"Thessaly Uprising of 1878"

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The Thessaly Uprising of 1878 was an uprising of the Greek population of Thessaly within the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the XIX century, directed against Turkish domination. To a certain extent, it was caused by the events of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. The uprising did not achieve its initial objectives and, under pressure from the Ottoman army and the insistence of European diplomacy, was curtailed. But along with the subsequent repression of the Greek population of the region, it played an important role in the peaceful transfer of most of Thessaly to the Greek Kingdom two years later, in 1880, as a consequence of decisions taken by the Congress of Berlin.

The Question of the Limits of the Reborn State
The Greek War of Liberation, which began in 1821, was met with hostility or wariness by European monarchies. The assumption that the Ottomans would be able to suppress the uprising in a short time was not justified. The war disrupted the geopolitical order established by the Holy Alliance, and the ongoing fighting in the south of the Balkan Peninsula and the Archipelago, as well as the actions of Greek rebels from Beirut to Alexandria, created problems for trade and navigation. Unable to prevent the Greek Revolution, the Great Powers began to focus on the creation of a small autonomous state, similar to the Danube principalities. Its borders should not extend beyond the Peloponnese. The British Empire was particularly hard on this issue. In June 1827, Britain, France, and Russia reached a consensus on the matter. According to the London Convention of June 24, 1827, squadrons of three countries were sent to the region, not to support the rebels, but to force the belligerents to peace. As stated by the British Prime Minister J. Canning's agreed policy was "peaceful intervention, reinforced by a peaceful show of force."

When the squadrons approached Navarina Bay, after a minor episode, an unauthorized Battle of Navarino took place, in which the Allies sank about 60 Ottoman ships. British diplomacy was taken by surprise. The King of England said of Admiral Kodrington, “I send him a ribbon, though he is worthy of a rope.” The British ambassador to Constantinople, Stratford-Canning, expressed his regret for this sad event. The same allied squadrons forced the rebels to cease hostilities on the island of Chios. Navarin did not mean the end of the war.

And. Kapodistrias, a former Russian foreign minister who became the first official ruler of the re-established state, arrived in Greece in January 1828. Asked by Western diplomats where he thought the borders of the new state should be established, he replied that a resurgent Greece should include the lands whose population took part in the War of Liberation, meaning both the Peloponnese, with which the Powers agreed, and Central Greece, Epirus, Macedonia, and the islands of Crete, Samos and Chios. Chris Woodhouse writes that Capodistrias has begun the negotiation process with the