ABSTRACT
The origins of the modern Greek state lay in the revolt of 1821 in the Danubian principalities. The revolution had not prospered there but it had inspired some Greeks to take independent action; that action, sporadic and dispersed as it was, was confined to the Peloponnese where the thinly spread Ottoman troops were soon confined to their coastal fortresses. Neither side could gain the upper hand, and both indulged in acts of primitive savagery. The Greeks, however, had the advantage of their classical past. West Europeans steeped in classical education and mythology rushed to the rescue and, though they were far fewer in number than volunteers from other Balkan ethnic groups, they created strong pressures on their own governments. When Egyptian forces were sent to bolster the Ottoman cause in Greece the European powers reacted; British and French ships destroyed the Egyptian fleet in Navarino Bay in 1827 and in the following year the Russians sent their armies into the Balkans. In the final settlement in 1832 the three powers guaranteed the independence of the new state which they also required to accept a foreign king.
