Greece Was Only Peripherally Involved in the Napoleonic Wars, but One Episode Had Important Consequences

Greece was only peripherally involved in the Napoleonic Wars, but one episode had important consequences. When the French under Napoleon Bonaparte seized Venice in 1797, they also acquired the Ionian Islands. The islands were elevated to the status of a French dependency called the Septinsular Republic, which possessed local autonomy. This was the first time Greeks had governed themselves since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Among those who held office in the islands was John Capodistria, destined to become independent Greece's first head of state. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Greece had re-emerged from its centuries of isolation. British and French writers and artists began to visit the country, and wealthy Europeans began to collect Greek antiquities. These "philhellenes" were to play an important role in mobilizing support for Greek independence. Reign of King Othon (Otto) (1833–1863) When the 17-year-old Bavarian Prince Otto was installed by the London Conference of 1832 as King of Greece, he adopted the Greek name Othon. His troubled reign lasted for 30 years before he and his wife Queen Amalia left the way they came, aboard a British warship. During the early years of his reign a group of Bavarian Regents ruled in his name, and made themselves very unpopular by trying to impose German ideas of rigid hierarchical government on the Greeks. Nevertheless they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Othon was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, but he suffered from two great handicaps. He refused to renounce his Roman Catholic faith in favor of Greek Orthodoxy, and his marriage to Queen Amalia remained childless. This meant he could neither be crowned as King of Greece under the Orthodox rite nor establish a dynasty. The Bavarian Regents ruled until 1837, when at the insistence of Britain and France, they were recalled and Othon thereafter appointed Greek ministers, although Bavarian officials still ran most of the administration and the army. But Greece still had no legislature and no constitution. Greek discontent grew until a revolt broke out in Athens in September 1843. Othon agreed to grant a constitution, and convened a National Assembly which met in November. The new constitution created a bicameral parliament, consisting of an Assembly (Vouli) and a Senate (Gerousia). Power then passed into the hands of a group of politicians, most of whom who had been commanders in the war of independence against the Ottomans. Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the national question. The majority of Greeks continued to live under Ottoman rule, and Greeks dreamed of liberating them all and reconstituting a state embracing all the Greek lands, with Constantinople as its capital. This was called the Great Idea (Megali Idea), and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, particularly Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia. During the Crimean War the British occupied Piraeus to prevent Greece declaring war on the Ottomans as a Russian ally. A new generation of Greek politicians was growing increasingly intolerant of King Othon's continuing interference in government. In 1862, the King dismissed his Prime Minister, the former admiral Constantine Canaris, the most prominent politician of the period. This provoked a military rebellion, and Othon accepted the inevitable and left the country. The Greeks then asked Britain to send Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred as their new king, but this was vetoed by the other powers. Instead a young Danish Prince became King George I. George was a very popular choice as a constitutional monarch, and he agreed that his sons would be raised in the Greek Orthodox faith. As a reward to the Greeks for adopting a pro-British King, Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece. [edit] Reign of King George I (1864–1913) The expansion of Greece from 1832 to 1947, showing territories awarded to Greece in 1919 but lost in 1923 (click to enlarge) At the urging of Britain and King George, Greece adopted a much more democratic constitution in 1864. The powers of the King were reduced and the Senate was abolished. The franchise was extended to all adult males. But Greek politics remained heavily dynastic, as it has always been. Family names such as Zaimis, Rallis and Trikoupis occurred repeatedly as Prime Minister. Two broad parties existed: liberals, led first by Charilaos Trikoupis and later by Eleftherios Venizelos, and conservatives, led initially by Theodoros Deligiannis and later by Thrasivoulos Zaimis. Trikoupis dominated Greek politics in the later 19th century. His governments favoured protective tariffs and progressive social legislation. He competed with Deligiannis in promoting Greek nationalism and the Megali Idea. Greece remained a very poor country through the 19th century. Its only important export commodities were currants, raisins and tobacco. Some Greeks grew rich as merchants and shipowners, and Piraeus became a major port, but little of this wealth found its way to the Greek peasantry. Greece remained hopelessly in debt to London finance houses. By the 1890s Greece was virtually bankrupt, and poverty in the rural areas and the islands was eased only by large-scale emigration to the United States. There was little education in the rural areas. Nevertheless there was progress in building communications and infrastructure, and fine public buildings were erected in Athens. Another political issue in 19th century Greece was uniquely Greek: the language question. The Greek people spoke a form of Greek called Demotic. Many of the educated elite saw this as a peasant dialect and were determined to restore the glories of Ancient Greek. Government documents and newspapers were published in Katharevousa (purified) Greek, a form which few ordinary Greeks could read. Liberals favoured recognising Demotic as the national language, but conservatives and the Orthodox Church resisted all such efforts. When the New Testament was translated into Demotic in 1901, there were riots in Athens and the government fell. The Liberals promoted Demotic and the Conservatives promoted Katharevousa. This issue plagued Greek politics until the 1970s. All Greeks were united, however, in their determination to liberate the Greek- speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire. When war broke out between Russia and the Ottomans in 1877, Greece rallied to Russia's side, but was too poor, and too afraid of British intervention, to make much contribution. Nevertheless, in 1881, Thessaly and parts of Epirus were ceded to Greece as part of the Treaty of Berlin, while frustrating Greek hopes of rescuing Crete from Ottoman rule. Greeks in Crete continued to stage regular revolts, and in 1897, a Greek nationalist government under Theodoros Deligiannis declared war on the Ottomans. In the ensuing Greco-Turkish War of 1897 the Greek army was defeated by the Ottomans and Greece lost some small territories along the border to Turkey. Nationalist sentiment among Greeks in the Ottoman Empire continued to grow, and by the 1890s there were constant disturbances in Macedonia. Here the Greeks were in conflict not only with the Ottomans but with the Bulgarians (Macedonian Struggle), who also claimed the region, with its ethnically mixed population. The Cretan Greeks, led by Eleftherios Venizelos, rebelled again in 1908, provoking another crisis. When the Greek government led by Dimitrios Rallis refused to go to the rescue of the Cretans, the army and navy rebelled and forced his resignation in May 1909. Venizelos, a crusading Liberal, was brought from Crete to lead the revolt and in 1910 he became Prime Minister. Venizelos was to dominate Greek politics for the next 20 years. The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829), also commonly known as the Greek Revolution (Greek: Ελληνική Επανάσταση Elliniki Epanastasi; Ottoman Turkish: Yunan İsyanı), was a successful war waged by the Greeks to win يؤنان ئسياني independence for Greece from the Ottoman Empire. After a long and bloody struggle, and with the aid of the Great Powers, independence was finally granted by the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832. The Greeks were thus the first of the Ottoman Empire's subject peoples to secure recognition as an independent sovereign power. The anniversary of Independence Day (25 March 1821) is a National Day in Greece, which falls on the same day as the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. [edit] The Greeks under the Ottoman Empire The Greek Revolution was not an isolated event; there were numerous failed attempts at regaining independence throughout the history of the Ottoman occupation of Greece. In 1603, an attempt took place in Morea to restore the Byzantine Empire. Throughout the 17th century there was great resistance to the Turks in the Peloponnese and elsewhere, as evidenced by revolts led by Dionysius in 1600 and 1611 in Epirus.[1] Ottoman rule over Morea was interrupted with the Morean War, as the peninsula came under Venetian rule for 30 years between the 1680s and Ottoman reconquest in 1715, after the Turkish–Venetian War; the province would remain in turmoil from then on, as over the span of the 17th century, the bands of the klephts multiplied. The first great uprising was the Russian-sponsored Orlov Revolt of the 1770s, which was crushed by the Ottomans. The Mani Peninsula in the southern Peloponnese continually resisted Turkish rule, enjoying virtual autonomy and defeating several Turkish incursions into the region, the most famous of which was the Ottoman Invasion of Mani (1770). At the same time, a small number of Greeks enjoyed a privileged position in the Ottoman state as members of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Greeks controlled the affairs of the Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, based in Constantinople, and the higher clergy of the Orthodox Church was always Greek.

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