The Greek War of Independence - A sublime and ridiculous war
|
|
|
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/05/06/stibooboo01015.html
THE FLAME OF FREEDOM
The Greek War of Independence 1821-1833
by David Brewer
J Murray £25 pp394
ADAM ZAMOYSKI
It is not for nothing that Byron's death at Missolonghi on April 19, 1824, is so emblematic of the struggle for Greek independence. It is characteristic of the wasted purpose of most of the outside involvement and it sums up the cultural impulse that defined that struggle, as well as virtually guaranteeing its outcome. For, as David Brewer points out in this fascinating book, "with Byron dead, the Greek cause could not die". The father of Greek nationalism, Adhamantios Korais, was wont to dismiss the British as "uncircumcised Turks". But without the climate of opinion, the funds and the political support that Byron's ill-fated intervention generated throughout the western world, principally in Britain, it is doubtful whether there would have been an independent Greek state before the end of the 19th century.
The series of risings, massacres and internecine feuds which began in 1821 with the adventure of Alexander Ipsilantis in Moldavia and crackled or raged on until the establishment of a kingdom of Greece in 1833, has gone down in history as the Greek war of independence, but this is, at best, a blanket term. "Greek society," as Brewer admits, "was crisscrossed by a large number of fault lines, and was so divided that perhaps it should not be called a society at all."
Hatred of the Turks was a paramount common bond, but it was by no means a dependable one. Greeks and Turks massacred each other with barely believable savagery, but the massacres, like the resentment, did not always follow the ethnic or religious divide. During the siege of Tripolis, fighters of both sides would leave their positions and convene for lazy chats in the middle of the day when the heat made fighting impossible. And there were plenty of extraneous factors at play. The important battle of Karpenisi in 1823 was fought between a "Turkish" force and a "Greek" one, both made up entirely of Albanian mercenaries. Then there were the hundreds of idealistic volunteers from all over Europe and the United States. The experienced philhellene Colonel Charles James Napier asserted that what was really needed in order to free Greece from Turkish rule was not the support of the Greeks, but "two European regiments, money in hand to pay them, and a portable gallows". He was not that far off the mark: independence became a fact after an Anglo-Franco-Russian fleet sank a mainly Egyptian one in the bay of Navarino in 1827.
In English historical literature, the whole episode has hitherto been represented largely through western eyes, with the philhellenes occupying centre stage. This book, which covers the events from a firmly Hellenocentric standpoint is, therefore, welcome. Brewer takes us through the roots of Greek nationalism, the conflicting motivations of the disparate ethnic and social groups inhabiting the Peloponnese and the areas north of the gulf of Corinth, and demonstrates how they finally came together in a more or less unified desire for national auto-nomy. The intricacies of the political squabbles can be daunting to follow, and the author's evident enthusiasm for his subject does not always communicate itself to the reader, but it is useful to have the story told in full. Brewer's account is solid and workmanlike. He is scrupulously fair and avoids the temptation of dwelling on the legendary incompetence of the Turks or their equally legendary atrocities. Nor does he make too much of the heroic legend propounded by the Greeks. But in his desire not to offend national sensibilities, he is a little too polite in his treatment of some aspects of the struggle.
It was a messy and nasty business involving wholesale slaughter of civilians by both sides. Such brutality is often the companion of cowardice, and there was plenty of that around. There was also a great deal of opportunism and treachery of the blackest kind. But, as western support for the Greek cause derived from the vision of a civilised European people resisting Asiatic barbarism, the truth had to be spun. As the more recent example of western reactions to events in the Balkans illustrate, we like to identify "goodies" and "baddies" where we should see only grotesque caricatures of human society. And caricature of every kind flourished here.
This was one of the most flamboyant and romantic episodes in modern European history, but it was also one of the most farcical. The discrepancy between the motives of the Homer-quoting, extravagantly uniformed young idealists who went to fight and die for sacred Hellas and those of her sons they had come to assist can have few parallels. To the Greeks, who believed in sniping from behind rocks, the strutting heroics of the foreign volunteers appeared insane. To the philhellenes, the klephts' habit of leaping up from behind their boulders while the Turks were reloading their rifles and making obscene gestures such as baring their bottoms was distressingly unworthy. Rarely has history brought the sublime and the ridiculous so close together.
Read on ...
Websites:
www.nostos.com/greekrev
Key figures from the Greek revolution of 1821
Books:
The Ottomans by Andrew Wheatcroft (Penguin £9.99)
Unravels the mystery of the Ottoman empire
In his evident intention of concentrating on the nuts and bolts of the Greeks' progress towards independent nationhood, Brewer has eschewed dwelling on these aspects, so the flamboyance and the farce are muted. It is a pity, because they do more than enliven the account; the shortfall between illusion and reality in a given situation is a healthy guide to its true nature. But one should not carp, for he has done a splendid and useful job for which he is to be warmly congratulated.
The ill-fated sojourn in Greece of Lord Byron lasted just over 100 days, and achieved very little of immediate practical effect. Constant bickering meant he never saw action, and little of the money he lavished on the Greek cause was used wisely. However, his death on April 19, 1824, from what began as a chill, galvanised opinion, not least in Greece, where he is honoured even today with the epithet of megalos kai kalos, a great and good man.
|
| Responses
| MACEDONIA FOR THE MACEDONIANS
|
