Get Real! wrote:Is all the above any wonder… when modern Greece was formed out of Ottoman ashes that had no correlation with the ancient people that existed there in the past!
Contrary to my advice you carry on ridiculing yourelf showing off the depths of your ignorance. Suit yourself.
Let me make it very simple to you: A civilization which existed for at least 3000 years prior to the arrival of the Ottomans, could simply not submit to the inferior culture of the occupying power. In reality, the fact that the Ottomans were Muslim helped to the preservation by the Greeks of their national identity which they connected to their different religion. Oh, and by the way, this is why so many priests attend important moments of the Greek Life such as the opening sessions of the Parliament. Because the Greek Church is recognized as the Institution which helped the Nation to survive and to preserve its identity and culture during the Ottoman occupation of its territories.
And now read this:
http://www.archive.org/stream/warofgree ... a_djvu.txt"THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
CHAPTER I
Continuity of the Hellenic race - Effect of the Ottoman con-
quest - Function of the Orthodox Church
in preserving Greek
nationality - The Patriarch of Constantinople - Condition of
the Greeks under the Ottoman rule - Comparative prosperity
of the peasants - The Armatoli and Klephts - Sea power of
the Greeks - The naval islands Treaty of Kainardji - Local
liberties preserved by the Turks - The Phanariots - The
literary movement - Revival of antique letters - Influence
of Korais
ONCE more the Greek has measured his strength with
the Turk, and once more the passionate cry of the
Hellenes for the fulfilment of their national aspirations
has,
in spite of the unfriendly attitude of the Govern-
ments and of the warnings of experienced statesmen,
awakened sympathetic echoes throughout Europe. This Philhellenic enthusiasm is an instinct rather than
a deliberate conviction.
Europe, educated for centuries
in an almost religious reverence for antique culture,
cannot forget the debt which she owes to the land
which was the birthplace of her sciences and the
cradle of her arts. In vain it is pointed out that,
after the changes and chances of twenty centuries,
the modern Greeks have little in common with the
race of Pericles and Plato. In vain has grievous dis-
illusion followed the high hopes which greeted the
foundation of the Hellenic kingdom.
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea,
and the imagination of Europe is still fired with
Byron's dream of a Hellas on whose soil, freed from
the blighting rule of the barbarian, the arts and
sciences shall once more flourish in their ancient
glory. An idle dream, perhaps, which should have
no place in serious politics. Yet a wide-spread senti-
ment, however empty, is not a factor which the states-
man can neglect with impunity. Metternich did so,
and the whole fabric of his policy, laboriously built
up on the most approved lines of Machiavellian state-
craft, collapsed at the first strong breath of the
' pathos ' he affected to despise.
THE GREEK RACE 3
The question of the historical continuity of the
Hellenic race is, then, of more than mere academic
interest, and enters to no slight degree into the domain
of practical politics. It played an important, even an
exaggerated, part in the history of the first Greek
revolt, and even now, when the Hellenic cause is more
commonly associated in the public mind with that of
the oppressed oriental Christian races in general, it
has no small influence upon opinion. What then is
the truth ?
On the one hand it is urged that the conquest and
reconquest of Greece, the manifold migrations of the
northern nations during the middle ages, must have
completely obliterated the pure Hellenic race, and
that the so-called Hellenes of to-day are, in fact, a
mixed breed of Albanian, Slavonic, and Latin origin,
with but a slight tincture of Greek blood. On the
other hand it is urged
that no nation, if we except the
Jews, has ever been so tenacious of its individuality. Conquered again and again, Hellenism, vanquished
in arms, ever retaliated by a bloodless victory over
its conquerors. Macedonians and Eomans in turn,
while placing Greece under their political yoke, them-
selves submitted to the
empire of Hellenic culture ; and though, with the decay of the ancient civilisation,
this culture gradually faded away, all the evidence
tends to prove that the Greeks, more than any other
nation of modern Europe, have succeeded in as-
similating those numerous foreign elements which
must, in the confusion of troubled centuries, have
become intermingled with them.
The capture of Constantinople, in 1453, by
Mahomed the Second, would indeed seem to have
crushed the last remnant of Greek nationality. Already
the barbarian invasions had, for centuries, been
gradually driving what survived of Hellenic culture
within the walls of the capital. But now
the collapse
of the last bulwark of the ancient civilisation pro-
duced a result far other than had been expected ; for
it was the dispersal of the Greek scholars, which
followed the fall of Constantinople, that led directly
to the great revival of Hellenism which is known to
us as the Renaissance : a movement itself destined,
in modern times, to react, through their literary
leaders, on the Hellenes. THE TIE OF RELIGION 5
For the time indeed, among the Greek themselves,
the last frayed cord that bound them to the classical
tradition was snapped. They survived as a people :
but the tie which united them was not the memory of
their ancient greatness, but that of their common reli-
gion, an influence all the stronger and more effective
because their conquerors were of an alien faith. In
most of the other parts of Europe the barbarian
invaders had been converted to the faith of the
nations they conquered, and had gradually inter-
mingled with the subject populations to produce nation-
alities of an entirely new type. The Mohammedan
conquerors, disdaining to mix with the raydhs, the
subject races, have by their very exclusiveness served
to maintain the national characteristics of the
Christian peoples they subdued, except, of course, in j
those instances where they succeeded in imposing
their own faith upon the conquered.
The tie then which, after 1453, bound together
the scattered Greek communities was the organisation
of the Orthodox Church. The sultans were indeed
glad to employ an instrument of government which
they found ready made to their hand, and it was by
their authority that the Patriarch of Constantinople
displaced the Byzantine Caesars as official head of
the Greek Christian subjects of the Porte. Himself,
by the very exigencies of his position, the mere crea-
ture of the Sultan, dependent as he was on the whims
and caprices of court favourites, and bound to acquire
and maintain his position by lavish bribes, he never-
theless exercised over the Christian subjects of the
Porte an immense influence, and was invested by the
policy of the sultans with great temporal as well as
spiritual powers. As the Patriarch over the whole
Greek world, so, in each diocese, the bishop became
the embodiment at once of spiritual and temporal
authority. To him were brought suits between Chris-
tians for settlement ; and even Mussulmans would occa-
sionally, in disputes with Christians, prefer episcopal
arbitration to the dilatory processes of the cadi's
court. It was, however, through the lower clergy that
the organisation of the Orthodox Church was most
intimately bound up with the life of the people ; for,
as married men, the parish priests shared to the full
in the feelings and aspirations of their flocks, from
whom, though set apart by the sanctity of their
office, they were hardly distinguished by culture or
attainments.
Just then as, in the West, the idea of imperial
unity had been preserved, all through the troubled
period of the barbarian invasions, by the Church
of Borne, so, throughout the Ottoman dominions, the
theocratic basis of Greek unity had been deliberately
maintained by the policy of the Ottoman conquerors.
The creation or toleration of such an imperium in
imperio might from the first have seemed of doubt-
ful wisdom. As a matter of fact it worked, from the
point of view of the Sultan, well enough, as long as
the Patriarch remained completely at his mercy. The
danger of the system became apparent only when,
with the decay of the Ottoman Empire, the Christian
subjects of the sultans began to look abroad for sup-
port, and the Patriarch of Constantinople could reckon
upon the assistance of a foreign power.
The Greek then became attached to this religion
by a double tie of faith and national sentiment. To
this religion and to the head of his religion alone does
he owe allegiance ; and no element of loyalty has ever
entered into his relations to the Sultan, who ruled him,
and rules him, by force alone. As soon then as the
rigour of the Turkish tyranny relaxed, no obligation
lay upon the ' rayah ' to obey a government which
could no longer enforce its claims. It is a mistake to
suppose that it was the intolerable tyranny of the Turk
which forced the Greeks into rebellion. All history and
experience indeed prove that a people will bear with-
out murmuring the most crushing burdens ; and it is
only when the cords have been relaxed, and the load
lightened, that the oppressed will feel the energy to
turn upon the oppressor. It was the conscientious
efforts at reform of the government of Louis XVI.
which directly produced the French Kevolution. It
was the lessening pressure of Turkish rule, and the
growing prosperity of the Greek population, that
rendered the Hellenic revolt possible and inevitable. 1
1 Cf. De Tocqueville, L'Ancien Regime et La Revolution, p. 259 :
' L'experience apprend que le moment le plus dangereux pour un
mauvais gouvernement est d'ordinaire celui ou il commence a se
THE OTTOMAN RULE 7
The rule of the Ottoman is indeed harmful rather
for what it leaves undone than for what it does ; it is
intolerable rather for what it implies than for what it
is. The Christian subject of the Sultan, even before
modern capitulations, was free to exercise his religion,
to accumulate wealth, to educate himself as he
pleased ; he could even rise to high office in Church
or State, become Dragoman to the Porte, or governor
of a province. The status of the peasantry under
Ottoman rule was, in the eighteenth century, far
more tolerable than in most parts of Europe.
Serfdom, still almost universal throughout Christen-
dom, had disappeared ; and, in many parts of the
Turkish dominions, the cultivators of the soil enjoyed
a prosperity unknown to the peasantry of some
nations accounted more civilised. It was the cap-
ricious and uncertain character of the Ottoman
Government, rather than any conscious oppression,
that provoked misery and discontent. The custom
of farming the taxes and of taking these in kind,
though in theory workable enough, became, in fact,
too often an engine of ruinous exactions ; for, where
the crops could not be cut until the tax-assessor
reformer. . . . Le mal qu'on souffrait patiemment comme inevitable
semble insupportable des qu'on conpoit 1'idee de s'y soustraire ....
le mal est devenu moindre, il est vrai, mais la sensibilite est plus vive.'
had made his rounds, there were obviously endless
openings for bribery and extortion. The evils of this
system fell indeed on Christian and Moslem alike.
Far more intolerable was that pride of religion and
of race which gave to the Christian, in relation to
his Mohammedan conqueror, the status of a slave,
whom any good Mussulman might insult or outrage
with impunity, and who, for the mere right to exist,
was compelled to pay an annual poll-tax. All men
will more readily forgive an injury than a slight ; and
the most intolerable of all tyrannies is that which
expresses itself, not in isolated acts of violence, but
in a consistently applied system of contemptuous
toleration.
THE KLEPHTS 11
In dealing with a conquered people, Machiavelli
had said, one must either crush or conciliate. The
Turks had done neither. They had made their rule
as galling as possible to the pride of the subject race,
while they had neither destroyed its organisation nor
even, in some cases, deprived it of its weapons.
Under the Byzantine Caesars, certain of the wild hills-
men of the Thessalian border country had been
enrolled in a sort of irregular militia, called Armatoli,
for the defence of the passes and the protection of the
roads. This system was continued and extended by
the sultans ; and the Greek mountaineers were thus,
by the deliberate policy of the Porte, accustomed for
generations to the use of arms, and trained in all the
arts of mountain warfare. From Armatole to brigand
was but a short step ; and when, toward the end of the
last century, the sultans began to diminish the numbers
of the Christian militia, and to curtail the power of
the captains, these became the enemies of the order they
were no longer paid to defend ; and, from this time, the
brigands, or Klephts, grew into social and political im-
portance as a permanent class. 1 Where the govern-
ment shows no respect for justice, lawless men are
often supported by the lower orders as a means for
securing revenge, or for redressing intolerable social
evils. There was as yet no organised effort to throw
off the Ottoman yoke; but the bolder and more reck-
less spirits among the peasantry, weary of a galling
subservience, hurried to the mountains, and turned
brigand. ^To be a Klepht was, in the popular view, a
glory rather than a disgrace ; and for whole decades
before bhe war of independence the Klephts were, in
the eyes of their countrymen, the defenders of faith
and fatherland against the Turk ; though, to tell the
truth, they plundered Christian and Mussulman with
a commendable impartiality. Owning 'no pasha save
the naked sword, no vizier save the gun,' they looked
down upon the Ottomans and their ' slaves ' with
equal contempt. A thousand tales were current of
their reckless courage, their cruelty, or their
generosity; their deeds of valour against the Turk
were sung in countless ballads, and the names of their
celebrated leaders repeated from mouth to mouth in
awe-struck tones. And indeed, though of schooling
they knew nothing beyond their wild war-chaunts, in
courage and physical endurance they in no wise fell
short of the heroes of antiquity. One thing alone
they feared: to fall alive into the hands of the Turks;
and their accustomed toast was ' KO\OV /j,o\vftt, ' the
welcome bullet which should save them from this
fate. Yet, if it should befall them, it was easier to
crush their body than their spirit. The following
story is characteristic.
The chief Katsantonis and his brother George had
been betrayed into the hands of their mortal enemy
Ali Pasha, and were by him condemned to have
their limbs broken piecemeal with heavy hammers.
Katsantonis was operated on first. Weakened by
illness, he was unable to bear the agony, and, when
the hammer fell upon his knee, uttered a sigh.
George turned to him in surprise. ' What, Katsan-
tonis, are you howling like a woman ? ' When his
own turn came, he lay without a sound or look of
suffering, while both his legs, from the hips to the
ankles, were shattered to pieces.
The following story is delightfully reminiscent of
our own Eobin Hood and Friar Tuck. The Klephts
of the Pindus had a priest attached to the band,
whose cell was a huge hollow oak. When they made
a captive they would lead him up to the tree, and the
chief would say : ' Speak, holy oak, which our fathers
reverenced, what shall we do with our prisoner ? '
' Is he a Christian,' asked the tree, ' or an unbelieving
heathen ? ' ' Thou knowest, sacred tree, that he is a
Christian ! ' * Then let our brother go on his way
rejoicing, after receiving the kiss of fraternal peace,
and dedicating his purse for the relief of the needs of
his poor brethren ! ' If the prisoner was a Mussulman
the answer was simply ' Hang the infidel on my holy
boughs, and confiscate all he has for the use of the
true Church and her faithful children.'
A religious sanction, then, was not lacking to this
patriotic brigandage. The Orthodox Church gladly
forgave crimes committed in the cause of faith and
fatherland ; and the Klepht could pray, in all sincerity
of heart, to ' Panagia Klephtrina,' the Mother of God,
who protects all robbery by sea and land.
Such were the Klephts who played so important a
part, for good and evil, 1 in the war of Greek indepen-
dence.
THE GREEK SEA POWER 18
Another and even more potent weapon, forged
by the policy of the Porte, and to be used in the same
cause, was the maritime power of the Greek islands.
Long anterior to the Hellenic revolt many of these
islands had, by one means or another, gained a large
measure of independence. Some were practically
autonomous, their subservience to the Sultan being
evidenced only by the obligation to pay a small annual
tribute, and to supply a certain number of sailors to
the Ottoman navy. The islanders, accustomed from
earliest infancy to face the perils and chances of the
sea, were magnificent seamen ; and, favoured by their
political circumstances, they speedily built up a very
considerable maritime trade. To the development of
this a great impetus was given in 1774 by the treaty
of Kainardji, by which Eussia obtained certain privi-
leges in the navigation of the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles, and a somewhat vague and shadowy
right of protection over the Sultan's Christian sub-
jects. Greek merchants now began to trade under the
Russian flag. Their vessels, hitherto mainly small
1 Gordon, i. 400, says ' the Greeks had cause to repent their early
predilection for the Klephts or predatory chiefs, who were almost
all ... infamous for the sordid perversity of their dispositions.'
Certainly the wretched peasants suffered, during the war, far more
from them than from the Turks.
coasting brigs, increased in size ; and their voyages,
at first adventured timidly from island to island, began
to extend from Cher son to Gibraltar, and even beyond.
The danger from Algerine pirates necessitated the
ships being armed; and the crews were trained to
fight as well as to navigate the vessel. Thus, under
the eyes of the Ottoman Government, was gradually
built up that naval power which, during the war of
liberation, was to win such signal successes for the
cause of Hellenic freedom.
On the mainland, as well as in the islands, the
Turks had permitted a considerable measure of local
self-government. In the pashalik of the Morea, while
the taxes were usually farmed by the beys of the
twenty-three provinces into which it was divided, the
village communities were allowed to elect their own
officers, the Demogeronts, or village elders, who, be-
sides collecting the taxes and managing the affairs of
their own villages, met in a district assembly, with
the representatives of the towns, to elect the Proestoi,
whose duty it was to determine what share of the
district taxation each community should bear, and
who, in their turn, chose one Greek officer, called
Primate, and one Mohammedan, called Ayan, to re-
present the province, and to take part in the council
of the Pasha of the Morea, who resided at Tripolitza.
