The Greek War of Independence (1821-1829)

On September 14, 1814, a secret society called the Filiki Eteria (Friendly Society) was founded in Odessa by Greek merchants and politicians, including Nikolaos Skoufas, Emmanouil Xanthos, and Athanasios Tsakalov. The society, modeled on earlier revolutionary organizations and inspired by the Philhellenic sentiment that had emerged in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, was dedicated to the liberation of Greek-speaking lands from Ottoman rule. By 1820, the Filiki Eteria had acquired several thousand members across the Greek-speaking world and chose Alexander Ypsilantis, a former Russian officer and member of the Phanariot Greek aristocracy, to lead the revolt. The society's existence demonstrates that the Greek uprising, although it appeared spontaneous in 1821, had been carefully organized for years.

Location: Odessa, Russian Empire

The Greek War of Independence began on February 21, 1821, when Alexander Ypsilantis crossed the Prut River into Ottoman-controlled Wallachia and raised the flag of revolt at Iasi. Although the Wallachian uprising was eventually crushed by Ottoman forces, it provided the signal for a much larger revolt to begin in the Peloponnese on March 25, 1821. According to tradition, Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the Greek flag at the monastery of Agia Lavra, marking the start of the Peloponnesian uprising. Within weeks, the revolt had spread to Central Greece, Macedonia, and the islands of the Aegean. The uprising was characterized by violence against Ottoman civilians as well as military action; massacres of Greeks and Turks in the Peloponnese and elsewhere shaped the conflict from its earliest days.

Location: Wallachia and the Peloponnese

In late December 1821 and early January 1822, Greek notables convened the First National Assembly at Epidaurus, in the northeastern Peloponnese. The assembly adopted the First Greek Constitution and declared the independence of the Greek nation from the Ottoman Empire, formally establishing the First Hellenic Republic. The constitution, modeled partly on the American Constitution and partly on the French revolutionary tradition, established a complex system of executive and legislative organs and reflected the political divisions among the Greek factions. The new state, however, controlled only a fraction of the territory it claimed, and its authority was challenged both by Ottoman counter-offensives and by internal Greek civil conflict. The Epidaurus assembly marked the formal beginning of a Greek state, even if its actual power remained limited.

Location: Epidaurus, Greece

The western Greek city of Missolonghi had been besieged by Ottoman forces since 1822, and a series of Greek attempts to relieve it had failed. The English Romantic poet and Philhellene Lord Byron arrived at Missolonghi in January 1824 to join the Greek cause, but died of fever on April 19, 1824, before the siege was lifted. His death transformed him into a martyr of the Greek cause and energized Philhellenic sentiment across Europe. In April 1826, after the failure of Greek sorties, the defenders of Missolonghi launched a mass breakout; those who could not escape blew themselves up in a monastery storehouse rather than surrender. The fall of Missolonghi and the subsequent Ottoman-Egyptian advance under Ibrahim Pasha threatened to end the Greek revolt entirely.

Location: Missolonghi, Western Greece

On October 20, 1827, a combined fleet of British, French, and Russian ships under Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington entered Navarino Bay on the western coast of the Peloponnese and engaged the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet of Ibrahim Pasha. After a mistaken shot from an Egyptian fire ship, a full-scale battle erupted that lasted several hours. The allied fleet destroyed or captured the majority of the Ottoman-Egyptian vessels, effectively ending Ottoman naval power in the Greek theater. The Battle of Navarino was the last major naval engagement of the sailing-ship era. Public opinion in Britain, France, and Russia was divided: the three governments had been negotiating for an armistice rather than seeking battle, and the destruction of the Ottoman fleet was not their explicit aim. The battle, however, fundamentally changed the strategic situation in favor of the Greek rebels.

Location: Navarino Bay (Pylos), Greece

Following the Battle of Navarino and the failure of subsequent Ottoman diplomacy, the Russian Empire declared war on the Ottoman Empire in April 1828, ostensibly in pursuit of a separate set of grievances but in practice to advance the Greek cause. Russian forces crossed the Danube and advanced into the Balkans; a French expeditionary force landed in the Peloponnese. On September 12, 1829, Russian forces decisively defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Petra, opening the road to the Ottoman capital. On September 14, 1829, the parties signed the Treaty of Adrianople, in which the Ottoman Empire accepted Russian territorial gains in the Caucasus and the mouth of the Danube and recognized Greek autonomy under Russian guarantee. The treaty marked the de facto end of the Greek War of Independence, though the formal recognition of a fully independent Greek state would come in 1830.

Location: Adrianople (Edirne), Ottoman Empire

On February 3, 1830, the three Great Powers (Britain, France, and Russia) signed the London Protocol, formally establishing Greece as a fully independent sovereign state and placing it under their joint guarantee. The protocol set the borders of the new state, which at this stage included the Peloponnese, the Cyclades, and parts of central Greece but excluded Crete, Thessaly, Epirus, and Macedonia, territories with significant Greek populations that remained under Ottoman rule. In 1832, the Treaty of Constantinople formally defined the borders and recognized the sovereignty of Greece under its new king, Otto of Bavaria. The Greek War of Independence was the first successful national independence movement in post-Napoleonic Europe and became a model and an inspiration for subsequent nationalist and liberal movements across the continent, including those in Italy, Poland, and the Balkans.

Location: London, United Kingdom