Abstract
The Spanish colonists were still in full battle for independence when in April of 1821 the Greeks began their struggle for freedom with an insurrection on the penisula of Morea. The cruelties of the Turks served to unite the Greek population, and whenever given the opportunity the Greeks retaliated in kind. The history of the early stages of the conflict records a series of butcheries on each side, and it became exceedingly difficult to assimilate the conflict to ordinary rules of public war.1 The recollections which attached to the soil of classical Greece, plus the fact that the inhabitants were Christians striving to cast off the yoke of “infidels,” aroused public sympathy throughout Europe to the fever of a crusade.
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References
A useful short account of the struggle is contained in the Cambridge Modem History, New York: The MacMillan Company 1907, vol. x, chap, vi., 169-204. A more extended account showing the war through British eyes is A. G. Stapleton’s, The Political Life of George Canning from 1822 to 1827, London: 1831. Cf. also W. Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence (1821–1833), London, 1897.
Hertsley, Map of Europe by Treaty, i, 579; British and Foreign State Papers, vii, 832; Smith, op. cit., i, 68-76.
British and Foreign State Papers, viii, 1282.
Smith, op. cit., i, 282-283.
See text of constitution in British and Foreign State Papers, ix, 620.
The conduct of Great Britain during this period corresponds very closely to what might have been called in the terminology of the following century “an acknowledgement of a status of insurgency.” American vital interests were not involved so that no official stand on the Greek question by the United States appeared.
Smith, op. cit.,i, 283.
Ibid., 284.
Ibid., 284-285.
“It would not be proper to consider persons as Pirates who may be cruizing under a state of alleged Hostilities, whether regular or irregular, provided their Intentions were in fact satisfactorily distinguished from the mere predatory character of Piracy, as considered in Law.” Ibid., 284.
For proclamation of blockade see British and Foreign State Papers, ix, 789.
“On March 28, 1823, accordingly the British Government formally recognized the Greeks as belligerents,” — Cambridge Modern History, i, 186. This date of recognition is used also by Marriott, Eastern Question, 187; Phillips, op. cit., 116; Temperley, Foreign Policy of Canning, 326; Crawley, Greek Independence, 27. This, however, is subject to some debate as Smith records no formal act on the part of the British government of that date, and certainly it is difficult to see how the mere publication of a blockade at a later date could constitute retroactive recognition.
Smith, op. cit., i, 288.
Dr. Stephen Lushington as quoted in P. J. Green’s Sketches of the War in Greece, 1827, p. 288, gave an opinion on May 29, 1823, in which he stated categorically that first, Turkey was not liable for the damages caused by Greek insurgents to the property or citizens of third powers, and second, “that Great Britain has by the premises so far de facto though not de jure recognized the existence of the Greek nation as independent of Turkey, that she could not… complain of the Greeks exercising the usual rights of war…”
Its preamble began with “Whereas hostilities at this time exist between different states and countries in Europe and America…” British and Foreign State Papers, x, 648.
See Stapleton’s Pol. Life, ii, 646, for the circumstances attending the publication of this proclamation.
Parliamentary Hansard, 3rd series, clxii, 1566.
Stapleton, Pol. Life, iix, 408-409.
For some glossaries on this passage see Hall, op. cit., 34, note 1; Wehberg, op. cit., 21; McNair, loc. cit., 483. Canning’s statement among others has been used to support a so-called “right of recognition” by which is meant a right under international public law which may be exercised by the insurgents once certain minimum conditions have been fulfilled. From the implementation of the right there flows to the insurgents all the duties and obligations, incident to an ordinary belligerent in an international war. This right, say those who espouse this doctrine, is not dependent on a grant from either the parent government or from the third state. To avoid confusion in the pages following, “right of recognition” will always be used in this sense.
Stapleton, Pol. Life, ii, 408-409.
Ibid., 410.
See in particular edition of 1820, Droit des gens, liv. III, Chap. xviii, 295, 296.
Dated September 19, 1826, quoted in Stapleton, op. cit., 482.
The British intervened also on humanitarian grounds in that Ibrahim Pasha, Egyptian general, whenever the Greeks of Morea made the slightest resistance, massacred all males and sent the women and children into slavery in Egypt. Ibid., iii, 283 ff.
Gefcken, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée, xxiii (1891), 578. “Foreign powers would not have violated international law if, in 1831, they had recognized Poland as a belligerent power, because then Poland had a regular army and a government whose orders were obeyed.”
Dana’s Wheaton, p. 30, note 15. A similar situation of a land-locked country with no ports or maritime interest to affect the interests of third powers occurred in the Hungarian War of Independence, 1848–49. Austria maintained that the conflict was a civil war. This view is supported by Rougier, Les Guerres Civiles et le Droit des Gens, p. 83. The Hungarians urged that it was an international war. For background on this conflict see Edouard Sayous, Histoire Générale des Hongrois, 288ff and Alfred Stern, Geschichte Europas seit 1815, 38 1ff. The revolt from the beginning took a form and consistency not usually present in unitary states since the Hungarians had their own government, their own army, and currency. Dana’s opinion was that the state of things in Hungary would have justified any nation in invoking such a status. See Dana’s Wheaton, note 16, p. 39. However, as in the Polish uprising the effects of the war did not impinge sufficiently on the affairs of any state (except Russia which intervened with armed forces) to make it necessary for third states to press the Hungarian viewpoint. President Taylor sent a special agent to Europe to observe the situation at first hand. On the agent’s report that the chances of success of the Hungarians were small because of Russian intervention, the United States took no formal action. See Calvo, Le droit international théorique et pratique, t. I, par. 97, p. 245; Lawrence, Commentaire, t. I, p. 200; Rougier, op. cit., 79-83. As Richard Henry Dana in his note on Wheaton pointed out, one could scarcely conceive of the United States having occasion to grant to insurgents belligerent rights in a civil war fought in a country of central Europe deprived entirely of ports.
The principal data concerning the Polish insurrection come from Wehberg, op. cit., 24ff and Schiemann’s Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus, I, iii, 31-144, 466-469.
From 1824–1834 Porugal was torn with civil strife in a complicated succession contest. Britain had close political and commercial ties with Portugal and by the Treaty of Methuen of 1703 was pledged to Portugal’s defense. Cf. Smith, op. cit., 170-172. Britain at the beginning of the conflict toyed with nonintervention but ended with intervention in support of the Regency of Donna Maria the heiress of Dom Miguel. For brief historical data concerning the civil disturbances in Portugal see George Edmunson’s “Brazil and Portugal,” in Cambridge Modern History, vol. x, chapter x, pp. 310-340.
See text of this proclamation in British and Foreign State Papers, xxvii, 1047.
Cf. Woolsey, International Law, (1901), 303. In the case of The People v. Alexander Mc-Leod, 1 Hill 377, the Supreme Court of the State of New York decided that a subject of Great Britain, who, under directions from the local authorities of Canada, commits homicide in the United States in time of peace, may be prosecuted in American courts, as a murderer; even though his sovereign subsequently approved his conduct by avowing the directions under which he acted was a lawful act of government. A nation can only exercise the right of war, the Court declared, within its own territory, or that of its enemy, or in territorium nullius, whether the war be public or mixed (civil). Mr. Wheaton thought the real question in this incident from the viewpoint of international law was whether it was justifiable to violate neutral territory in time of war, and answered with an emphatic negative, in spite of the dicta of Bynkershoeck to the contrary. “De la question de jurisdiction qui s’est presentée devant les cours des États-Unis dans l’affaire de Mac-Leod,” Revue Étrangère et Française de Législation, ix, 81-95.
For an extended account of our troubled relations with Mexico over the Texas question, see Senate Executive Document, 1 24th Congress, 2nd Session, 1-105.
The British likewise extended insurgent rights to the rebels pending formal recognition. See Smith, op. cit., i 247-250.
See his Seventh Annual Message of December 7, 1835, in Richardson (ed) Messages and Papers of the Presidents, ii, 1370.
Senate Executive Document 1, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, 4.
Opinions of the Attorneys General, iii, 121.
Senate Executive Document 1, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, 74-78.
Ibid., 81-82. “It has never been held necessary, as a preliminary to the extension of the rights of hospitality to either (belligerent) that the chances of the war should be balanced and the probability of eventual success determined. For this purpose it has been deemed sufficient that the party had declared its independence and at the time was actually maintaining it.”
For details see John Basset Moore, Arbitrations, iii, Chapter 36, Passim.
Ibid., 1596.
Ibid.
For summary and citation of these laws see Senate Executive Document 69, 35th Congress, 1st Session, 9-11.
Ibid., 12.
Ibid.
Note of Mr. Cass to Mr. Osma May 22, 1853, Ibid., 25-26.
Ibid., 25.
Ibid., 20.
9 Cranch 191.
4 Wheaton 246.
Opinions of the Attorneys General, ix, 140.
Ibid., 140; Moore, Arbitrations, ii, 1603; Senate Executive Document 69, 35th Congress, 1st Session, 28-29.
Opinions of the Attorneys General, ix, 140; Moore, Arbitrations, ii, 1603-03; Senate Executive Document 69, 35th Congress 1st Session, 29-30.
9 Vesey 348.
Senate Executive Document 25, 35th Congress, 2nd Session.
Cf. also British and Foreign State Papers, (1859–60), 1, 1126; Moore, Digest, i, 183-4.
Moore, Arbitrations, ii, 1608–1614, at 1612. In 1862, a convention was signed at Lima by which the King of the Belgians was designated as arbitrator. The King refused because of the “delicate nature” of the question, now that the United States was itself engaged in a terrible civil war. The Belgian foreign minister, Mr. Sanford, did intimate that the King was of the opinion that had he acted as arbitrator, he would have had to act unfavorably toward the United States, and “that his desire not to make a decision unfavorable to us had been a motive for declining.” The government of the United States, after receiving Mr. Sanford’s letter stating the unofficial opinion of the King decided to accept the implied adverse opinion, and to treat the claims as finally disposed of.
Senate Executive Document 69, 35th Congress, 1st Session, 24; Moore, Digest, i, 182-3.
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Oglesby, R.R. (1971). Pre-1861 Civil Conflicts which Indicated a Need for the Status of Insurgency. In: Internal War and the Search for Normative Order. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9205-7_2
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