page_title: Greek War of Independence
section_title: International reaction
hierarchical_section_title: Greek War of Independence / Outbreak of the revolution / International reaction
context_page_description: The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution, was a successful war of independence waged by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1830. The Greeks were later assisted by Great Britain, France and Russia, while the Ottomans were aided by their North African vassals, particularly the eyalet of Egypt. The war led to the formation of modern Greece. The revolution is celebrated by Greeks around the world as independence day on 25 March.
  Greece came under Ottoman rule in the 15th century, in the decades before and after the fall of Constantinople. During the following centuries, there were sporadic but unsuccessful Greek uprisings against Ottoman rule. In 1814, a secret organization called Filiki Eteria was founded with the aim of liberating Greece, encouraged by the revolutionary fervor gripping Europe in that period. The Filiki Eteria planned to launch revolts in the Peloponnese, the Danubian Principalities, and Constantinople itself. The insurrection was planned for 25 March 1821, the Orthodox Christian Feast of the Annunciation.
context_section_description: The news of the revolution was greeted with dismay by the conservative leaders of Europe, committed to upholding the system established at the Congress of Vienna, but was greeted with enthusiasm by many ordinary people across Europe. After the execution of the Patriarch Gregory V, the Russian Emperor Alexander I broke off diplomatic relations with the Sublime Porte after his foreign minister Count Ioannis Kapodistrias sent an ultimatum demanding promises from the Ottomans to stop executing Orthodox priests, which the Porte did not see fit to answer. In the summer of 1821, various young men from all Europe began to gather in the French port of Marseilles to book a passage to Greece and join the revolution. The French philhellene Jean-François-Maxime Raybaud wrote when he heard of the revolution in March 1821, "I learnt with a thrill that Greece was shaking off her chains" and in July 1821 boarded a ship going to Greece. Between the summer of 1821 and end of 1822, when the French started to inspect ships leaving Marseilles for philhellenes, some 360 volunteers travelled to Greece. From the United States came the doctor Samuel Gridley Howe and the soldier George Jarvis to fight with the Greeks. The largest contingents came from the German states, France and the Italian states.
  In Nafplio, a monument to honor the philhellenes who died fighting in the war listed 274 names, of which 100 are from Germany, forty each from France and Italy, and the rest from Britain, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, Portugal and Denmark.
  In Germany, Italy and France many clergyman and university professors gave speeches saying all of Europe owed a huge debt to ancient Greece, that the modern Greeks were entitled to call upon the classical heritage as a reason for support, and that Greece would only achieve progress with freedom from the Ottoman Empire. A young medical student in Mannheim wrote that hearing his professor lecture on the need for Greek freedom went through him like an electric shock, inspiring him to drop his studies and head to Greece, while a Danish student wrote: "How could a man inclined to fight for freedom and justice find a better place than next to the oppressed Greeks?". In France, Britain, Spain, Russia, the United States and many other places "Greek committees" were established to raise funds and supplies for the revolution.
  The classicist Edward Everett, a professor of Greek at Harvard, was active in championing the Greek cause in the United States and in November 1821 published an appeal from Adhamantios Korais reading "To the Citizens of the United States, it is your land that Liberty has fixed her abode, so you will not assuredly imitate the culpable indifference or rather the long ingratitude of the Europeans", going on to call for American intervention, in several American newspapers. In 1821, the Greek committee in Charleston, South Carolina sent the Greeks 50 barrels of salted meat while the Greek Committee in Springfield, Massachusetts sent supplies of salted meat, sugar, fish and flour. Newspapers in the United States gave the war much coverage and were overwhelmingly pro-Greek in their stance, which explains why American public opinion was so supportive. In New York City, one ball put on by the Greek committee raised $8,000. In Russia, the St. Petersburg Greek committee under Prince Alexander Golitsyn had raised 973, 500 roubles by August 1822. By the end of the war, millions of roubles had been fund-raised in Russia for the relief of refugees and to buy Greeks enslaved freedom (though the government forbade buying arms for the Greeks), but no Russian is known to have gone to fight with the Greeks.
  Haiti was the first government of an independent state to recognise the Greek independence. Jean-Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti, following a Greek request for assistance, addressed a letter on 15 January 1822. In the letter sent to Greek expatriates living in France, Adamantios Korais, Christodoulos Klonaris, Konstantinos Polychroniades and A. Bogorides, who had assembled themselves into a Committee which was seeking intern
caption: The Reception of Lord Byron at Missolonghi by Theodoros Vryzakis
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