Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843

THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE GREEK KINGDOM

 
Come let us drink their memory,
Those glorious Greeks of old—
On shore and sea the Famed, the Free,
The Beautiful—the Bold!
The mind or mirth that lights each page,
Or bowl by which we sit
Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age—
Gems splinter'd from their wit.
Then, drink and swear by Greece, that there
Though Rhenish Huns may hive
In Britain we the liberty
She loved will keep alive.
 

Philhellenic Drinking Song. By B. Simmons.

In our July No. CCCXXXIII.

Sir Robert Peel, Monsieur Guizot, and Count Nesselrode, Great Britain, France, and All the Russias, have announced to the world that the kingdom of Greece is bankrupt. The Morning Chronicle, at a time when it was regarded as a semi-official authority on foreign affairs, declared and certified that the king of Greece was an idiot. Verily! the battle of Navarino has proved a most "untoward event."

In these degenerate days, a revolution is by no means so serious a matter as a bankruptcy, and kings require rather more than the ordinary proportion of wit to keep their feet steady in their slippery elevation. Greece is therefore clearly in a most lamentable condition, and the British public who adopted her, and fed her for a while on every luxury, now cares very little about her misfortunes. Sir Francis Burdett, Sir John Hobhouse, and the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, who once acted as her trustees, and Joseph Hume—the immaculate and invulnerable Joseph himself, who once stood forward as her champion—have forgotten her existence.

There can be no permanent sympathy where truth is wanting, but the public does not attend to the correct translation of Graecia mendax; it ought to convey the fact, that foreigners tell more lies about Greece than the natives themselves. Old Juvenal calls the Greeks a mendacious set of fabulists, for recording that Xerxes made a canal through the isthmus to the north of Mount Athos. Colonel Leake declares that the traces of the canal are visible to all men at this day, who ride across that desert plain. The moral we wish to inculcate is, that modern politicians should learn, from the error of the old Roman satirist, to look before they leap. We shall now endeavour to supply our readers with an impartial account of the present condition of the Greeks, without meddling with politics or political speculation. Our opinion is, that the country ought not to be put in the Gazette,—nor ought the king to be sent to the hospital. Greece is not quite bankrupt, and King Otho is not quite an idiot. Funds are scarce every where with borrowers in this unlucky year 1843, and wit scarcer still with most men.

Our readers are aware, that Great Britain, France, and Russia, having constituted themselves into an alliance for protecting Greece, concocted together a long series of protocols, and selected Prince Otho of Bavaria to be King of Greece.¹⁷ The prince was then a promising youth of seventeen years of age, destined by his royal father to be a priest, and—his holiness the Pope willing—in due time a cardinal. At the time of King Otho's election, a national assembly was sitting in Greece, and a military revolution was raging in the country, in consequence of the assassination of Capo d'Istria. The recognition of King Otho was obtained from this national assembly by the ministers of the three protecting powers, amidst scenes of promising, threatening, and stabbing, which will long form a deep stain on the Greek revolution, and on European diplomacy. Mr Parish, who was subsequently secretary of the British Legation in Greece, has described the drama, and the share which the ministers of the allied powers took in arranging its acts.

It was well known that King Otho and his regency could not arrive for several months; and it appeared to be the duty of the protecting powers, who had selected a sovereign for Greece, to maintain tranquillity in the country until the arrival of the new government. The representatives of the allied powers shrank from this responsibility. The national assembly seemed determined to vote two addresses—one congratulating King Otho on his selection to the throne, assuring him of the submission of the nation, but stating to him the laws and usages of Greece, and informing him that his new dignity imposed on him the duty of rendering justice to all men according to the laws and institutions of Greece. This address might have failed to interest the foreign ministers, but it became known that another was to follow—thanking the protecting powers for the selection they had made of a monarch, but calling upon them to maintain order in the country until the arrival of the young king, or of a legally appointed regency.

The representatives of the European powers knew that Greece was in a state of anarchy, and that the irregular troops scattered over the country, were destroying the resources of the new monarchy; yet to escape the responsibility of advising their courts to act, they thought fit to persuade a few of the political leaders of different parties to unite in silencing the observations of the representatives of the Greek nation, and looked on while a military insurrection compelled the assembly to adopt a decree in the following words—

"The representatives of the Greek nation recognise and confirm the selection of H.R.H. Prince Otho of Bavaria as King of Greece.

"The present decree shall be inserted in the acts of the assembly, and published by the press."

The military rabble outside then rushed in and dispersed the representatives of the Greek nation. No rhetorical Greek ever prepared this precious decree. It tells its own tale; it is too diplomatically laconic. It served its purpose in Europe: it looked so well suited to act as an annex to a protocol. Here, however, we have the source of half the evils of the Greek monarchy. King Otho's reign commenced with a violation of law, order, and common sense; and as this violation of every principle of justice had been openly countenanced by the political agents of the protecting powers, King Otho was misled into a belief that Great Britain, France, and Russia, wished to deliver Greece, bound hand and foot, and despoiled of every right, into his hands.

Various reasons, at the time, induced the Greeks to submit to these proceedings without a murmur, and even to turn away from those who endeavoured to raise a warning voice. The truth is, no sacrifice was too great, which held out a hope of putting an end to the existing anarchy. About thirteen thousand irregular troops were occupying the richest part of Greece, and destroying or consuming every thing that had escaped the Turks. The cattle and sheep of the peasantry were seized, the olive trees cut down for fuel; and while the people were dying of hunger, literally perishing for want of food, these banditti were feasting in abundance. The political Greeks, the jackals of diplomacy, cajolled the people and the soldiers, by declaring that the allied powers had furnished the king with money to pay the troops, and to indemnify every man for the losses sustained during the revolution.

King Otho and his regency did at last arrive, and they brought with them an army of Bavarians. The king was received with a degree of enthusiasm, and with proofs of devotion which would have touched any hearts not protected by an impenetrable padding of beer and sour crout. But it was, unfortunately for the young king, the fashion at the new court to despise and distrust the Greeks, to underrate their exploits, and to declaim against their honesty. The revolution was treated as a war of words, the defence of Missolonghi as a trifle, and the naval warfare as a farce. The Greeks have since, on the mountains of Maina, and on the plain of Phthiotis, shown themselves so far superior to the Bavarians when engaged in the field, that we shall say nothing on that subject. Their honesty has been generally considered more questionable than their courage; for though the names of Miaulis, Kanaris, Marco Botzaris, Niketas, Kolocotroni and Karaiskaki are known to all Europe, the only spotless statesman, in the opinion of the Greeks themselves, is the unknown Kanakaris. The arrival of the king, however, afforded singular proof of the strong feeling of patriotism and honesty which prevailed among the people.

The Bavarians arrived in Greece early in 1833, and the revenues for that year were estimated, by competent persons, at four millions of drachmas; but it was thought that the regency would not succeed in collecting more than three millions, as their recent arrival prevented their enforcing a strict system of control. It was necessary, therefore, to trust much to the honesty of the people, usually a poor guarantee for large payments into the exchequer of any country. But the Greeks felt that their national independence was connected with the stability of the new government, and they acted with true nobility of feeling on the occasion. The revenues received by the king's government in 1833, amounted to upwards of seven millions of drachmas, although two months elapsed before some of the provinces were relieved from the burden of maintaining the irregular soldiery at free quarters. We believe that there never was a government in the world which received the amount of the taxes imposed on the people with such perfect good faith, as the Greek government in 1833. The expenditure of the government for that year, amounted to something more than thirteen millions and a half, and if Greece had been governed with the honesty shown by the Greek people, the expenditure of future years would never have exceeded that sum.

[We subjoin a statement of the revenues and expenditure of Greece, for those in which the Greek government have condescended to publish their accounts.

After the king took the entire direction of public business into his own hands, he gave up publishing any accounts, and accordingly none have appeared in the Greek Gazette for the years 1838, 1839, 1840, and 1841. Financial difficulties pressing hard in 1842, his Majesty resumed the practice to a certain degree, by publishing a budget:—

We may remark, that not the smallest reliance can be placed on these budgets for the years 1842 and 1843. We are informed that 1,000,000 drachmas of the revenue of 1842 were still unpaid in the month of May 1843.]

We shall now endeavour to explain why the king's government has proved so inefficient in improving the country, and afterwards examine the various causes of its extreme unpopularity. To do this, it is necessary to state what the government has really done; and also, what it was expected to do. We shall try as we go along, to explain the part the protecting powers have acted in thwarting the progress of improvement, and in encouraging the court in its lavish expenditure and anti-national policy. It must, indeed, constantly be borne in mind by the reader, that the three protecting powers in their collective capacity have all along supported the government of King Otho—and that even when the Morning Chronicle called King Otho an idiot, and Lord Palmerston quarrelled with him and scolded him, still England joined the other powers in continuing to supply him with money to continue his immense palace, and pay his Bavarian aides-de-camp. We may add, too, that if it had been otherwise, had either Great Britain, France, or Russia, deliberately abandoned the alliance, King Otho would immediately have ceased to be King of Greece, unless supported on his throne by the direct interference of the other two. Had the Greeks not looked upon him as the pledge that the protecting powers would maintain order in the country, they would have sent him back to his royal father, as ornamental at Munich, where an additional king would make the town look gayer, but as utterly useless in Greece. Though, England, France, and Russia, have therefore each in their turn acted in opposition to King Otho, still they have always as a body supported his doings, right or wrong.

Let us now see what the government of King Otho has done for Greece. From 1833 until 1837, Greece was governed by Bavarian ministers, and accordingly the king was not considered directly responsible for the conduct of the administration. These ministers were Mr Maurer, who, during 1833 and part of 1834, directed the government. He was supported with great eagerness by France, and opposed with more energy by England. The liberal and anti-Russian tendency of his measures, alarmed Russia, but she showed her opposition with considerable moderation. Count Armansperg succeeded Mr Maurer, and he ruled Greece with almost absolute power for two years. He was supported by Lord Palmerston with the energy of the most determined partizanship. The institutions of Greece, liberal policy, and sound principles of commercial legislation, were all forgotten, because Count Armansperg was anti-Russian. The opposition of France and Russia was strongly announced, but restrained within reasonable bounds. Mr Rudhart succeeded Count Armansperg. He, poor man! was assailed by England with all the artillery of Palmerston; and as neither France nor Russia would undertake to support so unfit a person, he was driven from his post.

The Greek government enjoyed every possible advantage during the administration of these Bavarians. A loan of £.2,400,000, contracted under the guarantee of the three protecting powers, kept the treasury full; so that no plan for the improvement of Greece, or for enriching the Bavarians, was arrested for want of funds. We shall now pass in review what was done.

1. A good monetary system was established. The allies, it is true, supplied the metal, but the Bavarians deserve the merit of transferring as much of it as they could into their own pockets, in a very respectable coinage.

2. The irregular troops were disbanded, and many of them driven over the frontier into Turkey. The thing was very clumsily done; but, thank Heaven! it was done, and Greece was delivered from this horde of banditti.

3. Every Bavarian officer or cadet was promoted, and every Greek officer was reduced to a lower rank. We cannot venture to describe the rage of the Greeks, nor the presumption of the Bavarians.

4. An order of knighthood was created, of which the decorations were distributed in the following manner: One hundred and twenty-five grand crosses, and crosses of grand commanders, were divided as follows: The protecting powers received ninety-one, that is thirty a-piece if they agreed to divide fairly. The odd one was really given to Baron Rothschild, as contractor of the loan. The Bavarians took twenty-three. The Greeks received ten for services during the war of the revolution, and during the national assembly which accepted King Otho, and one was bestowed among the foreigners who had served Greece during the war with Turkey. Six hundred and fourteen crosses of inferior rank were distributed, and of these the Greeks received only one hundred and forty-five; so that really the protecting powers and the Bavarians reserved for themselves rather more than a fair proportion of this portion of the loan, especially if they expected the Greeks not to become bankrupt.

5. All the Greek civil servants of King Otho were put into light blue uniforms, covered with silver lace, at one hundred pounds sterling a-head. And, O Gemini! such uniforms! Those who have seen the ambassador of his Hellenic majesty at the court of St James's, at a levee or a drawing-room, will not soon forget the merits of his tailor.

6. Ambassadors were sent to Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Munich, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople, and Consuls-general to all the ends of the earth.

7. A council of state was formed.

8. The civil government was organized, and royal governors appointed in all the provinces, who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister of the interior.

9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed, and codes of civil and criminal procedure published.

10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism. This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration, and it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia.

11. The communal and municipal system of Greece, the seat of the vitality of the Greek nation, was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic intellect.

12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek citizens.

The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer, who, if he had been restrained from meddling with diplomacy, and quarreling with the English and Russian ministers at Nauplia, would have been universally regarded as a most useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the Bavarians, is confined to a few of his acts.

The accession of Count Armansperg to power, opened a new scene. A certain number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments, on condition that they would support the Bavarian system, and declare that their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil. Accordingly, the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of Armansperg, only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down no invariable rules for admission, but kept the door open as a means of creating a party among the military, this institution has become a scene of jobbing and abuse.

A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but as it was intended to serve political purposes, it was never put into general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under it, in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in this way, the resources of the country will be found to have been very seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption.

Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the national path. He assembled the council of state, and called the provincial councils and the university into activity.

We have now arrived at the period when King Otho assumed the reins of government. From the year 1838 to the present day, he has been his own irresponsible prime minister; for the apparent ministers Zographos, Païkos, Maurocordatos and Rizos, have never enjoyed his unlimited confidence, nor have they been viewed with much favour by the people. Indeed, with the exception of Maurocordatos, they are men of inferior ability, and of no character or standing in the country. Any one who will take the trouble to read those portions of their diplomatic correspondence with the ministers of the allied powers at Athens, which have been published, will be convinced of their utter unfitness for the offices they have held. Let the reader contrast these precious specimens of inaccuracy and rigmarole, with the come-to-the-truth style of our own minister, or the sarcastic, let-us-go-quietly-over-your-reasoning style, in which the Russian minister answers them.

In order that our readers may form some idea of the manner in which King Otho has carried on the government for five years, we shall describe the political machine he has framed—name it we cannot; for it resembles nothing the world has yet seen amidst all the multifarious combinations of cabinet-making, which kings, sultans, krals, emperors, czars, or khans, have yet presented to the envious contemplation of aspiring statesmen. The king of Greece, it must be observed, is a monarch whose ministers are held by a fiction of law to be responsible; and the editor of an Athenian newspaper has been fined and imprisoned for declaring that this fiction is not a fact. These ministers are not permitted by King Otho to assemble together in council, unless he himself be present. The assembly would be too democratic for Otho's nerves. In short, the king has a ministry, but his ministers do not form a cabinet; his cabinet is a separate concern. Each minister waits on his majesty with his portfolio under his arm, and receives the royal commands. To simplify business, however, and make the ministers fully sensible of their real insignificancy, King Otho frequently orders the clerks in the public offices to come to his royal presence, with the papers on which they have been engaged; and by this means he shows the ministers, that though they are necessary in consequence of the fiction of law, they may be rendered very secondary personages in their own departments. If it were not a useless waste of time, we could lay before our readers instances of this singularly easy mode of doing business—instances too, which have been officially communicated to the allied powers. His majesty carried his love of performing ministerial duties so far, that for more than a year he dispensed entirely with a minister of finance, and divided the functions of that office among three of the clerks: no bad preparation for a national bankruptcy, we must allow—yet the protecting powers viewed this political vagary of his majesty with perfect indifference.

The most singular feature of King Otho's government is his cabinet, or, as the Greek newspapers call it, "the Camarilla." This cabinet has no official constitution; yet its members put their titles on the visiting cards which they leave, as advertisements of the existence of this irresponsible body, at the houses of the foreign ministers. It consists, or until the late financial difficulties deranged all the royal plans, it consisted, of four Bavarians and two Greeks. Its duty is to prepare projects of laws to be adopted by the different ministers, and to assist the king in selecting individuals appointed to public offices. This is the feature which excites the greatest indignation at Athens; the minister of war does not dare to promote a corporal; the minister of public instruction would tremble to send a village schoolmaster to a country demos, even at the expense of the citizens; and the minister of finance would not risk the responsibility of conferring the office of porter of the customhouse at Parras, before receiving the royal instructions how to act on such emergencies, and ascertaining what creature of the camarilla it was necessary to provide for.

We have already mentioned the council of state; it consists of about twenty individuals chosen by his majesty, a motley congregation—some cannot read—others cannot write—some came to Greece after the revolution was over—some, long after the king himself. This council is, by one of the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom, supposed to form a legislative council, and it is implied that it ought to be considered as tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most brave and respectable men, who have rendered Greece good service; but since they were decked out in silver uniforms, and received large salaries to form a portion of the court pageant, they have lost much of their influence in the country, either for good or evil. The king looks upon these patriotic members as an insignificant minority, or an ignorant majority, as the case may be, and he has more than once set aside the opposition of this council, by publishing laws rejected by a majority of its members. To speak a plain truth in rude phrase—the council of state is a farce.

King Otho, with his Greek ministers, his Bavarian cabinet, and his motley council of state, is therefore, to all appearance, a more absolute sovereign than his neighbour, Abdul Meschid. But we must now leave the royal authority, and turn our attention to an important chapter in the Greek question; one which nevertheless has not hitherto met with proper study either from the king, his allies, or the public in Western Europe—we mean the institutions of the Greek people.

The inhabitants of Greece consist of two classes, who, from having been placed for many ages in totally different circumstances, are extremely different in manners and in civilization. These are the population of the towns or the commercial class, and the inhabitants of the country or the agricultural class. The traders have usually been considered by strangers as affording the true type of the Greek character; but a very little reflection ought to have convinced any one, that the insecurity of the Turkish government, and the constant change in the channels of trade in the East, had given this class of the population a most Hebraical indifference to "the dear name of country." To the Fanariote and the Sciote, Wallachia or Trieste were delightful homes, if dollars were plentiful. But the agricultural population of Greece was composed of very different materials. We are inclined to consider them as the most obstinately patriotic race on which the sun shines; their patriotism is a passion and an instinct, and, from being restricted to their village or their district, often looks quite as like a vice as a virtue. This class is altogether so unlike any portion of the population of Western Europe, that we should be more likely to mislead than to enlighten our readers by attempting to describe it. The peasants are themselves inclined to distrust the population of the towns, and look on Bavarians, Fanariotes, and government officers, as a tribe of enemies embodying different degrees of rapacity under various names. They have as yet derived little benefit from the government of King Otho, for their taxes are greater now than they were under the Turks, and they very sagaciously attribute the existence of order in Greece to the alliance of the kings of the Franks, not to the military prowess of the Bavarians.

There is a third class of men in Greece who hold in some degree the position of an aristocracy. This class is composed of all those individuals who from education are entitled to hold government appointments; and at the head of this class figure the Fanariotes or Greek families who were in the habit of serving under the Turkish government. Many of the Fanariotes move about seeking their fortunes, from Greece to Turkey, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and vice versa. One brother will be found holding an office in the suite of the Prince of Moldavia, and another in the court of King Otho. This class is more attached to foreign influence than to Greek independence, and is almost as generally unpopular in the country as the Bavarians; and perhaps not without reason, as it supplies the court with abler and more active instruments than could be found among the dull Germans.

We must now notice the great peculiarity of the national constitution of the Greeks as a distinct people. There is indeed a singular difference in the organization of the European nations, which does not always meet with due attention from historians. The various governments of Europe are divided into absolute and constitutional; but it is seldom considered necessary to explain whether the people are ruled by officers appointed by the central authority of the state, or by magistrates elected by local assemblies of the people. Yet, as the character of a nation is more important in history than the form of its government, it is as much the duty of the historian to examine the institutions of the people, as it is the business of the politician to be acquainted with the action of the government. To illustrate this, we shall describe in general terms the political constitution of the Greeks, and leave our readers to compare it with the share enjoyed by the French, and some other of the constitutional nations, in their own local government. After all the boasted liberty and equality of the subjects of the Citizen King, we own that we consider that the Greeks possess national institutions resting on a surer and more solid basis.

All Greece is, and always has been, divided into communities enjoying the right of choosing their own magistrates, and these magistrates decide a number of police and administrative questions not affecting crimes and rights of property. The most populous town, and the smallest hamlet, equally exercise this privilege, and it is to its existence that the Greeks owe the power of resistance they were enabled to exert against their Roman and Turkish masters. We shall not enter into the history of this institution, under the Turks, at present; as it is sufficient for our purpose to give our readers a correct idea of the existing state of things. A local elective magistracy is formed, which prevents the central government from goading the people to insurrection by the insolence of office which the inferior agents of an ill-organized administration constantly display. Fortunately for the tranquillity of the country, the local administration works its way onward through the daily difficulties which present themselves, independent of king, ministers, councillors of state, or royal governors.