When news of the Greek Revolution reached Laibach (now Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia), where the members of the Holy Alliance were meeting, Metternich, on behalf of the Austrian emperor, demanded that they meet with the Russian Tsar Alexander without the presence of John Kapodistrias. The meeting lasted about two hours, and during those hours the Austrian convinced the Tsar that the Greek Revolution had been orchestrated by a supposed “liberal administration” in Paris.

Domestic historiography, mostly populist, interprets this episode somewhat superficially. He takes it for granted that Metternich fabricated the data. But this may not be right. No, of course, because Metternich was not capable of such a thing. And because it was not necessary to build them. Because he had quite a lot of really compromising evidence on his hands. They were first proposed by Alexandros Ypsilantis himself in his Declaration, which contained three dangerous points: a positive reference to the constitutional revolutions of 1820, a call for the liberals to fight alongside the Greeks, and, above all, a reference to Spain, which was the red cloth for the Holy Alliance.

In addition, one had to be geopolitically ignorant in order not to see the wave of revolutions that quickly spread in 1820-1821. from South America to the Iberian Peninsula, to Italy and finally to the Balkans.

There was no liberal directorate in Paris, but there were revolutionary nuclei, as in London, Madrid, Turin, Naples, Brussels, Zurich, Munich and even Petersburg, talking, cooperating and planning. It was not by chance that the Philhellenic movement arose from these centers.

But there were many other elements in Metternich’s hands that made up a puzzle, most of the pieces of which are now lost. And they are lost because the Greek revolutionaries, among others, took care of their destruction. Modern historiography of the so-called “liberals of the Mediterranean” has highlighted several such mosaics, but until relatively recently research has not focused on Greece. Interestingly, while the Friendly Society has been methodically obliterated from the picture since January 1822 and Greece has managed to convince that its Revolution is national and religious, the cultural conflict, and not the liberal one, will not have time to pass in 1823, when the Greeks officially resort to semi-legal liberal networks. And indeed, on the initiative not of Alexander Mavrokordat, but of the priest Ignatius Ungrovalkh. Ignatius’s initiative is addressed to a Briton (John Bowring) who will soon be arrested by the French secret police for participating in a political conspiracy.

On the day that Ypsilantis passed Pruto, the La Rochelle conspiracy began, that is, the non-commissioned officer movement, which had the goal of overthrowing the French monarchy.

Bowring is arrested because the French police suspect that he is a liaison between Spanish liberals and their British counterparts and that, while traveling from Spain to Britain via France, he also comes into contact with French liberal networks. These networks were more than dangerous. On the same day that Ypsilantis crossed the Prut to proclaim the revolution, the La Rochelle conspiracy began, that is, the non-commissioned officer movement, which had the goal of overthrowing the French monarchy. At the trial of non-commissioned officers, it turned out that the slogan they adopted was “Parga Hellas.” They probably chose him because the British cession of Parga to Ali Pasha recently shocked all liberals in Europe. But perhaps the choice was not so random. Bowring is involved here.

The Briton is arrested in Calais, as there are suspicions that he is organizing the escape of convicted but not executed conspirators. The French secret police know that Bowring belongs to the circle of British radicals who were positive about the French Revolution and reacted strongly to Parga’s concession. And not only this. A member of this circle wrote in October 1817: “In order to achieve the future independence of Greece as soon as possible, we will have to maintain [οι Βρετανοί] Ionian Islands and at the same time ensure the spread of education among the Greeks. However, to achieve this important goal, we will have to maintain Parga, a foothold in the region that will give us a great strategic advantage.” Bowring was accused of scheduling a meeting with his contact, Charles Faviero. We know the sequel. Favieros came to Greece and made a significant contribution to the fight. Bowring, immediately after his release from prison, founded the Philhellenic Committee in London with Edward Blaquier, the Committee’s first envoy to Greece. Blaquier, who spent three years in Spain strengthening the liberal revolution there until he arrived in Moria at the end of April 1823, met with representatives of the liberal networks in France, Italy, and the Ionian Islands. His main task was to check whether the state structure of revolutionary Greece was really democratic and liberal. The Committee’s second representative, Colonel Stanhope, who went to Greece to found four liberal newspapers, first made sure to contact the German and Swiss networks, which, among other things, told him which Greek intellectuals were active in these networks before the revolution and therefore could trust them.

One of them, George Psillas (whom Stanhope chose to edit the Athens newspaper), was a classmate of Carl Zandt, the young student who assassinated the conservative Russophile writer August von Kotzebue in March 1819. In the political manifesto / suicide note, Zadeh was referring to the Greeks preparing to revolt in order to liberate their homeland. Zadeh, of course, did not know about the existence of the Friendly Society. But he heard about Rigas from his fellow Greek students, who probably belonged to various secret organizations. For example, Emmanuel Xanthos, who became a Freemason in the Ionian Islands, Athanasios Tsakalov, one of the founders of the semi-Masonic “Hellenic Hotel” in Paris, and Nikolaos Skoufas, a member of the Carbonari group in Moscow, organized by Konstantinos Rados, who began carbonization while still a student in Pisa.

What does all this tell us? The first conclusion is that the Greek Revolution is much more interesting than we think. Secondly, we need to take another look at the history of Filiki Etairia, that is, the Greek conspiratorial network that operated simultaneously, in parallel and, perhaps, in some way coordinated with the European one. The third conclusion is that it makes no sense to treat the revolution from an ethnocentric point of view and forget that it was an international event. Of course, the revolution of 1821, like any revolution, has many other dimensions, and its association with liberal networks illuminates only some of its aspects. But this cannot be understood without taking seriously what the revolution in Europe of 1820-1821 means. Because the revolt of the Greeks turned into one of the most radical revolutions of that period thanks to the involvement of these liberal networks from the stage of its preparation to its successful conclusion, which owes much to the same networks that, by completely dominating the public sphere, strengthened the Greeks many times over.

Mr. Aristidis Hatzis is Professor of Philosophy of Law and Theory of Institutions in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His book The Glorious Struggle: The Greek Revolution of 1821 (2021) is published by Papadopoulos Publications.