The geopolitics of the 1821 Greek Revolution

1 Introduction

The Greek Revolution (1821–1830) was a pivotal event with considerable long-term repercussions in European and Mediterranean history. This essay presents a macrohistorical interpretation of the Revolution based on the principles and themes of classical geopolitics and interstate antagonism. The macrohistorical approach is based on highlighting long-term trends in world and national history and repeated patterns related to population, culture, and geography. It examines the specific geographic, demographic, and anthropogeographic factors that contributed to the Revolution’s outbreak, course, and consequences.^[1] The essay also considers the founding principles of the Greek state as a great-power protectorate. It demonstrates that Greek independence was achieved in great degree due to the geographic position of the Greek rebels on a vulnerable periphery of the Ottoman Empire, where aggressive European states could project their sea power.

The Greek Revolution can be interpreted from at least two perspectives: political and geopolitical. On a political level, the Greek Revolution was an important event on the periphery of Europe between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of the 1848 revolutionary wave in Europe. This political perspective focuses on European domestic conditions and the reactionary principles of the Holy Alliance (1815). On the geopolitical level, the Greek Revolution (the first successful uprising of a Christian population against the Ottoman Empire) can be considered the initial phase of the Eastern Question, i.e. the attempt of Western European states to manage Ottoman matters and the succession of Ottoman rule in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.^[2]

The Revolution led to the creation of a de jure independent state that over the next decades would aspire to supplant Ottoman rule in the Aegean Sea, and beyond. In essence, the Greek Revolution was both a component of the so-called Age of Revolution in Europe and a major factor in the redistribution of power in the Mediterranean.^[3]

Classical geopolitics as a discipline emphasizes the hermeneutic importance of unalterable geographical factors, such as the position and geophysical formation of a state’s territory. On a typological level, state actors are distinguished between sea powers (actors), i.e. states able to project power in the seas, and land powers (actors), i.e. states whose manifestation of power is located on terra firma. The geopolitical dimension of a state and its respective typological categorization depend on its relation to a specific geographical area or its relationship with another, neighbouring state.^[4] Classical geopolitics also employs the fundamental principles of maritime and sea power.^[5] Maritime power as a concept pertains to purely military power (the navy and its military ports), while the term sea power carries a broader meaning, as it includes both military maritime power and the merchant fleet with its emphasis on trade and sea communications.^[6] The Greek population as a non-state actor that initiated the Revolution of 1821 had considerable sea power since the late eighteenth century, due to its geographical location, the geophysical formation of the Helladic region and the isles of the Aegean Sea facilitating sea trade, the existence of a significant merchant fleet, and the relevant expertise gained through both trade and piracy.^[7]

Specific geopolitical factors, analysed below, facilitated the success of the Greek Revolution in certain regions and contributed to its failure in other regions (especially the greater space of Hellenism outside the zone of rebellion, where Greek-speaking people resided or were established historically). The final successful outcome of the Revolution is linked to the geographical position and the coastal formation of southern Greece, as well as the decisive intervention of the European great powers during the Battle of Navarino (1827), which ensured a territorial political core for the rebels.

Ironically, the independence of the Greek state as a political entity was achieved due to the antagonism between Great Britain, France, and Russia. This pattern of interstate antagonism in the Eastern Mediterranean between these three powerful states for spheres of influence was exploited by the Greek side during the early nineteenth century.

The Kingdom of Greece was founded as a free state in 1830 and comprising the Peloponnese, Sterea Ellada (the continental mainland north of the Gulf of Corinth), and the islands of the south Aegean Sea. This is a region (featuring many ports, sea inlets, and an extended coastline) that is intrinsically linked to those hegemonic powers that were categorized as sea powers in the early nineteenth century: Great Britain, France, and Russia, to the extent that the latter projected power in the seas.

Sea power as the ability to exert pressure without the deployment of troops in risky land operations was employed by the three states against the Ottoman Empire after 1827, when the naval forces of the Great Powers contributed to the prospect of a Greek polity. The geographical position of Greece as a coastal area was thus essential for its final independence.

2 The geostrategic value of Greece in the Ottoman Empire

The continental part of Greece and the greater Aegean region were of considerable strategic and economic importance to the Ottoman Empire. In general, the Aegean Sea is the intermediate hub between the closed Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the semi-closed Adriatic Sea. Typologically, closed seas feature only narrow straits as their exits (examples of closed seas are the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea). Control of the Aegean Sea by a state actor facilitates strategic power projection towards the strategic focal point of the Black Sea Straits.^[8]

On a strategic level, Constantinople served as the geopolitical centre of the Ottoman Empire and a major economic hub at the juncture of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The greater region that comprised the Ottoman power core was western Asia Minor and the Black Sea Straits. Obviously, control of the Aegean by the Ottomans was essential for the safety of Constantinople, a city with multiple functions. Constantinople was simultaneously the administrative and financial centre of the Empire, as well as a religious and ideological centre as the seat of the Islamic caliphate. If control of the Aegean Sea was lost, then Constantinople itself would be dangerously exposed to an attack by the western sea powers, i.e. Great Britain and France, due to the city’s location by sea. Thus, control of the Aegean region was of great strategic importance for the Ottomans. These geopolitical elements of the Ottoman Empire would be clearly manifested during the Crimean War (1853–1856) and the Gallipoli Campaign (1915). These major events were interventions by the hegemonic sea powers able to project power (Great Britain, France) against the land power defending its coastal areas (Ottoman Empire).

On an economic level, the Aegean Sea was a major hub for trade between the ports of Asia Minor and western Europe, as well as between the Black Sea and Europe along the axis of the Mediterranean Sea. Since the late eighteenth century, Greek merchants and sailors based primarily in the islands of Hydra, Spetses, and Psara (in the central part of the Aegean) controlled the flow of goods and capital and trade between the Black Sea and western Europe. Accordingly, Greece was at the core of the vital trade routes across the horizontal axis of the Mediterranean Sea.

Due to the numerical superiority of the Greek-speaking Christian population in the southern part of the Balkan peninsula and the islands of the Aegean Sea, the Ottomans perceived this area as a potentially vulnerable periphery subject to an intervention by either the Russian Empire or the western European states. Finally, southern Greece and the Aegean Sea were the limit of Ottoman territorial control, as the Ottoman attempt to expand into the central and western Mediterranean had been effectively repealed already in the late sixteenth century.^[9] The Peloponnese (the Morea) was actually the southwestern frontier of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean Sea, and thus it required the presence of considerable troops garrisoned in major fortresses, such as Methoni and Tripolitza. Due to this strategic weakness, in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state had resorted increasingly to the use of Muslim Albanian-speaking irregulars (with devastating results for the subject Greek population).^[10]

Concerning the Greek population, before the outbreak of the Revolution, it resided in two major geographical zones:

1. the historical Greek space comprising the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, the isles of the Aegean Sea, Cyprus, western Asia Minor, Constantinople, and the Pontus region in the Black Sea; these regions were perceived by many Greeks to legitimately belong to a future Greek state. There are contradictory notions for the territorial extent, the ethnic makeup, and the character of the state.

2. the centres of the Greek diaspora in the urban centres of Egypt, the Danube principalities and the coastal urban centres and settlements of the north and western coast of the Black Sea. It is interesting to note that the Greek Revolution was planned in Odessa, in north-western Black Sea, then a part of the Russian Empire and begun in the principality of Moldavia before its development in Greece. Eventually, the Revolution was successful only in mainland southern Greece and the isles of the south Aegean. These regions formed the territorial core of the free Greek state after 1830.

Continental Greece is spatial fragmented due to the predominance of mountains, with small, isolated valleys and narrow roads. The particular characteristics of mainland Greece offered a relative degree of safety to the Christian population during Ottoman rule. The remoteness of the region and difficulty in establishing communications undermined large-scale Ottoman military ventures. Throughout the Ottoman period, Greeks would often attempt to reside a considerable distance from main trade routes, in order to avoid subjection to the Ottoman administration.^[11] This pattern is evident when one considers the high population concentration of Greeks in mountainous regions, which provided natural fortification, such as Souli, Zagori and Agrapha on the Pindos Mountain range, Kastoria in northern Greece, and Mani in the rocky southern Peloponnese.^[12]

The Balkan Peninsula is divided by two strategic and economic axes: the horizontal axis uniting Novi Bazar-Nyssa-Sofia-Plovdiv and the vertical axis uniting the port of Thessaloniki to Skopje and Belgrade in the Balkan hinterland.^[13] This vertical axis connected the Danube and Sava Rivers on the focal point of Belgrade with the port of Thessaloniki through the Vardar/Axios valley.^[14] The Ottomans effectively controlled the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, with the important exception of the mountainous inner region, which lay at a safe distance from the main trade routes and axes of communication. These regions were controlled by de facto autonomous Christian populations for centuries.^[15]

Control of mainland Greece by the Ottomans helped stabilize Ottoman control in the European part of the Empire.^[16] On an economic level, continental Greece was the southern coastal part of the Balkan Peninsula and was connected to the sea trade routes of the Aegean, thus being a part of the central economic region of the Ottoman Empire. This region (i.e. the economic heartland of the Ottoman Empire) comprised Constantinople as its major urban centre with its hinterland in Asia and Europe, as well as the greater region of western and central Asia Minor, where Eurasian land trade routes converged.^[17] The northern part of Greece included the vertical axis uniting the port of Thessaloniki to Belgrade and an additional horizontal geo-economic axis linking Thessaloniki to Constantinople via Kavala.

Since the late eighteenth century, the Orthodox Greek population was gradually perceived by the Ottomans as a possible strategic minority of the Russian Empire due in part to the common religious background of the Greek and Russian peoples. The Ottomans were conscious of contacts between the Orthodox Christians of the Balkan Peninsula and Russian authorities and the potential use of these populations as strategic minorities by the Russian side. In the early eighteenth century, the Ottoman authorities resorted to the disarmament of the Christian population in Macedonia and Thrace as a precautionary measure.

By the late eighteenth century, the Russian Empire had managed to obtain access to the Black Sea and could project power into the Aegean, at times calling on the Greek population to serve as a strategic fifth column (as it did in 1770). After the development of a coherent class of merchants and middlemen engaged with the trade networks of western and central Europe, Greeks were also perceived as acting under the influence of other states (e.g. France under Napoleon and Britain after 1815). The predominant role of Greeks in naval matters was made clear during the Revolution when the Ottomans were stripped of many of their best sailors and captains, who were of Greek origin.^[18]

The spatial dispersal of the Greek population in Asia Minor and its numerical inferiority in central and northern Greece reduced its potential degree of influence. Nevertheless, the Greek population had a considerable economic presence in the Aegean Sea since the late eighteenth century. Greek naval trade activities developed rapidly after 1770, further enhancing the diplomatic and cultural capital of the Greek population, as well as its ties to both western Europe and Russia.^[19]

Greek progress was facilitated by international developments. The landmark Kuchuk Kainardji Treaty (1774) granted Greek Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire various privileges, including the right to sail under the Russian flag during their maritime trade activities.^[20] Over the next decades, Greek merchants unified the economic space between the Black Sea and the Aegean.^[21] The economic presence of the Greek population also increased in continental Greece, where agrarian productivity had tripled with the introduction of new farming techniques.^[22] The general rise of the economy in Greek-speaking Rumeli was evident among both farmers and ship owners acting as carriers of agrarian surplus.

Conflicts on the eastern borders of the Ottoman Empire caused economic disarray and disrupted trade links connecting Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea.^[23] In consequence, the ports of western Asia and Egypt would gradually decline in economic importance. European merchants gradually shifted their presence from the markets of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt towards the Aegean Sea and Smyrna (a city with a vibrant Greek community) in the western part of Asia Minor. Relocation of trade routes also benefited the economic rise of continental Greece, both its coastal and inland regions.

Summing up, the geography of Ottoman Greece was intricately linked to its considerable economic and strategic importance for Ottoman interests in relation to the Balkan hinterland and the Mediterranean Sea.

3 The geopolitical environment before the Greek Revolution

An understanding of the conditions under which the Greek Revolution erupted (as well as its outcome) requires a comprehension of the interstate balance between the major powers. The main state (and proto-state) actors involved in the Greek Revolution were the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Empire, Great Britain, France, the Russian Empire, and Egypt (examined here as a proto-state entity).

The Ottoman Empire controlled the focal point of Constantinople on the juncture of two continents and two seas comprising two major economic axes: (1) the one uniting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea through the Aegean Sea reaching up to the ports of western Europe; (2) the one from the coastal western Asia, especially the ports of Syria, towards western Europe. After the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), the Ottoman Empire’s expansion in central and eastern Europe had been halted.^[24] On a geopolitical level, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Ottoman power receded on various fronts, as Ottoman military effectiveness in relation to its two major rivals, the Russian and the Austrian Empires, was significantly reduced due to the Ottoman inability to adapt to new technological and economic challenges.^[25] During the 1820s, the Ottomans often perceived the Greek rebels, officially categorized as reaya (tax-paying members of society), as a source of support for their main antagonists (the Russians).^[26]

The Austrian Empire with Vienna as its administrative centre controlled central Europe and parts of eastern Europe along the geopolitical axis of the Danube River. In the early eighteenth century, the Austrian Empire ceased its support of the Greek rebels and adopted a doctrine of preserving the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire as a counterweight to increased Russian expansionist ambitions and influence.^[27] After the outbreak of the Revolution in 1821, the Austrian response (developed under Prince Klemens von Metternich, Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Austrian Empire) was dictated by both political and geopolitical concerns. On a political level, support for the Greek rebels was perceived as a threat to the established legal order and the guiding ideological principles adopted by the European governments after the Napoleonic Wars. On a geopolitical level, the Austrians were worried that the Greeks as an Orthodox population with historical ties to the Russian Empire would facilitate Russian power projection into the Aegean Sea. Antagonism towards Russia was a major incentive for Austria’s initial hostility towards the Greek rebels.^[28] Still, when the prospect of a Greek polity seemed inevitable, the Austrian side preferred an independent Greek state to an autonomous polity that would be under the influence of Great Britain and France.^[29] After 1830, Austrian influence in Greek politics was mostly indirect and materialized through the Bavarian administrative elites.^[30]

The Russian Empire had gained considerable access to the Black Sea with the annexation of Crimea (1783) after the 1768 war and the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji (1774).^[31] The Black Sea (formerly a closed space under Ottoman control) was now a new frontier between the Ottoman and the Russian Empire, where the Russian side could exert strategic pressure with its war fleet complementary in support of the potential continental front in the Balkans. In the event of a naval battle in the Black Sea, the Ottoman capital itself could be threatened by landing forces, although during the Greek Revolution the Russians would be careful in the Black Sea front.^[32]

The Russian Empire instrumentalized the Orthodox Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire since the eighteenth century. Under Catherine the Great (1762–1796), Russia emerged as the protector of the Ottoman Orthodox Christians and used these populations as strategic minorities (especially in the Balkans, in regions where Christians formed the majority).^[33] The Russian side exploited Greek religious affiliation and messianic aspirations for its own strategic purposes.^[34] The Ottomans were conscious of contacts between the Balkan Orthodox Christians and Russia and the potential use of these populations as strategic minorities by the Russian side. In the early eighteenth century, the Ottoman authorities resorted to the disarmament of the Christian population in Macedonia and Thrace as a precaution.

During the Greek Revolution, the Russian side tried to maintain the fragile relations with the Ottoman Empire, already strained from regional tensions in the Danube Principalities and the Caucasus.^[35] The Russian side was at best ambivalent vis-à-vis the Greek Revolution, caught between its image as the protector of Orthodox Christians and its strategic balance with the Ottomans. Russia did not intervene in favour of the Greek rebels in the Danube Principalities, as was the initial ambitious plan of the rebels; instead, Tsar Alexander I (1801–1825) permitted the entry of Ottoman troops, which suppressed the forces of Ieros Lochos (Sacred Band), a group of enthusiastic Greek students.^[36] The Russians used the occasion to return their war fleet to the Mediterranean after a 20-year absence.^[37] The Russian side did not wish for an independent Greek state; rather the Russians preferred the creation of three autonomous principalities based on the model of the Danube Principalities that could be subject to external Russian influence.^[38] Russian officials had correctly realized that a fully independent Greek state with the southern coastal part of the Balkan Peninsular as its territorial core would inevitably draw closer to western sea-oriented states and lie under their strategic influence. Russia’s contribution to Greek independence was thus only indirect.

The Russian–Ottoman War (1828–1829) with joint pressure on the Balkans and the Caucasus front was essential in ensuring Greek independence. The capture of Adrianople and the collapse of Ottoman morale signalled a tangible threat to Constantinople itself.^[39] After the establishment of Greece as a state in 1830, the Russian Empire would project its influence by using the common Orthodox religious affiliation of Greeks and Russians.^[40] In the context of soft power influence, the unilateral declaration launched by the Bavarian Regency in July 1833 that the Greek Church would be autocephalous from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople caused fierce reactions by the Russian side, which sensed the danger of reduction of its influence.^[41]

Great Britain’s strategy in the Mediterranean Sea included control of focal strategic points, such as the choke point of Gibraltar (1704), Malta (1814), and the insular complex of the Ionian Isles (1815). Thus, Great Britain extended its strategic influence not only along the North Atlantic but also along the horizontal geostrategic axis of the Mediterranean. The British were sympathetic to the Greek rebels but were worried that the revolt would undermine the geopolitical balance and allow for Russian expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. The British leadership perceived the Ottoman regime an essential counterweight to Russian imperial ambitions. Thus, the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire was essential to avert Russian expansion and secure British interests.^[42] Gradually, British officials realized that a Greek polity on the southern part of the Aegean Sea could prove to be a valuable bridgehead for power projection.

Initially, the British side opted for the creation of an independent Greek state that would be of a limited territorial extent (consisting of the Peloponnese and the Cyclades).^[43] With such a proposal, London envisioned a Greek polity as an informal extension of the Ionian Isles (under British rule since 1815) to create a network of overseas coastal strategic beachheads. This maritime network comprising the Ionian Isles, the Peloponnese, and the Cyclades would effectively create a containing zone directed against the Austrian Empire in the Adriatic Sea, against the Ottoman Empire in the Aegean Sea, and possibly against France in the eastern Mediterranean. From the perspective of London, the limited size of Greek state territory would keep the Greek side dependent on the British and would not allow Greek orientation towards Russia.

Antagonism with the Russian Empire and the worrying prospect that Russia would obtain a dominating influence among Orthodox Greeks contributed to the British reorientation towards the idea of full Greek independence and not just an autonomous polity.^[44] Great Britain actively supported the Greek struggle on a diplomatic level since 1823. Still, the British favoured only an autonomous state, and they accepted full independence for the Greeks only after 1828, when the Ottoman defeat in the Russian–Ottoman war created the prospect of Russian control of the Straits or of the Balkan hinterland of Constantinople. After the establishment of the Greek state, Great Britain aimed to draw Greece in its sphere of influence. On a cultural level, the British helped establish the autocephalous Greek Church in 1833 in order to detach the Greek clergy and ecclesiastical structure from both Constantinople and Russian influence. Until the late nineteenth century, Great Britain favoured the preservation of the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against the expansion of Russian influence, from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf.^[45]

As interstate balance in continental Europe established after the Vienna Congress (1814–1815), France had gradually reoriented itself towards the Mediterranean Sea. French strategy in the Mediterranean included the creation of strategic beachheads as points of influence. In the decade following the Napoleonic wars, France aimed for the preservation of the status quo in the eastern Mediterranean. Before the Greek Revolution, France had aimed to preserve the interstate balance between Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire in order to avert the emergence of a disproportionately powerful state actor.^[46] After the outbreak of the Revolution in 1821, France actively supported the Greek rebels.

In 1828 a French expeditionary corps assumed the task of removing Ottoman garrisons from the Peloponnese. French military officers, scientists, and administrative personnel laid the basis for the development of the expansion of the study of Greek geography in the nineteenth century.^[47] In 1830, France invaded the Ottoman province of Algiers. The foundation of the Greek state offered France a chance of a new allied state that would oppose the British in the Mediterranean. On 29 October 1828, the Ambassador of France in Constantinople, Armand Charles Guilleminot (1824–1831), was instructed to develop French influence in Greece as a tool to counteract British sea interests in the Mediterranean:

If Greece is confined to the Peloponnese and thus too weak to defend itself, the new state shall be depended on the only Power lying close enough to provide immediate assistance. In this sense, Greece shall become the 8th island of the Ionian Isles [under British control]. If, on the contrary, Greek territory expands towards the continental part, the new state can be strong enough to unite itself someday with the Ionian Isles or to function as an instrument for other Powers which would wish to cause problems against England in this area.^[48]

France, eventually, would support the Greek cause, often competing with Great Britain for influence among the Greek population, as it attempted to project its influence in the eastern Mediterranean.

The last actor to be considered is the autonomous government of Egypt under the vali (governor) Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769–1849). Egypt is considered a proto-state actor in the Mediterranean whose strategic interests extended to the Aegean Sea. Egypt had adopted a Western modernizing model in its army and economy and had proved its military efficiency in the Arabian Peninsula by destroying the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818.^[49] With its military participation alongside Ottoman forces against the Greek rebels, Egypt’s strategic aim was the creation of strategic depth northwards. Egyptian plans included control of the southern Aegean Sea by annexing the regions of Crete and the Peloponnese.^[50] The independent character of the Egyptian pasha’s foreign policy during this period was manifested in the annexation of northern Sudan (1820–1824) and its later attempt to wrestle control the pashaliks of Syria and Adana (1833) from the Ottomans.^[51]

In general, the geopolitical environment before and during the Greek Revolution was initially unfavourable towards the Greek rebels. The endurance of the Greek rebels against both Ottoman and Egyptian opposition and the rise of interstate antagonism facilitated Greek ambitions for an independent state.

4 The Greek Revolution: Strategic choices, factors, and events

Of course, the outcome of the Revolution was not inevitable. There were two main alternatives concerning the future of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire.

The first choice was intricately connected to the Russian Empire, the traditional protecting factor of Orthodox populations in Ottoman territory. According to this view, Russian geostrategic pressure in the Balkan Peninsula, the Black Sea, and possibly the Caucasus could lead to the establishment of autonomy for the Christian population of the Balkans, following the example of the Danubian Principalities. This status of autonomy would form the initial level of political self-rule of the Greeks and would later evolve into full independence. This idea which was not totally unrealistic was promoted for a period by the Foreign Minister (1816–1812) of the Russian Empire Ioannis Kapodistrias, who would become the first head of state of Greece (1828–1831).^[52]

The second choice, advanced by Philiki Etaireia (Society of Friends) and Greek warlords, was the most radical, based on an armed rebellion for the establishment of a fully independent Greek state.^[53] According to this vision, the armed revolution would be based on the military expertise of Greek irregular fighters, the mountainous formation of continental Greece, and the dispersion of Greeks throughout the Ottoman territory. Such a situation would facilitate multiple fronts and coincide with the revolt of Tepedelenli Ali Paaha (1740–1822) in Epirus against central Ottoman authorities, thereby further distracting the Ottoman forces.^[54]

The so-called “General Plan” (Schedion Genikon) of the Philiki Etaireia, composed in 1820, adopted an ambitious scheme of controlling the European regions of the Ottoman Empire by mobilizing the various ethnic groups of the Christian Balkan population in a coordinated action across multiple fronts. The tactical objective of the plan was to consume the attention of Ottoman forces and wear them down before engaging in a primary general uprising.^[55] The plan focused on regions with a predominantly Greek-speaking population, as well as Danube frontier. According to the General Plan, there would be a simultaneous uprising of Orthodox Christians against Ottoman rule in Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro, as well as in Bulgaria. The outbreak of hostilities in Moldavia and Wallachia would draw the Russian Empire into the conflict. Complementary tactical considerations provided for the destruction of the Ottoman fleet, with the help of the Greek population of Constantinople.^[56] The plan was to cut off the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire from the power core of Asia Minor by destroying the Ottoman fleet and thus disrupting Ottoman logistics. Control of the Aegean Sea was also essential in this project, as it would hinder transport of Ottoman soldiers to the main areas of insurrection.

The Revolution first broke out in the Danube Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia), where the Greek-speaking Phanariot element acted as local political rulers. The Danube Principalities enjoyed an autonomous status under the joint suzerainty of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. There were no Ottoman garrisons in the region, and the deployment of Ottoman military forces required the previous approval by Russia, according to the Treaty of Bucharest (1812).^[57]

The Revolution opened in February 1821, when Alexander Ypsilantis (1792–1828), a senior officer of the Imperial Russian cavalry in charge of the Philiki Etaireia, crossed the Prut River from Russian Bessarabia in Ottoman Moldavia with his band of warriors.^[58] To garner support among the local Orthodox population, the rebels claimed to have the support of “a mighty power,” implying the Russian Empire.^[59] The rebels, aided by the complex terrain of the region, held out for 7 months, when their forces were suppressed by an Ottoman expeditionary corps of 30,000. The insurgency in the Danube ultimately failed due to ethnic tensions and conflicting interests between the Greek element and the Wallachian peasant rebels under Tudor Vladimirescu and Russia’s stance, which did not support the rebels as they had hoped.^[60]

The Revolution erupted in March 1821 in the Peloponnese, the southernmost part of continental Greece, and soon expanded to the islands of the Aegean Sea and other regions of continental Greece (Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace), as well as in Smyrna and Cyprus.^[61] The mountainous formation of continental Greece and spatial fragmentation in small valleys (interconnected by narrow land routes) facilitated the continuation of the operations of Greek rebel forces, by thus averting effective deployment of large Ottoman forces.^[62]

In the context of the Greek Revolution experienced warriors and able seamen took up the burden of the fight against numerically superior Ottoman forces. The warriors (klephts and armatoloi) were irregular militia with considerable war experience due to their constant strife and violent clashes and raids against the local authorities of the Ottoman Empire.^[63] Klephts clashed often with Ottoman authorities, while the armatoloi (in service to the Ottomans against their klephts compatriots) often shifted sides. Both groups practiced irregular warfare and knew of the capabilities and weaknesses of the Ottoman forces.^[64]

In general, this war experience would prove to be in the long run the most important aspect of the success of the Greek Revolution, as it led to the endurance of the rebel forces for nine long years until independence was assured as a prospect. The rural population of Greece was used to a tough life and thus was able to endure the hardships of the war, while the traditionally elevated religiosity of the Orthodox Greeks preserved the morale of warriors under stress and reinforced their collective identity, which was nurtured by centuries of messianic expectations, national and religious affiliations and the fundamental distinctions between Christians and Muslims, subjects and rulers.^[65] Orthodox clergymen and the local ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Orthodox Church in areas, such as the Peloponnese, participated actively in the Revolution.^[66] Pre-revolutionary localism as a consequence of the spatial fragmentation of Greece led to tensions among the Greek rebel factions culminating in two civil wars waged simultaneously during the struggle against the Ottoman forces.^[67]

The operational terrain of the Greek rebels included small isolated valleys and mountain passes such as Dervenakia, as well as the islands of the Aegean Sea. Focal areas of high strategic importance were Tripolitsa (a fort controlling the inland of Peloponnese that was captured early by the Greek rebels), Athens, and Messolonghi in western Sterea Hellas, a mountainous region in general that provided the necessary land strategic depth to the territorial core of the Revolution, the Peloponnese. For the Ottomans, Greek guerrilla tactics staged by rebels in cooperation with the local population posed a serious challenge and required maintenance of troops in multiple locations for prolonged periods amidst a hostile environment. The national dimension of the Greek Revolution effectively transformed whole areas into territories outside Ottoman control that would evolve into core areas of Greek proto-state structures. In southern Greece, where Muslims constituted a minority, the Ottoman authorities could not resort to mobilization of local military units among the Islamic population.

In the end, the Revolution would prove to be successful only in southern Greece due to two fundamental factors: population dynamics and geopolitics. In the southern part of Greece, the Orthodox Greek population was in the majority. There were 705,850 Greeks in Peloponnese, Sterea Hellas, and Euboia as opposed to 63,600 Muslim Turks. This demographic advantage of Greeks facilitated logistics and operations in creating a hostile environment for both Ottoman forces and loyal Islamic populations. In the isles of the Aegean Sea – except Crete, Rhodes, and Kos – the Greek population was also overwhelmingly majoritarian counting 366,200 Greeks in comparison to just 1,100 Turks allowing for the establishment of areas of rebel territorial control and unhindered continuation of the operations of the insurgency.^[68]

Concerning maritime power, which includes the merchant fleet and its potential strategic implementations, long-existing sea expertise of the Greek merchants and ship owners formed a valuable human capital. Greek seamen had gained fighting experience by resorting to piracy for a long period. The isles of the Aegean with their insular formation and Greek predominance in sea for a period secured supply lines in the southern Aegean Sea, at least until the actions of the united Ottoman–Egyptian fleet in 1825.^[69] The Greek fleet, composed of merchant ships turned into warships, managed to aid the land operations of the army against Ottoman garrisons averting relief by the Ottoman naval forces with the implementation of an effective sea blockade and denying of sea communications for Ottoman land forces active in mainland Greece. The converted merchant ships were inferior in fire power in relation to the Ottoman ships; Greek forces often used with considerable success fire ships, covert operations, and bold raids aimed to disrupt the deployment of the Ottoman fleet and demoralize the enemy.^[70] Still, the Greek fleet was unable to prevent the coordinated operations of the Egyptian fleet in the southern Aegean Sea and Crete, or previously the landings of Ottoman forces in various isles of the Aegean Sea, as was the case in Chios, Kassos, and Psara, which were destroyed by the Ottomans, or in the coastal areas of Chalkidiki and Magnesia.^[71]

By the end of 1821, the Revolution had stabilized in southern continental Greece and southern Aegean Sea with scattered areas of resistance in Crete, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Epirus. Over the next years, the circle of territorial extent of the Revolution would be reduced, especially in regions where the Greek population was not clearly the majority, as in Macedonia or Crete (160,000 Greeks opposed to 130,000 Turks in 1821) or in regions where it was not easy to supply the rebel forces (Epirus, Chios). In 1824–1825 resistance in Crete was suppressed, while Kassos and Psara, important ports used by the Greek naval forces, were destroyed by Ottoman landing forces. Since 1825 the Ottomans with the aid of the modernized Egyptian army and navy were constantly reducing the territorial extent of the Revolution limiting it to its initial core in the Peloponnese and the Cyclades. After the fall of Sterea Hellas and a great part of the Peloponnese, the Revolution seemed to enter its last death throes, until the maritime dimension and sea orientation of Greece as a geopolitical space reversed the course.

The intervention of Great Britain, France, and Russia against the joint Ottoman–Egyptian war fleet in the Battle of Navarino (October 1827) ensured a status of autonomous political rule for the rebels, still not yet the prospect of full independence. The Ottoman fleet suffered a great strike in both ships and personnel, losing many naval officers and experienced sailors. The joint fleet of the three European states enforced a blockade that prevented the Egyptian forces from receiving reinforcements and supplies, thus forcing the Egyptian withdrawal from the Aegean Sea and an eventual diplomatic compromise. Control of the Eastern Mediterranean by the European naval forces threatened the Egyptian side with a blockade of Alexandria, the naval base of the Egyptian fleet.^[72] As both the British and the French governments adopted a cautious policy concerning decisive action against the Ottoman Empire after Navarino, Greek independence remained a vague possibility.^[73]

An independent Greek state became a reality only after the Ottomans’ disastrous outcome in the 1828–1829 war with Russia. The prospect of an overwhelming Russian influence over the Greek population advanced the notion of an independent Greek state that would be connected to the Western states through indirect influence.^[74] Facing considerable geopolitical pressure near their power core – the geographical complex of Constantinople and the Straits – after their defeat in the Balkans by the Russians, the Ottomans chose to disengage from the vulnerable coastal periphery of southern mainland Greece.^[75]

5 Conclusion

The geopolitical consequences of Greek independence declared in 1830 would prove to be considerable over a long-term period for power redistribution in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, as Greece would be one of the primary agents for the final dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

In the early nineteenth century, before the territorial expansion of Greek territory achieved in various stages (1863, 1881, 1912–1913, and 1919), the limited territory of Greece contained its production capabilities and its economic and geopolitical dynamics; still, the new state maintained a highly ambitious policy, which was represented in the modernizing vision of the Megali Idea (Great Idea) to achieve the political unification of Greeks in historical Greek space.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Greece was the only sea power in the greater geopolitical complex of the Balkan Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as for a period the only Western-type state in the Eastern Mediterranean due to its connection with Bavarian bureaucratic traditions. The Slavic states of Serbia and Bulgaria, prone to the strategic influence of the major land power of the period – the Russian Empire – were inherently land powers, which could not project power towards the Aegean Sea or the Adriatic Sea. Therefore, despite its limited state territory, Greece held a significant comparative strategic advantage in relation to other states that claimed the European territories of the Ottoman Empire in the context of the Eastern Question.

The Greek Revolution had created a bridgehead of the western sea powers in the Aegean Sea, an advanced point of control and influence, with a potential power projection to the Dardanelles and the Bosporus Straits and even beyond to the Black Sea, as later events in the early twentieth century would prove. During the nineteenth century, Greece attempted to keep a balance between Great Britain, France, and Russia using their strategic antagonism to its benefit. After the Russian defeat in the Crimean War and the change of the monarch in 1863, Greece reoriented itself towards the major sea power, Great Britain, and would perceive itself as an extension of the dominant western sea power, a notion that survives to this day.^[76]