byron’s war...byron’s war roderick beaton re-examines lord byron’s life and writing through...

BYRON’S WAR

Roderick Beaton re-examines Lord Byron’s life and writing throughthe long trajectory of his relationship with Greece. Beginning withthe poet’s youthful travels in 1809–11, Byron’s War traces his years offame in London and self-imposed exile in Italy that culminated inthe decision to devote himself to the cause of Greek independence.Then comes Byron’s dramatic self-transformation while in Cephalo-nia, from Romantic rebel to ‘new statesman’, subordinating himselffor the first time to a defined, political cause in order to begin layingthe foundations during his ‘hundred days’ at Missolonghi for a newkind of polity in Europe – that of the nation state as we know it today.Byron’s War draws extensively on Greek historical sources and otherunpublished documents to tell an individual story that also offers anew understanding of the significance that Greece had for Byron andof Byron’s contribution to the origin of the present-day Greek state.

roderick beaton is Koraes Professor of Modern Greek andByzantine History, Language and Literature in the Centre for HellenicStudies at King’s College London.

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BYRON’S WARRomantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution

RODERICK BEATON




cambridge university pressCambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,

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Cambridge University PressThe Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

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First published 2013

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication dataBeaton, Roderick.

Byron’s War : Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution / Roderick Beaton.pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.isbn 978-1-107-03308-5 (hardback)

1. Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788–1824 – Criticism andinterpretation. 2. Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788–1824 –

Knowledge – Greece. 3. Greece – Civilization – Influence.4. Greece – In literature. I. Title.

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For what is poesy but to createFrom overfeeling good or ill; and aimAt an external life beyond our fate,And be the new Prometheus of new men,Bestowing fire from heaven . . .

Lord Byron, The Prophecy of Dante (June–July 1819)

And I will war, at least in words (and – shouldMy chance so happen – deeds) with all who war

With Thought; – and of Thought’s foes by far most rude,Tyrants and Sycophants have been and are.

I know not who may conquer: if I couldHave such a prescience, it should be no bar

To this my plain, sworn, downright detestationOf every despotism in every nation.

It is not that I adulate the people:Without me, there are Demagogues enough

. . . I wish men to be freeAs much from mobs as kings – from you as me.

Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto ix (August 1822)




Contents

List of plates and maps page ixAcknowledgements xiNames, dates, references xiiMaps xiii

Prologue xvi

part i the rebel imagination (1809–1816)

1 Land of lost gods . . . 3

2 . . . and modern monsters 30

part ii the road to revolution (1816–1823)

3 Reluctant radical 51

4 ‘Prophet of a noble contest’ 68

5 Death by water, transfiguration by fire 89

6 The deformed transformed 114

part iii greece: ‘’tis the cause makes all’(july–december 1823)

7 Preparations for battle 143

8 Wavering 163

9 The new statesman 185

vii




viii Contents

part iv missolonghi: the hundred days(january–april 1824)

10 ‘Political economy’ 211

11 Confronting the warlords 228

12 Pyrrhic victory 247

Epilogue 264

Notes 273Bibliography 318Index 330

The plates will be found between pages 142 and 143




Plates and maps

plates

1a. ‘View of the Parthenon’, showing the Acropolis as Byronand Hobhouse would have seen it in 1810, lithographpublished in Edward Dodwell, Views in Greece (London,1821) (National Library of Scotland)

1b. Athens ‘lives in the inspiration of the poet’, perhapsillustrating CHP II 82–92, lithograph published inChristopher Wordsworth, Greece Pictorial, Descriptive andHistorical (London, 1839) (National Library of Scotland)

2. Portrait of a Greek Wearing a Fustanela, Louis Dupre, c.1830,oil on canvas, thought to depict Andreas Londos (Athens:Benaki Museum, Collection of Paintings, Drawings, andPrints)

3. The Defeat of the Pasha, Antoine Charles H. Vernet, 1827, oilon canvas, based on Byron’s poem The Giaour (Athens: BenakiMuseum, Collection of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints)

4. Prometheus Creating Man in the Presence of Athena,Jean-Simon Berthélemy, 1802, detail, repainted 1826 (Louvre)

5a. Teresa Guiccioli, by E. C. Wood, lithograph published in TheByron Gallery, London, 1838 (National Library of Scotland)

5b. Byron in Genoa, May 1823, at the time when he was makingup his mind to take part in the Greek Revolution, sketch byAlfred d’Orsay (John Murray)

6a. Alexandros Mavrokordatos in Geneva, 1819, lithographpublished in Taschenbuch für Freunde der Geschichte desgriechischen Volkes älterer und neuerer Zeit (Heidelberg, 1824)(Athens: Gennadius Library)

ix




x List of plates and maps

6b. Metropolitan Ignatios of Hungary and Wallachia, Pisa, 1816,lithograph by Lassinus Carolus (Athens: Gennadius Library,Scrapbook no. 026,v. 4, p. 9)

7a. Alexandros Mavrokordatos, pencil sketch by Karl Krazeisen,dated 21 May 1827 (Athens: National Gallery–AlexandrosSoutzos Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings,published in the catalogue: Karl Krazeisen, ��

�� ’21 [Authentic Likenesses of theHeroes of 1821], curated by Marilena Z. Cassimatis, 2005–6)

7b. Theodoros Kolokotronis, pencil sketch by Karl Krazeisen,dated 14 May 1827 (Athens: National Gallery–AlexandrosSoutzos Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings,published in the catalogue: Karl Krazeisen, ��

�� ’21 [Authentic Likenesses of theHeroes of 1821], curated by Marilena Z. Cassimatis, 2005–6)

8a. Georgios Sisinis, lithograph published in Karl Krazeisen,Bildnisse ausgezeichneter Griechen und Philhellenen, Munich,1828–31 (Athens: Gennadius Library)

8b. Georgios Karaiskakis, by an unknown artist, oil on canvas(Athens: Benaki Museum, Collection of Paintings, Drawings,and Prints)

Images are reproduced by kind permission of the following: the NationalGallery–Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens; the Trustees of the NationalLibrary of Scotland; the Benaki Museum, Athens; RMN (Musée du Lou-vre), Paris; Mr John R. Murray; the Gennadius Library, American Schoolof Classical Studies at Athens.

maps

1. Byron’s Greece page xiv2. Cephalonia, Missolonghi, and environs xv




Acknowledgements

The research on which this book is based was carried out thanks to theaward of a Major Leverhulme Fellowship from 2009 to 2012. Work inGreece was based upon the British School at Athens, where I had theprivilege of being elected Visiting Fellow from October to December2010. I wish to record a sincere debt of gratitude to those two insti-tutions, and to the following that also greatly assisted my research: theBodleian Libraries, Oxford; the Centre for Hellenic Studies and MaughanLibrary, King’s College London; General State Archives, Athens; Gen-nadius Library, Athens; Benaki Museum, Athens; Messolonghi ByronResearch Center; National Historical Museum, Athens; National Libraryof Greece; National Library of Scotland; Templeman Library, Universityof Kent; University of London Library. Debts to individuals are numerous,and particularly to: Peter Cochran, Melvin Dalgarno, Angelos Delivorrias,Rosa Florou, Elena Frangakis-Syrett, Amalia Kakissi, Chris Kenyon-Jones,Paschalis Kitromilides, David McClay, Giorgos Mavrogordatos, MargaritaMiliori, Catherine Morgan, Evangelia Panou, Argyros Protopapas, DavidRoessel, and Maria Schoina.

Unpublished material from the Abinger papers and from the Murrayarchive is reproduced by kind permission, respectively, of the BodleianLibraries, University of Oxford, and the Trustees of the National Libraryof Scotland.

xi




Names, dates, references

Greek names in the non-Greek sources for the period usually appear pho-netically rendered into Italian. Thus ‘Karaiskakis’ becomes ‘Caraiscachi’.Where these forms occur in quotations I have retained them. ElsewhereI have regularised them in a manner more readily recognisable in Englishtoday, preserving so far as possible a balance between phonology andorthography.

The calendar in use in the Ottoman empire and Greece during thenineteenth century (known as Old Style) was twelve days behind thewestern European (New Style). Byron went ashore at Missolonghi on5 January 1824, but in the Greek calendar this was 24 December 1823.Conventionally, dates at the period were written in the form ‘Old Style/NewStyle’, but this double system is rarely used in the sources drawn on inthis book. In the main text I have harmonised all dates to New Style,occasionally adding a reminder of the local date. In the notes, the datesof documents are cited first as they appear in the document. In the caseof Old Style dates, the New Style equivalent has been added in the form‘[/New Style]’. Where it has not been possible to determine which styleapplies, a ‘?’ has been added.

In the notes, frequently cited primary sources are indicated by the abbre-viations listed on pages 273–6, all others by author’s name and short title.Full bibliographical references are listed at the end of the book.

xii




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Map 2. Cephalonia, Missolonghi, and environs




Prologue

Late in the evening of Wednesday, 16 July 1823, an English coal brig namedHercules sailed from the port of Genoa. Aboard were a British peer of therealm, who happened also to be one of the most famous writers of hisday, a Cornish adventurer, an Italian count, a Greek count, a doctor anda secretary (both Italian), half a dozen servants of several nationalities, fivehorses, two dogs, and a prodigious amount of money in silver coin and billsof exchange. Their destination was Greece. Revolution against OttomanTurkish rule had broken out there two years before. Since then, horrificstories had been reaching Europe about extreme violence on both sides.None of those aboard the Hercules knew very much about the details of theconflict, not even who was in charge or what their policies were, except forthe overriding one of liberation from tyranny. None had the least inklingof the political storm that was slowly breaking over Greece as they sailed,and would prove to be the last testing-ground for George Gordon Noel,the sixth Baron Byron, whose story this is.

Byron, by the summer of 1823, ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’,had single-handedly invented the modern cult of celebrity. He was adoredand reviled throughout Europe, and as far away as America, as one ofthe defining spirits of the Romantic movement in poetry and the arts.He had just received the highest praise possible for a writer at the time,a letter expressing warm admiration for his work from Johann Wolfgangvon Goethe, the revered poet and intellectual of the age. So, what madeByron decide at the age of thirty-five to risk everything by going to jointhe revolution in Greece? What impact did his coming have on the courseof Greece’s modern history? Why does it matter today?

The answers to these questions make a compelling story. It is a storythat has never been told in full before. This may seem extraordinary whensomething over 200 biographies of Byron are already in existence. SinceHarold Nicolson published Byron: The Last Journey in 1924, to mark thecentenary of its subject’s death, almost every conceivable aspect of Byron’s

xvi




Prologue xvii

life and work has been turned over by scholars, travel writers, and celebrityhunters. The Greek ‘adventure’ has proved no exception, and importantstudies published over the last forty years have brought more modernperspectives to bear.1 But only Stephen Minta, in three important articlesso far, has begun to explore the rich resources of the Greek historicalarchives which provide an essential understanding of the political contextin which Byron found himself in Greece in 1823 and 1824.2

Nicolson began his tale in the spring of 1823, on the eve of the departureof the Hercules from Genoa. But Byron’s decision for Greece was not theresult of the whims and pressures of the moment. The ground had been laidyears earlier, during his ‘Grand Tour’ to the eastern Mediterranean from1809 to 1811 and its aftermath. The traces of this story are there: in letters,in records of conversations, above all in the poetry – once memorablydescribed by Byron as ‘the lava of the imagination whose eruption preventsan earth-quake’.3 Many of the moments and characters that make up thisstory will be familiar in themselves. But they have never before been joinedup to reveal the course of Byron’s long and often unexpected trajectorythat would take him from the Romantic rebelliousness of his most famouspoems to political action in the cause of a revolution, in Greece.

That is the first part of the story. The second tells what Byron actuallydid once he got there, how his high-profile involvement was understoodat the time by the people he had gone to help, and the effect he had onthe outcome of the Greek Revolution. Much new primary material is nowavailable, particularly in Greek. New interpretations by Greek historians,during the last ten years or so, have largely overturned many of the stereo-types of the past – including the conspiracy theory that Byron and otherphilhellenes went to Greece as the baleful agents of foreign powers – andopened the way to a much more nuanced understanding of the politicalforces at work during the crucial years of the Revolution when Byron wasthere.4 Byron himself does not yet figure as largely in this revisionist think-ing as he probably deserves to. To that extent, the second part of this bookoffers a modest contribution to the revision of history going on in Greecetoday.

Seen from this perspective, the story of Byron in Greece turns out tobe much more than the familiar set of anecdotes reported by those whowere with him at the time. Pietro Gamba, Leicester Stanhope, WilliamParry, Dr Julius Millingen, and later Edward Trelawny, all published blow-by-blow accounts of Byron’s last months. But none of them had muchidea of the internal dynamics of the revolution they were there to serve.George Finlay, who did, and who would go on to write one of its most




xviii Prologue

authoritative histories, mostly kept his private recollections to himself.Much of the material that makes up the second half of this book has neverbeen available in English before. A good deal of it remains unpublished.Taken together with the landmarks familiar from the biographies, it addsup to a quite different understanding of the political maelstrom into whichByron found himself catapulted, and his own, tragically uncompleted,contribution to the eventual outcome of the conflict.

This is the story of Byron’s remarkable achievement in inventing andreinventing himself – first in imagination as the rebellious Childe Haroldand the doomed heroes of the ‘oriental tales’, then as the ‘new Prometheusof new men’, who would eventually settle on the revolution in Greece asthe cause to which he would devote his final transformation – into theembryonic statesman and political leader of his last months in Cephaloniaand Missolonghi. But it is not the story of one man only. Others – notablyhis fellow-poet Shelley – played a crucial part in bringing Byron to commithimself to Greece. The role of the Greek aristocrat from Constantino-ple, Alexandros Mavrokordatos, with whom Byron would forge a crucialalliance in Greece, has not been fully appreciated until now. Finally, thanksto that alliance and the effect that Byron had on the internal politics ofthe Greek Revolution, the story of this ‘new Prometheus’ forms part of thestory of how Europe, including liberated Greece, became modern.




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