The Greeks, ancient and modern—Origin of the modern Greeks—Mohammed the Conqueror and the Greeks—The Greeks under Selim I—The rise of the Phanariot Greeks—The work of the Orthodox Church—The Greek literary revival—The trade of the Greeks—The revival of Hellenism—The first Pan-Hellenic rising—The revolt of the Islands—Ali Pasha’s assistance—Massacres—The battle of Navarino—The last war between Greece and Turkey—Joachim III—The story of the Patriarchate—The funeral of His Holiness Joachim III—The Greeks in the last war—A legend of Balukli.

WHEN Mohammed II completed the conquest of the Eastern Empire by the capture of Constantinople he made himself master of a large population, both in the City and the former Empire of old Byzantium, which had for some time been considered Greek, and which was subsequently called Greek. This classification was religious from the Turkish point of view, from that of the Greeks themselves it became racial as time went on. To the conquering Moslem all those were Greeks who belonged to the Orthodox Church; the Greeks, however, insisted on their descent from the historic people who had made their country famous before the days of the Romans even, the Hellenes, whose literature they adopted, whose art they basely imitated, and with whose high attributes they consider themselves endowed.

This people, the classic Greeks, the Hellenes, had inhabited the Peloponese Peninsula from those dark ages{234} before recorded history, and even in prehistoric times had occupied the islands between Greece and Asia Minor. No doubt the Hellenes moved down from the plains of Central Europe, the cradle of the Aryan race, in successive waves, being urged forward by seething masses of young nations behind them. We have some indications as to what manner of men they were in the early works of art of the sixth century B.C., which tend to show that these ancient immigrants were large, blue-eyed, fair-haired men. Anthropologists maintain after studying the skulls of ancient Greeks that these were dolichocephalic, long-headed, which tends further to the conclusion that the first invaders of this peninsula were akin to the races of Northern Europe. The first immigrants were probably the Arcadians, who spread from the coasts to the islands and populated Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus. They were followed by the Doric tribe, kinsmen who came from Thrace, who probably brought the first immigrants to submission and gradually absorbed them, and such of the aboriginals, the Ionians, who did not migrate to Asia Minor. Within the range of history another people came down from the north to influence the Peloponese, the Macedonians. Their origin is uncertain, but what traces are left of their old language, a name here and there, suggests that they were akin to the Illyrians, had adopted Greek culture, and were ruled by princes who wished to be considered pure Greeks. It would seem, therefore, that the ancient Hellenes were a mixture of various northern Aryan races and aboriginal inhabitants, Illyrians, Ionians, whose origin forms a yet unsolved historical problem. The Peloponese was, as it were, a pier, standing out into the Mediterranean Sea, and from which northern ideas extended and spread southward to Africa, eastward over the Archipelago to Asia. The subtle attraction of an outlet must have acted{235} on the subconsciousness of other northern races, in that the Hellenes, far from feeling secure in their peninsula, were constantly exposed to the visits of strange barbaric visitors whenever “Wanderlust” moved the tribes of Central Europe. Of course, Romans left their impress, and so did wandering Goths, but strongest of all was the influence of the Slavs, and they so seriously affected the Peloponese that at one time it was known as Slavinia.

To all this came an Albanian invasion in the thirteenth century, so that the Greeks of to-day cannot lay claim to anything more than spiritual descent from the ancient Hellenes. The type has changed completely from that of the traditional Greek: he was tall, fair-haired, and long-headed; the Greek of to-day is of medium height, they have not ten per cent of fair-haired people amongst them, and they are brachycephalic, like the Slavs. Other Slav influences may be traced in the language, in the names of places and rivers. The Hellenes of to-day may be spiritual children of Hellas, physically they are certainly the result of a mixing of races—Illyrian, Ionian, Hellenes, Latins, Goths, Slavs of various tribes, Vlachs, Albanians, and a dash contributed by the pious Crusaders of Western Europe. These Greeks are widely distributed over the Balkan Peninsula, throughout the Turkish Empire, and over the Archipelago, and are considered a nation on the basis of an assertion made by M. Kapodistrias, the first President of the new Hellenic State. When asked, Who are the Greeks? he answered: “The Greek nation consists of the people who, since the conquest of Constantinople, have never ceased to profess adherence to the Orthodox Church, to speak the language of their fathers, and who have remained under the jurisdiction, both spiritual and temporal, of their Church, wherever they{236} might live in the Turkish Empire.” This is, of course, a very inaccurate description, but at least serves to illustrate Greek pretensions.

The Greeks reckon the total of their nationals in the Balkan Peninsula at roughly eight millions, but I doubt whether they number more than five millions, for the Helenophils who have been making propaganda for years among the Slavs in Macedonia are much inclined to count in those converts, many of whose sons, by the way, have been won back by the Slavs and now call themselves Serbs or Bulgars, according to the nationality of their teachers. About two millions of these five make up the population of the Kingdom of Greece, the remainder are scattered about in the other Balkan States. The majority are to be found in Turkey and along the coasts from Saloniki to Varna, between two and three hundred thousand live in Constantinople and by the shores of the Bosphorus, in fact, they are to be found in all the important towns, not only of Turkey in Europe and Asia Minor, but also in Bulgaria and Russia. No doubt the preference for town life dates from the days of barbarian invasions. The Greeks are chiefly engaged in trade and business, though many are fishermen employed in the coasting trade.

Mohammed II, on his triumphal entry into Constantinople, found a smaller population than might have been expected from a large and important city. Many of the Greeks had fled, not a few had been massacred, and it took some skill and statecraft to induce the fugitives to return. This Mohammed succeeded in doing by reinstating the Greek Patriarch with great and solemn ceremony, and by promising perfect religious freedom to the Greek community. The Greeks had always devoted more attention to the affairs of their Church than to outside matters of state (which fact helped to ruin the Eastern Empire), and{237} the Sultan encouraged this spirit. He increased the importance of the Greek community in the capital by numerous concessions, such as ranking the Patriarch among the Viziers of State, giving him temporal control over his flock in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance, management of schools, in which he was assisted by officials of the Church with such high-sounding names as Logothete, Grand Treasurer, Chatophylax. Mohammed could afford to strengthen the Greek element in Constantinople as it was always under his eyes; in the country he endeavoured to break what remained by importing fifteen thousand Greeks from the land to the capital as settlers. The Turks were not much interested in trade, a pursuit that does not appeal to warriors, so business was left to the Greeks, and both parties were sufficiently satisfied to get on very well together at first.

There was some discontent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Selim I had an idea that a massacre might do good; however, he was dissuaded by the Mufti. About this time it was decided to take no more Greek children for the ranks of the Janissaries; the method formerly used kept the provincial Greeks in order by means of their own progeny converted to Islam and unrelenting foes to Christianity, and no more Greeks joined the Army of Turkey because none others than Moslems were allowed to serve in it. Christians might, however, become Armatoles, a kind of mounted gendarmes which the communities raised and kept at their own expense, as the Turk has never seen the necessity of securing any one’s life or fortune, and used what police force there was to nose out conspiracies and such matters of interest. Brigandage, if committed by Moslems upon Christians, was not looked upon as a serious crime, and went unpunished until Western nations began to interfere in Turkish affairs.{238} The Greeks in the country therefore kept their own gendarmerie, who, after the example of the Turkish zaptiehs, looked with no unfriendly eye on the reprisals committed by the Klephts, outlaws and brigands of their own race.

On the whole the Greeks had quite a bearable time under Turkish rule, especially in the capital, where their importance increased considerably. In the course of time a colony of patricians grew up around the Phanar, much in the same neighbourhood inhabited by those connected with the Byzantine Court before the conquest. These patricians were not descended from nobles of the former Empire, but came from families of merchants who had settled in Constantinople around the residency of the Patriarch.

When the military power of the Osmanli declined and they were obliged to use treaties where formerly threats had served their purpose, the Sublime Porte felt a need for trained intellects to carry on intricate negotiations, especially as the Turks were much too indolent to learn a foreign language. So Jews and renegades were called in as interpreters, and in course of time Greeks discovered a suitable field for their abilities in the welter of Turkish foreign affairs. The Turks were equally sensible to the uses of intellectual, though generally servile, Phanariots, and employed them in ever-increasing numbers and extended their responsibilities. A Greek, Panayoti, was made dragoman to the Porte by Achmet Kiüprilü; another Greek, Mavrocordato, signed the Treaty of Carlowitz as Turkish plenipotentiary; and so by degrees Greeks came into the public service of the Ottoman Empire. Phanariots rose to yet higher honours when at the beginning of the eighteenth century Turkey had reason to distrust the nationalist parties in Wallachia and Moldavia. Hospodars{239} were sent from Constantinople to those provinces, and many of these were of Greek Phanariot families, introducing into Roumania names well known there to-day: Mavrocordato, Soutza, Ypsilanti, Ghika.

The Orthodox Church was very active, especially in Macedonia, and it is thanks to her that the members of the Slav race in that province have not lost every trace of their nationality, every vestige of their faith during those long centuries when Servia groaned under the iron heel of Sultans passing through triumphant, and Bulgaria had ceased to be. That Christianity was kept alive in Servia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and that any culture remained in those countries after their conquest by the Turks, is due to the insistence with which the Patriarchate at Constantinople pursued its work of maintaining schools, distributing literature, etc., in those districts. True, their tendency and probably their aim was to Hellenize Serbs and Bulgarians. Moreover, they would have succeeded had not those nationalities, which the Orthodox Church had kept alive, felt their own strength and in their turn insisted on a line of their own. Certainly for many generations, and until within the memory of man, Bulgars and Serbs in Macedonia have described themselves as Greeks.

This propaganda continued unchecked so long as the Phanariots did not lay themselves open to the suspicion of Hellenism. Turkish rule was strict, often unjust, but the Turk had not come to realize that the subject races could make their way out of the mire into which Islam’s conquests had thrust them.

The literary spirit of the Greeks had been all but killed by the Moslem conquest of their capital, and when it revived at last spent its energies in theological controversy for several centuries. But by degrees colleges were started, theatres opened, and the world beyond the confines of the{240} Turkish Empire was called in to witness the Greek revival by assiduous Pan-Hellenic agencies, clubs, and societies in Vienna, Bucharest, Corfu. This revival was strongest, at least in its literary efforts, in the middle of the eighteenth century, towards the end of that, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century. As no revival can hold its head up without a poet or two, the Pan-Hellenes raised two, Rhigas and Coreas, poets and patriots who found it convenient to sing their inspired song some distance from home, for exile is always the most suitable setting for genius of that order, and is, moreover, so much safer. Unhappily this did not apply to Rhigas, who had settled somewhere in Austria; the Government of that country handed him over to the Turkish authorities, who executed him at Belgrade. His death inspired other poets to further efforts of the patriotic order, so all was not yet lost.

The commercial genius of the Greeks ever stood them in good stead; they defied the competition of others, and left even Jews and Armenians far behind. This quality led to their being preferred for the consular service of the Ottoman Empire. They managed to make considerable profits out of the treaty between Russia and Turkey in 1774, and soon the carrying trade of the Levant was in their hands. This attracted numbers of the seafaring Greeks into the mercantile marine, and left the Turkish Navy in recruiting difficulties, for it had depended on the Greeks for seamen. The prosperity of the Greek merchants carried them further afield, and they started large business houses in Odessa, Trieste, Venice, and London, and it was largely owing to these merchants that the patriotic songs of Rhigas were revived, and by them the nationalist ambitions of the Pan-Hellenes. The French Revolution fanned the spirit of revolt into living flame, and by 1815 a strong political union called the Hetaireia was called{241} into being, with the object of freeing Greece from Turkish rule by organized revolt. Four Greek merchants of Moscow started this union, and it was decorated with the usual accessories of conspiracy, symbols, ceremonies, a mysterious language, in fact, the whole outfit suitable to the occasion. Moreover, it flourished, and numbered two hundred thousand members by 1820. The Turks had taken the alarm meanwhile, and were preparing in characteristic fashion to meet all contingencies. Special officials, mostly Albanians, were appointed to keep a strict control over the mountain-passes from Macedonia and Epirus into Thessaly and Acarnania, and these officials managed their oppressive measures so well that by the middle of the eighteenth century they had removed all the little jealousies among the different Greek communities and led them all to coalesce; even the Klephts and Armatoles, official opponents as they were, became reconciled and united with the others against the Turks.

Another cause of unrest in Greece was the constant changing of the ruling power in Morea. Mohammed II took this province, all but a number of towns which Venice retained till 1540 and then handed over to the Turks. But the Venetians wanted them back, and re-annexed them about a century later, during the reign of a weak Sultan, and held them until they were again accorded to the Turks by the Peace of Passarowitz, in 1718.

As may be supposed, Russia and Greece entered into some kind of private understanding, and Peter the Great was by no means disinclined to assist in any revolt which would tend to weaken Ottoman power and make it easier for him to acquire those outlying bits of the Sultan’s Empire upon which he had set his heart. But no advantage came to Greece through Peter the Great’s policy, nor through the influence of Russia during the first rising of{242} the Hellenes, in 1770. Greece built firmly on Russian support, for Orloff, the favourite, had drawn Catherine’s attention to the state of affairs in that country, described to him by one Papadopoulo. However, something went wrong; the Greeks accused the Russians of treachery, the Russians the Greeks of cowardice, and in the end Greece got nothing and Russia the Crimea, which was probably the sole object of the man?uvre as far as the Northern Empire was concerned. The Turks, by way of admonition, let loose Albanian troops, with permission to plunder and ravage; fifty thousand Greeks were massacred and the country given over to desolation. The Albanians went out of hand so completely that they were beyond the control of the Porte for nine years after this unsuccessful Greek rising, and were not reduced to a semblance of submission until defeated by a Turkish army at Tripolitza. Nevertheless, when next Russia declared war on Turkey the latter at once let loose the Albanians over Greece again. In the meantime Klephts and Armatoles, united as wild men of the mountains, had become a formidable asset for purposes of revolt.

A number of islands were the first to throw off the Turkish yoke: Corfu, Paso, Zante, Ithaka, Kephalonia, and two others. These islands had belonged to Venice from the fifteenth century till the end of the eighteenth, when they were ceded to France, and after several changes became the United Republic of the Seven Ionian Islands, under Great Britain’s protection, until incorporated, without their consent, in t............