ABSTRACT
Balkan states were intent on acting as though they were sovereign, their rulers adopting European bearings, accrediting or receiving quasi-diplomatic agents, concluding alliances, joining international technical organizations. The plans for continued liberation and unification were linked to the question of land ownership; revolutionary organizations and nationalist propaganda were exported from the Balkan states to the Ottoman provinces to exploit agrarian discontent. Otho's popularity in Greece went into rapid decline after the celebrations of his silver jubilee. He had turned the constitution into an instrument of royal autocracy; any pretence of constitutional government had been abandoned. King Otho had incurred the hostility of all three protecting powers: the British distrusted his anti-Ottoman moves, the French were disturbed by his Austrian sympathies, the Russians were worried by the lack of an Orthodox heir. The introduction of monarchical trappings and of court protocol symbolized the fact that Michael Obrenovic carried the weight of the state, although his rule was based on law.
