Greek War of Independence (1821-1829): Freedom From the Ottomans

The Greek War of Independence was the revolt of Greeks against Ottoman rule that began in 1821 and led to the creation of an independent Greek state. Fought with great brutality on both sides, it drew in volunteers from across Europe and finally the navies of Britain, France and Russia. The new Kingdom of Greece, recognised in 1830–1832, was the first nation to break away from the Ottoman Empire and gain full international recognition.

Background

Most Greek lands had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the 15th century. Orthodox Christians were organised as a community under the Patriarch of Constantinople, paid higher taxes than Muslims and were excluded from many offices, though Greek merchants, ship-owners and administrators prospered in the 18th century.

The French Revolution, the spread of education and a growing interest in ancient Greece encouraged a new sense of Greek nationhood. Earlier revolts, such as the Russian-backed rising of 1770 linked to the Battle of Chesma, had failed, while the First Serbian Uprising showed that Balkan Christians could challenge Ottoman power. In 1814 Greek merchants in Odessa founded the Filiki Eteria (“Friendly Society”), a secret organisation that prepared a general uprising.

The revolt of 1821

In March 1821 Alexander Ypsilantis, a Greek officer in the Russian army and leader of the Filiki Eteria, crossed the River Prut into Moldavia. Russia disowned him, and his small force was defeated at Dragashani in June 1821.

The decisive rising came in the Peloponnese, where armed bands and local notables rose in late March 1821. Greeks traditionally date the revolution to 25 March, the feast of the Annunciation. The revolt quickly spread to central Greece and to islands such as Hydra, Spetses and Psara, whose merchant ships formed a rebel navy.

Violence against civilians marked the war from the start. Greek fighters killed many Muslim inhabitants of the Peloponnese, and when Tripolitsa fell in September 1821 thousands of Muslims and Jews were massacred. The Ottoman authorities hanged Patriarch Gregory V in Constantinople in April 1821. In 1822 an Ottoman force devastated the island of Chios, where tens of thousands of Greeks were killed or sold into slavery.

War, civil strife and Egyptian intervention

In January 1822 a national assembly at Epidaurus declared independence and adopted a provisional constitution. In July 1822 the guerrilla commander Theodoros Kolokotronis destroyed a large Ottoman army under Mahmud Dramali Pasha in the passes of Dervenakia. But rival leaders soon fought two civil wars between 1823 and 1825, weakening the cause.

Sultan Mahmud II turned to Muhammad Ali, the powerful governor of Egypt. In 1825 Muhammad Ali’s son Ibrahim Pasha landed in the Peloponnese with a modern, French-trained army and laid waste to much of the peninsula. The town of Missolonghi, besieged for a year, fell in April 1826 after its defenders attempted a mass breakout in which most were killed. Athens and its Acropolis fell in 1827.

At sea the Greeks had more success. Island captains used small, fast ships and fireships against the larger Ottoman vessels, and in June 1822 Konstantinos Kanaris blew up the Ottoman flagship off Chios in revenge for the massacre there. But the Ottomans destroyed the island of Psara in 1824, and by 1827 the Greek cause seemed close to collapse.

Philhellenes and the great powers

Across Europe and North America, educated people who admired ancient Greece, known as philhellenes, raised money and volunteers. Lord Byron spent much of his fortune on the cause and died of fever at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824. Eugène Delacroix’s painting The Massacre at Chios (1824) brought the suffering of Greek civilians before the French public.

Governments were more cautious, fearing revolution and Russian ambitions. But in the Treaty of London of 6 July 1827, Britain, France and Russia agreed to impose an armistice. On 20 October 1827 their combined fleet destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian navy at the Battle of Navarino. A French army landed in the Peloponnese in 1828 and oversaw the Egyptian withdrawal, and Russia defeated the Ottomans in the war of 1828–1829.

Independence and the new state

Ioannis Kapodistrias, a Corfiot diplomat who had served as Russian foreign minister, arrived as Governor of Greece in January 1828. By the Treaty of Adrianople of September 1829 the Sultan accepted Greek autonomy, and the London Protocol of 3 February 1830 declared Greece fully independent.

Kapodistrias was assassinated in Nafplio in October 1831. In 1832 the great powers chose the teenage Prince Otto of Bavaria as the first King of Greece, and the Treaty of Constantinople fixed the northern border on a line from Arta to Volos. The new state held fewer than a million people; most Greeks still lived under Ottoman rule.

Key people

• Theodoros Kolokotronis (1770–1843): a veteran klepht (mountain fighter) who became the most famous Greek commander, victor at Dervenakia and hero of the Peloponnese.
• Alexander Ypsilantis (1792–1828): leader of the Filiki Eteria, whose failed invasion of Moldavia opened the revolt.
• Alexandros Mavrokordatos (1791–1865): a Phanariot politician who presided over the first national assembly and defended Missolonghi in its first siege.
• Laskarina Bouboulina (1771–1825): a ship-owner from Spetses who commanded her own vessels in the blockade of Nafplio.
• Konstantinos Kanaris (c. 1790–1877): a fire-ship captain from Psara who destroyed the Ottoman flagship off Chios in 1822 and later served as prime minister.
• Ibrahim Pasha (1789–1848): commander of the Egyptian army whose campaign in 1825–1827 almost ended the revolt.

Myths and facts

A well-loved tradition holds that Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the flag of revolution at the monastery of Agia Lavra on 25 March 1821. Historians regard this scene as a later patriotic story: fighting had already begun in several places, and the date of 25 March was chosen for its religious symbolism.

The war is often told as a simple contest between Greeks and Turks. In fact many fighters on the Greek side, such as the Souliots and the islanders of Hydra and Spetses, came from Albanian-speaking communities, the Ottoman forces included Albanians and Egyptians, and the Greeks themselves were divided by regional, class and political rivalries that led to open civil war.

Legacy

Greek independence was the first major breach in the Vienna settlement of 1815 and a model for later national movements in the Balkans. The idea of uniting all Greeks in one state, later called the “Great Idea”, guided Greek politics for nearly a century. In Greece, 25 March is a national holiday, and heroes such as Kolokotronis, the fire-ship captain Konstantinos Kanaris and the naval commander Laskarina Bouboulina remain national symbols.

Timeline

• 1814: The Filiki Eteria is founded in Odessa.
• 1821, March: Ypsilantis enters Moldavia; revolt breaks out in the Peloponnese.
• 1821, September: Greek forces capture Tripolitsa.
• 1822, January: The assembly at Epidaurus declares independence.
• 1822, April: Ottoman forces devastate Chios.
• 1824, 19 April: Lord Byron dies at Missolonghi.
• 1826, April: Missolonghi falls to Ottoman and Egyptian forces.
• 1827, 20 October: The allied fleet wins the Battle of Navarino.
• 1829, September: The Treaty of Adrianople recognises Greek autonomy.
• 1830, 3 February: The London Protocol declares Greece independent.

Why it matters

The Greek War of Independence created the modern Greek state and showed that the great powers could be drawn into supporting a national revolt. It also gave Europe one of its first great humanitarian and cultural causes, shaped by poets, painters and volunteers as much as by soldiers and diplomats.