So in 1453 the city of Constantinople, capital
of the once-great Byzantine Empire (which, culturally was a Greek state) was seized by the
Ottoman Turkish Sultan, Mehmed the Conqueror. With the Byzantines gone, the Ottomans
were free to create an empire of their own by conquering the rest of Greece
(bar the Ionian islands which were ruled by Venice) and then by expanding farther
into Europe, Africa, and the Middle-East. But the Greek people, as you probably know, didn’t just go away after the Ottoman
conquest; they weren’t supplanted by the Turks. Instead they lived for centuries under Ottoman
control, continuing to speak their own language, maintaining their own cultural practices
and following their own religion, Orthodox Christianity. And at least to some extent, the
Muslim Ottomans left them to their own devices. Yet nearly four centuries later in
the early 1800’s, a new Greek State, the First Hellenic Republic arose out of
a revolution. But, why did the Greeks take so long to regain their independence after the
fall of Constantinople, and how did they do it? Well, in the direct aftermath of
Constantinople’s fall the Greek people, on the whole, accepted their lot as Ottoman
subjects. The Byzantine Empire had been on it’s way out for about two centuries at that
point. Greeks also saw economic success as a part of the empire as Ottoman domination of the
Eastern Mediterrean allowed for trade to flourish, and many Greeks, notably ones from
the Phanar district of Constantinople, were able to achieve high-ranking
positions within the Ottoman government. That government, like most at the time,
actually didn’t divide up its citizens by nationality though. Instead they were put
into groups, called Millets, based on religion. The Millet system was hierarchical
with Islam (the religion of the Turks) at the top. The Greeks belonged to the
Greek Millet, which was 2nd in importance only behind the Muslims, all though
that name is something of a misnomer because it included all Orthodox Christian
subjects of the Ottomans, not just Greeks. They were led by the Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople, the head Orthodox priest. The Patriarch held both civil and religious authority
over the Greek Millet but more importantly, certainly from the Ottoman perspective, he
was responsible for ensuring that Orthodox Christains remained loyal, and paid taxes, to
the Ottoman Sultan. Which was frankly not an easy job and more than one Patriarch suffered at
the hands of the Turks after Orthodox revolts. And there were definitely revolts. Sure,
the Greek Millet had some autonomy from the Ottomans but at the end of the day the Greeks
were still being ruled over by a foreign power. Orthodox Christians within the Empire paid
more taxes than their Muslim counterparts, their word counted for less than a Muslim’s
in a court of law, and anyone who renounced Islam after converting (as many Greeks, for a
variety of reasons, did) was put to death by the Ottomans. So, at no point during the centuries
of Ottoman rule was Greece ever fully pacified. The main culprits behind that were two
groups; the Klephts and Armatoloi. You see, when the Ottomans conquered Greece they easily
controlled the country’s plains regions, mostly near the coasts, but they had a much
harder time ruling the mountains inland. The Klephts were basically Greek mountain brigands
who defied the Ottoman state but preyed upon both Muslims and Christians alike. The Armatoloi on
the hand, were actually the same group of people, mountain Greeks, the only difference being that
instead of stealing, the Armatoloi were paid by the Ottomans to fight off the Klephts. Which sort
of worked, but one day’s Armatolos could easily be the next day’s Klepht or vice versa, depending
on whether there was more money to be made in robbery or by taking a paycheck from the
Turks. The key things to keep in mind are that both the Klephts and the Armatoloi were warriors
and neither were all that loyal to the Ottomans. To the Greek people though, especially
towards the end of Ottoman rule in Greece, the Klephts in particular became heroes for their
attacks against symbols of the Ottoman state. So, the first major Greek revolt took place
in 1770. Two years earlier the Ottoman Empire and Russia had gone to war (not, by the way,
for the first or last time) and the Russians, looking for a way to gain an advantage over the
Turks, turned to the Ottoman Empire’s Orthodox Christian population, including the Greeks.
The Russians were also Orthodox and they were increasingly acting as the protector of Orthodox
Christians living under Ottoman rule. Of course, one could argue that their interest was just a
mask for their own imperialistic ambitions in the Balkans and elsewhere, but either way as the
18th century drew to a close and the 19th began, Russia became a major player
in the affairs of Greece. So they sent a fleet under Admiral Alexy Orlov as
well as an expeditionary force of a few hundred soldiers, to instigate a Greek revolt in Morea,
southern Greece. Revolution also broke out on Crete, but the Cretan revolutionaries were mostly
left to fend for themselves by the Russians and they were eventually put down by a much larger
Ottoman force. Back on the mainland the Greeks, with their Russian allies, did have some
initial success and they took over Laconia, near the ancient city of Sparta. But they failed
to take over the more fortified north and east including the region’s administrative center,
Tripolitsa. At sea, Orlov’s Russian fleet won several battles against a much larger Turkish
one. Notably they won the Battle of Çeşme in July of 1770 and burnt over 60 Ottoman ships,
while losing only five of their own. However, while they dominated on the water, on land,
Russia failed to live up to its commitments to the Greeks. Their expeditionary force was much, much
smaller than what was promised to Greek leaders. And without that support, few Greek’s rose up
and the Orlov revolt was crushed by mid 1771. Still Russia, got what they wanted out of
it. Come 1774 a treaty ended their war with the Ottomans. Russia gained territory on the
Black Sea coast, in the Caucuses and Ukraine, they forced the Ottomans to relinquish
control of the Crimean Khanate (which Russia would later annex) and secured their
position as protector of the Orthodox faith. The Greeks on the other hand suffered
immensely. Besides still lacking a state, across the Ottoman Empire anti-Greek
massacres left cities in ruins and resulted in the deaths of thousands.
Orthodox bishops were killed left, right, and center for not preventing the revolt.
Remember that the Greek Millet, led by the clergy, was meant to keep Orthodox Christians
loyal. The Patriarch himself, Meletius II, escaped execution but was removed from his
position and banished. The next generation of Greek revolutionary leaders would not be so quick
to rely on Russia and instead turned to the west. However, the revolutionaries in Laconia and for
a short time on Crete as well, had established their own local Greek administrations, free from
Turkish rule, for the first time in centuries. And that brief taste of independence whetted their
appetite. Over the next 50 years Hellenism, a sense of Greek national identity, gained
considerable strength and by the 1820’s it had penetrated every level of Greek society,
including many in the clergy. This time around the Greek people both wanted independence,
and many more were ready to fight for it. In 1814 the Filiki Eteria,
or the Friendly Brotherhood, the secret society that planned the Greek
War of Independence was founded in Odessa, then a part of the Russian Empire, today in
Ukraine. It was led by Alexandros Ypsilantis, a Phanariot Greek who had fought for Russia
during the Napoleonic Wars. The Brotherhood’s plan called for Revolution in mid-March 1821, but
after Turkish authorities discovered the plot, Ypsilantis launched an invasion of Ottoman
Moldavia early. His force was quickly put down by the Turks and Ypsilantis was forced to flee to
Austria and he died there in 1828, but the plan he had put into motion continued without him. Revolts
broke out in Morea and central Greece in March, 1821. Within just over a year, the Greeks had
control over all of Morea, the land around the city of Athens and Crete. Tripolitsa had fallen
to the Klepht leader Theodoros Kolokotronis in October. The Klephts and Armatoloi made up
the backbone of Greek Revolutionary forces. In January, 1822, the rebels officially
declared Greece’s independence. However there were still some issues. For one, the
Ottomans had no intention of just accepting Greek independence. Just like in the aftermath
of the Orlov revolt, Greeks were slaughtered across the Ottoman Empire in retaliation for the
revolutionaries’ actions. This time Patriarch, Gregorios V, was hanged in Constantinople for
failing to prevent the revolt, despite having preached against it in his sermons. And in the
summer of 1822, the Ottomans counterattacked. They regained a foothold on Crete and attempted
to push south from central Greece to put down the rebellion once and for all. And they did
manage to briefly seize Athens, but the Greeks, under Kolokotronis’ command, repelled them
and retook the city by the end of the year. The Greek struggle drew a great amount of
sympathy, and aid, from Western Europe, but at least at first that support only came
from individuals, notably the English romantic poet Lord Byron, not governments. Byron, by
the way, would die in the city of Missolonghi in 1824. His death in Greece helped sway
public opinion in Europe to the Greek cause. Europeans who supported the Hellenic Republic,
called Philhellenes, essentially saw the Greek war against the Turks as an attempt at
reviving the ideals of Ancient Greece. Ideals, like democracy, that they themselves either had
or sought to have in their own lives. In short, many in Europe felt that they owed
a great cultural debt to the Greeks. Governments on the other hand, specifically
those of the United Kingdom, and France, were much more interested in preserving the balance of
power in Europe that had been established in 1815 after the defeat of Napoleonic France.
Something that a considerably weakened Ottoman Empire would’ve threatened, because Russia
was still eager to take control of the Balkans. Public opinion and a need to prevent Russia
from acting unilaterally would eventually change the Anglo-French position, but still European
powers wouldn't interfere in Greece until 1827. Unfortunately, the Greeks really could've used
that help earlier. Not one, but two civil wars between the newly established Hellenic government
and the forces of Theodoros Kolokotronis (who had gone a bit rogue) left the revolutionaries
vulnerable to attack. A vulnerability that was exploited by the Egyptians (Egypt was an
Ottoman vassal) who invaded Morea in 1825. By October, 1827 Missolonghi had been retaken
for the Ottomans as well as almost all Greek territory outside of Crete and Morea. But in
that year, Europe acted. A combined British, French and Russian fleet devastated the
Ottoman-Egyptain one at the battle of Navarino. At the same time, the Greeks, later with
the aid of a French expeditionary force, took Athens several Aegean Islands, and then
pushed north. They also fully conquered Crete. By the end of 1828 the Hellenic Republic and
the Ottomans reached a territorial stalemate, in no small part because that year Russia
invaded the Ottoman Empire and by August 1829 they had cut off Greece, and all of the Ottoman
Empire’s European territories, from the capital. In 1832 the London Conference, a negotiation
between the Great Powers and the Ottomans, produced the Treaty of Constantinople which
defined Greece as an independent Kingdom with these borders, notably they lost Crete. A Bavarian
Prince, Otto von Wittelsbach, was selected by the Great Powers and accepted by the Greek National
Assembly as King Otto I of an independent Greece. If you enjoyed this video don’t forget to
subscribe and hit the notification bell below so you don’t miss the next one. I’ll
be putting out more Greek history content in the near future which you’ll be able to
see by clicking on a thumbnail to the left, or if I haven’t gotten to that yet you can
check out another great video in the same place. And as always, I’ve been James and thank
you for watching Look Back History.
