page_title: Bavarian Auxiliary Corps
section_title: Maniot uprising of 1834
hierarchical_section_title: Bavarian Auxiliary Corps / Service in Greece / Maniot uprising of 1834
caption_attribution_description: English: Bavarian lancers charge Greek rebels Ελληνικά: Βαυαροί λογχοφόροι επιτίθενται σε επαναστάτες
context_page_description: The Royal Bavarian Auxiliary Corps was a military force formed in 1832 to accompany the Bavarian prince Otto to the newly independent Kingdom of Greece, after he was chosen as the country's first king. As part of the treaty provisions of Otto's accession, a Bavarian-staffed volunteer military corps was to be formed to replace the forces maintained there by the Great Powers—chiefly the French troops of the Morea Expedition—as well as the remnants of the Greek forces organized during the Greek War of Independence, and provide cadres and training for the new Hellenic Army. Because not enough volunteers could be found in time, regular Bavarian Army troops formed much of the actual corps that arrived with Otto in Greece in early 1833. The Bavarian Army regulars were gradually replaced by volunteers until 1834. These came chiefly from Bavaria, but also included men from diverse nations, and often of non-military background. Most of the Bavarians left by 1837, but many remained behind, dominating the Greek army and the administration.
context_section_description: The Corps fought its main test of arms in 1834, being sent to confront an uprising of the Mani Peninsula. The Maniots, a warlike people who had withstood the Ottomans and Egyptians, were incensed when the regency ordered the destruction of the fortified tower houses typical of the area. This was a typical example of Bavarian insensitivity to local peculiarities: where the regency saw in these buildings only a dangerous military asset that might be used to challenge its authority, to the Maniots these were their homes, whose destruction without recompense would leave them destitute. The regency's local agent, the Bavarian officer Maximilian Feder, had managed to maintain order until then through a judicious mixture of bribery and force, but he lost control following the regency's arrest and trial of Theodoros Kolokotronis, one of the principal military leaders of the War of Independence. Kolokotronis' supporters in the region and the regency's political rivals combined in exhorting the Maniots to rise up. 
  2,500 men of the Corps, under Christian Schmaltz, were sent to suppress the revolt. The Bavarians' unfamiliarity with the climate and terrain, to which the Maniots and their tactics were perfectly adjusted, meant that they could achieve little: in the harsh mountains, the Bavarians were unable to deploy larger formations or even provide effective artillery support, while the Maniots resorted to their time-honoured guerrilla tactics against their lumbering, heat-exhausted opponents. The Bavarians were also completely unprepared for the cruelty of the Maniots: captured soldiers were sometimes put in bags with wild cats, or gradually mutilated. At best, they were stripped of weapons and clothes and sent back naked to their lines. To denote their disdain, when the Maniots agreed to ransom their prisoners to the government, they demanded six phoenixes for each soldier, but only one phoenix for the officers. 
  Unable to make headway, the regency was forced to issue a general amnesty to calm the situation, and negotiate terms: the Maniots were promised subsidies, respect for the privileges of Orthodox monasteries, and non-interference in their affairs. The upshot of the affair was that the government ended up pouring into Mani twice the sums that it received from it in taxes, and that the myth of the Bavarians' invincibility was broken, severely tarnishing the regency's prestige and authority and encouraging future revolts.
caption: Bavarian lancers charging Greek rebels, watercolor by Köllnberger
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