Talk:Greek War of Independence/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Piece of Crap

Sorry but this article is poor, very poor.

It's what you get when a committee tries to design something by consensus.

After reading several (single authored) books on the Greek War of Independence from both Greek, Turkish and neutral standpoints this 'article' has glaring ommisions, contradictions and downright lies.

It's a work of crap. Especially as it paints a very one-sided hellenic view of history.

When did it end?

Why does the introduction read "... was a successful war waged by the Greeks between 1821 and 1827"? By 1827, it had not been successful yet. The infobox gives 1828 as end date. But Greece achieved independence in 1832. Common Man 20:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The last campaigns finshed in 1831 when the Greeks were pushing for more land and attacking the Turks in Central Greece.

Some treaties merged in

I've merged the Treaty of Constantinople and London Conference of 1832 articles, which were quite short, into this one. I think I've kept redundancies to a minimum, but I'd appreciate if someone could look over the "Diplomatic endgame" section and check whether there's any repeated details that should be trimmed. Kirill Lokshin 03:13, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Battlebox - Forces

The battlebox currently reads simply "Greek guerilla forces" and "Ottoman Empire forces." I think this gives a somewhat incomplete picture. Firstly, not all Greek forces were sensu stricto "guerillas." Demetrios Ypsilantis led a battalion of regulars and tried to organize other Greek fightes along more traditional, Western European lines; although his efforts largely failed, these regulars were still combatants in the GWI. Bouboulina led a highly organized, albeit small, traditional naval force. Moreover, there was participation on the Greek side both by foreign irregulars - Philhellene amateurs who fought as guerillas for free, and foreign advisors who fought for pay on land and sea - like the commanding general after 1830, Richard Church. Regular British, French and Russian naval forces fought in the critical Battle of Navarino.
The Ottomans were a mixed lot, including troops from all over the empire. In World War II articles, it is customary to list New Zealand, Australian and Canadian troops where they participated in major British battles - shouldn't we do the same here? In fact, it should be pointed out somewhere (although probably not in the battlebox) that the organized navy of the Ottomans had a high proportion of Greek sailors.
We do readers a disservice if we don't let them know at the outset how complicated this war really was. We can paint a romantic picture of heroic Greek klephts vs. perfidious Turks, but in reality many foreign nations were involved, and their participation was often critical. The Ottomans would probably have been knocked out of the Peloponnese if not for the intervention of Egypt - only nominally under Ottoman control - and afterwards the Greek rebellion likely would have been crushed in the end without the Battle of Navarino, which crippled the Ottomans at sea and showed them that traditional West European enemies and the Russia they often distrusted were willing to come together to aid the Greeks. --Jpbrenna 03:23, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh. I've already changed that ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Lord Byron

It is mentioned that Lord Byron, the English poet, fought ont he greek side of the war. I do not know if any other english literary giants fought in the war, but I gather it was somewhat of a cause celebree in its era. Has anyone done any investigation into this?

JBickley00 22:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

• Byron wasn't "killed", he died of a fever (c.f. Lord Byron#Byron in Italy and Greece). Does anyone have an objection to changing that caption? Horia 19:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• • Done. Horia 03:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• • • I see someone changed the caption from "died during" to "died from fever". I think this undermines the fact that he was actually fighting for the greeks, not just visiting... I believe "died during the greek revolution" to be much better. If you have any issues with this please feel free to talk about it on this page. Horia 05:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Massacre at Chios

I'm curious about the use of the word "alleged" in reference to this sentence:

The Ottomans retaliated violently in other parts of Greece and uprisings were suppressed by the Ottoman government, allegedly massacring the Greek population of Chios and other towns.

The Wikipedia reference to the Greek town of Chios states clearly that a massacre did occur. Most of what I found on the web regarding the subject indicates that the massacre took place. I'm removing the word "alleged". If anyone chooses to change this please be courteous and post your source disputing the massacre. 68.203.127.188 19:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Casualties and Military size

The battlebox numbers are spectacularly wrong. How is it the Turks inflicted so many casualties and were so vastly outnumbered? Periklis* 05:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)