Revolutionary state formation: the Mediterranean revolutions and Greek state formation in the 1820s

1. Revolutions and State Formation
in Europe, 1789-1871
Dr Christos Aliprantis
American College of Thessaloniki – Anatolia College

2. Revolutionary state formation: the
Mediterranean revolutions and Greek state
formation in the 1820s: Introduction
 Diffusion of liberal and national ideas after
the French (and the American) revolutions
elsewhere (incl. the Mediterranean world)
 Opposition of the post-1815 status quo
 Liberal revolution in Spain (1820-23)
 Liberal revolution in Portugal (1820)
 Revolutions (military coups) in Naples,
Sicily, Piedmont (1820-21)
 Liberal-national revolution and war of
independence in Greece (1821-29)

3. 2. The Mediterranean world and the “liberal
international” in the post-Napoleonic era
 Great Powers in the early modern Mediterranean: i) the
Spanish Empire: Iberian peninsula, parts of Italy (esp.
Naples, Sicily); ii) the Venetian Republic (parts of north-
east Italy, the Eastern Mediterranean); iii) the Ottoman
Empire (Balkans, the Near East)
 Absolute monarchies/oligarchies (Venice) based on the
support and cooperation of local elites/notables
 Reshaping of the Mediterranean by Napoleon: weakening
of the Spanish Empire; collapse of Venice; serious
pressures to the Ottoman Empire (by France, G. Britain,
Russia)

4. . French occupation and guerilla war in Spain (1808-13); British
occupation of Sicily, Malta and the Ionian Islands; Napoleonic
Kingdom of Italy; Septinsular Republic (1807-14) under multiple
protectors (France, Britain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire)
 The ideals of liberalism, constitutionalism, republicanism and
nationalism had become known to Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and
Greek-speaking intellectual circles across the Mediterranean during
the Napoleonic years
 Transregional, transimperial and transnational, “proto-national”
intellectual circles, oftentimes in touch with each other esp. after 1815
(intellectuals, exiles, tradesmen, craftsmen, etc.)
 To describe such intellectual/political relations and the sharing of
common liberal ideas, historian have coined the term “liberal
international” (M. Isabella, K. Zanou, etc.)

5. 3. The Spanish case: the Cadiz constitution of
1812; the “Trienio liberal” and the Restauration
 Designed by the British-backed, Spanish liberal elites at
Cadiz in 1812, who wished to limit absolute royal power
 It was applicable throughout Spain, the Spanish Americas
and the Philippines and became the model for many later
Spanish and Latin American constitutions
 It affirmed national sovereignty, separation of powers,
freedom of the press, free enterprise, abolished feudal
privileges, introduced universal male suffrage, established
a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system, and
extended rights of representation to the Spanish Empire

6. .
 On the other hand, the constitution affirmed Roman Catholicism
as the sole religion of Spain and its empire
 After 1814, the restored conservative monarch Ferdinand VII
abolished the constitution and favored again the pre-Napoleonic
elites (prelates, nobles, etc.)
 This decision divided Spain and triggered a military coup and
mutiny in Andalusia in 1820 by Rafael del Riego and other
officers forcing the king the reinstall the constitution
 Soon civil war erupted between constitutionalists and monarchists
in Madrid, Castile, Toledo and Andalusia
 A liberal government backed by liberal-leaned troops ruled Spain
in 1820-23 (trienio liberal) while the king was on house arrest
 Opposition by the king, regional interests, the Catholic Church,
trade guilds was considerable and liberal rule remained precarious

7. .
 The Concert of Europe became concerned with the
destabilization in Spain and the Congress of Verona
(1822) authorized France to intervene in order to
restore absolutist rule of Ferdinand VII
 The French king Louis XVIII sent eagerly a massive
army across the Pyrenees: the so called “Hundred
Thousand Sons of Saint Louis”
 Most French commanders had served under Napoleon
while the loyalty of the French troops was doubtful
 The French troops were proven loyal while internal
divisions and strifes weakened the Spanish army
 The liberal Spaniards were defeated at the battle of
Trocadero and the Cortes of Cadiz returned authority
to Ferdinand VII, who henceforth ruled autocratically

8. 4. The Portuguese revolution of 1820
 During the Napoleonic period, the Portuguese Court had moved
to Brazil, from where it ruled Portugal. Portugal thus found itself
either a “colony” of Brazil or a British protectorate
 After 1815 liberal resentment was growing and led to a revolution
in Porto, which was spread peacefully to the rest of the country
 The revolutionaries demanded the return of the Court from Brazil as
well as a constitutional monarchy prompted by the trienio liberal
 The Portuguese constitution of 1822 resembled the 1812 Spanish one
 King João VI returned to Lisbon in 1821, an action that eventually
led to the independence of Brazil (1822) and a series of civil conflicts
in Portugal between constitutionalists and monarchists in the 1820s

9. 5. The Italian revolutions of 1820-21
and the Carbonari
 The revolutions of 1820-21 in Naples, Sicily and Piedmont
owned a great deal to the secret organization of the Carbonari,
who advocated a liberal, unified and republican Italy In July
1820 Neapolitan army officers, members of the Carbonari,
revolted against the reactionary King Ferdinand I and demanded
a constitution, similar the 1812 Spanish one
 Ferdinand I granted a constitution but the overall instability in
the kingdom triggered a secessionist revolution in Sicily that
long resented Neapolitan rule. The government in Naples decided
to suppress the Sicilian revolt. In turn this policy weakened the
Neapolitan revolution

10. .
 Ferdinand I asked for the help of the Concert of Europe at the
Congress of Laibach (1821). Austria was most concerned to
protect its influential position in Naples. An Austrian army
intervened in Naples, defeated the revolutionary army at Rieti
and easily suppressed the revolutionary regime in March 1821
 Meanwhile, another Carbonari-led revolution had been brewing
in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and in Lombardy in order
to drive out Austria and create a constitutional kingdom in
northern Italy
 The Lombard conspiracy was checked and its leaders arrested
in October 1820, but in Piedmont liberal army officers such as
Santore di Santarosa revolted in March 1821 demanding a
constitution and a national war against Austria

11. .
 The new Piedmontese king Carlo Felice I moved
against the insurgents. He asked and received an
Austrian intervention. In April 1821 Austrian forces
and royalist Piedmontese troops defeated the Piedmo-
ntese revolutionaries and restored absolutist rule
 The Carbonari were anti-clerical too. In the Papal
States as well therefore, an edict was issued in 1821
forbidding all secret societies as well as membership,
association and support thereof (Papal constitution
Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo; encyclical Qui pluribus)
 In conclusion, the 1820-21 Italian revolutions that had
been fueled almost entirely by the Carbonari failed
despite their early successes because of Austrian
interventions and massive military superiority

12. 5. The Decembrist revolt in Russia
 Under tsar Alexander I (1801-25) Russia had encouraged
some form of limited official liberalism and after 1815 there
were even rumors for an impeding Russian constitution
 Even if such views were dashed after, certain cores of liberal
army officials kept hoping for liberal reforms
 During a very short interregnum right after Alexander’s
death in December 1825, conspirator army officers dreaming
of a constitutional monarchy (Nikita Muraviev, S. P.
Trubetskoy, Eugene Obolensky) mutinied (ca.3,000 rebels)
 Their revolt in St Petersburg was immediately suppressed by
the new tsar Nicholas I and his loyal troops and the
remaining Decembrists were arrested and sent into exile

13. 6. The Greek revolution of 1821-30
 The Greek revolution or Greek war of independence was
notably different from the Spanish, Italian or Russian
revolutions, while the Ottoman context was also considerably
different from the western and southern European one
 The Balkans had been captured by the Ottoman Empire in the
15th century and only minor parts of it were under Venetian
control until 1797
 In the 18th century Greek-orthodox (and Greek-speaking)
middle classes in the Ottoman Empire and abroad had
prospered intellectually and financially.
 The “Neohellenic Enlightenement” gave rise to Greek natio-
nalism and the idea that Greeks had to have a state of their own

14.  Not only the Greek communities of the Ottoman Empire but more
significantly the Greek diaspora esp. in the Habsburg Empire, the
Italian states and France promoted educational projects and ideas of
Greek nationhood, and later connected the Greek question with the
western European governments and public opinion
 After 1814 a Greek conspiratorial society, the “Friendly Society”
was formed in Odessa following the Carbonari model. It intended to
prepare the Greek for a liberal and national revolution
 Greek-orthodox rulers had been governing the Danubian
Principalities between 1711 and 1821 under Ottoman tutelage
 Because of that the Friendly Society deemed favorable the
conditions for the outbreak of a Greek revolution there. Their
leaders thought that Russia would intervene in support of the
revolution

15.  The Greek revolution in the Danubian principalities was led by a
highly-ranked Greek-Russian army officer Alexandros Ypsilantis,
and broke out in February 1821
 It was badly prepared and its military was imperfectly organized.
Local Romanian notables refused to support it, while the tsar also
did not recognize it leaving the Ottoman army to promptly crash it
 Until March 1821 the revolutionaries had been defeated and the
Principalities were put under joint Russo-Ottoman control
 The Friendly Society helped orchestrate another, more successful
Greek revolution in the Southern Balkans, in the Peloponnese
 Ottoman rule had been weaker there and Greek-speaking populations
were more solid there. Moreover, the concurrent revolt of Ali Pasha
in Epirus (1821-22) created a diversion for the Ottoman forces and
enabled this second Greek revolution to survive

16. .
 This southern Balkan Greek revolution that rooted in the
Peloponnese, the Roumeli and some of the Aegean islands,
lasted between 1821 and 1829 and led to creation of the
independent Greek state in 1830
 Various groups were involved in this complicated conflict:
 (a) local notables with deep roots in their milieus, who
served as warlords and/or politicians and largely hoped to
replace the Ottomans as the rulers of the new polity (e.g.
Theodoros Kolokotronis, Petrobeis Mavromichalis)
 (b) Greek (and sometimes foreign) intellectuals often
coming from abroad, who idealistically planed to build a
state with western institutions (constitutions, administration)
(e.g. Alexandros Mavrokordatos, Adamantios Korais,
Santore di Santarosa, Alerino Palma)

17. .
 (c) foreign philhellenes, who supported the Greek cause and came
to fight in waves between 1821 and 1828 (above all Lord Byron)
 (d) European governments and their agents (G. Britain, France,
Russia, Austria), who pursued their own interests in the area trying
to influence and benefit from the Greek revolution (e.g. through two
British loans to the rebels that tied the Greek cause to Britain)
 The revolution spanned across many phases: dominant elements
were the military weakness of the Ottomans to suppress it and the
internal strifes of the revolutionaries that led to two civil wars
(1823-24). Eventually (1825) Ottoman sultan Mahmud II invited
the ruler of Egypt Mohammed Ali to assist him in crushing the
rebellion since Egypt had built a modern army
 Mohammed Ali’s son Ibrahim Pasha landed in the Peloponnese and
soon almost subdued the Greek revolutionaries

18. .
 By 1827 the Greek revolution had almost died out, when the
combined fleet of Britain, France and Russia defeated the
Ottoman-Egyptian navy at Navarino (October 1827)
 Both the Philhellenic agitation at home, but most notably the
ambitions of the Great Powers related to the Eastern Question,
had favored a small Greek state under Great Power tutelage
 The politics of the Great Powers do not mean that the revoluti-
onaries lacked agency and political imagination of their own
 The Greek revolution turned to be also a political laboratory
due to the revolutionary constitutions (1822, 1823, 1827) –
among the most liberal in Europe of that time-: they created a
unified public administration and system of justice, allowed
universal male suffrage and freedom of expression
 Like in Spain, they affirmed the Christian character of Greece

19. . As the topic of justice (civil law, criminal law) points out, the
establishment of new judicial system in Greece was a long and
complicated process
 Like Germany and elsewhere, Greek legal scholars in the 1820s
and afterwards debated over whether to install a Civil Code
similar to the Napoleonic one (Roman law) or base the new
legal framework to native and customary practices
 The question remained unresolved until the 1830s, when the
new Bavarian king of Greece Otto I and his justice minister
Georg von Maurer chose a “modern” civil code, which had
been though notably influenced by customary practices
 Regardless of the official norms, it remains empirically proven
that such newer judicial practices co-existed alongside older
ones at least until 1850-1860

20. Conclusion
 Revolutions across the Mediterranean world and elsewhere in the
1820s in reaction to the Restauration policies pursued after 1815
 In Spain, Portugal, the Italian states, Russia, and largely also the
Danubian Principalities, a common pattern appears: liberal
intellectuals and parts of the army attempt coups/rebellions in order
to force the granting of constitutions. After a short period of
confusion and instability, absolutist royal control was reinstalled
through massive use of coercion (often through foreign intervention)
 Only the Greek revolution seems to be somewhat different: it entails
prolonged warfare, multiple international actors, and above all it was
the only successful one leading to the creation of a new state