The London Conference of Britain, France, and Russia in May 1832 established Greece as an independent kingdom under the joint guarantee of the three Powers (article 4), with the 17-year-old Bavarian prince Otto as its hereditary king (articles 1–3). As Otto was a minor, articles 9–10 of the treaty authorized his father, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, to form a three-member regency council that was to rule in his stead until . Further articles concerned the issue of a loan of 60 million francs by the Powers, and the sending of a Bavarian expeditionary force that was to replace the French troops then in Greece and begin the establishment of a regular Greek army.