ABSTRACT
THE War of Independence was over; it ren1ained to fix definitely the dimensions and to appoint the ruler of the new state. Eleven days before the conclusion of the GrecoTurkish hostilities at Petra, Russia had in1posed upon the Sultan the peace of Adrianople, which included his recognition of the treaty of London and of the protocol of ~Iarch 22. The effect of this treaty in London was such that the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, abandoned the idea of n1aking Greece a vassal principality, and became an advocate of an independent Greek kingdom. Twenty-five years later, his Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, confessed that Greece owed her escape from vassalage to complete freedom solely to the impression created by the treaty of Adrianople. 1'he Duke believed the end of Turkey to be at hand; it was, therefore, useless to place Greece beneath a suzerain too feeble to defend her. On the other hand he foresaw the further aggrandisement of Russia, and he was accordingly anxious that Greece, believed to be Russophil, should not be too large. What the British Cabinet of that day wanted was a small, independent state; and such were the two leading ideas which inspired the fresh protocols, signed by the three Powers on February 3,183°. 'fhey decided that Greece should be a completely independent state, governed by an hereditary monarch, selected outside the reigning families of Great Britain, France, and Russia, with the title of " Sovereign Prince of Greece." But
1°7 in consideration of the advantage of independence, "and in deference to the desire expressed by the Porte to obtain the reduction of the frontiers fixed by the protocol of March 22," the frontiers of this principality were to be restricted to the mouth of the Sperchei6s on the east, to that of the Acheloos on the west. It would have been difficult even for British diplomacy, whose geographical ignorance has provoked so many complications in the near east, to have drawn a worse frontier. The best that could be said of it was that it included Thermopylre, the glory of ancient, and Mesolonghi, that of modern Greece. It sacrificed Akarnania and a large part of Aitolia, whose inhabitants had borne a conspicuous part in the struggle; and it thereby abandoned to Turkey the pass of Makryn6ros, the Thermopylae of the west. It did, indeed, include Eubrea, the Devil's Islands, Skyros, and the Cyclades, but it excluded Crete, and thus left to Europe a legacy of trouble and expense only recently finished. As usually happens, the best expert opinion could have been had for the asking, but w'as not considered. Colonel Leake was then in London; yet the Foreign Office never consulted the famous traveller, \vho knew northern Greece as well as its clerks knew Downing Street. As ruler of the new principality the powers proposed Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (subsequently first king of the Belgians). This was an excellent choice. The Prince, as he after\vards showed on the Belgian throne, possessed the qualities of a statesman; he was forty years of age; he had long been suggested as a sovereign for the Greeks; five years earlier Kountouri6tes had commissioned agents to sound him; more recently he had himself sent an emissary to study the situation in Greece. Noone was, therefore, surprised when, eight days later, he accepted. As the Porte likewise accepted these last protocols of the three Powers, and the Greek people was delighted at Prince Leopold's selection, it seemed as if the Greek question were settled; so certain did this appear, that France abandoned into his hands her ancient protectorate over the Catholics in the
Cyclades. But the Allies had reckoned without the President. Capo d'Istria cherished the ambition of a life presidency for hinlself; he was disappointed that he had been overlooked, and he saw no reason why he should have sown that a foreigner might reap. He, therefore, deliberately set to work to paint the condition of Greece in the darkest colours, so as to deter the Prince from coming. I.Jeopold himself was disappointed at the narrow frontiers of his intended principality; he had already written to IJord Aberdeen "that he could imagine no effectual mode of pacifying Greece without including Candia in the new state"; he had read Church's pamphlet on the strategic advantages of Akarnania; he had even hoped to bring, like King George in 1864, the Ionian Islands as a present to his future subjects. Capo d'Istria harped upon the unpopularity of this restriction of frontier, with which Leopold would be identified; he cleverly availed himself of the decree passed at Argos that the negotiations must be approved by the legislature. He hinted that the Prince would do well to adopt the religion of his subjects, of which the President was a warm devotee. He tried to prevent addresses of welcome from reaching Leopold, and he treated the signatories as his enemies. All these things, conlbined with the remote prospect of a regency in England-for his dead wife had been the daughter of George IV-so affected the Prince, that he retracted his acceptance and in May definitely resigned the Greek throne. Leopold a year later became king of the Belgians; but he often lamented, amid the prosaic conlforts of Brussels, the romantic career which might have been his at Athens. To-day the most instructive incident in his candidature is his prophetic warning about Crete.
