Greece in the Nineteenth Century. A record of Hellenic emancipation and progress: 1821-1897 ... With map and 24 illustrations

Front matter

GREECE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY all saints' monastery, thessaly. [Frontispiece. Greece in the Nineteenth Century A RECORD OF HELLENIC EMANCIPA TION AND PROGRESS: 1821— 1897 BY LEWIS SERGEANT KNIGHT OF THE HELLENIC ORDER OK THE REDEEMER ; AUTHOR OF "NEW GREECE," &C WITH MAP AND 24 ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE All rights reserved [This volume, I trust, will explain itself. It is neither a history alto gether nor exclusively a plea, but it combines the features of both. It is also an accretion, for it includes as much as seemed to be worth repeating of a volume on " New Greece," published in 1878, and republished in 1879. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER . . . . .1 I. EUROPEAN INTERVENTIONS .... 30 II. PANSLAVISM AND PANHELLENISM . . .44 III. GREEK NATIONALITY .... 67 IV.

CAUSES OF THE INSURRECTION OF 1821 . . 81 V. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . . . 112 VI. THE APPEAL TO EUROPE .... 141 VII. EUROPEAN INTERVENTION .... 172 VIII. ESTABLISHMENT OF A KINGDOM . . . 200 IX. GREECE UNDER THE BAVARIANS . . . 217 X. REVOLUTION AND CONSTITUTION . . . 242 XI. GREECE UNDER KING GEORGE . . . 259 XII. THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN .... 281 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE xiii. the settlement disturbed . . . 308 xiv. material progress ..... 318 xv. greece and crete .... 340 xvi. education and literature .... 350 inoex ...... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ALL SAINTS' MONASTERY, THESSALY. (THE METEOR-MONASTERIES HELPED TO PRESERVE CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, AND SERVED AS RE FUGES FROM SURROUNDING BARBARISM) . Frontispiece REMAINS OF THE PARTHENON . . To face page 24 TOWER OF THE WINDS, ATHENS . . ,, 40 A MODERN GREEK TYPE . . . . ,, 54 VA1E OF TEMPE (THESSALIAN FRONTIER) . ■ ,, 96 DIAKOS : IMPALED BY THE TURKS IN THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . . . . ,, 114 KOLOKOTRONES . . . . ,, 121 THE PASS OF THERMOPYLÆ . . . ,, 145 MARKOS BOTZARIS . . . . ,, 160 SIR RICHARD CHURCH . . . . ,, 184 A MODERN GREEK TYPE (FROM THE CYCLADES) „ 212 METEOR-MONASTERIES IN THESSALY (s. NIKOLAS) „ 240 TOMB IN THE KERAMIKOS, ATHENS . . ,, 250 KASTRAKI (THBSSALIAN FRONTIER) . . „ 272 BYZANTINE CHURCH AT ARTA . . . ,, 306 PIRÆUS HARBOUR (QUAY OF SAILING BOATS) ,, 320 X ILLUSTRATIONS THE BATHS AT KYLLENE (MINERAL SPRINGS) .

To faCC paiJC 330 PLACE DE LA CONCORDE (ONE OF THE TWO PRINCIPAL SQUARES IN ATHENS) . • >> 342 AN EVZONE (GREEK REGULAR) . ■ ■• 346 THE ARSAKEION (GIRLS' SCHOOL BUILT FOR O I THE PHILEKPAIDE\TIKE HETAIRA BY M. ARSAKIS OF BUCHAREST) . . . ,, 352 THE OBSERVATORY (IN CONNECTION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS J BUILT BY BARON SINA THE ELDER, OF VIENNA) . . ,, 360 THE ACADEMY AT ATHENS (BUILT BY BARON SINA THE YOUNGER) . . . . „ 364 GEORGE GENNADIUS . . . . ,, 370 KONSTANTINOS PAPARRIGOPOULOS . . ,, THE EUROPEAN CRISIS IN 1897 THE story of the kingdom of Greece, and of its relations with the Great Powers of Europe, is one which not only claims repetition by its interest but absolutely demands to be pressed on the attention, and constantly brought up to date. For it is a story of crises, a succession of stages in the gradual solution of a problem ; and the problem is so complicated in its character that it would be foolish, if not useless, to enter upon any new stage in its solution without keeping clearly before us the results already ascer tained.

Chapter I European Interventions

The Eight of Intervention — Eecent Interventions, by Concert and by Single Nations — The Congresses of Laybach and Verona — National Enthusiasms — Intervention in Turkey — The Reconstruction of Turkey. WHEN we speak of the right or claim of Europe to make new dispositions of any part of the territory which composes this particular quarter of the globe, little else can be intended than that the Powers, acting in concert, may deal with facts and situations as they arise, in such a manner as may seem most for the benefit of the people affected by their decisions, or for the common benefit of the nations. These two objects are generally, but not always, coincident. In the very rare cases in w7hich it might seem right to overbear the will of a nation in determiningits future lot, we must at least expect to find a practical unanimity amongst all the remaining nations : and even then the ultimate advantage of the people thus constrained must be manifestly implied and assured in the advantage of the majority.

The constraint of an individual nation for the common weal of an economy of nations rests upon the same sanction as the constraint of the liberty of an individual for the common weal of a human society. No words can be needed to show that, without this practical unanimity, and without this sanction, any interference with the freedom of a people, uninvited or unprovoked, is a crime. It cannot be maintained that one or two Pow7ers, or even a coalition, would be justified in assuming the control of a nation's destinies for no better reason than that the nation in question was weak, whilst its possessions were coveted by its neighbours. But if, up to a certain point, the complete independence of a people within its own territories must be acknowledged, and if every people may justly claim to be "master in its own house," this can not preclude the right of a community of nations to intervene in the affairs of any one member of the community, when either this member is dis turbing the general peace, or its Government has become clearly and indisputably impotent.

It is no doubt fairly open to question how far the collective authority of a community like Europe ought to be systematised, or whether we should be doing wisely to set up an international court, extending its jurisdiction over nations, and an international police in order to carry out its decisions. But the rights of the majority must necessarily be para mount, however they ought to be exercised. There is probably very little difference of opinion as to the right which the Powers possessed in 1876, for instance, to intervene in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire, so long as they intervened in concert, and for the benefit of the several nations which consti tuted the subjects of the Porte. It is, perhaps, possible, in the absence of any distinct international agreement, or in times when the mutual understanding of the Powers has been weakened by the independent action of one or two of them, to justify the conduct of a single Power, or of a coalition, which intervenes in the affairs of a notoriously ill-governed State, in so far as its intervention is directed to the benefit of the oppressed nationality, and not to its own exclusive interests.

Such justification, however, is only possible on the ground that the intervention is bene ficial to the nationality relieved, and, through it, to the community of nations whereof it is a member. The principle of the mutual dependence of the associated nations is not necessarily violated by an intervention of this kind, even though the intervening State has acted nominally outside the general concert. Of the interventions in Europe during the past century, the present generation would probably be agreed that the majority were unjustifiable ; whilst there are instances in which it would hardly now be denied that the intervention of the European concert, though refused, was extremely desirable. The history of the suppression of Poland furnishes examples of intervention and non - intervention which seem to be almost equally destitute of jus tification.

The partition of the State by Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in 1772, rendered more effectual in 1795, was the source of many of the subsequent crimes and misfortunes of Europe ; whilst the later history of that ill-fated nationality furnished opportunities for the restraining influence of the majority of the Powers, which were either neg lected or used in a fashion too mild to be effectual. The settlement of 1815, which had left Cracow a free republic, and Central Poland a kingdom under the protection of Russia, was set aside in 1846 by the three parties to the treaty of 1772 ; and on this occasion it is true that the conscience of Britain, France, and Sweden revolted. These three Powers, with Turkey, protested ; and perhaps they would have done more to vindicate the right of nations if the swords of the aggressors had been less heavy in the scale.

Intervention might have been renewed in 1863 with more apparent hope of success, for Russia was then comparatively isolated. But Britain, for reasons which seemed to her sufficient at the time, stopped short of an effectual assertion of the authority of Europe ; and the Poles were once more left to their fate. The intervention of Europe in the affairs of revolutionary France was certainly unjustifiable in the first instance, and brought with it its own expiation. It was justified from the moment when the Republic became wantonly aggressive ; but in its origin it had no better excuse than the scandalous intervention of the Allies in Naples (1821) and Spain (1822). After the final defeat of Napoleon the vic torious Powers conceived a scheme, admirable from the point of view of the monarchs and statesmen of the time, by which the well-being of Europe was to be assured through their united action.

It was, in fact, just such a scheme of European concert and international police as theorists in every age have recommended for our adoption ; and its results may be accepted as a sufficient proof of the extreme danger of systematic intervention, or of any inter vention not absolutely demanded by exceptional circumstances. The Allies agreed to meet in Congress, from time to time, in order to take concerted action wherever it might seem advisable in the common interest. At Laybach, accordingly, in the year 1821, the representatives of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France determined to suppress the Liberal Government of Naples, and to assist the worthless Ferdinand in violating the Constitution which he had sworn to maintain. Britain had already grown sick of the compact into which she had entered.

Her representative attended the Con gress, but he was instructed to disagree with the decision of his colleagues, and to demand that no idea of self-aggrandisement should enter into the plans of the Powers. A year later the Congress of Verona pronounced the fate of Spain. The Spanish Ferdinand had shared the fate of his Neapolitan namesake — his subjects had dared to proclaim a Constitution, and the crowned heads of Europe saw in this fact a rebellion against the first principles of government, and a menace to civilisation. Such was the language of European statesmen little more than seventy years ago ; and the representatives of the Powers at Verona decided on another intervention. This time Britain spoke more boldly. Canning had succeeded Castle reagh at the Foreign Office, and, so far, the honour of the country was safe.

The Duke of Wellington — himself a conscientious opponent of popular reforms — declared that Britain would have nothing to do with an intervention in the internal affairs of other nations which would be more likely to prejudice than to promote the interests of those whom it professed to benefit. But the Congress proceeded without the concurrence of Britain, and France was made the instrument of this new oppression, as Austria had been of the first. The Duke d'Angouleine, with an army of 100,000, over-rode Spain, set the king on his throne again, and left 50,000 troops to keep him there. The results of this intervention were lament able in the extreme. In the wake of the army, which contained thousands of Liberal Frenchmen, the Spanish royalists turned upon the champions of popular freedom, and slaughtered them without mercy.

The outbreak of murderous passions was incomparably more fierce and sanguinary than the White Terror had been in France ; and, worse still, the unhappy country was doomed to half a century of impotent struggles for liberty, which, but for the Congress of Verona, it might have been to a great extent spared. It may be contended that the acts of these two Congresses prove nothing absolutely against the wis dom and value of a European concert, systematised into a kind of international court of arbitration. The concerted action agreed upon in 1815 was made an instrument of oppression in 1821 and 1822 ; but it had succeeded in 1818, when the Allies met the representatives of France at Aix-la-Chapelle, and anticipated the evacuation of that country by several years. Moreover, it was not strictly the action of the European concert which was at fault at Laybach and Verona.

The concert had ceased to exist. Such a concert, indeed, could not be held to be broken by the wanton and inequitable abstention of a single Power, any more than the judgment of a court in banco could be vitiated by the withdrawal of one of the judges. But a European concert in 1822 with out the concurrence of Britain was an absurdity. The decisions taken at Laybach and Verona in the years 1821 and 1822 were, therefore, anything but the decisions of a true concert. They amounted, virtually, to mere pacts between the representatives of four crowned heads, who resolved to trample on the liberties of nations in the interests of impotent monarchs. And, again, if it is attempted to argue from these examples that a serviceable European concert, established for anything more than a single specific object, is impracticable, and doomed to failure beforehand, it is sufficient to reply that the compact of 1815 was one in which absolute monarchs had the predominance, in obedience to whom the veterans of a quarter of a century of constant war stood ready to dragoon any part of Europe at a day's notice.

It might be very different with a concert of free nations, of enlightened republics like France and Switzerland, and of constitutional monarchies like Britain and Italy, in which the royal prerogative, when opposed to the will of the people in Parliament, is compara tively slight authority. A true concert of nations would rarely be deserted except by a Power anxious to engage in war ; and the worst motives and in centives to war are unknown in a land which has set its mind upon self-government. The self-government of an economy of nations demands much the same qualities as the self-government of a single nation, or of an individual. As these qualities are developed in individuals and in single nations they will become more and more applicable to economies ; and the main tendency of our time, however counter acted by reactionary lusts of war, is to develop these qualities in the fullest and widest sense.

Of interventions by one State, or a coalition of States, in the internal affairs of another, it would be far more difficult to define the justifications ; but no doubt the strongest one of all would be that the step should be taken in each case for the benefit, and at the request, of an oppressed nation struggling against an oppressor. Moreover, it must be taken only with the sanction of the community of nations, or at least after such sanction has been frankly and unre servedly asked. Indeed, we are compelled to fall back once more upon the broader question of the inter national concert ; for though a single State may under certain circumstances be justified in intervening, it cannot claim to be so justified until it has at least solicited a sanction of this kind. The solidity of European interests, for instance, plainly forbids the idea of an intervention against the will of the community of nations, if for no other reason than because such an intervention must necessarily affect the trade, the property, and the legitimate influence of each particular Power.

The practical wisdom of stipulating for the sanction of the community of Powers is manifest. The responsibility of deciding between a nation and its Government is occasionally very great. It is better that this responsibility should rest on the concert of nations than on a single State, or even on a powerful coalition. It is barely possible to conceive a case of justifiable intervention on behalf, and at the request, of a dynasty or Government against its people. A people cannot oppress its rulers ; in the event of hostility it is the privilege of monarchs and Governments to put themselves out of the way. The most familiar recent instances of such intervention by a single Power are those of Russia in Hungary (1849) and of France in Rome (1848), neither of which, we may suppose, would find many palliators in the present day.

As the world progresses tyrants have fewer opportunities of crushing their subjects, whether by their own strength or with the aid of a neighbour. In place of these interventions of royal cousinship wre now more frequently meet with a somewhat novel phenomenon in history — the intervention of one crowned head on behalf of the revolted subjects of another. It is a little remarkable that the same tyrannies which butchered the Hungarians and sup pressed the Roman Republic were amongst the first to turn their hands to work of a directly opposite character. Louis Napoleon cast off the Austrian yoke from Italy, and the son of Nicholas severed the chains of the Turkish rayahs in the Danubian States. There is, indeed, nothing new in the fact of one monarch espousing the cause of another monarch's subjects.

When wars were mainly dynastic or religious, the pretext of national deliverance was very commonly put forward, and wTith more or less of apparent justice. But the spirit of the past cen tury has been peculiarly favourable to the assertion of popular liberties, whether by internal revolution alone, as in France, or by the combination of internal revolution and external aid, as in Italy, or mainly by foreign intervention, as amongst the subject races of Turkey. The distinguishing feature, as well as the justification, of most modern interventions on behalf of oppressed nationalities consists in the generous enthusiasm of one people for another less free than itself ; and the intrigues of a Government can scarcely be justifiable when they are not based upon, and do not spring directly from, such a national enthusiasm.

A nation has much the same right to deliver a nation as an individual has to protect an individual ; and, when the nation speaks, its Govern ment is entitled — nay, bound — to act. But without this popular warrant it is very difficult to conceive a justification for the interference of a Government ; for under such circumstances the Government cannot be that of a free country, but must be actuated by dynastic and selfish motives. The world very rightly distrusts constitutions, and liberties, and deliverances, which are the gift of autocrats. Autocrats and tyrants exist under a virtual compact with each other ; they logically stand or fall together ; there is an honour amongst them, so that, when one departs from the recognised precedents and traditions, he is guilty of a certain treachery towards all the rest.

As no monarch can give his subjects a full measure of personal freedom without making himself the actual or virtual president of a republic, so no autocrat can take forcible measures to give liberty to the subjects of another autocrat without becoming a traitor to his order, and practically forfeiting his title to his own crown. The attitude of Russia towards Turkey in 1876 w?as a peculiar one in this sense — that, if the Czar was still an autocrat, he began his reign by giving a considerable increase of liberty to his own subjects, before he turned his attention to the subjects of the Sultan. The case fell between the two indicated above ; for though no one could call Russia a free country, yet the Russian people had displayed a generous enthusiasm for the Turkish rayahs, which at least testified to their own capacity for freedom.

And here we perceive a further complication in the problem ; for it is fairly open to doubt whether the Slavophil tendencies of Russia are not in great measure the creation of previous intrigues on the part of the Government. It is doubtful whether the former wars between Russia and Turkey — at all events prior to 1828 — were incited or endorsed by any pronounced sympathy of Russian subjects with the victims of Turkish misrule. However this may be, the war of 1877 had a better justification than those which went before it, on the precise ground that it was a popular war, based, at least in part, upon a generous popular enthusiasm. Passing to the reasons which, in 1878, warranted Europe in endowing Bulgaria, Greece, and Monte negro with a share of the possessions of Turkey, it must be observed that the sanction for such inter ference rested, in the first place, as already indicated, on the existence of certain facts, and of a certain situation which could not by any conceivable method be replaced by the facts and the situation of a previous period.

We could not, even if we would, have reconstructed the Turkey of 1875, obliterated the crimes and repaired the misfortunes of the Turkey of 1876, undone the victories of Russia over the Turkey of 1877. Assuming that the voice of Russia in regard to the future fate of the Ottoman Empire could have been silenced, and supposing that the Power which had silenced Russia's voice had invited Europe to revert, as far as possible, to the state of affairs established in 1856, what could Europe have done ? What the public opinion of Europe would not have suffered to be done, what TOWER OF THE WINDS, ATHENS. [To face p. 40. the mind revolts from as an impossible crime, is that she should have restored the direct rule of the Porte over the nationalities which it had failed to govern justly. It would be superfluous to enlarge upon the crimes of the Turkish Government, which it has either committed through its own volition or allowed to be committed through its impotence.

As well might the United States have attempted to restore the institution of slavery as Europe to rehabilitate the sway of the Porte over a province once emancipated. The thing was physically, as well as morally, impossible. The Turkish system wTas destroyed thoughout the provinces affected by the wars of 1876-8. The valis, the mutessarifs, the caimakans, the mudirs, had fled, or had been driven away ; the whole civil administration of the vilayets, the whole military organisation and the police of the country, so far as Turkish authority is concerned, were at an end. Not a pasha, not a bey, not a zaptieh, could return to his post and resume the power which he was wont to exercise. What Europe at large demands in the south-east is, above all, finality. It recognises the impossibility of such finality under the integral and independent sway of the Porte, it despairs of reconstructing Turkish credit, it has lost all confidence in Turkish government.

The Powers of Europe, therefore, had to face these facts and this situation. They were called upon to devise, in. concert, a new equilibrium in place of the old instability. It was a task not for one Power but for all. Unless this task had been undertaken by the European concert, and unless the Powers had agreed in lookingupon intervention as a GREECE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY duty, rather than as a matter of option, there could have been no reasonable prospect of finality in their deliberations. If any further justification had been needed for the constraint and control of Turkey by the Great Powers, beyond that which sprang from the actual condition of the empire, and the impossibility of restoring its former government, it was found in the appeal made to Europe by all the subject nationalities, which demanded their liberation from the Turkish yoke, basing their demand on the plea of oppressive and unprogressive government, which morality and history approve as a sanction of revolution.

An impotent government, revolted subjects of half a dozen nationalities, the absolute need of pacification from without, more than justified the states men of Europe in their acts of intervention. How7, then, were we bound to intervene ? Who was to rule where Turkey had failed to rule ? What ought to be the limits of our interference ? And, having regard to the desired finality, to what eventual disposition of South-eastern Europe ought we most to incline ? Evidently the guiding principle must be the restoration of liberty to the individual and to the nation. Nothing could be just, nothing in the nature of things could be permanent, except a Servia for the Servians, a Bulgaria for the Bulgars, a Greece for the Greeks. Europe did right in setting up the Principality of Bulgaria, perhaps more than right in assenting to the union of Eastern Roumelia to Bulgaria, certainly .less than right in refusing to Greece a part of Thessaly, most of Epirus, and the island of Crete.

But apart from the question of nationality, there are other and more general considerations which lead us irresistibly to prefer the aggrandisement of one particular Power on the shores of the Mediterranean, whenever and wherever it may be enlarged without doing violence to the principle of nationality. It seems most natural to conclude, on a careful review of the whole situation, that the best guarantee for the future peace and stability of South-eastern Europe is to be found in giving the fullest possible effect to the claims of the Greeks — not in the sense of extending their dominion over other distinct races, but with the policy, deliberately adopted and steadily carried out, of adding to the existing kingdom of Greece, as occasion may serve, every province, every city, every coast and island, to which the Hellenic race can establish so much as the semblance of an historical title.

Chapter II Panslavism And Panhellenism

Panslavism, its Origin and History— The Slavs in Europe- Russia's Claims to the Hegemony — The Panslavonian Committee — An Exposition of Types — Panhellenism — - A Greco-Slavonian State — Enumeration of the Greeks — Greek Preponderance on the Ægean. IT would be puerile for Europe, and above all for Englishmen, to sit down as mere spec tators in the great drama which is still to be played out before them, and expect that the right would triumph as a matter of course. That great principle of energy and motive-power which, under the name of Panslavism, is alleged to have instigated the Russian attack upon Turkey in 1877 — an allegation which is, indeed, a proved fact — is of necessity antagonistic to the cause of Greece. The antagonism may not even now be openly declared, but it exists, without the shadow of a doubt ; and its existence was revealed in the abortive treaty of San Stefano, wherein the Russians, in the first glow of their military triumph, carried the boundary of Bulgaria to the very shores of the Ægean.

That extravagant demand seemed to give the keynote of Panslavism, and opened the eyes of every friend of the Hellenic cause to the full extent of its danger. Panslavism and Panhellenism have found their point of collision, and it is one of the problems of the present generation to trace out their common boundary. It may be well to contrast the two with some attention to details. It is barely half a century since Panslavism had its birth as a new element in European politics ; and its origin constitutes one of those striking facts which — often trivial enough in themselves — illustrate the philosophy of history ; which seem to exhibit history as a distinct and sentient organism, self-conscious and avenging, exacting the expiation of every crime, and visiting the sins of fathers upon their children.

So far as can be ascertained, the word Panslavism, or Panslavonianism, was first used by the Polish in surgents after the revolt of 1846, in the hope of converting it into a weapon of revenge against Austria. A French historian* narrates the circumstances in which this fatal instrument of a nation's vengeance was forged. " The Marquis Wielopolski," says M. Martin, " had started in life as a patriot. In 1831, dispatched to London by the Polish Revolution, t he presented several remarkable diplomatic notes to Lord Palmerston. His efforts failed against the fixed policy of abstention adopted by the British Government. He returned to Poland much hurt by the desertion of his country by the whole of the West. When the revolution was at an end he did not emigrate, and for fifteen years he remained silent.

In 1846 the massacres of * Henri Martin, Pologne et Moscovie, p. 11, et seq. f The Duchy of Warsaw became a kingdom of Poland, under the protection of the Czar, in the settlement of 1815. The ten months' insurrection of 1830-31 ended in the conversion of the kingdom into a Russian province. Gallicia occurred. A document of sinister eloquence won the attention of Europe — ' A Letter from a Polish Gentleman to Prince Metternich.' It was by him. The opening was an outburst of indig nation and vengeance against Austria. The con clusion was this : that Poland, abandoned by the West, cannot deliver herself from her three oppressors ; let her give herself to the one who is Slavonian like herself ; let her abdicate, disappear in a vengeful suicide, and punish Europe by creating Panslavo nianism." Wielopolski was faithful to his idea, and discoun tenanced the rising of his fellow-countrymen against Russia in 1861.