By Catherine Tsounis
On February 1, 1833, the ships carrying King Othon arrived in Nafplion the capital city. He became king of a wasted land with a population of 750,00. A small independent state, under the guarantor ship of the three great powers was born. It was a radical new reality. The Greeks created the first national state in the Balkans. King Othon and advisers were Germans deeply interested in the classical past.1
Through his ancestor, the Bavarian Duke John II, Otto was a descendant of the Byzantine imperial dynasties of Comnenos and Laskaris. His father was a prominent Philhellene, and provided significant financial aid to the Greek cause during the War of Independence.
The Great Powers extracted a pledge from Otto’s father to restrain him from hostile actions against the Ottoman Empire. They also insisted that his title be “King of Greece”, rather than “King of the Hellenes”, because the latter would imply a claim over the millions of Greeks then still under Turkish rule. Not quite 18, the young prince arrived in Greece with 3,500 Bavarian troops (the Bavarian Auxiliary Corps) and three Bavarian advisors aboard the British frigate HMS Madagascar.
Although he did not speak Greek, he immediately endeared himself to his adopted country by adopting the Greek national costume and Hellenizing his name to “Othon” (some English sources, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, call him “Otho”). Thousands lined the docks of Nafplio to witness his arrival, including many heroes of the revolution such as Theodoros Kolokotronis and Alexandros Mavrokordatos. His arrival was initially enthusiastically welcomed by the Greek people as an end to the chaos of the prior years and the beginning of the rejuvenation of the Greek nation. 2
The new state was heavily in debt to England and the Bank of Rothschilds. The taxation was heavier than under the Ottoman Turkish empire. Peter S. Giakoumis in “The Forgotten Heroes of the Balkan Wars”, explained “the establishment of the modern Greek state required financial backing, and without it, independence was going to fail. The creation of any nation– state requires infusions of capital. Those infusions came at a high price. Greek economic obligations started right from the onset. The need to finance the war of independence in 1821 was critical, but unfortunately it also brought about the nation’s first financial default. The London Philharmonic community committee had supported the acquisition of two loans in London, in 1824 1925, for a total of 2.8 million pounds. In the end, only 40% of the loan would make it to the Greek insurgents, while the rest was used for commissions, two years of interest, and the financing of the sinking fund. With the war still going, the Greeks entered default in 1826. This initiative that became known as “the debt of Independence.” Nevertheless, Greece achieved its independence in 1829 after the decisive naval battle of Navarino…that defeated Turks”3
The 750 thousand Greeks in 1833 had a precious gift: FREEDOM. No longer were their families sold on the slavery auction blocks of Alexandria, Egypt, or Constantinople. Their sons were not: hostages in Ottoman Turkey, castrated as eunuchs, made into janissaries, and drafted into the Ottoman armies, forced to destroy fellow Eastern Orthodox Christians. Their women were not seized and made into prostitutes in Ottoman harems. The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage. — Thucydides, 460-394 BC, Ancient Greek historian
References:
1. Arvanitakis, Dimitris. “From Constantinople To Athens he Vagaries of Greek Geography and the Hellenic World, 1453-1830”, in Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA), FOM BYZANTIUM TO MODERN GREECE, New York, Onassis Cultural Center, p.26
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_of_Greece
3. Giakoumis, Peter S. “The Forgotten Heroes of the Balkan Wars”, Starry Night Publishing.Com, Rochester, New York, 2020, p. 32
