MODERN GREECE: A History since 1821 - Amazon Web Services

32 STATECRAFT AND IRREDENTISM (1831–62)
found on landing in Greece. Initial efforts to attract immigrants from
outside Greece were met with little or no success at all. Affluent Greeks
of the diaspora were very reluctant to abandon the rich life of European
centers like Vienna, Trieste, Venice, Paris, and Budapest for life in King
Otto’s small and still very poor capital. The Philhellenes, who had
fought with distinction in the Greek war of independence, had either
perished or, with few notable exceptions, had no stomach for the country
that emerged from the war, and left disenchanted and critical.
George Finlay, although disenchanted, remained behind and became
King Otto’s and his kingdom’s perceptive though uncharitable critic.
As a matter of fact, in the initial stages at least, it appears that more
people were leaving the country than entering it.
During the disturbances of the mid-1830s authorities became aware
of several thousand refugees from Crete, Chios (the Aegean island
which had been destroyed by the Turks in 1822), the Asia Minor port of
Kydonies (or Aivali, which again had been destroyed by the Turks),
and other destroyed Aegean islands, but mostly from the northern
historical Greek lands of Thessaly, Epirus, and Macedonia, in which the
revolution was suppressed. These northern Greeks were associated
with the system of the armatoles and, as defeated insurgents, had been
evicted from their territories of influence. These refugees were principally
irregulars associated with the contractual system of armed service;
they had nowhere else to go and knew no other art than the use of
arms. These evicted armatoles and their families formed the initial layer
of periodic streams of refugees from the irredenta, the streams coinciding
with the irredentist uprisings instigated by the Greeks and suppressed
by the Turks with the welcome assistance of Muslim Albanian
irregulars, who helped themselves to the movable property of the
Christians. This refugee element eventually became a powerful political
interest, a lobby which made its power felt by all Greek governments.
Refugees from irredentist uprisings in the neighboring districts
supported future irredentist uprisings in these districts, ostensibly to
liberate them from Turkish rule. Such forms of violence in the northern
Greek districts created a situation in the region, not unlike both sides of
the Austro-Turkish frontier, in which as in all military frontiers (militärgremze)
unlawful acts of all kinds, including brigandage, were permitted,
indeed, incited by the authorities of the opposite side.
This legacy of the revolution, of the “First Revolution” as it came to
be known, was too popular for King Otto and his government to