The Greek War of Independence by David Brewer

(Book Review)

The Greek Revolution (or War of Independence--like the American Revolution it goes by both names) is something that has been popping up a lot lately in some of the books I've been reading.

For example, in "Washington and Lafayette", James R. Gaines mentions that the American people felt sympathy for the Greek Revolution, but the United States government was forbidden from getting directly involved by the Monroe Doctrine. Therefore Gaines claimed that when Lafayette returned to the United States in the 1820s, the incredible welcome he received was an indirect way for the United States citizens to show their support for the Greek Revolution. (Lafayette was a famous supporter of the Greek cause.)

Also, in "The Age of Revolution", Eric Hobsbawm calls the Greek Revolution the 19th century version of the 1930s Spanish civil war, in that it drew liberals and progressive thinkers from all over the globe to join the fight.

My interest in the Greek Revolution was sufficiently piqued. I next went to amazon.com to try and find a readable armchair history of it.

This book was the only modern history I could find. So I ordered it up.

Although I had entered this book hoping to learn more about the idealism which attracted thousands of international converts to the Greek cause, I soon got bogged down in names, dates, and battles.

For the uninitiated like myself, learning about the whole of the Greek War of Independence in one book can be a bit overwhelming. Imagine if you knew absolutely nothing about the American Revolution, and in one book you had to learn about colonial history, the conflicts leading up to the revolution, keep track of all the different founding fathers, learn about the continental congress, and all the battles fought, et cetera. It would be enough to make your head spin.

And the Greek Revolution is actually even more complicated than the American Revolution because you have a mess of various local and tribal loyalties conflicting with the authority of the revolutionary government. And often you have Greeks fighting against Greeks as well as against the Ottoman empire.

Also for the American reader names are an issue. My brain can handle names like John, James, and Jason, but it has a lot harder time keeping straight names like Kolokotronis, Korais, or Koundouriotis.

All of these problems are inherent to the subject matter, and not the fault of the author David Brewer.

Brewer writes in a clear, straightforward, easy to follow style and for the most part does the best he can with the material he has.

And yet there were times when I couldn't help wondering if a superior writer, someone with a journalistic background instead of a historian, would have been able to draw out some of the common threads of this story, and link the chapters together better. Maybe even focus on a few key players in the revolution, and give the book a more biographical or character driven feel.

As it is, each chapter represents a different element of the Greek War of Independence, but the chapters don't tie into each other very well.
In the beginning chapters we read about the various secret revolutionary societies that began the war, but once the war takes off we never hear about these people again.

Or at other times we are introduced to several Greek leaders or politicians in one chapter, then the action switches to describing a siege or battle for another few chapters, and then when these politicians re-appear several chapters later I've completely forgotten who they are.

Each chapter is very well written within itself, but the book as a whole sometimes feels like a dumping ground for everything Brewer knows about the Greek War.

Also some minor nit-picks: Brewer occasionally leaves quotations in French untranslated. However they never amount to more than a sentence or two, so it doesn't seriously impede understanding.
And, although I can understand his reluctance to mess with direct quotations, I wish he would have standardized spelling. The spelling of a name can differ depending on whether it's quoted from a Greek source, a French source, or an Anglican source. In the beginning of the book this caused me a lot of confusion until I figured out what was going on.

Those complaints aside, this book certainly has its moments.
The beginning chapters describing the secret societies and revolutionary agitators are really fascinating.
Once the war breaks out, I got bogged down in battles, marches, sieges and other military maneuvers for a while. But then Brewer pulls back his scope out again to describe the reactions of the other European nations, and the international volunteers who came to Greece to fight. (The "Philhellenes" as Brewer calls them).

Like Hobsbawm, Brewer also makes a comparison between the Spanish civil war. "Perhaps only in the foreign reactions to the Spanish civil war of the 1930s has there been such a sharp contrast between the cold abstention of governments and the passionate involvement of individuals." (Brewer p. 135)

We then get back into more battles, and even an early civil war among the Greeks. But just as I was beginning to get bored with that, Brewer gives us two whole chapters solely devoted to Lord Byron, and his work for the Greek cause.
(Byron, by the way, is one of the more fascinating figures of the 19th Century. Check out this video to see why).

The book then gets into Egypt's involvement in the war, and finally the involvement of most of Europe in a huge naval battle that destroyed the Ottoman fleet, ending with Greece's independence.

Certainly some very interesting stuff in here, but it never comes together as a whole. Each chapter is like a different story in itself, and, since it takes time to get involved in a new story, you have to be re-making that investment with every new chapter, while still remembering the names of generals from previous chapters.

For all of those reasons, I recommend this book, but with caution.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky on Central America
and Then and now with Goofus and Gallant (This cartoon here pretty much sums up my frustration with the current political situation. I'm linking to it here in lieu of writing another liberal rant).

The Greek War of Independence by David Brewer: Book Review (Scripted)