Greece loses its war of independence?

[Vinization]

Like it says on the tin. Suppose the Greek rebels are defeated by the Ottomans early on, in late 1821 or early 1822. A POD which could help, at least on the political front, would be keeping the patriarch of Constantinople from being executed on the orders of Mahmud II, since not only did he excommunicate the rebels three times, but his murder caused an international outrage and made the ongoing unrest in Greece worse.

How would the rest of Mahmud's reign develop if the revolt is put down in its opening stages? Though he did preside over some successes IOTL, the biggest of which was the purge of the Janissaries, but there were also several disasters, one of which was the loss of southern Greece.

My guess is that things will go much better for Constantinople, at least in the short term. IOTL the foreign intervention that forced the empire to terms happened right after the Janissaries were disbanded, at a time the new army wasn't organized yet. Will Greece rebel again in the future? My guess is yes, but whether they'll be successful or not is another question.

Will Constantinople be able to bring Muhammad Ali to heel without defeats like the ones suffered at Navarino at sea and against Russia on land? Will the Treaty of Balta Liman, which AFAIK ruined Ottoman manufacturing IOTL, still be signed?

 

[Vinization]

@Lascaris @सार्थक (Sārthākā)

 

[Vinization]

Also, what would southern Greece look like if it stays under Ottoman rule? According to wikipedia (I know, I know) there were Muslim and Jewish communities in the Peloponnese, but they were massacred during the war, along with Greek populations in places like Constantinople and Chios.

 

[Lascaris]

There is a fair chance that if the Greek revolution is destroyed early in 1821, Mahmud does not go forward with military and other reforms. Unlike Selim III Mahmud apparently was not a reformist per se. Putting down the ayans in favour of his power? Sure. European style army? That came only after the old style armies failed to make any headway against the rebels...

 

[Vinization]

There is a fair chance that if the Greek revolution is destroyed early in 1821, Mahmud does not go forward with military and other reforms. Unlike Selim III Mahmud apparently was not a reformist per se. Putting down the ayans in favour of his power? Sure. European style army? That came only after the old style armies failed to make any headway against the rebels...

I'm not so sure, the Janissaries were, by that point, infinitely more trouble than they were worth. Plus, he still needs to deal with Muhammad Ali.

Was there anything the Ottomans could've done, at least in the future, to make their rule more acceptable to the more rebellious Balkan populations? Getting rid of the ayans is a start, given how tyrannical some of them were, but I doubt it'd be enough.

 

[Lascaris]

I'm not so sure, the Janissaries were, by that point, infinitely more trouble than they were worth. Plus, he still needs to deal with Muhammad Ali.

Was there anything the Ottomans could've done, at least in the future, to make their rule more acceptable to the more rebellious Balkan populations? Getting rid of the ayans is a start, given how tyrannical some of them were, but I doubt it'd be enough.

Well to put it politely the Ottomans were, shall we say unpopular to most of the locals? More seriously, the Christian populations of the empire remained second class citizens, in practice if not in name well into the end of the empire. Every time there were any attempts to change it, they were shortly collapsing at the local level and bringing out reaction to the opposite direction, frex within two years of 1908 you had thousands of Armenians being massacred and a public campaign to boycott Greek merchants in the empire. When you read accounts of late 18th century Greeks about how they felt free and safe... it the Russian empire of all places compared to what they had to deal back home, something is going rather wrong there.

 

[Sarthak]

@Lascaris @सार्थक (Sārthākā)

I would recommend reading La Turquie et le Tanzimat written in 1882 in regards to Mahmud II. The book details the causes of Tanzimat and it early days, going into major detail with Mahmud II and his early reforms and the Greek Revolution. By 1825, a year after the Greek Revolution started, when things didn't look like it was going to be a permanent revolution, Mahmud II believed that the constant rebellions south of Epirus and Thessaly in the long run would not be sustainable for the Ottoman Empire. Upon gaining a Divan from the Sharifate of Makkah, he devised the اوتونومووس پريجينيپاليتي وف إتتيجا plan, which was in simple terms, going to turn the Southern Attican Peninsula and the Peloponnese into a Wallachia and Moldavia like autonomous principality. Mahmud II was looking at the Trapezuntine Komnenids and Aegean Greek Noble Families (who were overwhelmingly) pro-Ottoman to take the role of 'Prince of Attica'. Of course, the success of the Greek Revolution made it impossible to implement this plan, but it is a good AH though exercise nonetheless.

 

[Flavius Iulius Nepos]

Mahmud II was looking at the Trapezuntine Komnenids

Were those still around at the start of the XIX century?

 

[Sarthak]

Were those still around at the start of the XIX century?

A side branch, Komnenos-Molyvdos survived until the 1840s.

 

[Sarufiyyun]

An interesting implication that if the Greek War of Independence ends in failure, there won't be this impetus to pivot to the ancient Greek nostalgia that was common by the Western European aristocrats. The Phanariotes would remain the standard bearers of Hellenism or rather Romanity.