MODERN GREEK HISTORY

The Greek Revolution was one of the turning points of 19th century European history, as it was the starting point for the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which was in decline anyway.

Until 1453 the Greeks were part of the Greek-speaking and Orthodox Byzantium. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the Greeks effectively came under Ottoman rule.

Oppressed and enslaved, being aware of their differences in language and religion, they developed the perception of their national identity.
The uprisings were local in character, without organization and partnership, lack of foreign aid, etc.

As early as 1481 the Greeks tried many times to rebel without success.

The Revolution for Greece did not begin in 1821.
It started long before that.

When the ideas of the Enlightenment on the liberties and rights of peoples spread in Europe, the Greeks of the Diaspora, merchants and teachers of the Nation, the creators of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, embraced them and transferred them to the enslaved Greeks.
 

In essence, the flame for the Greek revolution was lit two centuries before it exploded.

It rallied around the common struggle of all Greeks, wherever they lived in Europe, rallied together all those who respected the Greek spirit and Greek culture, created the great and decisive current of Philhellenism, and led to the explosion of 1821, to liberation with the help of the Great Powers of Europe, in 1827 by the sea with the Battle of Navarino and in 1829 by land with the Battle of Petra.

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
 

The period preceding the Greek Revolution is an era of revolutions on a global level.

The War of American Independence (1776-83), the French Revolution of 1789, the march of Napoleon and the revolutions in Italy, Spain and Austro-Hungary marked a Europe that was evolving into a world in the throes of liberating revolutions.

It was in this climate that the idea of liberation was born and fermented.

The Greek population living within and outside the borders of the Ottoman Empire was a socio-economically and educationally heterogeneous group. It was therefore important to find a way to represent this group and lead the march towards the Revolution.

This role was taken over, in the first phase, by "the Neohellenic Enlightenment", an intellectual movement that spanned the period 1670-1821 and aimed at cultivating national consciousness, which would lead to rebellion and national restoration.

THE "FILIKI ETERIA" FLAG

The agents of the Enlightenment were the Phanariot rulers who took over the governance of the Transdanubian Dominions, the Church, and the wealthy merchants who lived in the Greek colonies abroad. Greek schools were founded in the commercial centers of the Ottoman Empire and the foreign colonies, where brilliant teachers taught, libraries and printing houses were established, while the Greek Enlightenment scholars educated the Greek race with their writings.
 

The most important Greek Enlightenment scholars were Adamantios Korais and Regas Velestinlis.
 

Through the Neohellenic Enlightenment and as the idea of rebellion matured and matured into a fierce desire, an organization was created with the aim of preparing and organizing the effort to liberate the Greeks from Ottoman rule.
 

“The Society of Friends” Filiki Eteria played a catalytic role in the preparation, organization and outcome of the Greek Revolution.

RIGAS VENESTINLIS
(FEREOS)

ADAMANTIOS KORAIS
 

RIGAS VENESTINLIS
(FEREOS)

RIGAS VENESTINLIS
(FEREOS)

THE BEGINNING PERIOD

 

The Revolution essentially began in February 1821 in the Danubian principalities by Alexander Ypsilantis and was strengthened in the Peloponnese the following month with the liberation of Kalamata (23 March) and the Proclamation of the rebellious Greeks to the European public opinion that they had risen for their freedom.

Prince Alexander Ypsilantis, a scion of a prominent Fanariot family and a high-ranking officer in the Russian army, assumed the leadership of the “Society of Friends” in early 1820.
His high position in the Russian army and society created the impression that Russia's help on the side of the Greeks was given.

In February 1821, Alexander Ypsilantis crossed the border between Russia and the Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) that belonged to the Ottoman Empire and entered Moldavia. In the capital city of Iasi, he issued the proclamation "Fight for Faith and Country", which is considered the official declaration of the Revolution.
 

During his short stay in Iasi, the first preparations were made for the collection of money and the formation of an army by Balkan volunteers who were gathering there, while other letters were issued, including one addressed to the Russian emperor.
 

On March 1st Ypsilantis departed from Iasi and crossed into Wallachia and towards the end of the month he was outside Bucharest to meet the Greek armed forces.

Ypsilantis raises the banner of the Revolution in Iasi

With a disparate army, formed on the go according to the turnout of local volunteers - many were unarmed or poorly armed - the lack of a serious war plan and the lack of support from Russia, the revolution seemed doomed before it even began.
 

The invasion of the Ottoman troops in the Dominions, with the permission of the Russian emperor, in order to suppress the uprisings led to the first serious defeats of the revolutionary effort, at Galatsi and Dragatsani in Moldovlachia (June 1821), with tragic consequences.
 

The superiority of the Ottoman army completely deconstructed the revolutionary troops (those who were not slaughtered or captured, fled) and Ypsilantis fled to Austria where he was arrested.
He remained a prisoner there until his death, after a few years.

In Peloponnese

Meanwhile in Greece, the long and organized preparation by the «Society of Friends» had ripened the conditions for revolt.

Focusing on the Peloponnese, which was characterized by a dense and homogeneous population of Greek Christians, a large number of Greeks with military experience (officers and soldiers of the British army on the Ionian islands, but also organized resistance groups in the countryside) and morphology (mountains and narrow passages) that did not favor the deployment of a large number of troops and their supply, the revolution started successfully.
 

While the initial plan had foreseen a simultaneous revolt in the Danubian principalities and the Peloponnese, in the end the development was different.
 

It was from the region of Moria, where the Friends' Society interest in the preparation of the Revolution was directed, that the majority of the local leaders had been initiated into the Society.
 

Information of an impending rebellion had alarmed the High Gate, which reacted by placing in the autumn of 1820 the famous Ηurshit-Pasha, a former great vizier and experienced in dealing with rebellions, in command. This fact caused the local leaders to hesitate as to the manifestation of the revolution.
 

In January 1821, the rebellion of Ali Pasha of Ioannina against the Sultan attracted Hursit Pasha with the largest part of the troops from the Peloponnese to Epirus.

At the same time, Papaflessas arrived in the area with the aim of speeding up the revolution, but he did not succeed in overcoming the reluctance of the local chieftains.

Grigorios Dikeos or Papaflesas

 The Tripolitsa fall

In the meantime, Kolokotronis was secretly returning to the Peloponnese and specifically to the region of Mani, which were not commanded by the Ottoman commander of the rest of the region but privileged by a Christian Mpei, who reported directly to the head of the Ottoman fleet.
 

At the same time war preparations began, which intensified rumours of a Christian revolt, and the Ottomans gradually began to gather in the fortified Tripolitsa and in the castles of other important cities.
 

The dynamics of the constantly escalating tension, the fear of reprisals and the pressure of the thieves and the Friends’ Society, led even the most hesitant of the leading groups of the Peloponnesians to declare the revolution in their regions and take the lead. Thus, in the last ten days of March, most of the provinces declared revolution, following and dragging one another along.

The two main revolutionary centres in the Peloponnese, at the beginning of the struggle, were established in the region of Achaia and Mani. Kalavryta in Achaia is the centre of revolutionary actions.
 

In Messinia, the rebellious Maniates occupied Kalamata and then headed for the fortresses of Methoni, Koroni and Navarino, where the Muslim population, alarmed and worried by the absence of most of the Ottoman forces, fled.
 

The initial surprise of the Ottomans led to panic moves that facilitated the spread of the revolution.
 

The war with Ali Pasha of Ioannina, which occupied a large part of the Ottoman forces, offered the Peloponnesians the opportunity to assemble and organise themselves.

Theodoros Kolokotronis

Kolokotronis' famous phrase "fire and axe to the worshippers" was the motto that dispelled fear and raised the morale of the revolutionaries in the first period.
 

The first victories on the battlefield, at Valtetzi and Doliana in mid-May 1821, demonstrated the prospects of the struggle.
 

Then followed the siege of Tripolitza, in which more than twenty thousand Muslim civilians and several thousand armed men were gathered, which lasted for several months, until the last days of September.
 

The capture of Tripolitsa in September 1821 consolidated the revolution and highlighted the strategic genius of Theodoros Kolokotronis.
 

The Fall of Tripolitsa lasted 3 days of slaughter of thousands of Ottomans, fires and destruction, being a key point in the development of the Revolution.
 

After the events there was no turning back and no ground for reconciliation with the Ottoman power.
 

The central slogan of the revolution, «Freedom or Death», was now acquiring a different dynamic, a stronger basis.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE REVOLUTION
 

The successes of the rebellious Greeks continued in Dervenakia, Gravia, but also at sea, where great sailors as Konstantinos Kanaris and Andreas Miaoulis were distinguished.
 

The fall of Messolonghi in April 1826 revived the philhellene movement in Europe and the Greek uprising took on international dimensions.
 

The contribution of the Great Powers to the liberation was decisive, especially with the Battle of Navarino in October 1827.
 

The Greeks continued to fight heroically until the last great battle of the Struggle at Petra in Boeotia, in September 1829, in which Dimitrios Ypsilantis distinguished himself.
 

During this period the strategic skills of Georgios Karaiskakis were highlighted, especially in the Battles of Arachova and in areas of Attica.
 

Meanwhile, the arrival of Ioannis Kapodistrias in Greece in early 1828 and his elevation by the National Assembly as Governor of Greece marked the beginning of the building of the new state.

Greek uprising took on international dimensions.

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