The World's Greatest Books - Volume 12 Part 20

This system was extended to Wallachia and Moldavia, and no other Christian race in the Othoman dominions was exposed to so long a period of unmitigated extortion and cruelty as the Roman population of these princ.i.p.alities. The Treaty of Kainardji which concluded the war with Russia between 1768 and 1774, humbled the pride of the sultan, broke the strength of the Othoman Empire, and established the moral influence of Russia over the whole of the Christian populations in Turkey. But Russia never insisted on the execution of the articles of the treaty, and the Greeks were everywhere subjected to increased oppression and cruelty.

During the war from 1783 to 1792, caused by Catherine II. of Russia a.s.suming sovereignty over the Crimea, Russia attempted to excite the Christians in Greece to take up arms against the Turks, but they were again abandoned to their fate on the conclusion of the Treaty of Ya.s.si in 1792, which decided the part.i.tion of Poland.

Meanwhile, the diverse ambitions of the higher clergy and the phanariots at Constantinople taught the people of Greece that their interests as a nation were not always identical with the policy of the leaders of the Orthodox Church. A modern Greek literature sprang up and, under the influence of the French Revolution, infused love of freedom into the popular mind, while the sultan's administration every day grew weaker under the operation of general corruption. Throughout the East it was felt that the hour of a great struggle for independence on the part of the Greeks had arrived.

_IV.--The Greek Revolution_

The Greek revolution began in 1821. Two societies are supposed to have contributed to accelerating it, but they did not do much to ensure its success. These were the Philomuse Society, founded at Athens in 1812, and the Philike Hetaireia, established in Odessa in 1814. The former was a literary club, the latter a political society whose schemes were wild and visionary. The object of the inhabitants of Greece was definite and patriotic.

The attempt of Alexander Hypsilantes, the son of the Greek Hospodar of Wallachia, under the pretence that he was supported by Russia, to upset the Turkish government in Moldavia and Wallachia was a miserable fiasco distinguished for ma.s.sacres, treachery, and cowardice, and it was repudiated by the Tsar of Russia. Very different was the intensity of the pa.s.sion with which the inhabitants of modern Greece arose to destroy the power of their Othoman masters. In the month of April 1821, a Mussulman population, amounting to upwards of 20,000 souls, was living dispersed in Greece employed in agriculture. Before two months had elapsed the greater part--men, women, and children--were murdered without mercy or remorse. The first insurrectional movement took place in the Peloponnesus at the end of March. Kalamata was besieged by a force of 2,000 Greeks, and taken on April 4. Next day a solemn service of the Greek Church was performed on the banks of the torrent that flows by Kalamata, as a thanksgiving for the success of the Greek arms.

Patriotic tears poured down the cheeks of rude warriors, and ruthless brigands sobbed like children. All present felt that the event formed an era in Greek history. The rising spread to every part of Greece, and to some of the islands.

Sultan Mahmud II. believed that he could paralyse the movements of the Greeks by terrific cruelty. On Easter Sunday, April 22, the Patriarch Gregorios and three other bishops were executed in Constantinople--a deed which caused a thrill of horror from the Moslem capital to the mountains of Greece, and the palaces of St. Petersburg. The sultan next strengthened his authority in Thrace and in Macedonia, and extinguished the flames of rebellion from Mount Athos to Olympus.

In Greece itself the patriots were triumphant. Local senates were formed for the different districts, and a National a.s.sembly met at Piada, three miles to the west of the site of the ancient Epidaurus, which formulated a const.i.tution and proclaimed it on January 13, 1822. This const.i.tution established a central government consisting of a legislative a.s.sembly and an executive body of five members, with Prince Alexander Mavrocordato as President of Greece.

It is impossible here to go into the details of the war of independence which was carried on from 1822 to 1827. The outstanding incidents were the triple siege and capitulation of the Acropolis at Athens; the campaigns of Ibrahim Pasha and his Egyptian army in the Morea; the defence of Mesolonghi by the Greeks with a courage and endurance, an energy and constancy which will awaken the sympathy of free men in every country as long as Grecian history endures; the two civil wars, for one of which the Primates were especially blamable; the dishonesty of the government, the rapacity of the military, the indiscipline of the navy; and the a.s.sistance given to the revolutionaries by Lord Byron and other English sympathisers. Lord Byron arrived at Mesolonghi on January 5, 1824. His short career in Greece was unconnected with any important military event, for he died on April 19; but the enthusiasm he awakened perhaps served Greece more than his personal exertions would have done had his life been prolonged, because it resulted in the provision of a fleet for the Greek nation by the English and American Philh.e.l.lenes, commanded by Lord Cochrane.

By the beginning of 1827 the whole of Greece was laid waste, and the sufferings of the agricultural population were terrible. At the same time, the greater part of the Greeks who bore arms against the Turks were fed by Greek committees in Switzerland, France, and Germany; while those in the United States directed their attention to the relief of the peaceful population. It was felt that the intervention of the European powers could alone prevent the extermination of the population or their submission to the sultan. On July 6, 1827, a treaty Between Great Britain, France, and Russia was signed at London to take common measures for the pacification of Greece, to enforce an armistice between the Greeks and the Turks, and, by an armed intervention, to secure to the Greeks virtual independence under the suzerainty of the sultan. The Greeks accepted the armistice, but the Turks refused; and then followed the destruction of the Othoman fleet by the allied squadrons under Admiral Sir Edward Coddrington at Navarino, on October 21, 1827.

In the following April, Russia declared war against Turkey, and the French government, by a protocol, were authorised to dispatch a French army of 14,000 men under the command of General Maison. This force landed at Petalidi, in the Gulf of Coron. Ibrahim Pasha withdrew his army to Egypt, and the French troops occupied the strong places of Greece almost without resistance from the Turkish garrisons.

France thus gained the honour of delivering Greece from the last of her conquerors, and she increased the debt of grat.i.tude due by the Greeks by the admirable conduct of her soldiers, who converted mediaeval strongholds into habitable towns, repaired the fortresses, and constructed roads. Count John Capodistrias, a Corfiot n.o.ble, who had been elected President of Greece in April 1827 for a period of seven years by the National a.s.sembly of Troezen, arrived in Greece in January 1828. He found the country in a state of anarchy, and at once put a stop to some of the grossest abuses in the army, navy, and financial administration.

_V.--The Greek Monarchy_

The war terminated in 1829, and the Turks finally evacuated continental Greece in September of the same year. The allied powers declared Greece an independent state with a restricted territory, and nominated Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards King of the Belgians) to be its sovereign. Prince Leopold accepted the throne on February 11, but resigned it on May 17. Thereafter Capodistrias exercised his functions as president in the most tyrannical fashion, and was a.s.sa.s.sinated on October 9, 1831; from which date till February 1833 anarchy prevailed in the country.

Agostino Capodistrias, brother of the a.s.sa.s.sinated president, who had been chosen president by the National a.s.sembly on December 20, 1831, was ejected out of the presidency by the same a.s.sembly in April 1832, and Prince Otho of Bavaria was elected King of Greece. Otho, accompanied by a small Bavarian army, landed from an English frigate in Greece at Nauplia on February 6, 1833. He was then only seventeen years of age, and a regency of three Bavarians was appointed to administer the government during his minority, his majority being fixed at June 1, 1835.

The regency issued a decree in August 1833, proclaiming the national Church of Greece independent of the patriarchate and synod of Constantinople and establishing an ecclesiastical synod for the kingdom on the model of that of Russia, but with more freedom of action. In judicial procedure, however, the regency placed themselves above the tribunals. King Otho, who had come of age in 1835, and married a daughter of the Duke of Oldenburg in 1837, became his own prime minister in 1839, and claimed to rule with absolute power. He did not possess ability, experience, energy, or generosity; consequently, he was not respected, obeyed, feared, or loved. The administrative incapacity of King Otho's counsellors disgusted the three protecting powers as much as their arbitrary conduct irritated the Greeks.

A revolution naturally followed. Otho was compelled to abandon absolute power in order to preserve his crown, and in March 1844 he swore obedience to a const.i.tution prepared by the National a.s.sembly, which put an end to the government of alien rulers under which the Greeks had lived for two thousand years. The destinies of the race were now in the hands of the citizens of liberated Greece. But the attempt was unsuccessful. The corruption of the government and the contracted views of King Otho rendered the period from the adoption of the const.i.tution to his expulsion in 1862 a period of national stagnation. In October 1862 revolt broke out, and on the 23rd a provisional government at Athens issued a proclamation declaring, in his absence, that the reign of King Otho was at an end.

When Otho and his queen returned in a frigate to the Piraeus they were not allowed to land. Otho appealed to the representatives of the powers, who refused to support him against the nation, and he and his queen took refuge on board H.M.S. Scylla, and left Greece for ever.

The National a.s.sembly held in Athens drew up a new const.i.tution, laying the foundations of free munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions, and leaving the nation to elect their sovereign. Then followed the abortive, though almost unanimous, election as king of Prince Alfred of England. Afterwards the British Government offered the crown to the second son of Prince Christian of Holstein-Glucksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously elected King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2, 1864.

J.L. MOTLEY

The Rise of the Dutch Republic

John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, was born at Dorchester, Ma.s.sachusetts, now part of Boston, on April 15, 1814. After graduating at Harvard University, he proceeded to Europe, where he studied at the universities of Berlin and Gottingen. At the latter he became intimate with Bismarck, and their friendly relations continued throughout life. In 1846 Motley began to collect materials for a history of Holland, and in 1851 he went to Europe to pursue his investigations.

The result of his labours was "The Rise of the Dutch Republic--a History," published in 1856. The work was received with enthusiasm in Europe and America. Its distinguishing character is its graphic narrative and warm sympathy; and Froude said of it that it is "as complete as industry and genius can make it, and a book which will take its place among the finest stories in this or any language." In 1861 Motley was appointed American Minister to Austria, where he remained until 1867; and in 1869 General Grant sent him to represent the United States in England. Motley died on May 29, 1877, at the Dorsetshire house of his daughter, near Dorchester.

_I.--Woe to the Heretic_

The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from the German Ocean to the Ural Mountains is occupied by the countries called the Netherlands. The history of the development of the Netherland nation from the time of the Romans during sixteen centuries is ever marked by one prevailing characteristic, one master pa.s.sion--the love of liberty, the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest Teutonic elements--Batavian and Frisian--the race has ever battled to the death with tyranny, and throughout the dark ages struggled resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons reached so high a point that it was able to measure itself, undaunted, with the spirit of arbitrary power. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by temperament, the Netherlanders were yet the most belligerent and excitable population in Europe.

For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, went on, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian, Charles V., in turn a.s.sailing or undermining the bulwarks raised age after age against the despotic principle. Liberty, often crushed, rose again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of religious freedom, came to partic.i.p.ate in the great conflict. Arbitrary power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, a.s.sailed the new combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and more determined combat than the world had ever seen.

On October 25, 1555, the Estates of the Netherlands were a.s.sembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels to witness amidst pomp and splendour the dramatic abdication of Charles V. as sovereign of the Netherlands in favour of his son Philip. The drama was well played. The happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object contemplated in the great transaction, and the stage was drowned in tears. And yet, what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the Netherlands that they should weep for him? Their interests had never been even a secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no duty towards them; he had committed the gravest crimes against them; he was in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-bought political liberties.

Philip II., whom the Netherlands received as their new master, was a man of foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their language. In 1548 he had made his first appearance in the Netherlands to receive homage in the various provinces as their future sovereign, and to exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all.

One of the earliest measures of Philip's reign was to re-enact the dread edict of 1550. This he did by the express advice of the Bishop of Arras.

The edict set forth that no one should print, write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy, or give in churches, streets, or other places any book or writing by Luther, Calvin, and other heretics reprobated by the Holy Church; nor break, or injure the images of the Holy Virgin or canonised saints; nor in his house hold conventicles, or be present at any such, in which heretics or their adherents taught, baptised, or formed conspiracies, against the Holy Church and the general welfare.

Further, all lay persons were forbidden to converse or dispute concerning the Holy Scriptures openly or secretly, or to read, teach, or expound them; or to preach, or to entertain any of the opinions of the heretics.

Disobedience to this edict was to be punished as follows. Men to be executed with the sword, and women to be buried alive if they do not persist in their errors; if they do persist in them, then they are to be executed with fire, and all their property in both cases is to be confiscated to the crown. Those who failed to betray the suspected were to be liable to the same punishment, as also those who lodged, furnished with food, or favoured anyone suspected of being a heretic. Informers and traitors against suspected persons were to be ent.i.tled on conviction to one-half of the property of the accused.

At first, however, the edict was not vigorously carried into effect anywhere. It was openly resisted in Holland; its proclamation was flatly refused in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. This disobedience was in the meantime tolerated because Philip wanted money to carry on the war between Spain and France which shortly afterwards broke out. At the close of the war, a treaty was entered into between France and Spain by which Philip and Henry II. bound themselves to maintain the Catholic worship inviolate by all means in their power, and to extinguish the increasing heresy in both kingdoms. There was a secret agreement to arrange for the Huguenot chiefs throughout the realms of both, a "Sicilian Vespers" upon the first favourable occasion.

Henry died of a wound received from Montgomery in a tournay held to celebrate the conclusion of the treaty, and Catherine de Medici became Queen-Regent of France, and deferred carrying out the secret plot till St. Bartholomew's Day fourteen years after.

_II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free_

Philip now set about the organisation of the Netherlands provinces.

Margaret, d.u.c.h.ess of Parma, was appointed regent, with three boards, a state council, a privy council, and a council of finance, to a.s.sist in the government. It soon became evident that the real power of the government was exclusively in the hands of the Consulta--a committee of three members of the state council, by whose deliberation the regent was secretly to be guided on all important occasions; but in reality the conclave consisted of Anthony Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, afterwards Cardinal Granvelle. Stadtholders were appointed to the different provinces, of whom only Count Egmont for Flanders and William of Orange for Holland need be mentioned.

An a.s.sembly of the Estates met at Ghent on August 7, 1589, to receive the parting instructions of Philip previous to his departure for Spain.

The king, in a speech made through the Bishop of Arras, owing to his inability to speak French or Flemish, submitted a "request" for three million gold florins "to be spent for the good of the country." He made a violent attack on "the new, reprobate and d.a.m.nable sects that now infested the country," and commanded the Regent Margaret "accurately and exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made for the extirpation of all sects and heresies." The Estates of all the provinces agreed, at a subsequent meeting with the king, to grant their quota of the "request," but made it a condition precedent that the foreign troops, whose outrages and exactions had long been an intolerable burden, should be withdrawn. This enraged the king, but when a presentation was made of a separate remonstrance in the name of the States-General, signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and other leading patricians, against the pillaging, insults, and disorders of the foreign soldiers, the king was furious. He, however, dissembled at a later meeting, and took leave of the Estates with apparent cordiality.

Inspired by the Bishop of Arras, under secret instructions from Philip, the Regent Margaret resumed the execution of the edicts against heresies and heretics which had been permitted to slacken during the French war.

As an additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion, Philip induced the Pope, Paul IV., to issue, in May, 1559, a Bull whereby three new archbishoprics were appointed, with fifteen subsidiary bishops and nine prebendaries, who were to act as inquisitors. To sustain these two measures, through which Philip hoped once and for ever to extinguish the Netherland heresy, the Spanish troops were to be kept in the provinces indefinitely.

Violent agitation took place throughout the whole of the Netherlands during the years 1560 and 1561 against the arbitrary policy embodied in the edicts, and the ruthless manner in which they were enforced in the new bishoprics, and against the continued presence of the foreign soldiery. The people and their leaders appealed to their ancient charters and const.i.tutions. Foremost in resistance was the Prince of Orange, and he, with Egmont, the soldier hero of St. Quentin, and Admiral Horn, united in a remarkable letter to the king, in which they said that the royal affairs would never be successfully conducted so long as they were entrusted to Cardinal Granvelle. Finally, Granvelle was recalled by Philip. But the Netherlands had now reached a condition of anarchy, confusion, and corruption.

The four Estates of Flanders, in a solemn address to the king, described in vigorous language the enormities committed by the inquisitors, and called upon Philip to suppress these horrible practices so manifestly in violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to support. Philip, so far from having the least disposition to yield in this matter, dispatched orders in August, 1564, to the regent, ordering that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced without delay throughout the Netherlands. By these decrees the heretic was excluded, so far as ecclesiastical dogma could exclude him, from the pale of humanity, from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation.

The decrees conflicted with the privileges of the provinces, and at a meeting of the council William of Orange made a long and vehement discourse, in which he said that the king must be unequivocally informed that this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors and informers, must once and for ever be abolished. Their day was over; the Netherlands were free provinces, and were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.

The unique effect of these representations was stringent instructions from Philip to Margaret to keep the whole machinery of persecution constantly at work. Fifty thousand persons were put to death in obedience to the edicts, 30,000 of the best of the citizens migrated to England. Famine reigned in the land. Then followed the revolt of the confederate n.o.bles and the episode of the "wild beggars." Meantime, during the summer of 1556, many thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every province, armed, but only to hear sermons and sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such rites. The d.u.c.h.ess sent forth proclamations by hundreds, ordering the instant suppression of these a.s.semblies and the arrest of the preachers.

This brought the popular revolt to a head.