@Earl Marshal This TL isn't really my thing but I appreciate how you treat the Ottomans fairly and don't descend into the same lame cliches and hate that are usually the norm. Especially while doing a TL on "the other side".
Pride Goes Before a Fall: A Revolutionary Greece Timeline
- Thread starter Earl Marshal
- Start date
Thank you. Both sides were responsible for their fair share of unfavorable moments, although the Philhellenic Press in the West really downplayed a lot of the Greeks negative actions in the war while playing up the Ottoman's atrocities. They were complex people living in a complex time and while a lot of things they did can't be justified under any circumstance, it isn't fair to paint the Ottomans as this purely evil power and the Greeks as this innocent little state. That said, this timeline is generally going to follow the point of view of the Greeks, but in the future I will explore the events happening elsewhere in this TTL's world.
Did you consider doing a "Mahmud II dies along with Selim III" PoD before deciding on this one? I've seen some speculation that this could have netted the Greeks Istanbul.
I considered a few different POD's originally with Mustafa IV successfully killing Mahmud II in 1808 being one of them. It is a very interesting POD with a lot of possibilities and it would obviously result in a very different situation from OTL, especially in regards to the Greeks. I guess you could say I was being lazy or unimaginative in choosing the POD that I did, as it allowed me to follow the events of the OTL war, like Dervenakia, the First Siege of Missolonghi, the 2nd National Assembly, the Greek Civil Wars, etc with a few distinct differences from OTL. That said it would be interesting to see what effects this would have on the end of the Napoleonic Wars an the eventual Greek War of Independence.
Might Napoleon II survive in this timeline? That might make for an interesting little butterfly 
Napoleon II surviving longer would definitely make for some interesting butterflies. Currently though, I'm using a bit of a butterfly net when it comes to divergences outside of Greece unless something directly effects it, a la Lord Byron surviving. Once the war ends I will be more generous with the butterflies for the rest of the world, so it is certainly possible something could happen that results in Napoleon II living longer than OTL considering he died in July 1832. That said, his death was very soon after the end of the war, so I would need to find a reasonable solution as to why he doesn't die in TTL.Might Napoleon II survive in this timeline? That might make for an interesting little butterfly
If you don't mind me being a shillaber, such a POD could possibly be combined with one regarding the First Serbian Uprising, specifically the failure of the signing of the Russian-Serbian Alliance of 1807 and the successful signing of Ičko's Peace with the Ottomans. Granted, just saying that makes it seem simple (and believe me, it isn't), but the knock-on effect from its signing, as well as Mahmud II's execution, would prove to be a rather intriguing scenario, if I may say so myself.
I'm not as familiar with the Russian Serbian alliance proposal in 1807 as I am with their later relations, but I am pretty sure a POD resulting in the death of Mahmud II in 1808 would have some major effects on the outcome of the Serbian revolution. If Mustafa is the only remaining heir of Osman, as he intended, then bad times are ahead for the Ottoman Empire. He was strongly opposed to Selim's reforms and actively worked to roll them back in the brief time he was Sultan, so I would expect this to continue under his reign unless he finds a backbone, which seems unlikely. He was also more or less a puppet of the Janissaries and effectively did what they told him to do or else. At the very least I would expect some sort of civil war or civil unrest across a wide swath of the Empire.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
The Russo-Serbian alliance was merely to have another front south of the Danube for the Ottomans. Russia pressured the Serbs to keep up the rebellion instead of peace out.
Mustafa IV was an opportunist. A guy who would change his principles just to get the throne. And he did it. If he really did kill Mahmud II along with Selim III there is no telling what would happen. Most likely bad things. But then again, Alemdar Mustafa Pasha could force Mustafa IV as a puppet as well. He had the forces in the capital during the (attempt) execution. He controled the capital and could have his (more chaotic) Auspicious Event. And then wait until Mustafa IV gets his male heir. Why give up when you defeated most of your enemies?
Your statement about the Russo-Serbian alliance is interesting. Do you have a source I could look into?
I agree that we can't really know if Mustafa would continue being anti-reformist. After all, Mahmud II himself wasn't super friendly towards reform during the first year of his accession. However, I don't see how Alemdar could have beat the Janissaries when his forces were tied up fighting the Russians. That's why he couldn't prevent his OTL murder after all. Though this is getting somewhat off-topic...
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
I'll look at the source four you if I find it again
Mahmud II wasn't anti reformist. He was against the power of the landlords that came with Alemdar Mustafa's intervention in 1808. Luckily for Mahmud, Alemdar Mustafa died the same year when blew himself and the Janissaries besieging his house up and so was the power behind the landlords gone. The events afterwards were chaotic.
The reason Alemdar Mustafa was able to move against Mustafa IV was a truce with the Russians for some time. When he entered the city he quickly restored order, killed most of the allies of Mustafa IV including the leading Janissary Officer Kabakçi Mustafa who deposed Selim III. Alemdar Pasha has by now the capital and so the Sultan at his hands.
I'll look at the source four you if I find it again
I wouldn't exactly say pressured is the right choice of words here. The Serbs had already gotten Russian support as early as November of 1804 (a fact that could be changed with a POD in May), and the Russians were traditionally seen as close friends due to their Slavic Orthodox nature, as well as how their state served as an a beacon of hope that they could achieve the same sort of success.
By 1807, while there were some close calls when it came to the possible worsening of Serbo-Russian relations, the Serbs had been receiving support in the form of arms and other things needed to support a revolution. And with the many victories they had by then (and the delayed signing of Ičko's Peace on the Ottoman end didn't help), capped off with the successful Siege of Belgrade in 1806, the Serbs were emboldened and encouraged by the Russians to make a formal alliance, though they believed that the Russians would directly assist them rather than just being used as cannon fodder while the Russians continued fighting in the Romanian Front of the Russo-Turkish War that had started in late 1806, with Russian hope being that they would manage to keep Serbia under their influence, as the Christian Balkans had been seen as traditionally protected by them.
The Peace of Tilsit of July 1807, if I recall correctly.
But I agree with 1-9blaaa that this is rather off topic at this point, and I'd like to apologize for that fact.
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I'll look at the source four you if I find it again
Mahmud II wasn't anti reformist. He was against the power of the landlords that came with Alemdar Mustafa's intervention in 1808. Luckily for Mahmud, Alemdar Mustafa died the same year when blew himself and the Janissaries besieging his house up and so was the power behind the landlords gone. The events afterwards were chaotic.
The reason Alemdar Mustafa was able to move against Mustafa IV was a truce with the Russians for some time. When he entered the city he quickly restored order, killed most of the allies of Mustafa IV including the leading Janissary Officer Kabakçi Mustafa who deposed Selim III. Alemdar Pasha has by now the capital and so the Sultan at his hands.
If anything, this conversation has made me recognize that I need to address the Auspicious Incident as it was pretty important in the development of the Ottoman Empire going forward. It also provides me with a very interesting insight into the Serbian Revolution and the early years of Mahmud's reign among other things.
Chapter 21: Perseverance on Troubled Tides
Chapter 21: Perseverance on Troubled Tides
As had been the case for much of the war, money remained the primary restraint for the many endeavors of the Greeks. The Greek Government had contracted a major loan with the city of London in 1824 to the tune of £420,000, and while it was incredibly helpful, it was very limited in terms of scope and scale. By the end of 1825 it had all been spent and it quickly became evident that a second loan would be needed. Unfortunately, the relation with their contacts in Britain had begun to sour soon after the agreement had been signed. The Secretary of the London Greek Committee, John Bowring, had used the first loan primarily to enrich himself, by buying the loan’s bonds at a discounted price only to sell them at a profit later on when the price had rebounded briefly.
When the Greek Deputies, Andreas Louriotis and Ioannis Orlandos protested the questionable actions of the loan’s handler, Bowring refused to meet with the pair, barring them from any further Committee hearings on the loan. This disagreement between Bowring and the Greek Deputies could not have come a worse time, as the Greek Government announced it sought to contract a second loan. Forced to look elsewhere, Orlandos and Louriotis arranged the terms of the second loan with the banking house, Jacob and Samson Ricardo. While they were effectively on their own in organizing the contract with Ricardo, they were provided with counsel by the more sympathetic members of the Committee such as Baron John Hobhouse and the MP Edward Ellice.
After some negotiation, the nominal amount of this second loan was set at £2,000,000, as opposed to the nominal value of £800,000 for the first loan. The bonds for the loan sold very well initially, jumping almost immediately to 63% of the nominal value for the first month. This was in fact based off exaggerated accounts by Lord Byron and Colonel Stanhope’s in their dispatches to the Committee. Soon, however, as news reached Britain of the infighting in Greece followed shortly by Ibrahim Pasha’s landing and conquests in the Morea, the rate dropped to 56% where it remained until the end of the Summer before increasing slightly to 59% with the return of Lord Byron to London in September. As a result, the actual value of the second loan came to about £1,150,000.
As had been the case with the first loan, however, chicanery and dishonest practices on the part of the financiers and bankers resulted in a large fraction of the loan being withheld from the Greeks themselves. £60,000 were paid out as commissions for Hobhouse, Ellice, Jacob and Samson Ricardo, and the two Greek Deputies Orlandos and Louriotis. Another £200,000 was withheld to pay for the first two years of interest on the loans and £20,000 were used as a 1 percent sinking fund. Lastly, nearly £250,000 was used to fulfill the deficiencies in the first loan by purchasing its stock, artificially inflating its value in the process. It did not end there however.
Because of the infighting in Greece between the Kolettists, the supporters of Ioannis Kolettis, and the Charalamvists, the supporters of Sotiris Charalamvis, it was agreed, generally without the consent of the Greek Deputies, that the £620,000 that remained of the second loan, would be dispensed largely at the discretion of the Committee and Ricardo. Together they deigned upon the Greeks the necessity of purchasing war supplies from Britain, such as ammunition, bayonets, rifles, ships, uniforms, and other commodities of war. Roughly £70,000 was spent securing 50 cases of Baker Rifles, 200 cases of Brown Bess Muskets, 4,000 bayonets, knifes, and swords, twenty 12 Pounders, ten 20 Pounders, and 100 reams of paper to make cartridges, 100 barrels of gunpowder, 60,000 musket balls and cartridges, 1,200 12 and 20-pound cannon balls and shells, along with thousands of pairs of shoes, boots, hats, coats, belts, and other war necessities.[2] The loan was also used to purchase the services of the British Admiral, Lord Thomas Cochrane.
Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
Cochrane had been an incredibly dashing and incredibly talented young officer in the British Navy during the later years of the Napoleonic Wars. However, his career was sidetracked due in large part to his frequent clashes with authority figures, namely his superior officer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St. Vincent. More damning to his reputation was the court martial brought against him, of which he was acquitted, and a civil suit regarding fraud, of which he was found guilty. After four years at the King’s Bench Prison, Lord Cochrane found his way to Chile in 1818 where he aided the Chileans in their own War of Independence where he served with distinction winning several engagements against the Spanish Empire. For his efforts, Cochrane was proclaimed an honorary citizen of Chile and is considered a Chilean national hero to this day. When Brazil began its own war for independence in 1822, Cochrane left the Chilean Navy for Brazil after clashing with the Chilean leader Jose de San Martin over strategy and tactics. While in Brazil, Cochrane was appointed Commander in Chief of the Brazilian Military and promptly secured the independence of the entire North of Brazil from the Portuguese in little over a month. His success in Brazil was soon ruined by infighting over his lack of pay, and in a dastardly act Cochrane pillaged several Brazilian ships of their valuables before absconding to Britain.
Arriving in London in November 1825, Lord Cochrane was soon approached by members of the London Greek Committee and the Greek deputies to hire his services for Greece. After some negotiations, Cochrane agreed to their venture albeit at a steep price. In return for £35,000 up front, and another £25,000 once the war was won, along with access to a private yacht and servants while in Greece, costing roughly £10,000, Cochrane agreed to travel to Greece, but only at the head of a fleet of steamships. Steamships were the latest innovations in nautical technology. Reliant solely, upon steam to rotate the massive waterwheels that provided their propulsion, steamships were freed from the fickleness of the wind enabling them greater mobility and speed in many cases. Cochrane was joined in his interest in steamships by the British Philhellene, Frank Abney Hastings.
Hastings, like Cochrane was a British nobleman who made his living as an officer in the Royal Navy. Like Cochrane, he proved to be incredibly talented sailor, but he also had a troubled relation with his commanding officer resulting in his resignation from the Royal Navy in 1820. After spending a year abroad in France, Hastings traveled to Greece in the Spring of 1822 to join the Greek Navy as a volunteer in their own war of independence. Despite initially being thought a spy for the British Government, Hastings was welcomed with open arms by the Greeks who adored the gauche nobleman from England as he was a valorous man. Serving for two long years without pay or any recompense, his talents as a naval man were on full display in his daring raids on Ottoman ships in the Gulf of Smyrna. Hastings would also prove to be an innovator of nautical warfare as well.
Captain Frank Abney Hastings
Recognizing the burgeoning prowess of the Ottoman Navy over the course of the war, Hastings realized the Greeks, who were still reliant upon the use of fireships and smaller vessels, would eventually be overwhelmed by stronger ships of the Ottoman fleet. His solution for the Greeks was not to transition to the larger, but slower Ships of the Line, but instead to use heated shot, a technique which had thus far only been used on land, as it would be more reliable than fireships and more destructive to enemy ships than the broadside of any ship the Greeks currently had. There was one major problem with this, this process required the use of a furnace to heat the shot and most ships lacked the means to do this. The only ships that could were the new steam powered vessels. Hastings found a prominent ally in Lord Byron who made the necessary introductions to the Greek leaders who were the most likely to hear out his proposal. As he had done with so many others, Hastings captivated the Greek officials with his knowledge of steamships and the potential that lay within them. With the support of the Greek Government, Hastings was permitted to receive a portion of the second loan, to the sum of £10,000 for the project. To that end, Hastings returned to London in February 1825 and immediately began efforts to construct his steamship, the Perseverance.
The hull of his ship was built in the Thames Shipyard by the Brent family, an established shipbuilding firm, renowned for the quality of their work, and by the end of the Summer the hull was complete. The ship was roughly the size of schooner with four moderately sized masts and two massive paddlewheels powered by two 42 horsepower engines. This machinery on each side of the ship limited the available room for cannons, so instead of the normal compliment of 12 guns at a lower caliber, Hastings opted for 8 larger guns, one 32-pounder in the bow, another in the stern, and two 68 pounders in the center for both sides of the ship, all paid for from Hastings own pocket.[3] The engines for the ship were ordered from the engineer Alexander Galloway who was widely renowned as the leading engineer in all of Britain. Despite his estimates that the ship’s engines would be complete by August, constant delays and malfunctions during testing held up the ship’s completion until the end of May 1826.
It soon became apparent why they were delayed. Correspondence between Ibrahim Pasha and his father had been captured during the final days of the Fourth Siege of Missolonghi by Andreas Miaoulis during his last effort to save the city in early April. In these dispatches, it was revealed that Galloway’s son, Thomas had been hired by Mahammad Ali of Egypt to be his chief engineer. The conflict of interest was clear, if Galloway developed ships that helped defeat the Egyptians, then he would be placing his own son at risk and so the father sought to sabotage his own work to benefit his son. While it may have been a selfless act of love by a father for his son, it was clearly a dastardly act of malpractice that nearly ruined the entire batch of steamships ordered by Cochrane and Hastings.[4]
Fortunately, Hastings had been present for much of Galloway’s work on his steamship, the Perseverance, saving it from the worst attempts at sabotage and by the 18th of May 1826, the ship finally set sail for Greece. The remaining ships similarly had their hulls constructed by Brent and were initially started by Galloway that Spring, only to be finished by the engineer Aaron Manby and a team of his workers once the ships were removed from the former’s custody in the Fall of 1826. Despite their best efforts to repair Galloway’s damage, Manby and his team could not save the second and third ships which were too far gone to be repaired and were ultimately sold at a massive loss due to the extensive costs needed to fix the other three, and while the fourth, fifth, and sixth steamships were finished, they would suffer from some minor mechanical issues for the entire length of their service. Only the last steamship, the Hope, renamed the Elpida, operated as originally intended, but by the time of its arrival in Greece in 1828, the war was largely over.
The ships had only been removed from Galloway’s care and sent to Manby following an extended period of public outcry against the engineer which was in large part due to the efforts of Lord Byron. Byron upon his return to Britain in the fall of 1825 took an interest in the venture, as Hastings had thoroughly convinced him of their great potential during their short time together in Greece and soon he too had become smitten with the endeavor. When word arrived in June 1826 from Greece of the captured Egyptian dispatches, Byron immediately went to work against Galloway. His poem “Steam” released in July 1826, was little more than a diatribe against the engineer that would be praised with ending the man’s career in later years. The outcry was so great that even Cochrane who had been largely cordial with Galloway was forced to turn against him and moved the ships to Manby’s firm. Still, the damage was done, thousands of pounds had been wasted on the venture, at over £30,000 per ship, and three of the four ships that were sent to Greece were plagued with mishaps and malfunctions.
The Greek Deputies, had also been interested initially in purchasing two new American made frigates in addition to the fleet of steamships they had just bought.[5] Their allies in Britain, namely Hobhouse, and later Cochrane when he returned, instead proposed the purchase of two Third Rates which had recently been reduced (razeed) into Fourth Rate ships. Eventually they were persuaded of the need to commission new ships as fast as possible and because they lacked even the slightest knowledge about ship building, conceding the point to their British sponsors. London Greek Committee purchased two razeed Third Rate Ships of the Line, the HMS Elephant and the HMS Saturn.[6] Both ships were launched as 74 gun Third Rate Ships of the line in 1786 before being razeed into Fourth Rates with 54 guns each in 1818 and 1813 respectively. The frigate, HMS Leander was also purchased for the price of £25,000. Unfortunately, both the HMS Saturn and the HMS Leander, having spent the past few years as training vessels, would require some additional work to restock their complement of guns and adjust their rigging for ocean travel.
The HMS Elephant in Battle at Copenhagen
Of the £480,000 that remained from the second English loan, after paying Cochrane his exorbitant costs, over £280,000 had been spent on ships, leaving less than £200,000 for the Greek Government to pay its bills. Of those ships, one warship, the HMS Elephant, renamed the Hellas, traveled to Greece in 1825 where it arrived in late December. The HMS Saturn, renamed the Kronos, and the HMS Leander, which kept the name Leander, would arrive in early February 1826 after being refitted with new guns and rigging. They were followed several months later by Hastings’ steamship Perseverance, renamed Karteria which arrived in early September. The Enterprise (Epichirisis), Mercury (Hermes), and Hope (Elpida) would arrive in April 1827, November 1827, and February 1828 respectively. It is fortunate then that Captain Hastings returned to Greece when he did, as the Karteria would soon receive its trial by fire off the coast of Nafpaktos.
Next Time: Fabvier and the Fighting Fiends of Nafpaktos
[1] Karteria is Greek for Perseverance.
[2] Unfortunately, I do not have any sources detailing the exact numbers or what specifically was sent, only that £67,000 were spent on war supplies for Greece, which likely means guns and munitions among other things. As a result, these numbers are mostly guesses, albeit educated guesses on my part using the cost of various munitions, weapons and commodities from the period as well as the general makeup of their prior requisitions.
[3] The 32 Pounders were eventually replaced with 68 Pound carronades, bringing its total to 8 carronades in total.
[4] Whether Galloway intentionally sabotaged the Steamships or not, the facts speak for themselves. Only three of the six steamships ever reached Greece and only Hastings’ ship, the Karteria, ever operated in an effective manner and that probably had more to do with Hastings’ skill and tenacity than the engine’s quality. Both the Epichirisis and the Hermes suffered from terrible maladies that rendered them nearly inoperable and worse still, they arrived over two years late, with the Enterprise arriving in the Summer of 1827 and the Mercury arriving in 1828. Of the three ships that didn’t go for Greece, one blew up during testing and the other two were left as empty shells that rotted away in the Thames. So, in short, the Greeks spent roughly 200,000 Pounds buying six ships and got 1 ship that worked relatively well and two that were utter garbage. But wait there’s more.
[5] The story regarding the American Frigates is laughably bad. Orlandos and Louriotis sent the French Philhellene Charles Lallemand to New York in March 1825 to purchase two Frigates. Unfortunately, none were available for sail so he placed an order to construct two new frigates. Right off the bat, the price for the frigates were estimated at around 100,000 Pounds each. To “lower” the costs, Lallemand, who had no knowledge what so ever regarding ship building, agreed to build the ships through day’s work, a process that slowed their construction to a crawl. In October 1825, Bayard and Howland the firm constructing the Frigates, told Lallemand that the price for the ships had returned to their original price of 100,000 Pounds per ship despite using the day’s work. A month later, the price rose again to 185,000 Pounds per frigate, and the month after that it had risen again, at which point the Ricardo’s, who were paying for the ships, refused to pay out anymore. Work instantly halted and only restarted when the Chian merchant Alexander Kondostavlos traveled to New York to negotiate a resolution. Eventually, the American Government agreed to purchase one ship to pay for the other’s completion, which was finally completed in May 1826. One last problem occurred on the journey to Greece, the American crew transporting the ship attempted to mutiny and sell the frigate to Columbia and then again to Ibrahim Pasha. Eventually, the Americans were contained by Andreas Miaoulis and a crew of Greeks who promptly took control of the frigate for Greece in November of 1826.
[6] The Elephant briefly served as Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship during the battle of Copenhagen in 1801.
As had been the case for much of the war, money remained the primary restraint for the many endeavors of the Greeks. The Greek Government had contracted a major loan with the city of London in 1824 to the tune of £420,000, and while it was incredibly helpful, it was very limited in terms of scope and scale. By the end of 1825 it had all been spent and it quickly became evident that a second loan would be needed. Unfortunately, the relation with their contacts in Britain had begun to sour soon after the agreement had been signed. The Secretary of the London Greek Committee, John Bowring, had used the first loan primarily to enrich himself, by buying the loan’s bonds at a discounted price only to sell them at a profit later on when the price had rebounded briefly.
When the Greek Deputies, Andreas Louriotis and Ioannis Orlandos protested the questionable actions of the loan’s handler, Bowring refused to meet with the pair, barring them from any further Committee hearings on the loan. This disagreement between Bowring and the Greek Deputies could not have come a worse time, as the Greek Government announced it sought to contract a second loan. Forced to look elsewhere, Orlandos and Louriotis arranged the terms of the second loan with the banking house, Jacob and Samson Ricardo. While they were effectively on their own in organizing the contract with Ricardo, they were provided with counsel by the more sympathetic members of the Committee such as Baron John Hobhouse and the MP Edward Ellice.
After some negotiation, the nominal amount of this second loan was set at £2,000,000, as opposed to the nominal value of £800,000 for the first loan. The bonds for the loan sold very well initially, jumping almost immediately to 63% of the nominal value for the first month. This was in fact based off exaggerated accounts by Lord Byron and Colonel Stanhope’s in their dispatches to the Committee. Soon, however, as news reached Britain of the infighting in Greece followed shortly by Ibrahim Pasha’s landing and conquests in the Morea, the rate dropped to 56% where it remained until the end of the Summer before increasing slightly to 59% with the return of Lord Byron to London in September. As a result, the actual value of the second loan came to about £1,150,000.
As had been the case with the first loan, however, chicanery and dishonest practices on the part of the financiers and bankers resulted in a large fraction of the loan being withheld from the Greeks themselves. £60,000 were paid out as commissions for Hobhouse, Ellice, Jacob and Samson Ricardo, and the two Greek Deputies Orlandos and Louriotis. Another £200,000 was withheld to pay for the first two years of interest on the loans and £20,000 were used as a 1 percent sinking fund. Lastly, nearly £250,000 was used to fulfill the deficiencies in the first loan by purchasing its stock, artificially inflating its value in the process. It did not end there however.
Because of the infighting in Greece between the Kolettists, the supporters of Ioannis Kolettis, and the Charalamvists, the supporters of Sotiris Charalamvis, it was agreed, generally without the consent of the Greek Deputies, that the £620,000 that remained of the second loan, would be dispensed largely at the discretion of the Committee and Ricardo. Together they deigned upon the Greeks the necessity of purchasing war supplies from Britain, such as ammunition, bayonets, rifles, ships, uniforms, and other commodities of war. Roughly £70,000 was spent securing 50 cases of Baker Rifles, 200 cases of Brown Bess Muskets, 4,000 bayonets, knifes, and swords, twenty 12 Pounders, ten 20 Pounders, and 100 reams of paper to make cartridges, 100 barrels of gunpowder, 60,000 musket balls and cartridges, 1,200 12 and 20-pound cannon balls and shells, along with thousands of pairs of shoes, boots, hats, coats, belts, and other war necessities.[2] The loan was also used to purchase the services of the British Admiral, Lord Thomas Cochrane.
Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
Cochrane had been an incredibly dashing and incredibly talented young officer in the British Navy during the later years of the Napoleonic Wars. However, his career was sidetracked due in large part to his frequent clashes with authority figures, namely his superior officer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St. Vincent. More damning to his reputation was the court martial brought against him, of which he was acquitted, and a civil suit regarding fraud, of which he was found guilty. After four years at the King’s Bench Prison, Lord Cochrane found his way to Chile in 1818 where he aided the Chileans in their own War of Independence where he served with distinction winning several engagements against the Spanish Empire. For his efforts, Cochrane was proclaimed an honorary citizen of Chile and is considered a Chilean national hero to this day. When Brazil began its own war for independence in 1822, Cochrane left the Chilean Navy for Brazil after clashing with the Chilean leader Jose de San Martin over strategy and tactics. While in Brazil, Cochrane was appointed Commander in Chief of the Brazilian Military and promptly secured the independence of the entire North of Brazil from the Portuguese in little over a month. His success in Brazil was soon ruined by infighting over his lack of pay, and in a dastardly act Cochrane pillaged several Brazilian ships of their valuables before absconding to Britain.
Arriving in London in November 1825, Lord Cochrane was soon approached by members of the London Greek Committee and the Greek deputies to hire his services for Greece. After some negotiations, Cochrane agreed to their venture albeit at a steep price. In return for £35,000 up front, and another £25,000 once the war was won, along with access to a private yacht and servants while in Greece, costing roughly £10,000, Cochrane agreed to travel to Greece, but only at the head of a fleet of steamships. Steamships were the latest innovations in nautical technology. Reliant solely, upon steam to rotate the massive waterwheels that provided their propulsion, steamships were freed from the fickleness of the wind enabling them greater mobility and speed in many cases. Cochrane was joined in his interest in steamships by the British Philhellene, Frank Abney Hastings.
Hastings, like Cochrane was a British nobleman who made his living as an officer in the Royal Navy. Like Cochrane, he proved to be incredibly talented sailor, but he also had a troubled relation with his commanding officer resulting in his resignation from the Royal Navy in 1820. After spending a year abroad in France, Hastings traveled to Greece in the Spring of 1822 to join the Greek Navy as a volunteer in their own war of independence. Despite initially being thought a spy for the British Government, Hastings was welcomed with open arms by the Greeks who adored the gauche nobleman from England as he was a valorous man. Serving for two long years without pay or any recompense, his talents as a naval man were on full display in his daring raids on Ottoman ships in the Gulf of Smyrna. Hastings would also prove to be an innovator of nautical warfare as well.
Captain Frank Abney Hastings
Recognizing the burgeoning prowess of the Ottoman Navy over the course of the war, Hastings realized the Greeks, who were still reliant upon the use of fireships and smaller vessels, would eventually be overwhelmed by stronger ships of the Ottoman fleet. His solution for the Greeks was not to transition to the larger, but slower Ships of the Line, but instead to use heated shot, a technique which had thus far only been used on land, as it would be more reliable than fireships and more destructive to enemy ships than the broadside of any ship the Greeks currently had. There was one major problem with this, this process required the use of a furnace to heat the shot and most ships lacked the means to do this. The only ships that could were the new steam powered vessels. Hastings found a prominent ally in Lord Byron who made the necessary introductions to the Greek leaders who were the most likely to hear out his proposal. As he had done with so many others, Hastings captivated the Greek officials with his knowledge of steamships and the potential that lay within them. With the support of the Greek Government, Hastings was permitted to receive a portion of the second loan, to the sum of £10,000 for the project. To that end, Hastings returned to London in February 1825 and immediately began efforts to construct his steamship, the Perseverance.
The hull of his ship was built in the Thames Shipyard by the Brent family, an established shipbuilding firm, renowned for the quality of their work, and by the end of the Summer the hull was complete. The ship was roughly the size of schooner with four moderately sized masts and two massive paddlewheels powered by two 42 horsepower engines. This machinery on each side of the ship limited the available room for cannons, so instead of the normal compliment of 12 guns at a lower caliber, Hastings opted for 8 larger guns, one 32-pounder in the bow, another in the stern, and two 68 pounders in the center for both sides of the ship, all paid for from Hastings own pocket.[3] The engines for the ship were ordered from the engineer Alexander Galloway who was widely renowned as the leading engineer in all of Britain. Despite his estimates that the ship’s engines would be complete by August, constant delays and malfunctions during testing held up the ship’s completion until the end of May 1826.
It soon became apparent why they were delayed. Correspondence between Ibrahim Pasha and his father had been captured during the final days of the Fourth Siege of Missolonghi by Andreas Miaoulis during his last effort to save the city in early April. In these dispatches, it was revealed that Galloway’s son, Thomas had been hired by Mahammad Ali of Egypt to be his chief engineer. The conflict of interest was clear, if Galloway developed ships that helped defeat the Egyptians, then he would be placing his own son at risk and so the father sought to sabotage his own work to benefit his son. While it may have been a selfless act of love by a father for his son, it was clearly a dastardly act of malpractice that nearly ruined the entire batch of steamships ordered by Cochrane and Hastings.[4]
Fortunately, Hastings had been present for much of Galloway’s work on his steamship, the Perseverance, saving it from the worst attempts at sabotage and by the 18th of May 1826, the ship finally set sail for Greece. The remaining ships similarly had their hulls constructed by Brent and were initially started by Galloway that Spring, only to be finished by the engineer Aaron Manby and a team of his workers once the ships were removed from the former’s custody in the Fall of 1826. Despite their best efforts to repair Galloway’s damage, Manby and his team could not save the second and third ships which were too far gone to be repaired and were ultimately sold at a massive loss due to the extensive costs needed to fix the other three, and while the fourth, fifth, and sixth steamships were finished, they would suffer from some minor mechanical issues for the entire length of their service. Only the last steamship, the Hope, renamed the Elpida, operated as originally intended, but by the time of its arrival in Greece in 1828, the war was largely over.
The ships had only been removed from Galloway’s care and sent to Manby following an extended period of public outcry against the engineer which was in large part due to the efforts of Lord Byron. Byron upon his return to Britain in the fall of 1825 took an interest in the venture, as Hastings had thoroughly convinced him of their great potential during their short time together in Greece and soon he too had become smitten with the endeavor. When word arrived in June 1826 from Greece of the captured Egyptian dispatches, Byron immediately went to work against Galloway. His poem “Steam” released in July 1826, was little more than a diatribe against the engineer that would be praised with ending the man’s career in later years. The outcry was so great that even Cochrane who had been largely cordial with Galloway was forced to turn against him and moved the ships to Manby’s firm. Still, the damage was done, thousands of pounds had been wasted on the venture, at over £30,000 per ship, and three of the four ships that were sent to Greece were plagued with mishaps and malfunctions.
The Greek Deputies, had also been interested initially in purchasing two new American made frigates in addition to the fleet of steamships they had just bought.[5] Their allies in Britain, namely Hobhouse, and later Cochrane when he returned, instead proposed the purchase of two Third Rates which had recently been reduced (razeed) into Fourth Rate ships. Eventually they were persuaded of the need to commission new ships as fast as possible and because they lacked even the slightest knowledge about ship building, conceding the point to their British sponsors. London Greek Committee purchased two razeed Third Rate Ships of the Line, the HMS Elephant and the HMS Saturn.[6] Both ships were launched as 74 gun Third Rate Ships of the line in 1786 before being razeed into Fourth Rates with 54 guns each in 1818 and 1813 respectively. The frigate, HMS Leander was also purchased for the price of £25,000. Unfortunately, both the HMS Saturn and the HMS Leander, having spent the past few years as training vessels, would require some additional work to restock their complement of guns and adjust their rigging for ocean travel.
The HMS Elephant in Battle at Copenhagen
Of the £480,000 that remained from the second English loan, after paying Cochrane his exorbitant costs, over £280,000 had been spent on ships, leaving less than £200,000 for the Greek Government to pay its bills. Of those ships, one warship, the HMS Elephant, renamed the Hellas, traveled to Greece in 1825 where it arrived in late December. The HMS Saturn, renamed the Kronos, and the HMS Leander, which kept the name Leander, would arrive in early February 1826 after being refitted with new guns and rigging. They were followed several months later by Hastings’ steamship Perseverance, renamed Karteria which arrived in early September. The Enterprise (Epichirisis), Mercury (Hermes), and Hope (Elpida) would arrive in April 1827, November 1827, and February 1828 respectively. It is fortunate then that Captain Hastings returned to Greece when he did, as the Karteria would soon receive its trial by fire off the coast of Nafpaktos.
Next Time: Fabvier and the Fighting Fiends of Nafpaktos
[1] Karteria is Greek for Perseverance.
[2] Unfortunately, I do not have any sources detailing the exact numbers or what specifically was sent, only that £67,000 were spent on war supplies for Greece, which likely means guns and munitions among other things. As a result, these numbers are mostly guesses, albeit educated guesses on my part using the cost of various munitions, weapons and commodities from the period as well as the general makeup of their prior requisitions.
[3] The 32 Pounders were eventually replaced with 68 Pound carronades, bringing its total to 8 carronades in total.
[4] Whether Galloway intentionally sabotaged the Steamships or not, the facts speak for themselves. Only three of the six steamships ever reached Greece and only Hastings’ ship, the Karteria, ever operated in an effective manner and that probably had more to do with Hastings’ skill and tenacity than the engine’s quality. Both the Epichirisis and the Hermes suffered from terrible maladies that rendered them nearly inoperable and worse still, they arrived over two years late, with the Enterprise arriving in the Summer of 1827 and the Mercury arriving in 1828. Of the three ships that didn’t go for Greece, one blew up during testing and the other two were left as empty shells that rotted away in the Thames. So, in short, the Greeks spent roughly 200,000 Pounds buying six ships and got 1 ship that worked relatively well and two that were utter garbage. But wait there’s more.
[5] The story regarding the American Frigates is laughably bad. Orlandos and Louriotis sent the French Philhellene Charles Lallemand to New York in March 1825 to purchase two Frigates. Unfortunately, none were available for sail so he placed an order to construct two new frigates. Right off the bat, the price for the frigates were estimated at around 100,000 Pounds each. To “lower” the costs, Lallemand, who had no knowledge what so ever regarding ship building, agreed to build the ships through day’s work, a process that slowed their construction to a crawl. In October 1825, Bayard and Howland the firm constructing the Frigates, told Lallemand that the price for the ships had returned to their original price of 100,000 Pounds per ship despite using the day’s work. A month later, the price rose again to 185,000 Pounds per frigate, and the month after that it had risen again, at which point the Ricardo’s, who were paying for the ships, refused to pay out anymore. Work instantly halted and only restarted when the Chian merchant Alexander Kondostavlos traveled to New York to negotiate a resolution. Eventually, the American Government agreed to purchase one ship to pay for the other’s completion, which was finally completed in May 1826. One last problem occurred on the journey to Greece, the American crew transporting the ship attempted to mutiny and sell the frigate to Columbia and then again to Ibrahim Pasha. Eventually, the Americans were contained by Andreas Miaoulis and a crew of Greeks who promptly took control of the frigate for Greece in November of 1826.
[6] The Elephant briefly served as Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship during the battle of Copenhagen in 1801.
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Per the Greek accounts Orlandos and Louriotis were mostly forced to accept the decisions of the British members of the committee but the end result remains the same. Also if I may so suggest Excellent shouldn't be up for sale in 1825, she is being razed for further service with the RN. On the other hand HMS Saturn was decommissioned to harbour service in 1825 and HMS Leander laid up as a receiving ship in 1823. All three (counting Elephant) would cost about 75000 pounds (each of the used ships was costing 25,000) which leaves another 75000 compared to OTL for other uses.
Yeah John Bowring seems like quite a scumbag in all honesty which is very surprising given his earlier efforts to help the Greeks. And while Orlandos and Louriotis didn't do themselves any favors while in London, Bowring's actions were borderline criminal.
Thank you for the heads up on the ships, I'll make the changes right away.
Speaking of ship names, the link here is from the Greek Wikipedia and contains a reasonably comprehensive list of ships for the fleets of the three islands (6, 29 and 50 from the Hydriot navy by the way were Orlandos ships). I short of suspect we might see Saturn and Leander becoming Themistocles and Athena or Leonidas based on it even though they begin with Greek names (Kronos and Leandros). Not that it really matters. Oh and come to think of it Hellas at least was present for the 4th Messolongi if I have my timing right...
https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ελλην...84.CE.B7.CF.82_.CE.A3.CE.AC.CE.BC.CE.BF.CF.85
Belated comment here but Karaiskakis was also suffering from tuberculosis. By all accounts at the time of the OTL exodus he was down with a heavy bout of it. Of course you had him killed which while plausible, he had this tendency to lead from the front, is also most unfortunate especially with Kolokotronis also dead. On the other hand Botsaris is alive and no mention was made of Odusseas Androutsos which is... interesting. If alive he'll be in good terms with the government as Kolletis is in bad terms with it and he has his own close contacts with Byron Trelawny is his brother in law after all.
That's a great source, thank you! I'll probably stick with Kronos and Leander/ Leandros as it generally fits with their current naming convention for ships, namely Greek Gods and Heroes, but I am open to changing it if it makes sense.
You certainly correct, the Hellas (HMS Elephant), was in Greece during the time of the Fourth Siege of Missolonghi as it arrived December 1825 as would the Leandros and Kronos which arrived in February. Currently, it is the flagship of Admiral Andreas Miaoulis and would have been present during his rescue attempt in early April 1826. Miaoulis did not use it as his flagship during the battle, however, as the draught of its hull was too deep for the shallows surrounding the city, and it was instead used to fight off the Egyptian ships at the lagoon's entrance allowing the smaller ships to reach Missolonghi.
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I did briefly mention Odysseus Androutsos about 10 parts ago when Byron was still in Greece, but I haven't mentioned him since as the narrative has taken me elsewhere. I would argue that he is probably still alive and that the Greek Government has made some attempts to rein him with mixed results. I'll be sure to mention what has been going on with him in the near future.