Greek War of Independence: A Visual History

The Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) began in March 1821 with risings in the Peloponnese, Central Greece and the islands organised by the Filiki Eteria; the Greeks took Tripolitsa in October, massacring its Muslims, and the Ottomans hanged the Patriarch of Constantinople and destroyed Chios (1822), an atrocity that roused Europe. Civil wars among the Greeks and the arrival of Muhammad Ali's Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pasha in 1825, which retook the Peloponnese and, after a year's siege, Missolonghi (1826), nearly ended the revolt. Britain, France and Russia intervened; their fleets destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at Navarino on 20 October 1827, Russia invaded the Balkans in 1828, and the London Protocol of 1830 recognised an independent Greek kingdom under Otto of Bavaria.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Greek War of Independence. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Ships lost at Navarino, 1827

Timeline of the Greek War of Independence

1. 1821
   Rising in the Peloponnese; Tripolitsa; Patriarch hanged
2. 1822
   Chios massacre; Dervenakia; independence declared
3. 1824
   Byron dies at Missolonghi; civil wars
4. 1825
   Ibrahim Pasha lands
5. 1826
   Missolonghi falls
6. 1827
   Navarino20 October.
7. 1829
   Russo-Turkish war; Treaty of Adrianople
8. 1830
   London Protocol; Greek independence
9. 1832
   Otto becomes king

1821-1823: rising and massacre

Ypsilantis's invasion of Moldavia in February 1821 failed but the Peloponnese rose in March, traditionally at Agia Lavra on the 25th; klephts and armatoloi under Kolokotronis besieged the Turks in the towns, and Tripolitsa's fall in October killed some 8,000 Muslims and Jews. The Ottomans hanged Patriarch Gregory V on Easter Sunday and in April 1822 laid waste Chios, killing or enslaving most of its 100,000 people; Delacroix's painting and Kanaris's fireships answered. Dramali's army was destroyed at Dervenakia in 1822; the first Missolonghi siege was repelled; a national assembly at Epidaurus declared independence in January 1822.

1824-1826: civil war and Ibrahim

Greek factions fought two civil wars over power and British loans; Byron died at Missolonghi in April 1824 and Kolokotronis was jailed by his rivals. Mahmud II called in Muhammad Ali of Egypt, whose son Ibrahim landed in the Peloponnese in February 1825 with a French-trained army, retook Navarino and Tripolitsa and burned the countryside, threatening to repopulate it with Egyptians. Missolonghi fell after a year on 22 April 1826 when its starving garrison broke out and was slaughtered; Athens's Acropolis surrendered in 1827 after Karaiskakis was killed. The revolt was almost dead.

1827-1832: the powers intervene

Public opinion, Russian ambitions and Canning's diplomacy produced the Treaty of London (July 1827) demanding an armistice; when Ibrahim refused, Codrington's allied fleet entered Navarino bay on 20 October and sank 60 Ottoman-Egyptian ships. Russia declared war in 1828 and reached Adrianople in 1829; French troops evacuated Ibrahim; Kapodistrias arrived as governor and was assassinated in 1831. The London Protocol of February 1830 made Greece independent, and Prince Otto of Bavaria was installed as king in 1832 over a state of 800,000 people, a third of the Greeks; the 'Great Idea' of uniting the rest drove Greek policy for a century.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• Russian Empire (1721 to 1917)
• Byzantine Empire (395 to 1453)
• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• Napoleonic (First French) Empire (1804 to 1815)

Wars of the same era and region

• Balkan Wars (1912 to 1913)
• Turkish War of Independence (1919 to 1923)
• Greek Civil War (1946 to 1949)
• Ottoman-Venetian wars (1396 to 1718)
• French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792 to 1815)
• Crimean War (1853 to 1856)

8 surprising things about the Greek War of Independence

1. Lord Byron's death of fever at Missolonghi in 1824 made him a Greek national hero; his heart is buried there.
2. Navarino was the last major naval battle fought entirely by sailing ships.
3. The Duke of Wellington called Navarino an 'untoward event' in the King's Speech; Codrington was quietly recalled.
4. The massacre of Chios inspired Delacroix's painting and Victor Hugo's poem 'L'Enfant', and cost the Ottomans European sympathy.
5. Laskarina Bouboulina, a shipowner's widow, commanded her own ships at the siege of Nafplio.
6. The Greek flag's nine stripes are traditionally said to stand for the syllables of 'Eleftheria i thanatos', freedom or death.
7. Greece's first governor Kapodistrias was shot on the steps of a church in Nafplio in 1831 by clan rivals.
8. The new state contained only about a third of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire; Constantinople, Smyrna and Salonika had more Greeks than Athens.

Sources

• War of Greek Independence Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Greek War of Independence Wikipedia
• Battle of Navarino Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Mark Mazower, The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe (2021) Allen Lane

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