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Visual History of the World
(CONTENTS)
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The Modern Era
1789 - 1914
In Europe, the revolutionary transformation of the ruling systems
and state structures began with a bang: In 1789 the French
Revolution broke out in Paris, and its motto "Liberte, Egalite,
Fraternite"—Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood—took on an irrepressible
force. A fundamental reorganization of society followed the French
Revolution. The ideas behind the revolution were manifest in
Napoleon's Code Civil, which he imposed on many European nations.
The 19th century also experienced a transformation of society from
another source: The Industrial Revolution established within society
a poorer working class that stood in opposition to the merchant and
trading middle class. The nascent United States was shaken by an
embittered civil war. The economic growth that set in following that
war was accompanied by the development of imperialist endeavors and
its rise to the status of a Great Power.
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Liberty Leading the People,
allegory of the 1830 July revolution that deposed the French
monarchy,
with Marianne as the personification of liberty,
contemporary painting by Eugene Delacroix.
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Until the middle of the 19th century, the Balkans were almost
completely in the hands of the Ottoman Empire, but it was in a process
of decline, and by the outbreak of World War I in Europe its control had
shriveled to a narrow strip of land. The Greeks were the first to rebel
against the Turks in their war of independence in the 1820s. They were
followed by other nationalities, who were supported by Russia, which saw
itself as the patron of the Slavic nationalist movement. But the Balkan
countries also fought among themselves over territory, which created an
explosive political situation that was partly responsible for the start
of World War I.
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Liberty in Greece
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Greece's successful war of independence made it the first country
on the Balkan Peninsula to free itself from Ottoman rule.
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Patriotic nationalism in Greece increased at the end of the 18th
century and led the Greeks to liberate themselves from Ottoman control.
Though the rebellion of 1 Alexander Ypsilantis, the leader of
the Hetairia Philikon secret society, failed in 1821, the Peloponnesus
region also rose up, led by Bishop Germanos of Patras.
1 Ypsilantis
Europe suppor ed
the Greeks: money and, above all, volunteer fighters such as
2 Lord
GEORGE BYRON, came to Greece to join the fight for independence.
2 Lord Byron in
Arnaout (an inhabitant of Albania)
dress painted by Thomas Phillips in 1813
see also:
GEORGE BYRON
"Don Juan"
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Lord Byron on his deathbed as depicted by Joseph-Denis
Odevaere, 1826
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Many of
these were romantics, motivated by the idea of liberating a country
descended from Ancient Greece.
The long struggle was accompanied on both sides by
3 massacres of the
civilian population.
3 The Massacre of Chios, retaliatory strike of the Ottomans in April
1822,
painting by
Eugene Delacroix, 1824
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see also:
Delacroix
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The Peloponnesus was almost completely retaken by
the Turks, but the sultan, Mahmud II, had to iskthe Egyptian viceroy,
Muhammad Ali, for help. The Egyptians reconquered the southern
Peloponnesus in 1826. Russia, Great Britain, and France then sent a fleet
to Greece that annihilated the Turkish fleet at Navarino in 1827. Russia
was also victorious in the Russo-Turkish war in 1829, and Greece—which
at first consisted mainly of the Peloponnesus—was granted the status of
an independent kingdom at the London Conference on February 3, 1830.
The first king of the Hellenes was Otto of Bavaria, who was crowned in
1832. With little success, he struggled with internal uprisings that led
to his abdication in 1862.
His successor in 1863 was Prince William
George of Denmark as 4 George I, who ruled for 50 years before he was
assassinated in 1913 in Salonika.
Over time, the Greeks were able to
significantly expand their territory through wars against the
disintegrating Ottoman Empire and in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13.
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4 George I, King of Greece
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George I
king of Greece
original name Prince William of Denmark, Danish Prins Vilhelm af
Danmark
born Dec. 24, 1845, Copenhagen, Den.
died March 18, 1913, Thessaloníki, Greece
King of Greece, whose long reign (1863–1913) spanned the
formative period for the development of Greece as a modern
European state. His descendants occupied the throne until the
military coup d’état of 1967 and eventual restoration of the
republic in 1973.
Born Prince William, the second son of King Christian IX of
Denmark and the brother of Queen Alexandra of England, he was
nominated to the Greek throne by Britain, France, and Russia
after the first Greek king, Otto, was deposed in 1862. The
National Assembly accepted William as king of the Hellenes in
March 1863, and he ascended the throne as George (Georgios) I on
October 31. Although the early years of his reign were dominated
by his harsh and unpopular adviser Count Sponneck, who was
obliged to return to Denmark in 1877, he refrained from
transgressing the prerogatives of the National Assembly and
became one of the most successful constitutional monarchs in
Europe.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Count loannis Antonios Kapodistrias
Count loannis Antonios Kapodistrias was foreign minister of Russia and
a negotiator for Tsar Alexander I at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. He
quit the Russian service when a dispute developed between him and the
tsar over the fate of Greece.
Kapodistrias then participated in the
Greek war of independence and was elected president of an independent
Greece in 1827.
He was assassinated on October 9, 1831, in Nauplia.
loannis Antonios Kapodistrias
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Ioánnis Antónios, Count Kapodístrias
Greek statesman
Italian Conte Giovanni Antonio Capo D’istria
(Komis: )
born Feb. 11, 1776, Corfu [Greece]
died Oct. 9, 1831, Návplion, Greece
Greek statesman who was prominent in the Russian foreign service
during the reign of Alexander I (reigned 1801–25) and in the Greek
struggle for independence.
The son of Count Antonio Capo d’Istria, he was born in Corfu (at that
time under Venetian rule), studied at Padua, and then entered government
service. In 1799 Russia and Turkey drove the French from the Ionian
Islands and organized them into the Septinsular Republic. Kapodístrias
participated in writing the new state’s second constitution (adopted
1803) and became its secretary of state (1803). France regained control
of the islands (1807), however, and Kapodístrias entered the Russian
foreign service (1809). He became an expert on Balkan affairs, which
earned him a post with the commander of Russia’s armed forces on the
lower Danube River (1812). After the army marched north to oppose
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia (1812), Kapodístrias was assigned as a
diplomat to the army staff (1813) and later was sent by Alexander I on a
special mission to Switzerland (1814).
After attending the postwar Congress of Vienna as one of Russia’s
representatives (1814–15), Kapodístrias became a highly influential
adviser of the emperor; and, after January 1816, he was given equal
responsibility with Karl Robert Nesselrode, the director of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, for the conduct of Russia’s foreign policy.
Kapodístrias, however, expressed doubts about Alexander’s Holy
Alliance with Austria and Prussia and objected to Russia’s approval of
Austria’s suppression of the revolts in Naples and Piedmont (1820–21).
Consequently, he earned the political enmity of Austria’s chancellor
Metternich, who used his increasing influence over Alexander to
undermine Kapodístrias’ position. When Alexander refused to support the
Greek revolt against Turkey (begun March 1821), Kapodístrias, who had a
deep sympathy for the cause of Greek independence, although he had
earlier refused to lead the major Greek revolutionary organization,
found himself in an intolerable position. In 1822, therefore, he took an
extended leave of absence from the Russian service and settled in
Geneva, where he devoted himself to supplying material and moral relief
to the Greek rebels until April 1827, when he was elected provisional
president of Greece.
Resigning from the Russian service, he then toured Europe seeking
financial and diplomatic support for the War of Greek Independence and
arrived at Návplion (Nauplia), Greece’s capital, in January 1828. He
subsequently directed his energies toward negotiating with Great
Britain, France, and Russia (which had all joined the war against the
Turks) over the settlement of Greece’s frontiers and the selection of
its new monarch. He became leader of a party with pro-Russian
sympathies. He also worked to organize an effective government apparatus
and to subordinate powerful, semiautonomous local leaders to the
authority of the new state. In the process, however, he acquired many
enemies, two of whom, Konstantinos and Georgios Mavromikhalis of Maina,
assassinated Kapodístrias as he entered a church.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Hellas with her "children" Kapodistnas, Ypsilatni,
Lord Byron and the
bishop Germanos and others,
painting by Theodoras Vryzakis
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Lord Byron at the Siege of Messolonghi,
painting by Theodoras Vryzakis
(1825)
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Bishop Germanos of Patras blesses the flag of an independent Greece,
painting by Theodoras Vryzakis
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The sortie of Messologhi,
painting by Theodoras Vryzakis
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The campus of Georgios Karaiskakis,
painting by Theodoras Vryzakis (1855)
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The Balkan Powder Keg
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The Balkan nations were able to liberate themselves and gain
independence from the Ottoman Empire but fought among themselves over
land.
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Bulgaria, Romania—created in 1861 out of the unification of Walachia
and Moldavia—Montenegro, and Serbia became autonomous under the Treaty
of San Stefano following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Bulgaria
became a principality obligated to pay tribute to the sultan.
Serbia had
dreams of a greater Serbian Empire, however, and in 1885
9 King Milan I Obrenovic waged a war against Bulgaria over Macedonia; Austria-Hungary
made sure that Serbia gained only a small western region.
Prince
Alexander I of Bulgaria lost his throne in a coup to
10 Ferdinand I of the House
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who made himself tsar of Bulgaria in
1908 and proclaimed the country independent.
9 King Milan I Obrenovic
10 Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Bosnia and Herzegovina were
occupied in the same year by Austria-Hungary, creating an
11 annexation
crisis that almost led to war with Serbia, which saw its dreams of a
great Serbian Empire as destroyed.
11 Analogy of the Annexation Crisis:
The peal bell can not ring because
each
nation pulls it in a different direction
Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria formed the Balkan League and
declared war on the Ottoman Empire in October 1912 and in short order
captured almost all of its European territories and reduced it to its
present territories. The Treaty of London on May 30,1913, left the Turks
with only a small piece of territory in Europe, but did not resolve the
problem of control over Macedonia, contested between Bulgaria and
Serbia.
Consequently, Serbia and Greece began the 8
Second Balkan War against Bulgaria on June 29,1913.
8 The inhabitants of Melknik buir thoir
city before they flee
By July, Romania, the Ottoman Empire,
and Montenegro had joined in against Bulgaria. The Treaty of Bucharest
of August 10,1913, stated that Bulgaria was to cede territory to
Romania; Macedonia was absorbed for the most part by Serbia and Romania;
and Albania became independent.
Unfortunately, that still did not eliminate the tension in the Balkans.
Serbia had become significantly stronger, which the multinational state
of Austria-Hungary, with its strong and vocal slavic population,
regarded with distrust.
When the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was
12 shot on June 28,1914, in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, it led to the July Crisis during
which Serbia was unable to fulfil an Austro-Hungarian ultimatum and
Vienna declared war on Serbia.
This escalated when the other European
nations intervened and it ultimately led to World War I.
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12 Assasination of the Austro-Hungarian
heir to the throne, Franz
Ferdinand,
by Gavrilo Princip
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Francis Ferdinand, archduke of Austria-Este
Austrian archduke
German Franz Ferdinand, Erzherzog von Österreich-Este
born Dec. 18, 1863, Graz, Austria
died June 28, 1914, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Austrian archduke whose assassination was the immediate cause
of World War I.
Francis Ferdinand was the eldest son of the archduke Charles
Louis, who was the brother of the emperor Francis Joseph. The
death of the heir apparent, the archduke Rudolf, in 1889, made
Francis Ferdinand next in succession to the Austro-Hungarian
throne after his father, who died in 1896. But because of
Francis Ferdinand’s ill health in the 1890s, his younger brother
Otto was regarded as more likely to succeed, a possibility that
deeply embittered Francis Ferdinand. His desire to marry Sophie,
countess von Chotek, a lady-in-waiting, brought him into sharp
conflict with the emperor and the court. Only after renouncing
his future children’s rights to the throne was the morganatic
marriage allowed in 1900.
In foreign affairs he tried, without endangering the alliance
with Germany, to restore Austro-Russian understanding. At home
he thought of political reforms that would have strengthened the
position of the crown and weakened that of the Magyars against
the other nationalities in Hungary. His plans were based on the
realization that any nationalistic policy pursued by one section
of the population would endanger the multinational Habsburg
empire. His relationship with Francis Joseph was exacerbated by
his continuous pressure on the emperor, who in his later years
left affairs to take care of themselves but sharply resented any
interference with his prerogative. From 1906 onward Francis
Ferdinand’s influence in military matters grew, and in 1913 he
became inspector general of the army.
In June 1914 he and his wife were assassinated by the Serb
nationalist Gavrilo Princip at Sarajevo; a month later World War
I began with Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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The Congress of Berlin
From June 13 to July 13,1878, the Great Powers—Austria-Hungary, Great
Britain, France, Italy, Russia, and the German and Ottoman empires—sat
down together in an attempt to defuse the Balkan situation.
The other
powers were particularly interested in halting Russia's advance on the
Black Sea in the direction of the Dardanelles, which would put it in a
position of dominance.
Among other things, the north of Bulgaria was
declared independent and Eastern Rumelia in the south was made an
autonomous province.
The Congress of Berlin, painting by Anton von Werner, 1881
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