Pasado Abierto. Revista del CEHis. Nº4. Mar del Plata. Julio-Diciembre de 2016.
ISSN Nº2451-6961. http://fh.mdp.edu.ar/revistas/index.php/pasadoabierto

Alexandra Sfoini
National Hellenic Research Foundation,
Institute for Historical Research, Greece.
alexsfin@eie.gr

Abstract

In post-Napoleonic Europe, where the Holy Alliance was dominant, the dogma of the legitimacy of sovereign governments ensured the status quo. The question about the legitimacy of the Greek Revolution, which broke out in March 1821, was put forward for discussion at the Congress of Laibach (January - May 1821). There, the monarchies agreed that the Greek Revolution was illegal, and their penmen condemned it as an offspring of the French Revolution, the 'monster' that had declared an all-out war against all legitimacy, supporting at the same time the Sultan as the legitimate sovereign of the Greeks. The issue, however, did not end there. The debate about the legitimacy of the Greek War of Independence continued with recriminations among its supporters and its opponents, while the Greek revolutionaries pursued the legitimation of the Revolution having on their side as an ally the mass philhellenic movement which demonstrated its support. The aim of this study is to present the arguments about this issue, the political positions and the stakes of each side, as these were formulated in contemporary foreign and Greek texts: documents, pamphlets, correspondence, the press.

Key words:Holly Alliance; Greek War of Independence; legitimacy; royalists; liberals; philhellenic movement.

La Guerra de Independencia Griega y el concepto de Legitimidad

Resumen

En la Europa post napoleónica, cuando dominaba la Santa Alianza, el dogma de la legitimidad de los gobiernos soberanos aseguraba el statu quo. La cuestión acerca de la legitimidad de la Revolución Griega, que estalló en marzo de 1821, fue presentada para su discusión en el Congreso de Laibach (enero-mayo 1821). Allí, las monarquías acordaron que la Revolución Griega era ilegal, y sus publicistas la condenaron como descendiente de la Revolución Francesa, el "monstruo" que había declarado una guerra total contra toda legitimidad, mientras apoyaban al Sultán como soberano legítimo de los griegos. La cuestión, sin embargo, no terminó allí. El debate sobre la legitimidad de la Guerra de Independencia de Grecia continuó con recriminaciones entre sus partidarios y sus oponentes, mientras los revolucionarios griegos procuraban la legitimación de la revolución que tiene de su lado como un aliado al movimiento de masas filohelénico, que les daba su apoyo. El objetivo de este artículo es presentar los argumentos acerca de este problema, las posiciones políticas y las apuestas de cada lado, formulados en textos contemporáneos extranjeros y griegos: documentos, panfletos, correspondencia y prensa.

Palabras claves: Santa Alianza, Guerra de Independencia de Grecia, Legitimidad, Realistas, Liberales, Movimiento filohelénico.

The Greek War of Independence and the concept of Legitimacy

The principle of the legitimacy of absolute monarchies was proposed in September 1814 at the Congress of Vienna as a guideline in Europe after the fall of Napoleon, who, as a non-absolute monarch, was perceived as a threat to the Restoration and the Holy Alliance. Metternich of Austria distributed Europe in accordance with the existing thrones, without taking into account the peoples’ nationality. The principle of hereditary legitimacy as an outcome of the divine will restored the omnipotence of the monarchs, who ought not only to maintain order and peace but also to leave the existing empires undisturbed, thereby ensuring the status quo (Würtenberger , 1982: 701-703).^[1]

In such unfavorable political circumstances in Europe, but also during the socalled “era of revolutions” (Hobsbawm, 1962; Palmer, 1959-1964; Armitage & Subrahmanyam, 2010), the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821.^[2] The war started initially in Moldavia (February 1821), where the Greek community flourished and the collaboration of the native population led by Tudor Vladimirescu had been secured. The war was led by the Greek prince Alexandros Ypsilantis, an army officer in the service of the Tsar of Russia Alexander I, after a long period of preparation undertaken by the Filiki Etairia, which operated according to the model of masonic lodges and secret societies. The demands of the Greek revolutionaries, as is obvious in Ypsilantis’s proclamation, were the Christian faith and the freedom of the nation, values associated, on the one hand, with the liberal European milieu, whose collaboration was eagerly expected (“many of these liberals want to join in order to fight together with us (…) you want to see those old colossi of despotism fall”), and on the other hand, with the ancestors: “So, let us invite freedom anew, oh brave and magnanimous Greeks, back to the classical land of Greece!” (Kremmydas, 1991: 67-82).

The revolutionaries insinuated that a great power would contribute to the war, namely, Russia, which shared the same religion. As a member of the Holy Alliance, Russia was not willing to cooperate, something made clear by the Greek Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Tsar, in his letter to Ypsilantis, where Filiki Etairia is denounced as a secret society whose aim is to undermine the authoritarian regimes. However, the same text acknowledges the existence of a Greek nation that aspires to its renaissance and liberation, which, however, should not be pursued “via rebellion and civil war”; therefore, the revolt in Moldavia did not justify a break with their ally, the Ottoman Empire (Philimon, 1859). Kapodistrias participated, as a representative of the tsar, in the Congress of Laibach (26 January – 12 May 1821), where the sovereigns and the representatives of the great powers met in order to examine the international situation and to deal with the revolutions that had broken out in Spain, Italy and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the decision of mainly Austrian politics that every revolutionary movement should be eradicated by the Holy Alliance was not countersigned by France and England, something which already threatened the allegedly seamless unity of the Holy Alliance (Driault, 1925: 129 ff.).

The Russian disapproval became known around the end of March, when Philiki Etairia started to take action. The Revolution was also condemned by the Patriarchate of Constantinople following the order of the Sublime Porte, and the revolutionaries were excommunicated by the patriarch Gregory V on 23rd March, when Ypsilantis and his followers reportedly invented “the satanic project of arousing the people”, which is opposed to the submission owed to the God-sent Ottoman Empire. Despite this condemnation, the Revolution broke out in southern Greece too. The manifesto of the Messinian Senate to the European courts (25th March) declares that the revolutionaries took up arms in order to defend their rights, and that they ask for the contribution of Europe, which ought to reflect on its debt to ancient Greece (Philimon, 1860).

The decision of the Holy Alliance and the condemnation of the Greek Revolution constituted an issue of recriminations in the press and in various pamphlets that were in circulation. In France, the view of conservative circles is expressed by the ultra (royalist) Comte de Salaberry in his essay (June 1821), in which he gloats over the decision of European leaders to condemn the revolutions that threaten the royal thrones. Salaberry, after enumerating the contemporary liberal revolutions in Europe, including Ypsilantis’s Revolution, characterizes them as offspring of the French Revolution, the “monster” that had declared all-out war against every legitimacy (Comte de Salaberry, 1821: 1, 2). Next, he stresses that the value of legitimacy is universally acknowledged and that Europe ought to enforce respect for it for the sake of Europe (Comte de Salaberry, 1821: 28). Focusing on the Revolution of the Danubian Principalities, he believes that the Ottomans have legal sovereignty in Wallachia and Moldavia from the moment that those peoples recognized the Ottomans as conquerors according to treaties in compliance with the public law. Respect for the value of legitimacy must be implemented in the case of the Ottoman Empire too, in the same way in which it is applicable to all European kingdoms. Even more so in the case of the Ottomans, who granted to the peoples of the Principalities, who were subject to tax, the right to practice their religion free and to elect their leaders. The privilege to be self-governed was lost, Salaberry points out, after their uprisings, when the Sublime Porte, from the beginning of the 18th century onwards, appoints Greek leaders from Constantinople (the Phanoriotes), who are their real oppressors (Comte de Salaberry, 1821: 3-11).

The condemning discourse about the illegitimacy of the Greek War of Independence had also its opposite side. To begin with, the conservative Greeks in the Tsar’s court attempted to differentiate the Greek Revolution from the Italian ones by emphasizing, first, the religious character of the war between Christians and Muslims, and, second, the fact that the Sultan was not the legitimate sovereign of the Greeks. Alexander Strourtza published his views in a pamphlet of 1823, where he maintains that the uprisings are legal only when the authority is abusive and illegitimate rather than paternal. The Ottoman rule is such an illegitimate authority not because it has conquered other peoples but because it does not recognize any right to the conquered, thereby leading them either to riot or to enslavement (Strourtza: 1823: 17-19).^[3]

From September 1821 onwards, the question of the legitimacy of the Greek war became the topic of a systematic dispute between the French publicists Henri de Bonald and Achille de Jouffroy, in the columns of the monarchic newspapers Journal des Débats και Gazette de France respectively. The moderate monarchist Bonald supports the legality of the Greek war of liberation against the Turks, who are not legitimate sovereigns but conquerors manu military that have “camped” in Europe. The Greeks, although conquered, maintained their language, their religion and their customs. Thus, the military occupation of the country does not entail legitimacy, for the latter presupposes peace, freedom and equality of rights among the peoples, something which is not the case in the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan is the legal sovereign of the Turks alone, who are his real subjects, although the Turks ignore the concepts of legitimacy and reason. Bonald differentiates between état légal, which has laws as every human community does, and société legitime, which is distinguished thanks to its civilization and Christianity, as is the case in European societies.^[4]

The ultra Jouffroy, after pointing out in his reply that the ideas of Bonald were applauded by the liberals, contends that the principle of legitimacy must be applicable in every society, provided that it is based on the public law, politics and international relations. Supporting a specific revolution as legitimate jeopardizes the established legitimacy and may lead to the danger of anarchy. The Ottoman government is as legitimate as every other, it has been recognized by the governments of Europe and has historical rights over the Greeks, who recognized the Sultan as their legitimate sovereign after their conquest.

The geographer Conrand Malte-Brun, an ex-liberal who joined the monarchists, intervenes in the dispute, publishing two articles in the newspaper Journal des Débats, where he suggests that the term légitimités nationales that he used in his book Tableau de l’Europe (Paris 1821) does not contradict the principles of monarchy insofar as it includes religion, state independence, territorial integrity, individual and collective property and all rights. The principle of legitimacy could be applied to the Greek case too, something which should satisfy the friends of monarchy, who would see European legitimacy stabilize and be extended to all the countries directly related to Europe, in particular because of religion. In Greece, although the Patriarchate declared obedience to Muhammad II after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the situation is illegal because the granted privileges are not valid any longer and the Greeks do not have rights. Thus, the Sultan is not their legitimate sovereign, and this is what ought to be emphasized if one wishes to help the Greeks rather than support their war in the name of revolutionary freedom and equality, which is what the liberals do, who hate the European governments. In any case, the armed intervention of the foreign powers is not justified.^[5]

When Greeks were informed about the condemnation of their revolution, they attempted to defend their fight which was still in progress in southern Greece after the defeat of Ypsilantis in the Danubian Principalities, and they promoted the view of the conservative French Philhellenes^[6] about the illegitimacy of the Ottoman regime as opposed to the legitimate Greek Revolution. Konstantinos Polychroniadis, in the autumn of 1821, published in Paris a pamphlet where he supports that the Turks were associated with the European public law through agreements rather than treaties. The Greek subjects are regarded as prisoners of war, not citizens, and the legitimacy of the Ottoman regime should not be equated with that of the European ones, as suggested by certain people who in this way approve of every conquest while undermining the struggles of Christian leaders to expel the Turks from Europe. What made the Greek Revolution worthwhile and rendered it legitimate was the fact that the whole nation rebelled not against a government demanding more liberties, as was the case with the Carbonari with whom the Greek revolutionaries were identified, but against their barbaric conquerors in order to defend the freedom of their faith and their national independence, but also in order to become one of the civilized nations of Europe (Polychroniadis, 1821: 27, 31).^[7]

The protagonists of the Revolution, such as Alexandros Mavrokordatos, president of the temporary government, who has been associated in the past with the English liberals and with Shelley in particular, adopt a stance that seeks to avoid confrontation with the contemporary European politics of the Holy Alliance, and that promotes the view of the conservative philhellenes and differentiates the Greek Revolution from other revolutions in Europe, especially the Italian ones. They were informed about this view by the press and the published pamphlets, and they were sometimes in contact with philhellenes such as Lord Thomas Erskine, who puts forward this view in a pamphlet of 1822^[8] , and reiterates it in his letter to Mavrokordatos in 1823:

The gap that the Greeks and the conservative philhellenes wish to establish between the Greek Revolution and those in Europe and America results in the affirmation of a certain distance between themselves, on the one hand, and the Filiki Etairia and the revolution in the Danubian Principalities, on the other; the latter revolution had been designated as a subversive one. One can see the distinction between the two revolutions, that in Moldavia and that in Greece, in the pamphlets of the conservative scholar Panagiotis Kodrikas, who lives in Paris as an employee of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kodrikas, who frequently refers to Bonald, designates the revolution of Moldavia by using the French word révolution, uses the term insurrection for the legitimate revolution of the nation, whereas he designates the uprising against a legitimate monarch a rebellion (Kodrikas, 1822: 21).^[10]

Although the monarchists are the most powerful in Europe, the voices of the liberals who support the Greek Revolution without exception can also be heard. This is the case with the ex-advisor of Napoleon, the abbot Dominique Dufour de Pradt, who is mentioned by Polychroniadis (March 1822). Pradt believes that Greece, where civilization makes progress in contrast with Turkey, revolted against the Ottoman empire encouraged by the wind of freedom and the revolutions that broke out across the world. In other words, he identifies the Greek Revolution with the other revolutions in Europe and America, which are democratic and dangerous for the monarchies of Europe (Pradt: 1822: 91, 108-110).^[11]

The Congress of Verona, held in autumn 1822 so that the revolutions in Spain, Italy and Greece could be discussed, did not agree to meet the representatives of Greece so as not to give the impression that it legitimates the Revolution, and went on to condemn the Revolution, although it ruled out the option of immediate intervention due to Kapodistrias’s intercession with the Tsar. The result of the condemnation was that the Greek leaders avoid being involved in political groups, as they attempt to be on good terms with monarchic Europe but also with the Philhellenes of diverse political shades. The primary goal of the Revolution is national independence and not “the transformation of the regime, whichever that may be”, clarifies Mavrokordatos (April 1822) (Protopsaltis, 1961: 133)^[12] , while Polychroniadis seems to agree on the election of the monarch, something which “may please the oligarchs of Europe and decrease their aversion to us” (Protopsaltis, 1961: 133). Nevertheless, during the war, the Greek government, with a view to honoring the ancestors, makes use of ancient names of the Greek democracy to designate its institutions, and the Greek constitutions were formulated having as their model the constitutions of the French Revolution (TsourkaPapastathi, 1989: 341-348).

The Greeks can now count on the support of the Philhellenes^[13] alone, who take action in favour of the Greek war by founding committees, by participating in war events (sometimes even by giving their lives as is the case with Lord Byron) and by publishing philhellenic texts in many languages (Droulia, 1974). Most of those texts were written in French, reflect on the causes behind the Greek Revolution and present the historical rights of the Greek case. Their rhetoric is based on reiterated arguments, stereotypes and motifs that circulated throughout Europe (Sfoini, 2013/2015). The discourse against the Muslims is associated with the question of the legitimacy of the sovereign, which is one of the major topics in the pamphlets.

Already in July 1821, the Appel aux Grecs by the Greek scholar Adamantios Korais who lived in Paris, had been translated into French together with the proclamation by Ypsilantis. The royalist translator baron Guerrier de Dumast underlines in his introduction that, firstly, the idea of legitimacy “never crossed a Turkish mind”, and that it is thanks to the Holy Alliance that “the great Turk became legitimate”, and secondly, that in the Greek case there was not a divergence between different classes within a nation; in other words, there was not a revolution but a solid resistance of the whole nation against the foreigners, and finally, in contrast with other revolutions, religion and freedom here, “those two sacred names are united” (Korais, 1821: 10-13). ^[14] The liberal Jules David believes that in the land of freedom there is no place for slavery, insofar as the latter does not constitute a right or a legitimate state of political affairs. He also distinguishes liberté civile from indépendance nationale without which no liberty can exist (David, 1821: 9).^[15] The German professor of philosophy in Leipzig Wilhelm Traugott Krug, one of the first Philhellenes (Quack-Eustathiades, 1984: 21 ff.), suggests that the power of the Turks that made Europe tremble belongs now to the past. The Sultans do not undertake military campaigns any longer but spend their days in the harem; their sovereignty is not legitimate, it is usurpation. What kind of legitimacy can the Sultan have who is the illegitimate offspring of illegitimate ancestors?^[16] The liberal Benjamin Constant, while criticizing monarchy, wonders what kind of legality can the Ottoman despotism have when succession is based on patricide, fratricide, the riots of soldiers and the revolts of the mob (Constant: 1825: 15). ^[17] The ex Feuillant and now defender of the monarchy Charles Lacretelle, in his speech presented to the Société Royale des Bonnes Lettres, expressed a similar concern, touching on the question of the legitimacy of Asian despotism (Lacretelle, 1825: 4-6). ^[18]

Some Philhellenes went as far as to propose a new Crusade of Christian kings against the Sultan, which crusade would liberate the Greeks and would differentiate itself from the old Crusade and its aspirations of conquest (Viennet, 1821: 3, 10, 23). ^[19] Malte-Brun is a supporter of the new Crusade too. In his essay, legitimacy is defined as the “continuous and inviolable transfer of specific properties, of certain rights which pre-exist the laws, which the social forces cannot abolish but to which they should, on the contrary, be adapted” (Malte-Brun, 1824: 12).^[20] In the case of enslaved peoples, there is one sovereign ruler, whereas in the case of free nations, the natural legitimacy belongs to the nation itself that elects its own government. Greece was not a recognized nation so it could not ask for the help of the Christian kings who had signed treaties with the Ottomans. Greece was an enslaved nation that never legally integrated into the society of conquest; its people had no human rights and they were not a rebellious people (Malte-Brun, 1824: 276 ff.).

The Romantic writer Réné de Chateaubriand, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the conservative government Villèle, having significant influence on monarchist circles, undergoes a political conversion after being removed from his post. In his appeal in favour of the Greeks (1825), he suggests that the Greek nation, which was not politically integrated into the Ottoman Empire, is not based on any of the conditions which associate the subjects with the sovereigns and the sovereigns with the subjects. The Muslims alone are the legal subjects of the Sultan, while the Greeks are just slaves without rights, insofar as there is no legal slavery. That is precisely why they cannot be regarded as rebels (Chateaubriand, 1825: 10-11, 19).^[21] According to Chateaubriand, the claim of Europe that it is legally bound to the Sublime Porte through treaties and that it cannot undertake a war against the Porte is not valid; the whole of Europe could just demand that the Sultan should grant the Greeks’ just requests and should stop a war that exterminates Christians and damages commercial relations and interests. The recognition of the autonomy of Greece by Europe would force the Sultan to do the same. The liberation of Greece is a generalized desire fuelled by the association with ancient Greece and philhellenism (Chateaubriand, 1825: 22).

Summing up the argumentation about the legitimacy of the Greek War of Independence, we can identify three groups:

A. The ultras regard the Greek Revolution as an offshoot of the French Revolution and identify it with the revolutions in Europe and America, which are democratic and dangerous for the royal thrones. They compare the Ottoman Empire with the European monarchies, where the value of the legitimacy of the governments is paramount. As a result, they consider the Sultan to be the legitimate sovereign of the Greeks, and the right of conquest is acknowledged by the international treaties.

B. The conservative Philhellenes supporting the Greek fight and the Greeks of the Tsar’s court distinguish the Revolution from other revolutions as a legitimate national War for Independence and the elimination of slavery; the latter cannot be legitimate because it never granted any rights to its subjects or, even if it did, it did not respect them. The Ottoman authority is condemned as illegitimate due to its practices, and it is not considered to be equal to the Christian courts of Europe. The Christian Greeks never integrated into the society of conquest, and retained their religious and linguistic identity, so they have every right to rise up in arms and to constitute an independent nation.

C. The liberals, who are in their totality Philhellenes, identify the Greek Revolution with those in Europe and America, and emphasize as much its national and legitime character as its democratic content, while also appealing to the ancient Greek past.

The pressure of the philhellenic trend and of the public opinion, supporting the “brave” and “tortured” descendents of the Hellenes, on the European governments but mainly the intra-European competition, the power politics of the Great Powers and the rupture in the allegedly solid front of the Holy Alliance gradually change the political scene in favour of the Greeks. England recognized the Greek nation as participating in a war in 1823 and granted a loan to the Greek government in the middle of 1824. The rapprochement between the English and the Russians in 1825 resulted in the Protocol of St Petersburg, in which the constitution of the Greek state is mentioned for the first time, in contrast with the principles of the Holy Alliance which in the meantime had suppressed all other European revolutions. The refusal of the Sublime Porte to give in to the pressure for peace and the agitation regarding a Russian military intervention led to the Treaty of London (1827) between England, Russia and France, where the three states express decisively their will with respect to a solution of the Greek issue by means of a military intervention by them in case the Porte did not accept the truce; this situation resulted in the naval battle of Navarino and the destruction of the Turkish fleet by the three Powers. The Russian-Ottoman war of 1828-1829 and the Treaty of Adrianople expedited the decisions of the Powers. Finally, with the Protocol of London (1830), signed by England, Russia and France, Greece was acknowledged to constitute an independent state with all the political, administrative and commercial rights associated with absolute independence.

The foundation of the Greek state was indicative of a change in European politics and of the first phase in the creation of nation states during the 19th century, as opposed to the legitimacy and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire which had been valid beforehand and had been endorsed by the Holy Alliance. The latter, however, despite the crucial role of England, will succeed in imposing the replacement of the Greek revolutionary democratic polity by a Bavarian absolute monarch appointed by the Alliance itself (Schröder, 1994: 443-465; Gouderc, 2015: 47-74).

Carte de la Grèce, ou Théâtre de la guerre entre les Grecs et les Turcs en 1826. Paris, Dezauche. 1826.

Auteurs: André-Guillaume Dezauche, Jean-André Dezauche éditeurs des cartes et imprimeurs. ^[*]

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	Pasado abierto es una revista del Centro de Estudios Históricos (CEHis) de la Facultad de Humanidades de la Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Correo electrónico: pasado.abierto@gmail.com | Web: http://fh.mdp.edu.ar/revistas/index.php/pasadoabierto ISSN 2451-6961 (en línea) se encuentra bajo Licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional
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