Bulgarians remained Christians, but under the Greek Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Serbia. Serbia was in proximity to Austria, which had actually occupied a large portion of Serbian territory from 1718 to 1739, and included within her borders many Serbian refugees and other kindred peoples; the example and help of Montenegro, whither many of the Serbian landowners who remained Christian had migrated, were also close at hand. The peasants had mostly retained their Christian religion, but the land was in the possession of Moslem converts. Both alike were oppressed by the Janissaries, who, especially the more turbulent of them, were sent away from Constantinople into this remote district. The Serbians might have been content to remain under the rule of the Sultan; it was not against this, but against the Janissaries, that they raised the insurrection which was finally to lead them to independence.

Albania. The fierce mountaineers of Albania, constantly at feud both with one another and with their Christian neighbours, had never been completely subjugated by the Turks. But many of them had turned Moslems, chiefly in order to retain the privilege of bearing arms; and they became in many ways a privileged people. They served in the Turkish army on special terms; they long supplied the Sultan's bodyguard; and many of them were settled in different parts of the Balkan Peninsula to overawe or to replace the Christian population. A considerable number of Albanians had at various times migrated into Greece, where thev rapidly became assimilated, and contributed in no small degree to the success of the Greek war of independence. In the south of Albania also, where Greek was used as the official language, the native population had become more or less completely Hellenised; Yanina, in particular, was for a long time an important centre of Greek educational and literary activity. The Albanians had only occasionally shown any power of combining together, notably under George Kastriotis (Skanderbeg)

in 1443-67. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the famous Ali Pasha, who had been appointed Pasha of Yanina in 1788, had practically united the whole of Southern Albania under his rule, until he finally defied the Sultan and was overthrown and assassinated in 1822. His action had no small influence on the outbreak of the Greek insurrection in 1821. Ali's contemporary, Mustapha Pasha Bushati, acquired almost equal power and influence as ruler of Northern Albania; but this also was ephemeral.

Greece. If Bulgaria and Serbia were inspired by recollections of their earlier history, still more was this the case with the Greeks, who were proud of the classical traditions of their race, and claimed a more direct succession to the glories of the Byzantine Empire. Not only could they lay claim to that empire as Greek in language and traditions, but, even after it had fallen to the Turks, Greek officials had retained a considerable degree of power in its administration. Above all, the Greek Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was head of the Orthodox Church throughout the Turkish dominions; and Greek and Christian had come to be used as almost synonymous terms. The prestige and power thus acquired by the Greeks were a great advantage to them; but they also led to much jealousy and resentment on the part of less privileged Christian races, whose desire for ecclesiastical liberation from the Greeks was as keen as their wish for political independence of the Turks. The Greeks not only inhabited the present Greek Kingdom and the islands and coast of Asia Minor, but they also formed rich and intelligent communities in Constantinople, Odessa, and many other European cities; and the influence of these "Greeks outside Greece" has always been an important factor in the progress and policy of the Greek people.

4. RISE OF INDEPENDENT STATES

Wars of Independence; Serbia.-The first of the Balkan peoples to attain virtual independence,

under a ruler of their own choosing, were the Serbians. Their insurrection under Kara George in 1804 was directed against the oppression of the Janissaries. After it had attained its object, however, they offered to place themselves under the protectorate first of Austria and then of Russia; but they had to submit again to Turkish rule in 1812, only gaining by the Treaty of Bucarest a promise of a certain measure of self- -government. A second rising in 1815 led to the recognition by all the headmen of Milosh Obrenovich as their chief, with hereditary rights, in 1817; but he was not formally invested as hereditary prince by the Sultan until 1830. Serbian politics have ever since been complicated by the rivalry of the dynasties of Karageorgevich and Obrenovich. Independence of Turkish suzerainty was not attained until the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Ecclesiastical independence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was attained in 1831, when the Serbian Church became autocephalous under the Metropolitan of Belgrade.

Greece. The turn of the Greeks came next, and they aimed from the first at emancipation from the Turkish yoke. Their chief centre of organization was the "Friendly Society," which had many branches outside Greece. An invasion of the Danubian provinces in 1821, under Alexander Ypsilantes, was easily suppressed; but better success attended a simultaneous rising in the Morea, and continued until Mehemet Ali of Egypt sent a strong force to the assistance of the Turks in 1825. The Western Powers at first showed little official sympathy with the insurgents; but Philhellene volunteers, especially British and French, came to their assistance, and contributed in no small degree to the success of their arms, both by land and sea, as well as to a strong movement of public feeling in their favour; London and París could not forget the debt of the civilised world to ancient Greece. These considerations, combined with a jealousy of Russia's separate intervention, induced France and England to send a naval expedition

to the Levant and to enforce an armistice. The three combined fleets, acting on the circumstances of the moment, inflicted on the Turkish fleet at Navarino a crushing defeat, which again turned the fortunes of the war in favour of the Greeks (1827). French troops were landed in the Morea, and the insurgents gained further successes, while the forces of Turkey were diverted to meet a new Russian invasion of the Danubian provinces. In the resultant Treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, the independence of Greece was one of the stipulations. The frontiers of the new nation, drawn from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, and including the islands of the archipelago, but excluding Crete, were fixed by Great Britain, France, and Russia, who acted in common, then, as later, as the three protecting Powers (App. II).

By the Protocol of London (1830) Greece was recognised as an independent monarchical State. Its government had already given rise to serious difficulties; presidents of Greek origin and the requisite experience, such as the Phanariote Mavrokordatos and the Corfiote Capo d'Istria, had been unable to impose their authority upon their fellow-countrymen. It was consequently agreed to adopt the policy ever since followed, as occasion arose in the emergence of a Balkan State from Turkish domination, of setting over it as king or prince a junior member of some dynasty of Northern or Western Europe. The choice in this case finally fell on Otto of Bavaria, who was accordingly installed as King of Greece, with the support of Bavarian Ministers and a body of Bavarian troops. The new kingdom, however, only included a comparatively small proportion of the Greeks in the Turkish Empire; and ample scope was left for Greek irredentism, which formed during the succeeding century the mainspring of the nation's policy.

The Treaty of Adrianople had other important consequences elsewhere. In Wallachia and Moldavia, where in 1822 the Phanariote Greeks had been replaced by princes of native origin, a Russian

protectorate was established; and the rights of Turkey as suzerain were limited to a monetary tribute and the right of investiture of the princes, who were to be elected by national assemblies and to hold office for life. From this time onward French sympathies, already encouraged by the Greek princes, grew rapidly stronger with the growing consciousness of Latin nationality, and have ever since characterised the feelings of the Rumanian people. The treaty also secured freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and in the Straits for merchant ships proceeding to or from Russia; but the Dardanelles remained closed to men-of-war, as agreed by the Treaty of Constantinople between Great Britain and Turkey in 1809.

Turkish Reforms; Russian Advance; Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi.-At this time the Ottoman Empire was threatened not only with partition from without, but by disintegration from within. Its powerful vassals, Mehemet Ali in Egypt and Ali Pasha in Yanina, had set up what were virtually independent States. The drastic reforms of the Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) and the extermination of the Janissaries in 1826 gave new life to the Turkish power; but for a time they weakened and disorganized its military efficiency. Russia profited by the opportunity to assert more strongly her claims to predominance in the Balkans. By the Convention of Akkerman in 1826 she was recognised as protector of the Serbs and of the Danubian Principalities. During the the revolt of Mehemet Ali of Egypt she came to the assistance of Turkey, and obtained as her reward, in 1833, the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (App. III), which constituted the high-water mark of her influence at Constantinople.

This was nominally a defensive alliance between the two countries; but by a secret clause Turkey undertook to close the Dardanelles against the warships of all other nations except Russia, thereby overriding the treaty of 1809, by which the Straits were closed to all