Chapter 13: The Greek Schism
The failures of the Congress of Salona were symptoms of a much greater problem that had been metastasizing in Greece over the past year. The Second National Assembly in 1823 had attempted to establish a balanced government with the Moreots and Islanders sharing control of the Executive and the Senate. In truth, this caused more problems than it solved. From a cursory glance, the first few weeks of the Petros Mavromichalis Executive appeared relatively quiet as matters dealing with the war occupied most of the governments time and resources. But within weeks of the Assembly’s end in early April, tempers began to flare between the supposedly united Greeks.
The first real issue to emerge was the resignation of Ioannis Orlandos as President of the Senate in July 1823. Despite their own personal distrust of one another, the Morean Primates and the Military Captains aligned in their opposition to Orlandos. Believing him to be nothing more than a puppet of his brother in law, the leading Shipowner of Hydra, Georgios Kountouriotis, the Moreots effectively gridlocked the Senate between them, ultimately forcing his ouster.
With the sudden vacancy in the Senate leadership, the Moreots rushed to put forward their own candidate, the Arcadian, Anagnostis Dheliyannis. Anagnostis was a member of the influential Dheliyannis family of Arcadia who were vocal supporters of the Mavromichalis Executive. His candidacy was troubled from the start as the Roumeliotes and Islanders under the angered Kountouriotis immediately joined together to oppose him. While the Moreots held the single largest caucus in the Senate with 30 Senators out of the total 70, they did not possess a majority within the legislature and required the support of some combination of the 9 Roumeliot Senators, the 28 Islander Senators, and 3 Phanariot Senators that comprised the other factions within the Legislative body. The situation was made worse by Mavromichalis’ endorsement of Dheliyannis, an act which was met with immediate denunciation by the Senate as an overreach of his authority into the purview of the Senate.
Seeking to unravel the opposition aligned against him, Georgios Kountouriotis proposed Alexandros Mavrokordatos for the position, as he was a candidate acceptable to the wide spectrum of interests in the Senate. Surprisingly, Mavrokordatos achieved almost unanimous approval from the Moreots, Roumeliotes, and Islanders in the Senate. The Phanariot refused, however, on the basis that his duties as General Secretary required his full attention and he would require the Executive’s permission to resign for the Senate Presidency, permission which Petros Mavromichalis refused to give. After several days of heated debate, Mavromichalis was forced to acquiesce when several moderate Moreot Senators forced his hand by siding with the Roumeliotes and Islanders. With no other choice, Mavromichalis accepted the Senate’s decision and Mavrokordatos was appointed Senate President on the 2nd of July, ending the flashpoint.
The Master of Hydra, Georgios Kountouriotis
This respite was short lived as another dispute emerged between the factions in Greece over the price of salt. In October 1823, the Finance Minister Ioannis Peroukas, under the instruction of the Executive, imposed a government monopoly on salt, causing costs to skyrocket across Greece. The measure had been intended to raise money for the war effort, but like most taxes it unfairly burdened the common people who were desperately reliant upon salt. The Senate surprisingly took up the mantle of the common people, although in truth their opposition lay primarily with the notion that the Executive had not sought the Senate’s approval for the measure in the first place.
Their reaction was limited as they required a two thirds majority to legally overturn the Executive’s decision and nearly 26 Senators were either away on leave or in favor of the measure leaving them with little recourse. Summarily, the Senate retorted with the same response arguing that the Executive could only implement such a proposal with a three fifths majority, but seeing as Ioannis Kolettis, Andreas Zaimis, and Panayiotis Botasis where either absent or opposed to the measure, it was invalid. The matter was eventually ended when Kolettis was recalled from Missolonghi by the Senate, where upon his return he immediately killed the measure along with Zaimis and Botasis.
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Ioannis Kolettis (Left), Andreas Zaimis (Right)
Despite these humiliations, Petros Mavromichalis remained relatively popular among most parties in Greece, due in large part to the tremendous success on the warfront in 1823. The meager Ottoman garrison in the acropolis of Corinth, Akrocorinthos, had finally surrendered to the Greek army of Demetrios Ypsilantis on the 10th of September 1823, ending the 13-month siege and fully securing the Isthmus once more. This victory was soon followed only a few weeks later by the retreat of Mustafa Pasha from Missolonghi, ending the threat against Western Greece and the Morea. One last victory was the quick liberation of Nafpaktos through the means of Lord Byron bringing the northern shore of the Gulf firmly under Greek control. With these victories on the warfront, Petros Mavromichalis managed to limp his way across the finish line, winning the 1824 Executive Elections by a narrow margin.
Another important victory for the Mavromichalis government was the acquisition of the loan from the London Philhellenic Committee, to the sum of 420,000 Pounds Sterling. This too brought its own slough of problems for the Greek Government as the influx of additional revenue sparked an intense debate over the dispensing of the funds. Arriving in 13 installments to be paid out every month from April 1824 until May 1825, the loan essentially doubled the Greek’s available budget, and as was the case when mixing politics with money, every group wanted their piece. The Military Captains wanted the funds to go towards paying their arrears, the Islanders wanted it for their ships, the Primates for their castles, and the Roumeliotes, well no one really cared much about what the Roumeliotes wanted with it.
Control of the funds, however, lay in the hands of the Britons, Byron and Stanhope, the Hydriot Lazaros Kountarious, and the Moreot Andreas Londos. But with Stanhope’s departure in May, power shifted increasingly towards the Greeks as Byron generally acquiesced to Kountouriotis and Londos on the matter, only interjecting when it was absolutely necessary to prevent what he saw as burgeoning corruption and malpractice.
[2] Lazaros by nature of his relation to his brother Georgios, sided with the Islanders and the Senate, and Londos, by nature of his close friendship with Andreas Zaimis, supported the Senate’s position as well, which under Mavrokordatos favored a naval policy. As such the bulk of the new revenue was to be dispensed towards the navy, much to the ire of the Moreots and Roumeliotes who desired it for other means. To express their disapproval, the Moreots filibustered the proceedings until they achieved their desired outcome, gridlocking the Greek government for over a month. While this debate raged on an Ottoman fleet arrived off the coast of Psara.
Dread set in amongst the delegates in Nafplion as reports arrived from Psara, the Ottomans had landed on the island and instituted a blockade. The fleets stationed in Hydra and Spetses were immediately dispatched to break the blockade, but their efforts had little impact on the burgeoning siege. The Greeks only succeeded in opening a small hole in the blockade allowing some Psariot ships laden with women, children, and the town’s treasures to escape. When they attempted to return three days later the Ottoman fleet had returned in strength and forced the Greeks into a costly engagement. While the Greeks inflicted heavy losses on the Ottoman navy, they were forced to flee when reinforcements from Asia Minor arrived.
The siege of Psara would last for barely half a month, beginning on the 22nd of June and ending on the 6th of July. Much of the island had been lost in the initial invasion, with the defenders fleeing to the old Byzantine fort, Palaiokastro, for refuge. After two weeks, the desperate struggle came to an end as the Ottomans finally forced their way into the fortress at which point the last remaining defenders detonated the ammunition depot inside the fort, killing themselves and the unfortunate Ottoman soldiers who had entered the compound first. Those Greeks that survived the explosion were subject to the worse depravities of man before being sent into slavery in Anatolia. Psara, which had been the home to 7,000 Greeks at the start of the war, had been razed to the ground in a matter of days.
The Psariots who had managed to escape to the Morea would fare no better than their kin who were left at the mercy of the Turks. Those that made it to the mainland were met by a mob of klephts who immediately stripped the refugees of their valuables, by force if necessary. In one particularly dastardly incident a Moreot bludgeoned a Psariot to death over his wedding ring while his wife and child looked on in horror. When news of this incident reached Demetrios Ypsilantis, the normally calm and collected Phanariot fell into a rage. Racing down to the port with a company of soldiers, he had the offending men arrested on the spot. Some were released after returning their stolen wares, others received a lashing, but the worst culprits were executed for their crimes. Ypsilantis’ justice provided little recompense for the Psariots who had lost their possessions, their homes, and their families both to the Ottomans and their fellow Greeks.
The loss of any island was a blow to the Greeks, but the loss of Psara was an especially bitter blow. The island had long provided the Greeks with an early warning on the movements of the Ottoman fleet, allowing them ample time to ready their opposition against it. With Psara gone, they were now blind to their enemies’ movements at sea putting them at a decided disadvantage. The military ramifications were bad enough but the political ramifications of losing Psara nearly threatened to destroy all which the Greeks had fought for. The Psariots bitterly blamed Mavromichalis and his followers in the Senate for the annihilation of their people, although in truth there was little he could have done to save it beyond what had already been committed. Despite repeated proclamations of his innocence, the Maniot had become a scapegoat for the ruined Psariots and their friends in the Senate sought to profit off Mavromichalis’ misfortune. By the month’s end, Georgios Kountouriotis and the Psariot Admiral Constantine Kanaris sponsored legislation in the Senate, calling for the removal of Mavromichalis from the Executive.
Constantine Kanaris, Greek Admiral and Politician
No one blamed the fall of Psara on Mavromichalis more than the famous Admiral Constantine Kanaris. Kanaris had fought nobly at Chios, Tenedos, and most recently Psara before its fall. He had made his home there, his family was there, and many of the people he was forced to leave behind on Psara were his kith and kin. Together with Kountarious and his supporters in the Islands Faction, Kanaris pointedly placed the blame for Psara’s fall at the feet of the Moreots and Maniots in general for their resistance in the Senate. By the end of July, even many of Petrobey’s staunchest supporters had been forced into submission by the impassioned Islanders and on the 3rd of August, Petros Mavromichalis was removed from the Executive and was in turn quickly replaced by Georgios Kountouriotis as President of the Executive.
The move was immediately protested by Petrobey’s supporters as an illegal and unjust act, while his opponents extolled the complete legality of their actions. The most boisterous critic were Panos and Yenneos Kolokotronis, the sons of the martyred hero Theodoros Kolokotronis. The younger Kolokotroneoi had been strong supporters of the Maniot’s government and had closely aligned themselves with his father’s former ally Sotiris Charalamvis. Only hours after the ousting of Mavromichalis, Panos and several other young officers marched on the Senate building in Nafplion where they disrupted the proceedings to physically assault several members of the Senate while they were in session. Despite lasting for a few minutes, no one was seriously injured in the brawl. Regardless, the damage had been done.
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In response to this violent outburst by one of his subordinates, the Senate voted to remove Sotiris Charalamvis from the Executive on the 6th of August. Panos for his part fled to the sanctity of his homeland in Messenia where he was later joined by his brother, Charalamvis, and their followers. Together, Charalamvis and Mavromichalis denounced the actions of the Senate as unjust and illegal and called upon their supporters to break with the Nafplion government. This was soon followed by the resignation of Andreas Zaimis from the Executive in protest, though he opted for neutrality as opposed to the burgeoning duality of the Greek Government. By September 1824, the Greek Government had formally split. Most of the military captains, Moreots, and Maniots had withdrawn from the unified National Government forming their own Opposition Government based in Tripolitsa, while the diminished Central Government remained in Nafplion. In the following weeks, several attempts were made to reconcile the two sides with the Philhellenes Lord Byron and Edward Trelawny, and the Phanariotes Demetrios Ypsilantis and Alexandros Mavrokordatos lending their weight behind these motions. These efforts at mediation lasted through the end of 1824 and into early 1825 only for them to end in failure over a personal slight by Kolettis towards Charalamvis causing the Moreot to viciously attack the Epirote before fleeing once more to his stronghold.
The schism between the Greek factions had become a personal one as bruised egos and personal pride overwhelmed patriotism and pragmatism. Charalamvis, Mavromichalis, and the Kolokotroneoi boys had effectively become the focal point of the growing agitation towards the government while Kountouriotis and Kolettis were the purveyors of the state. By February, it was clear for all to see that this schism would inevitably lead to violence, but where diplomacy and politics failed, outside events soon conspired to bring the divided Greeks together once again. On the 24th of February 1825, an army of Egyptians, 10,000 strong landed at Methoni. The Scourge of Hellas had arrived.
Next Time: O Aegyptus
[1] Kolettis was an avid opponent of the Military Captains and Morean Primates in the Executive in OTL. He was a perfidious character that played his opponents against one another and did his utmost to benefit himself. Still he was a talented administrator and quartermaster for the Greeks serving on the Executive, and as Minister of War. Sadly, I couldn’t find any information or pictures on Panayiotis Botasis aside from the fact that he was an ally of Kountouriotis and as such would vote the way of the Senate. Andreas Zaimis was a strong supporter of the Senate as well and would probably vote against the Salt monopoly considering he was opposed to it in OTL as well.
[2] As Byron was a strong supporter of Alexandros Mavrokordatos, and Mavrokordatos is President of the Senate, I think it is safe to say that Byron would dispense the funds however the Senate would like it to be dispense. Byron was very firm about his intentions to only work with representatives of the Greek Government and as such he would support the “elected government”.
[3] A similar event like this took place in OTL when Panos attacked the Senators following the removal of Konstantinos Metaxas from the Executive in December 1823. This act sparked the First Civil War, which was more or less a posturing match between Theodoros and his supporters and the increasingly Islander dominated National Government.
I will continue experimenting with programs and different templates so if the image changes at a later date don’t be alarmed. Eventually my hope is to retroactively edit in maps for the previous updates where they are most relevant.
