THE GREEK INSURRECTION.
A T the northern extremity of the Gulf of Argos, in the finest part of the Peloponnesus, lies the city of Nauplia, destined by nature to be the capital of the islands of Greece. The place occupies a singularly bold and pictu- resque position. It stretches along the sea-shore at the foot of two hills, the one of which is crowned by the Acro- Nauplia, and the other by the fortress of the Palamede, the true Gibraltar of Greece. The latter rock is nearly eight hundred feet above the level of the sea, rugged and precipi- tous, and inaccessible on all sides, except at one point, to the east, where the mountain slopes down to the wild hills of Epidaurus. The Palamede was the seat of a most remark- able event, which, probably, will hold its place in history, in the night of the 12th of February last. Just as the last rays of the sun had sunk into the blue gulf of Argos a number of Greek officers assembled in solemn council in the large hall of the fortress. They were young men mostly, and not high in command ; but their demeanour was grave as the purpose for which they met. The youngest of all, Lieute- nant Grivas, first addressed the assembly. He told them that his commission of lieutenant in the artillery had been given to him but a few days before; that he had been educated at the military school of Athens ; that his sister was lady of honour to the Queen, and his father in the immediate service of the King. Being thus connected by ties of family and friendship to the Court of Prince Otho he bad had occasion from his earliest youth to see its utter corruption, and want of strength and principle. He then described ineloquent terms all the evils from which the country was suffering under the weak yet despotic rule of the Bavarian sovereign and his consort, and wound up by a passionate appeal to his brother-officers to rise and shake off the hateful foreign yoke. The call was responded to with loud exultation. Other speakers, Major Botzaris, Lieutenant-Colonel Coronaios, Major Zimbrakakis, and others, followed in the wake of young Grivas, all express- ing their determination to stake their lives for the welfare and independence of their beloved country. The delibera- tions lasted all night, and before the grey dawn of morning rose again it was settled that the revolt against the bu- reaucratic system of government introduced by King Otho should begin forthwith. The sound of the drum early awoke the denizens of Nauplia on the morning of the 13th of Fe- bruary. The troops, forming one-fourth of the army of Greece, assembled on the Palamede and the Acro-Nauplia, and were successively addressed by Grivas and his brother- conspirators. There was not a moment's hesitation among the men ; no sooner had they heard the first words from the lips of the officers, than they expressed their assent with wild enthusiasm. The shouts from the citadel found an echo in the town below. Some five or six hundred young men, from among the best families in the city, declared their determi- nation to rank themselves in the army of independence. They had plenty of arms, but no uniforms. These, how- ever, were soon improvised by the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Artemis, long one of the beauties of the Court of Athens. With a number of lady-friends, she set to work sewing red pieces of cloth in the form of a cross upon a white back- ground, and before another twenty-four hours the red cross was on the breast of every male inhabitant of Nauplia. The Crusaders were ready. When the news of these doings at Nauplia reached the Government at Athens the alarm was extreme. King Otho, though pretty well accustomed to insurrection, had never yet seen himself face to face with a military revolt. Nauplia, too, being the great depot of military stores and provisions for the kingdom, it seemed difficult even to equip a sufficient number of troops to oppose the insurgents. As iu previous times of embarrassment, Otho's first impulse was to run off to Bavaria ; but of this neither the Queen nor the Council of Ministers would hear. Queen Amelie, in particular, was energetic in favour of resistance to the revolt, and her activity influencing the court party, a number of troops, amounting to some four thousand, were got together on the spur of the moment. The next difficulty was to find a trust- worthy general, all the Greek commanders being notoriously attached to the party of independence. After some delibe- ration, the choice of the Queen fell on Colonel Hahn, aide- de-camp of King Otho, and a recent importation from Bavaria. He was forthwith nominated to the command-in- chief over the head of n11 the old veteran generals, Koloko- tronis, Plaputa, Mamuris, Vlakopulos, and others ; and before even his appointment had been proclaimed he led his new army into the field. Meanwhile, however, the revolt bad made great strides. The city of Argos joined Nauplia ; Tyrius and Aria, on the road to Epidaurus, were occupied by troops from the Palamede, and the Bishop of Tripolitza openly blessed the standards of the insurgents at the altar of his cathedral, affixing the red cross to the breasts of the inhabi- tants. The spread of the insurrection over the whole of the Peloponnesus seemed imminent, when the Queen bethought herself of commencing the _campaign with gold instead of iron. The beginning was made at Argos, commanded by General Tzokris, an old revolutionist, who had taken part in the assassination of Capo d'Istria, and been condemned to death by Mauromichalis, now one of the leaders of insurrec- tion at Nauplia. The Queen, knowing that Tzokris, though loving insurrection for insurrection's sake, hated Mauromi- chalis, first tried her diplomatic art with him, offering a large sum for delivering up Argos to the royal troops. Tzokris, a greedy old man—originally a baker, then a miller, who had risen from the lowest rank by sheer pluck and muscular strength, employed in depredation—accepted the offer, and gave up the town to General Hahn. A portion of his fol- lowers, however, remained faithful to the cause of the insur- rection, and, by a stratagem, took him up at night, and carried him, bound hand and foot, to Nauplia, where he was thrown into a dungeon. The capture of Argos was a severe loss to the revolted troops, for it detached Tripolitza, and laid open the road to Tyrins, and to the foot of the Acro-Nauplia. Under these circumstances, Grivas and his friends deter- mined to concentrate their whole force at Nauplia, and to hold the town and fortress until the outbreak of either a general insurrection, or the silent announcement, in the apathy of the people, that their hopes and aims were not shared by the great bulk of the Greek nation. It is this resolution which is now being carried out, one telegram after the other reporting that the royal army, under General Hahn, has invested Nauplia, and that the royal navy—a newly-built frigate, two sloops-of-war, and four gunboats— are blockading the Gulf of Argos, from the roadstead of Astros to the Bay of Vourlia. The struggle, on the face of it, looks unequal ; but it is consolation to think that the Greek people sit aside as umpires. It is they who must decide, in the last resort, between King Otho and the party of independence. The real weakness of the Nauplia insurgents, up to the present moment, is their want of an ostensible leader. A number of hot-beaded youths have begun, rather precipi- tately, a great national movement, long in all hearts, but per- haps not yet quite ripe for execution ; and in this state of indecision, the old political guides remain cautious spectators, waiting for what the next future will bring. As yet only two among the more eminent men of Greece have subscribed to the programme of the revolution,namely, Constantin Kanaris, President of the Council of Ministers in 1848, and again in 1854 ; and Theodoraki Grivas, general of division in the royal army, and father of the young artillery lieutenant, the imme- diate author of the Nauplia revolt. The first, Constantin Kanaris, is certainly one of the most remarkable men of modern Greece. A native of the little island of Ipsara, in the Sporades, he was one of the originators of the system of fire-ships in the war of independence, and succeeded in de- stroying with them a large part of the Turkish fleet in the night of the 18-19th of June, 1822. He then became captain of the famous Greek frigate Hellas, and in 1827 was chosen representative of Ipsara in the National Assembly, while Capo d'Istria appointed him to the governorship of a pro- vince. When, under the protocol of London, his native island was excluded from the kingdom of Greece, his wrath was extreme, and he swore not to rest till the Greeks them- selves should reconstruct their Byzantine empire, inde- pendent of foreign aid. This great object has since been the dream of his life. Two great passions fill the whole mind of Constantin Kanaris—violent hatred to the Turks, and an equally violent desire to annex Thessaly, Albany, the Sporades, and the whole of the Hetairiau realm to Greece. Nine-tenths of modern Hellas share the same passions, and, in consequence, the Ipsarian's popularity is great. In the stormy spring days of 1848, his Majesty King Otho, to escape shipwreck, had to make Constantin Kanaris prime minister, and dropped him only in the summer of 1849, when Paris and Athens were restored to tranquillity. Once more, in May, 1854, the old sailor took the helm of the State, and during a twelvemonth's lease of power made the Bavarian Court very uncomfortable. Thrown overboard again, in May, 1855, he has since lived in retreat, not without occasional annoyance from the Royal police, who tried to catch him as soon as the Nauplian revolt commenced, but did not succeed. Constantin Kanaris certainly is a most dangerous opponent of King Otho, or rather of Queen Amelia ; but still more so is Theodoraki Grivas, the celebrated leader in the anti- Turkish campaign of 1854. While the former has the chief characteristics of a sailor the latter is more of a diploma- tist, and not above occasionally playing the courtier. Some suspect him of sufficient ambition to try for the crown of Greece, and his behaviour during former insurrections has not a little strengthened this belief. Grivas is a man of about sixty, the scion of one of the noblest Greek families. He was one of the first volunteers in the war of indepen- dence, was named Colonel by Capo d'Istria, and became member of the National Congress on its formation. He stoutly opposed the establishment of a Bavarian dynasty in Greece, and was so thorough-going in his hostility to King Otho, ;hat he was brought to trial by Count Armanaperg on the accusation of treason. However, the tribunal of Nauplia, before which he was sent, acquitted him, thereby giving a sort of veto against Bavarian rule. Notwithstand- ing this decision, he was banished the kingdom, but re- turned in triumph, as member of the Chamber of Deputies, in 1845. Force having failed, the Queen now tried finesse. Theodoraki Grivas was named inspector-general of troops, was invited to court, had his daughter appointed lady of honour to the Queen, and his son sent for education to Munich at the King's expense. But the old lion declined to sleep. He allowed King and Queen to stroke him, but con- tinued shaking his mane. In the insurrection of Epirus, 1854, he stood in the foremost ranks of the Greeks, his bravery gaining the admiration of even the Turkish troops. Shortly after, in April, 1855, his beloved son, Dmitri, who had fought at his side against the Turks, died of poison, administered he thought he knew by whom. The event nearly drove him frantic ; and, ever since, Theodoraki Orivas has been more than ever a vindicator of Greek inde- pendence—a silent rebel against the Athenian Govern- ment.
There is not a sadder sight in modern history than the spectacle of "regenerated " Greece.
Previous page
