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26. Hertslet, The map of Europe, vol. 2, document no. 159; [Foreign Office], Papers relative to the affairs of Greece, 1826-1832, pp. 283-294; Christou, The borders of the Greek state, vol. 1, pp. 229-239, 244-247; “Convention between Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the one part, and Bavaria on the other, relative to the sovereignty of Greece, signed at London, May 7, 1932”, The American Journal of International Law, 12. 2 (supplement), 1918,
pp. 68-74; Recueil des Traités,
pp. 33-62· Georgios Laios, “The election of Otto as King of Greece and its ratification by the National Assembly of Pronia”, Bulletin of the Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece, 19, 1967-1970,
pp. 167-198; Andreadis, History
of national loans, pp. 75-84.
27. Hertslet, The map of Europe,
vol. 2, document no. 161; Christou, The borders of the Greek state,
vol. 1, pp. 239-243; Recueil
des Traités, pp. 64-70, 74-76; Constantopoulou (ed.),
The foundation, pp. 37-44; Eleftherios Prevelakis, “The Settlement of Constantinople, 9/21 July 1832”, Mnimosini, 5, 1974-1975, p. 201-283.
28. Foreign Office, British and foreign state papers, 1833-1834,
vol. 22, Ridgway, London 1847, pp. 931-945; Christou, The borders of the Greek state, vol. 1,
pp . 248-251.
29. Recueil des Traités, pp. 86-95, Ioannis H. Poulos, The first borders of modern Greece, Myrtidis, Athens 1965, pp. 70-81; Daskalakis (ed.), Texts-sources of the history of the Greek Revolution, pp. 1079-1101; Christou, The borders of the Greek state, vol. 1, pp. 252-265.
The delay of the in situ drawing
of the borderline was a result of the poor quality of maps, on which diplomatic deliberations had been based. Quite often, the members of the mixed commission
realized that there were serious inconsistencies between the maps and the geographical reality.
THE FINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE GREEK QUESTION
The assassination of Kapodistrias plunged Greece into chaos and brought the Greeks to the brink of a new civil war. This situation prompted the three Powers to address the issue of the choice of the person to assume the Greek throne. In early 1832, the leading candidate was Prince Otto of the House of Wittelsbach, second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria. The objections of Russia, on the one hand, to the fact that Otto was not Orthodox, and of Britain and France, on the other hand, to the fact that he was a minor, were finally bent under the pressing need for an immediate settlement of an issue that had been pending for almost two years.
On 25 April/7 May 1832, the three Powers and Bavaria signed a special treaty in London, which
formalised the election of Otto. The Greek National Assembly only subsequently ratified the ac-
cession of the Bavarian prince to the Greek throne. The Treaty of London provided that Greece
would be a monarchical state under the guarantee of Great Britain, France and Russia. It also
outlined the terms of Otto’s succession, while ruling out in perpetuity the union of the Greek and
Bavarian crowns. Since at the time of the signing of the treaty the young prince had not even
reached the age of 17, it was specified that his majority would take place when he turned 20.
Until then, royal power would be exercised on his behalf by a three-man regency council appoint-
ed by Otto’s father. Bavaria undertook to send to Greece a military force of 3,500 men, while the
three Powers undertook to guarantee a loan of 60 million francs, which Otto could contract as
King of Greece.
All that remained was to formally secure the consent of the Ottoman government to everything that had been agreed between the three Powers. Thus, the focus of their diplomatic efforts was on the Sultan’s recognition of the demarcation line which they had themselves specified in the London Protocol of 1831. Their combined action did not take long to have an effect, which crystallised on 9/21 July 1832 in the conclusion of the Treaty of Constantinople between the three Powers and the Ottoman Empire. On the basis of this agreement, the Porte accepted the Amvrakikos-Pagasitikos border line. In compensation for the territorial losses suffered by the Ottoman Empire, Greece was obliged to pay it compensation of 40 million Turkish Kuruş.27
On 18/30 August 1832, the three Powers ratified the Treaty of Constantinople, rejecting at the same time the Turkish demands for a return to the Porte of the Northern Sporades. Instead, they proposed granting autonomy to Samos (which, despite its impressive participation in the Revo- lution, remained outside the boundaries of Greek territory), a proposal that was accepted by the Ottoman side.28 In implementation of these decisions, a five-member joint committee, consisting of representatives of Great Britain, France, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Greece, undertook the task of drawing the Greek-Turkish border on the spot, a process that was not completed until December 1835, thus giving final form to the newly established Greek state.29
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