1823:
April:
The campaign in Greece finally began with the Greek Army making moves towards the Ottoman position on the Isthmus of Corinth. After a very minor assault that was repulsed, it was decided that to try and assault the Ottoman position straight ahead was suicide. Instead, an alternate strategy was decided upon that resided in the spending of a good amount of money. A Greek Navy was needed and fast before the full force of the Ottoman Empire could be concentrated upon the Greek Army.
Using the funds of many of the richer elements of the Revolutionaries, the Greeks managed to buy five ships of the French Navy along with renting a large portion of their crews. The plan was that the ships would be sold to the Greeks permanently while the crews would attack the Ottomans once before leaving for French ports while the Greeks manned the ships themselves after the attack. The attack was decided to take place on the 9th May as the earliest date with Ottoman positions to be bombarded and small landing parties were to harass the rear of the enemy. The strategy being that the main Army would make an assault which would make the Ottomans retreat as they were overcome from the north and west.
In other events, the Native American Tribes who had left to Canada were able to settle in the Western Plains. Although only a few were to settle within the 1820’s the number would increase sharply during the 30’s to a substantial amount. The settlements went largely without too much incident as the areas were largely uninhabited. All Tribes who did settle however did on the basis that they recognised the authority of the British Government and wouldn’t cause any trouble outside their own area of living. They Tribes also had the right to join the British Army if they so wished, which several actually took the opportunity to do so, wanting to learn how to fight like the Europeans did.
May:
The assault upon the Ottoman forces commenced on the ninth with it going to plan with almost uncanny precision. Assaulted from the sea along with several landings which, although most were repulsed, were still causing havoc in time with a full scale assault on the Ottoman position that forced the soldiers back. The assault carried on for an entire day with mounting casualties on both sides until the Ottomans were forced to retreat after the Greek forces managed to throw their flank into after a skilled assault from one of the Greek ships.
With the Ottoman retreat, all of Southern Greece was open to the Revolutionaries. France however, put pressure on the Greeks to instead march north into the Balkans and give those nations a bit of the 1793 spirit. Damocles scorned such an idea, not wanting to overstretch the still relatively small Greek Army. As he said to the French Ambassador “The Balkans? We can barely hold our own here, why should we go north to die?”
This decision was greeted with ire in Paris, realising that Damocles saw himself as a Greek first and French officer second. Proposals to cut off all aid and refuse the ships paid for were (Reluctantly) turned down as it would have ensured international backlash as well as having Greece simply turn to the Austrians or worse, the British for support. For now, the French would have to grin and bear it as the Greeks continued their campaign in the south for the rest of the year as their cause flourished. The bringing together of all opposing factions of the Greek Independence movement would be an uphill struggle with everyone wanting something different. Damocles would find himself spending far more time stopping the Greeks from fighting each other than fighting the Ottomans over the following years.
July:
The Liberal Cause received another boost in Britain with the publishing of Lord Byron’s writings of his experiences in Greece. The memoirs were short but filled with glorification of the Liberal cause that the Greeks supposedly supported. Omitting much of the infighting and back-biting that characterised the Revolution, the memoirs further popularised the Revolutionary cause abroad and the Liberal one at home. The memoirs were followed by many pamphlets and political writings asking that why the Castlereagh Government supported Liberals in far away Greece but not in Britain?
One issue above all that the Liberal Cause thrived on was the issue of the slave trade. Many in the Liberal cause used the slave trade as their main rallying chant, a cause everyone could rally behind. The slave owners still had some say in Parliament but the anti-slave-trade cause was growing too powerful to be ignored. While any Bill before Parliament was improbable to pass, the motion was building for a clash within a year.
October:
The political landscape in New England took a shift as the Industrial Party enjoyed their biggest conference to date. The issues dividing the spectrum were the extent of how much control the Government could have (Industrials supported less), the rights of workers (The Industrial Party favoured this), relations with the United States (The IP favoured taking a more conciliatory approach) and a greater emphasis on international trade (The Industrial Party favoured this).
The Industrial Party itself was made up of largely middle class lawyers and other professions who wanted a fairer deal for the common man and a greater say in international affairs. The conference saw the rise of Jack Pail as the main player in the Party; a lawyer from Boston, Pail had become a notable opponent of the Federalist Party, comparing their interference in the lives of the people “To the greatest tyrannies in Europe.” He wanted a fair deal for the people of New England and he was determined to get it. Although it was unlikely that they would win the next election, Pail took the duty of a politician on with pride and vigour.