoman principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia was directed against the native boyars, that is the highest ranking aristocrats in the region. Although Vladimirescu had been in contact with the Filiki Etaireia, the Aromanians themselves showed no enthusiasm for making common cause with the Greeks. This was for historical reasons, since they associated the Greeks with the oppressive rule of the Phanariot hospodars (princes) of the region, who in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had ruled Wallachia and Moldavia as viceroys to the Ottoman sultan.
The uprising against Ottoman rule in Bucharest (August 1821)
Following the defeat of his ragged army at the battle of Dragashani on 19 June 1821 in Wallachia, Ypsilantis, accompanied by his brother Nicholas and what remained of his followers, was forced to flee into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But there the ruling Habsburg family kept him in confinement for seven years. Meanwhile, the invasion that he had spearheaded petered out.
The battle of Dragashani [Drăgășani]
The revolt in the Danubian principalities helped inspire the uprising in the Morea, where the Greek War of Independence began. As we have seen, this unstable region had been engulfed by war during the last years of the seventeenth century and was also prone to banditry. Further sporadic outbursts of violence took on the form of all-out revolt in March 1821. After vicious fighting, including atrocities committed by both sides, the Ottoman garrisons withdrew to their coastal fortresses. Thereafter, revolts broke out in central Greece, colloquially known as Roúmeli; Thessaly; Macedonia; and the Aegean islands (including Crete). But many of them were eventually suppressed. In the meantime, the insurgent’s makeshift fleet achieved success against the Ottoman navy in the Aegean Sea, thereby preventing Ottoman reinforcements arriving by sea.
By the end of March 1821 the rebels effectively controlled the countryside. For their part, the Ottomans were confined to fortresses. The most notable was Patra, which the Ottomans had recaptured on 3 April 1821. But there were others too, such as Acrocorinth, Monemvasia and Nafplio. The last was the provincial capital of Tripolitsa, to which many Muslims caught up in the rebellion had fled with their families at the beginning of the uprising. The rebels, however, lacked artillery. So these fortresses were loosely besieged by local insurgents under their own captains. With the exception of Tripolitsa, all these citadels had access to the sea and were thus able to be resupplied and reinforced by the Ottoman fleet. Success at sea was therefore vital for the rebels from the earliest stage of their insurrection.
The insurgents’ fleet was outfitted by prosperous islanders, mainly from three Aegean islands: Hydra, Spetses, and Psara. Although manned by experienced crews, the insurgents’ shops were nevertheless not designed for warfare. Indeed, they were equipped only with light guns and staffed by armed merchantmen. As a result, the insurgents used fire ships, the so-called called pyrpolika or bourlota which previously proved effective during the Orlov revolt of 1770–71. There were also conventional naval actions, in which commanders such as Andreas Vokos [Miaoulis] (1765–1835) distinguished themselves.
Attack on an Ottoman ship of the line near the island of Lesbos by a fire ship during the Greek War of Independence; painting by Konstantinos Volanakis (c.1837–1907)
Under siege from May 1821, Tripolitsa was finally seized by the rebels on 23 September of that same year – at which point the city was given over to the mob for two days. With the exception of Acrocorinth, which the Ottomans surrendered on 14 January 1822, the insurgents had thus succeeded in temporarily securing their positions in the Peloponnese and in Roúmeli as well as in the Argosaronic islands, some of the Cylcades, and Samos. As for uprisings in Crete, Macedonia and other locations, these met a fierce Ottoman response and were eventually crushed.
In future I hope to write a further post examining these uprisings in Crete, Macedonia and elsewhere, as well as tracing subsequent developments in the Greek War of Independence.