Chapter 4.

THE ‘DILESSI MURDERS’, APRIL 1870

A year after the international settlement of the Cretan question, which had given rise to a

comparatively constant interest in Greek affairs between 1866 and 1869, a tragic incident in

the environs of Athens drew British attention to the Greek kingdom. On April 11, 1870, a

group of British travellers accompanied by an English solicitor residing in Greece, his wife

and child, and the secretaries of the British and Italian Legations, were captured by brigands

in their return from an excursion to the plain of Marathon. 1 The brigands soon released the

women, the child and Muncaster in order to make the necessary arrangements for ransoming

the captives. On April 16, Carnarvon, cousin of the captured secretary of the Legation, wrote

to Clarendon on the responsibility of the Greek government for the event and its liability for

the repayment of the ransom after the release of the prisoners. 2 In an equally confident mood,

the press, while castigating ‘a State which makes loud pretensions to civilisation … [but] it

cannot protect the persons and the properties either of its own subjects or of the strangers

within its gates’, dealt lightly with the adventure of the captives. 3 Even the well-informed

George Finlay, writing from the spot on April 21, predicted that ‘the captives will be released

to-day, and you will doubtless be informed of their safe arrival at Athens… by telegraph’. 4

However, by the time Finlay’s correspondence was published, his own optimism as well as

1
Lord Muncaster (Josslyn Francis, Fifth Baron Muncaster), his wife and Frederick Grantham Vyner arrived in
Athens on April 7; Edward Lloyd was employed by the company running the railway from Athens to Piraeus;
Edward Henry Charles Herbert and Alberto de Boyl were the secretaries of the British and Italian Legations
respectively. On the captives and their family connections see: Jenkins, Romilly. The Dilessi Murders. London,
1998, 26-27 [first edition: 1961]; Stevens, Crosby. “Introduction”, in: Stevens, C. (ed) Ransom and Murder in
Greece. Lord Muncaster’s Journal, 1870. Cambridge, 1989, 1.
2
Carnarvon’s Diary, 14 April 1870, CP, AddMS 60902; Carnarvon to Clarendon, 16 April 1870, ClP, MS
Clar.dep.c.496 (1), ff.3-4.
3
Daily Telegraph, 19 April 1870, 4e. Also see: Times, 23 April 1870, 9b.
4
Times, 29 April 1870, 5a (dated: Athens, April 21).

156
the confidence of the Foreign Office, the captives’ relatives and the press in their safe release

had been defeated. The negotiations with the brigands were trammelled by their additional

demand of an amnesty, which the Greek government steadily refused to grant as being in

opposition to the provisions of the constitution. The government dispatched a military force

to surround the brigands and prevent them from taking their captives out of Attica. On April

21, 1870, the brigands and the troops clashed near the village of Dilessi and the fleeing

brigands murdered their captives.5

The news reached England on April 25 and provoked an immediate reaction, which lasted,

with fading intensity, until the end of May. On April 26, Queen Victoria, ‘deeply grieved at

the terrible Greek tragedy’, questioned Gladstone on his intentions putting forward her own

conclusion: ‘Clearly the Greek Govt are entirely answerable for what has occurred & ought to

make some reparation.’6 The cabinet discussed the international and domestic implications of

the affair four times in the period April-June 1870. 7 Clarendon, in his last term of office as

Foreign Secretary, described vividly how ‘the public feeling is rising rather than calming

down respecting the brigandage’, ‘the excitement about the recent massacre is still great’, and

his own personal ‘great anxiety & trouble’ as ‘our angry public wish for stringent measures’. 8

Newspapers were almost unanimous in describing a state of grief and indignation that had

seized the public. The assessment of the public interest in the affair ranged from the Morning

5
The crucial question in the official inquiry after the murders was if the soldiers had attacked the brigands after
seeing them killing the captives or the attack of the troops had induced the brigands to kill the captives who
hindered their escape. For a detailed narrative of the affair see: Jenkins, Dilessi, 24-74. The ‘Dilessi murders’
were also labelled in the English press the ‘Marathon massacre’, the ‘Athenian massacre’, or the ‘Greek
murders’.
6
Queen Victoria to Gladstone, 26 April 1870, in: Guedalla, Philip (ed). The Queen and Mr. Gladstone. Vol. I:
1845-1879. London, 1933, 226-227. Gladstone’s reply was cautious challenging the Queen’s ‘verdict’ and
making no commitments about the government’s future policy on the question; see: ibid., 227.
7
See: GD, VII, 27 April, 283; 7 May, 286; 14 May, 290; 18 June, 310-311.
8
ClP, FO361/1: Clarendon to Lord Bloomfield, 18 May 1870, f.11, (private, copy); Clarendon to Lord A.
Loftus, 25 May 1870, f.169, (private, copy); Clarendon to Sir A. Paget, 30 May 1870, f.325, (private, copy).

157
Advertiser’s early comment that ‘the capture and massacre of the English party… continues

the all-engrossing subject of attention’ to the Spectator’s observation that ‘the murder… has

thrown the British public into a fever of indignation’. 9 In any case, newspapers’ remarks on

the reaction of the ‘English people’ definitely reflected their own attitude to the ‘Dilessi

murders’. Joannes Gennadius, then an employee in the Ralli firm and later a distinguished

diplomat, in a pamphlet, which presented the Greek version of the events, protested against

the inordinate reaction of the English press and ‘the greedy precipitance with which its mad

suggestion of revenge and punishment of the unfortunate little state was adopted’.10

Romilly Jenkins, the author of a detailed study on the event, in giving an account of the

British public’s reaction has argued that ‘the whole nation, press and public, Whig and Tory,

seemed to have gone mad with rage and lust for revenge’. More recently, the editor of

Muncaster’s Journal has reiterated the same observations, confined to the press, which

‘mount an almost hysterical attack on Greece… old prejudices were fanned, and the entire

Greek race was declared uncivilised and inferior, violent, idle, deceitful and morally

degenerate.’11

The social rank of the captives accounts to some extent for the interest shown in the case in

political circles and high society and in the press. Muncaster and his wife, the survivors of the

adventure in Greece, found themselves compelled to recount all they had been through in a

number of social commitments, including a two-day visit to Windsor Castle. 12 While

9
Morning Advertiser, 26 April 1870, 4e; Spectator, 30 April 1870, [536]ab. Also see: Times, 26 April 1870, 9b;
Morning Post, 26 April 1870, 4c; 14 May 1850, 4f.
10
[Gennadius, Joannes.] Notes on the Recent Murders by Brigands in Greece. London, 1870, 165.
11
Jenkins, Dilessi, 79; Stevens, “Introduction”, 10.
12
In his Journal, Muncaster recorded the surprising interest shown; the entry for May 13 reads: ‘Dined at
Marlborough House and to our astonishment found 35 guests, including D of Cambridge, D & Duchess of
Sutherland, Ld Stanhope, Wm Codrington, Mr. Disraeli and Lady Beaconsfield (both very affectionate towards
us), Mr. Morley, Ld Derby, Sir H. Keppel (whose lady said some people would like to have the chance of
becoming notorious as we had done)’; invited by the Queen, the Muncasters stayed at Windsor Castle on May
14 and 15; see: Stevens, Ransom, 55-56.

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Muncaster was still in Greece, his brother-in-law, Edgar Drummond, the head of the bank

Drummond and Co., issued anonymously a statement, in which the Greek government was

held ‘wholly and solely accountable to the English people’ for the massacre. 13 Carnarvon,

cousin of the murdered Edward Herbert, had been in contact with Clarendon since the

beginning of the crisis and pressed upon the Foreign Secretary his own convictions about the

Greek authorities’ responsibility for the fatal outcome of the negotiations with the brigands

and implicitly demanded strong action by enquiring Clarendon ‘what measures of reparation

you will be disposed to exact for the gross outrage which by their want of faith the Greek

Govt have put upon us in our public relations’. 14 Moreover, Carnarvon brought up the case in

the House of Lords and induced Sir Roundell Palmer to discuss its legal aspects in the House

of Commons; another member of the Herbert family, Auberon Herbert MP, also put a

question with regard to the course of the judicial investigation in Greece. 15 Lastly, the Earl de

Grey and Ripon (later, Lord Ripon), brother-in-law of Frederick Vyner and a member of the

government, displayed great interest in establishing the facts of the case, though he remained

silent in parliament.16 Undoubtedly, the connections of the Marathon travellers ensured their

case an easy and direct access to the individuals in charge of conducting foreign policy, the

institutions of political debate and the press.

In addition, the very nature of the crime can explain the appeal of the ‘Dilessi murders’ to a

wider public. ‘The supply of a miscellaneous collection of dramas, crimes, and

catastrophes… formed an important part of the mid-Victorian newspaper business’,

13
Morning Advertiser, 26 April 1870, 4f; Morning Post, 26 April 1870, 5e; Standard, 26 April 1870, 6b. For the
letter’s author see: Stevens, Ransom, 140. Drummond also sent a signed letter to the Times referring to the
circumstances of Muncaster’s release; see: 9 May 1870, 8d.
14
Carnarvon to Clarendon, 26 April 1870, ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.496 (1), f. 8.
15
See: below, (Carnarvon’s speech in the House of Lords); Carnarvon’s Diary, 5 May 1870, CP, AddMS
60902 (his contact with Palmer); Hansard, 10 May 1870, CCI, 464 (question put by Auberon Herbert).
16
See for example his Memorandum, dated July 5, 1870, published in: Parliamentary Papers. Correspondence
respecting the capture and murder by brigands of British and Italian subjects in Greece, LXX, 1870, No.19
(page 8, no.5)

159
especially in the popular Sunday press. 17 In the case of the 1870 incident, the exotic element

gave an added fascination to the scene of the crime. Both the ‘respectable’ Illustrated London

News and its cheaper contemporary, the Penny Illustrated Paper, published illustrations of

‘the massacre of Englishmen by Greek brigands’, in which the ferocious-looking brigands

were depicted in the national costume, holding their long swords with their victims lying on

the ground.18 Moreover, in May, a photograph of the heads of seven members of the band was

put up for sale in London calling forth the protest of the Daily News against the ‘English

photographers [who] would make money out of their [the brigands’] heads’ and the paper’s

contempt for ‘the love of horrors, or, at least, the fascination of them… felt by nearly all

men.’19 When Muncaster met the Queen at Windsor Castle, she ‘took out the photograph of

the brigands’ heads and asked me to put a name to each head which I could only do to the

central one… she did not seem very pleased at my ignorance.’20

While family connections and the nature of the crime can partly explain the attitude of

individuals and the appeal of the case to the public, they are of little significance for the better

understanding of the arguments and proposals, which emerged during the public debate about

the murders. That becomes apparent, if we consider the cases of three of the protagonists of

the 1870 crisis, Clarendon, Carnarvon and Gladstone. To a great extent the official character

or the emotional aspect of their involvement in the episode predetermined their conduct

before and immediately after the murders. Clarendon, the Foreign Secretary, was expected to

do his best for the safe release of British subjects in captivity and, following the unsuccessful
17
Brown, Victorian News, 96.
18
See: Illustrated London News, 7 May 1870, 476; Penny Illustrated Paper, 7 May 1870, [289].
19
Daily News, 12 May 1870, 5a. With the same critical disposition also see: Illustrated London News, 14 May
1870, 513bc. The Daily News, in the above mentioned article, and the Penny Illustrated Paper (28 May 1870,
340abc) found an opportunity for a study in the fashionable ‘sciences’ of physiognomy and criminal
anthropology; on their popularity see: Curtis, L. P., Jr. Apes and Angels. The Irishman in Victoria Caricature.
Newton Abbot, 1971, 3-12.
20
Stevens, Ransom, 56. Erskine also furnished Clarendon with a copy of the photograph, when it was first
circulated in Greece; see: Erskine to Clarendon, 28 April 1870, ClP, FO361/1, f.69 (private).

160
outcome of his attempts, to defend his policies. Carnarvon, mortified by the loss of a close

relative, not surprisingly pressed for a thorough investigation into the circumstances of his

cousin’s death. Lastly, Gladstone, as the responsible prime minister, displayed caution and

restraint in dealing with suggestions put forward in the press. Under these circumstances, the

justification of policies implemented and the rationalization of proposals made during the

crisis acquire greater significance than the action and the recommendations themselves.

Furthermore, such an approach reveals that the argumentation employed by individuals

corresponded to the language of the press and that both newspapers and statesmen argued on

the ‘Dilessi murders’ affair within a wider context composed of British standards of

civilization and views on foreign policy. By focusing on the rationalization behind the ‘rage

and lust for revenge’, the ‘anti-Hellenic storm’ in 1870 can be better explained and the

assumptions about its singular and ‘hysterical’ character seriously challenged.

In the first part of this chapter, I will examine the impact of the image of the Greek

kingdom, shaped through a period of 40 years of independent existence, on British responses

to the ‘Dilessi murders’ crisis. In the second part of the chapter, critical assessments on the

foreign policy of Britain after the era of Palmerston and comments on Britain’s status as a

great power will come under consideration, as the question of British reaction to the massacre

was discussed in this wider framework. Finally, I will treat the matter of Gladstone’s stand on

the problem in relation to the notion of his philhellenism.

4.1. Clarendon and the legacy of Greek misgovernment

The existence of a generally accepted image of the Greek kingdom, the main elements of

which were either introduced for the first time or confirmed during recurring crises in the

161
Anglo-Hellenic relations after 1832, is indispensable to the understanding of British views on

and attitudes towards Greece and the Greeks in 1870. The largely negative assessment of the

Greeks’ aptitude for self-government and doubts as to their racial descent were added after

1864, and especially in the years of the Cretan insurrection (1866-1869), to the picture of a

backward and bankrupt country already formed during the reign of King Otho. 21 Clarendon’s

statements in 1870 provide an indication of the potential effect of this image on a member of

the government, particularly when crucial doctrines of British foreign policy were not at

stake. On the other hand, newspapers’ comments on Greece present another stage in the

development of the perception of the kingdom in Britain, while the sources of information

referred to by the writers of leading articles pose the question of the flexibility of that

perception and, consequently, the possibility of its modification.

The conduct and views of Clarendon during the April 1870 crisis and the subsequent debate

in Britain were founded on the avowed assumption that the state of the Greek kingdom was

and had been for years anomalous. During the negotiations for the release of the captives and

confronted with the Greek government’s refusal to grant the amnesty demanded, Clarendon

dismissed the claims to constitutional legality by alluding to ‘violations’ of the Greek

constitution in the past. Clarendon framed his theory, making no effort to be more specific in

his accusations brought forward against the Greek authorities, in a meeting with the Greek

diplomatic representative in London:

But I went on to say that I could not admit the validity of the constitutional objection

stated by the Greek Government to preclude them from granting a pardon to the

brigands. The Greek Constitution had so frequently been violated by the Government

in regard to matters of internal administration that I could not listen to a plea founded

on it as an excuse for not relieving the British subjects whose lives were in imminent
21
See chapter 1, 60-61, chapter 2, 67-68, chapter 3, 117-128.

162
 danger (…).22

Clarendon felt the need to support his rather vague indictments against the Greek political

world only on May 17, when, as part of his preparation for a debate in the House of Lords, he

asked the Foreign Office for a memorandum ‘showing how the Greek Government have at

different times violated the Constitution, such as by liberating imprisoned brigands, the

Chamber voting money to its own members, & c. ’. In June, Clarendon came back with a

request for another ‘confidential memorandum’, this time on a broader basis, ‘showing the

maladministration of Greece, in every department during the last few years’. 23 Clarendon

was able to use some evidence, produced as a result of his first enquiry, in his speech in the

House of Lords but still his remarks on the ‘Dilessi murders’ affair were marred by his

admission that the existing proofs did not support his own conclusions. In dealing with the

incident, Clarendon reached a conclusion on the political system of Greece and its past

performance and on the state of the country without and before the supply of documents

relevant to the case; in fact, he actually reversed the procedure, asking for detailed accounts

that would support his own conclusions.24

Guided by his preconceived convictions, Clarendon flirted with the idea of assisting in the

reform of the ‘corrupt administration’ of Greece but his plans were thwarted by his

colleagues’ reluctance and his own apprehension for possible international complications. It

is clear that military intervention had never been an option for the British government. On

April 27, Clarendon, writing to the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, commented on the

22
Clarendon to Erskine, FO, 21 April 1870, printed in: Parliamentary Papers. Correspondence respecting the
capture and murder by brigands of British and Italian Subjects in Greece, LXX, 1870, No.1 (page 2, no.2).
23
Requests made on 17 May and on 21 June 1870; printed copies of the documents produced, in: L-GP, PRO
30/29/249, No 9 and No 11.
24
Hansard, 23 May 1870, CCI, 1179: ‘We know, again, that several persons in public and political positions are
supposed to be connected generally with brigandage, and, possibly, with this late outbreak and horrible crime;
but as yet no proof has been brought home to them’.

163
innocence of the Russian representative, Brunnow, ‘taking what they [the newspapers] say

for gospel’ and added that he ‘tranquilized his real or pretended apprehensions & assured him

that violence and injustice formed no part of the policy of H. M. G.’. 25 However, in May and

June 1870, Clarendon contemplated various schemes for the amendment of the Greek

constitution, which he considered as the main cause for the shortcomings of Greek

administration. Lyons, whose advice as an expert on Greek affairs Clarendon had asked,

dismissed the idea of a conference of the protecting Powers to deal with the matter. 26 Lyons

stressed not only the diplomatic complications that might arise from such an initiative but

also the consequences on the image of Britain as a constitutional state: ‘I am puzzled about

the objects of a conference. Is it to help King George to get rid of his unworkable

Constitution? Can we take part in such a proceeding?’ 27 Clarendon himself became

increasingly concerned about the prospect of Russia ‘blow[ing] up an Eastern Question out of

the massacre’, if ‘under pretence of protecting the King they [the Russians] were to take side

ag[ain]st us in Greece.’28 The Russian reply to Clarendon’s idea verified his suspicions and

showed that collective action towards the reform of the Greek political system was practically

out of the question.29 More importantly, Gladstone disagreed with his Foreign Secretary’s

interpretation of the internal condition of Greece and had no sympathy with Clarendon’s

successive proposals for the reform of its constitution. After Clarendon’s death, at the end of

June 1870, British claims were confined to a thorough investigation by the Greek authorities

of the particular circumstances, under which the April episode took place.30

25
Clarendon to Sir Andrew Buchanan, 27 April 1870, ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.475, ff.178-179, (private, copy).
26
Lord Lyons had started his diplomatic career in 1839, as an attaché under his father, Sir Edmund Lyons, at
Athens; see: Jones, Raymond A. The British Diplomatic Service 1815-1914. Gerrards Cross, 1983, 126.
27
Lyons to Clarendon, 20 May 1870, ClP, FO361/1, f.251 (private).
28
Clarendon to Sir August Paget, 30 May 1870, ClP, FO361/1, f.326 (private, copy); Clarendon to Gladstone,
18 May 1870, GP, AddMS 44134, f.206.
29
See: Buchanan to Clarendon, 15 June 1870, ClP, FO361/1, ff.39-42 (private).
30
On Gladstone’s critical remarks on the arguments of Clarendon, see below, .

164
 In Clarendon’s case, information on the affairs of Greece received during his terms in the

Foreign Office that tied in with his personal political convictions had helped forming an all-

powerful image of Greece, which affected his behaviour and the details, if not the essence, of

his policy during the ‘Dilessi murders’ crisis. When Clarendon returned to the Foreign

Office, in December 1868, he had to deal with the last phases of the Cretan insurrection.

Erskine, the British minister at Athens, laboured the argument that Greek politicians

exploited their countrymen’s national aspirations for their private benefit, taking advantage of

the ‘democratic’ constitution and the inexperience of the young king. 31 Clarendon promptly

accepted the analysis of his subordinate and incorporated the verdict on the vices of Greek

political life into his own correspondence. The Greek politicians had stirred up ‘the fictitious

excitement for the purpose of filling their pockets’, the king ‘has fallen among thieves’; ‘it is

too disgusting’, as Clarendon concluded.32 In the summer of 1869, Clarendon received a

private envoy of the king of Greece, who confirmed ‘all I knew before about the impossibility

of conducting the Govt with the present institutions’; however, Clarendon admitted on that

occasion that the British government could not ‘have any hand in the proposed reforms’,

which aimed at increasing the royal power at the expense of the popular power.33

The case of a too liberal constitution that curtailed the royal prerogative and transferred

political power to the hands of unscrupulous politicians verified Clarendon’s worst political

fears. In Gladstone’s government Clarendon represented the ‘old Whigs’, described as ‘a

bitter Whig’, whose ‘distrust and fear both of the political nation and the un-enfranchised
31
See for example: Erskine to Clarendon, ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.484: 14 Jan. 1869, ff.73-74 (private); 31 Dec.
1869, ff.60-63 (private); 8 Febr. 1870, ff.88-91 (private).
32
Clarendon to Odo Russell, 25 Jan. 1869, AmP, FO918/1, f.16 (private); Clarendon to Buchanan, 3 Febr. 1869,
ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.475, f.108 (private, copy); Clarendon to the Duchess of Manchester, 28 Jan. 1869; in:
Kennedy, A. L. (ed) ‘My Dear Duchess’. Social and Political Letters to the Duchess of Manchester 1858-1869.
London, 1956, 249.
33
Clarendon to Erskine, 22 July 1869, ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.475, f.352 (private, copy). The meeting was arranged
through the Prince of Wales, who was married to King George’s sister; see: The Prince of Wales to Clarendon,
15 July 1869, ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.508 (private).

165
majority constantly distorted his vision of domestic politics’. 34 Especially after the 1867

Reform Act, Whigs in the Liberal party regarded with uneasiness the prospect of further

‘democratization’ of the political system in Britain, which ‘threatened traditional governing

principles’ and left the system defenceless at the hands of demagogues and agitators. 35

Clarendon’s readiness to accept unchallenged the critical comments on the Greek political

system in 1868-1869, his complete disrespect to the Greek constitution and his eagerness to

amend it along more ‘conservative’ lines, must be, therefore, assessed on the basis of his

political convictions. A constitution that provided for manhood suffrage, vote by ballot and a

single elected chamber was ‘detestable’ on principle; not only Greece, but ‘no country cd

improve or even stand in its legs with universal suffrage, a single chamber, a puppet king’.36

Clarendon’s reaction during the ‘Dilessi murders’ incident presents an interesting case

study of the interplay of ideological conception and the image of the Greek kingdom in

Britain. His stand on the question of the condition of Greece reflected his overall views on

political institutions, to which, in turn, his previous experience of Greek affairs had lent

credit. Moreover, his comments on the inaptitude of the Greeks for a representative system of

government, which the call for ‘strong monarchical rule’ implied, should be seen in the

context of a growing scepticism as to the adaptability of the English constitutional settlement

to the needs and the abilities of less ‘mature’ societies. 37 Writers in the press confronted the

tragedy of 1870 in a similar manner, buttressing their arguments with suggestions about the

Greek state commonly accepted as facts and a set of shaped notions on progress and

representative government.

34
Steele, “Foreign Policy”, 66.
35
Parry, Democracy, 117-118.
36
Clarendon to Erskine, 24 Dec. 1868, ClP, MS Clar.dep.c.475, f.337 (private, copy); Clarendon to Gladstone, 5
June 1870, GP, AddMS 44134, f.214.
37
Whig-Liberals prescribed ‘ ‘firm’ executive government’ in the case of Ireland as well; see: Parry,
Democracy, 128.

166
 In leading articles published after the murders, the affair was regarded as indicative of a

long and complete failure in civilization. Greece, although geographically a portion of

Europe, ranked far below the expected standards of a European state. For the Standard,

Greece was ‘as civilised and as well ruled as Central Africa’, the Daily Telegraph depicted

the kingdom as ‘the standing obstacle to the civilisation of the Levant’, with their

contemporaries concurring that the Greek state was a ‘disgrace’ to Europe. 38 The activities of

brigands in the vicinity of Athens were evidence of a government ‘affording no protection to

property or industry’, which was the prerequisite for a country’s development. 39 In the field

of material advancement, the indictments against Greece were numerous and the kingdom’s

resemblance to a non-European territory seemed obvious. The Times offered to its readers a

gloomy but familiar picture of modern Greece:

Has it [the Greek kingdom] ever paid its debts? (…) Has even a road been made in

the country, except that from Athens to Megara? Are there not all over the country

fertile valleys converted into desolate swamps for want of that drainage which

the ancients in their wisdom executed and maintained. [sic] Are there not streams

which might be made navigable, ports which might be opened, mines which might be

worked, and treasures of art hidden in the soil which might be the wonder and glory

of museums? These are some of the things which the unprofitable Kingdom of Greece

might have done, and has not done.40

38
Standard, 25 April 1870, 4d; Daily Telegraph, 26 April 1870, 4cd. Also see: Globe, 26 April 1870, 4a;
Morning Post, 28 April 1870, 4e; Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper, 1 May 1870, 6c; News of the World, 1
May 1870, 4d; Observer, 15 May 1870, 4c; Daily News, 12 May 1870, 5a; Pall Mall Gazette, 16 May 1870,
10[106]b.
39
Globe, 6 May 1870, [1] c.
40
Times, 16 May 1870, 11b. Also see: Daily Telegraph, 19 April 1870, 4e; 25 April 1870, 4d; Echo, 26 April
1870, 4b; Times, 26 April 1870, 9b; Morning Post, 28 April 1870, 4f; Saturday Review, 14 May 1870, 632b;
Globe, 23 May 1870, 4ab.

167
 According to newspapers’ comments, the root of the Greek problem was the implementation

in the country of a system of government, the smooth running of which required habits and

traits of ‘character’ that the modern Greeks were destitute of. Questions on the ability of other

nations to administer their own affairs and copy Britain’s political institutions had been

applied to the Greeks by British commentators long before the debate on the ‘Dilessi

murders’ affair.41 But in 1870 the answer was unanimously in the negative. In 1870

suspicions of relations between brigands and the political world added to the image of a

disorganized community and strongly confirmed that the Greeks were morally unfit for

representative government; in a country like Greece ‘the “Constitution” is the sport of

contending factions, being strained or ignored as interest or passion may impel’. 42 The query

if there were ‘wise and honest men’ in modern Greece to occupy public offices distorted the

real aspects of the problem and would probably lead to a repetition of the Powers’

misconception in providing the country with a constitution ignoring the fact ‘that a

Constitution cannot be fitted to a country like a coat to a man’s back.’ 43 Constitutional

government had miserably failed in the Greek kingdom, because the level of social

organization and the people’s morality could not sustain a system based on political virtue. In

Greece, social hierarchy and the notion of propriety were missing and, as a result, ‘the line of

demarcation… between a scoundrel and an honest man is so vague’ that ‘ministers,

magistrates, soldiers, priests, brigands, peasants seem mixed up in an inextricable maze of

deceit, craft, treachery and violence.’ 44 A further manifestation of the Greeks’ unfitness for

41
See above, chapter 3, 121-122, 127-128.
42
Daily Telegraph, 26 April 1870, 4d. On Greece’s failure in self-government and the frivolity of constitutional
principles in the kingdom also see: Daily Telegraph, 25 April 1870, 4d; Morning Post, 26 April 1870, 4d; 28
April 1870, 4f; Morning Advertiser, 29 April 1870, 4c; Standard, 30 April 1870, 4f.
43
Daily Telegraph, 9 May 1870, 4e; Times, 16 May 1870, 11b.
44
Daily News, 14 May 1870, 5e; Times, 6 May 1870, 9d. For similar accounts of Greek society also see: Daily
Telegraph, 4 May 1870, 4ef; Morning Post, 9 May 1870, 4d; Globe, 23 May 1870, 4b. For a rare distinction

168
responsible government was their excitability, their marked affection to dreams of national

glory ‘in preference to the useful’, as the recent Cretan insurrection had shown.45

Before attempting to construe the reading of the flaws in the political and social system of

the Greek kingdom, it is necessary to look at the suggestions, which commentators on the

‘Dilessi murders’ affair made for the recovery of Greece. Although they derived directly from

similar images of the country and its people, these suggestions were founded on competing

notions of progress and, consequently, recommended different ways of attaining national

success.

In a series of letters to the press, Sir Edward William Watkin articulated the most

interesting scheme for the stamping out of brigandage through the construction of an

extensive road and railway network in the Greek kingdom. Born in Manchester, the son of a

cotton merchant, Watkin in his youth benefited from ‘the company of influential Liberals

such as Cobden, Bright and Wilson’. Subsequently he had a distinguished career as railway

manager and speculator and sat for many years in the House of Commons. More important

for the understanding of this ‘cosmopolitan capitalist’s’ stand on the Greek question is his

father’s and his own relationship with Richard Cobden; in Sir Watkin’s words, he ‘admired

and loved Mr. Cobden, as… one of his old followers’.46 The first letter appeared, most

appropriately for a business plan, in the City columns of the Times. Watkin professed to have

acquired a fair knowledge of Greece as ‘one of the small English party who provided the

money for making and who completed and opened in March, 1869, the first railways in
between the ‘virtuous’ middle classes and peasantry, and the rest of Greek society see: Pall Mall Gazette, 30
April 1870, 4e; Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1127 (Sir Roundell Palmer).
45
Illustrated London News, 30 April 1870, 438a. Also: Daily Telegraph, 25 April 1870, 4d; Times, 25 April
1870, 8c; Saturday Review, 7 May 1870, 592a; Globe, 9 May 1870, 4c.
46
Watkin, Sir E. W. Alderman Cobden of Manchester. Letters and Reminiscences of Richard Cobden. London,
[1891], 1. On Watkin’s loyalty to Cobden and his membership to the Cobden Club, see: Howe, Anthony C. Free
Trade and Liberal England, 1846-1946. Oxford, 1997, 133, 137, 142 (on his work on Cobden). Watkin was
involved in the building of the first railway line in Greece in 1869. In his politics he was a ‘Liberal’ who later
converted to and withdrew from Unionism. On Watkin’s life see: Jeremy, Business Biography. vol.5, 682-685.

169
Greece.’ He then drew a succinct historical sketch in order to show the beneficial influence of

road and railway construction on the development of Britain. According to this account,

roads ‘cured cattle lifting and clan contests and conspiracy and abduction and highway

robbery in Scotland, Ireland and England’; ‘a cheap railway… and 500 miles of common

roads’ would also lead to the extirpation of brigandage from the Greek soil. Lastly, Watkin

appealed to ‘the Greek merchant Princes of London’ and the protecting Powers to provide the

necessary funds for the project, which would eventually open up the resources of the country

to ‘industry and capital’.47 Watkin published a second letter, this time in the Manchester

Guardian, arguing that the Greek people should not be blamed for idleness or ‘special vices’

and would undoubtedly prosper as respectable citizens in ‘an industrial era’: ‘Make it more

profitable and more secure honourably to labour, and, as a rule, men will labour, and not rob

or cheat.’48 Watkin’s views and, in general, the notion that the reform of Greece could result

solely from the country’s advance in certain aspects of material civilization, however,

attracted scant attention in the months after the episode of April 1870.49

The other suggestion put forward through the columns of the press was the sequel of the

assumption that the Greeks were unfit for liberal political institutions and self-government.

The proposal that the Greek constitution should be suspended and an ‘administrator’, vested

with dictatorial powers, be appointed for the governing of the state, first appeared in the

Times, which subsequently elaborated the plan. The most suitable person for such a role

would be ‘an Administrator such as we have trained in the provinces of India’. 50 Obviously,

this individual would combine the superior knowledge and ‘character’ of his British origin

and the experience of ruling over an ‘inferior’, ‘less civilized’ population. His powers should

47
Times, 5 May 1870, 7b.
48
Manchester Guardian, 10 May 1870, 6f.
49
See: Echo, 30 April 1870, 4c; Saturday Review, 30 April 1870, [559]b; Daily News, 6 May 1870, 5bc (on
Watkin’s letter); Daily Telegraph, 4 June 1870, 5a (on Watkin’s letter).
50
Times, 6 May 1870, 9e.

170
be absolute in order to secure ‘the reorganization and the regeneration of the kingdom’; but

his role in Greece would also be to educate the local people, though ‘it may be long time

before the Greeks learn all the responsibilities of self-government’. 51 In another version of the

scheme, a ‘small Council’ was to be appointed; however, again the presence of ‘one or two

foreign elements’, alongside ‘a few honest men, should any such be found in Greece’, was

essential until ‘the child has grown into a man’. 52 An Englishman with the powers of ‘a

virtual dictator… would be greatly to the benefit of the Greeks’, the Pall Mall Gazette

remarked, but ‘would hardly suit the views of Russia’.53

The whole debate on the present and future of free political institutions in Greece was

summed up in the House of Commons. Most appropriately, Stephen Cave, Conservative MP,

‘a well-established member of the West India interest’ who during the Jamaica controversy

claimed in parliament that the constitution of the island ‘had been a great barrier to

prosperity’, argued the case against representative institutions in Greece. 54 Cave, after

praising the Greek people as ‘a brave, industrious, temperate, frugal race with great

intelligence’ declared that the Greek constitution was ‘an artificial manufacture… scarcely

fitted for the people’. Not surprisingly, Cave proposed ‘an absolute monarch… like an

Eastern Cadi’ and the organization of a police force ‘like the Irish constabulary’. 55 Sir Henry

Bulwer, while mentioning the ‘brilliant qualities for which the Greek race is remarkable’, put

the case of its political immaturity more boldly: ‘I am for free institutions, wherever free

institutions are practicable; but I do not pretend to say that the same institutions should be

given to all nations.’56

51
Times, 6 May 1870, 9e; 24 May 1870, 9b.
52
Times, 16 May 1870, 11c. Also see: John Bull, 28 May 1870, 381a (under the suggestive headline ‘Effete and
Crude Nationalities’).
53
Pall Mall Gazette, 6 May 1870, 4bc. Also see: Observer, 15 May 1870, 4c.
54
Hall, “Nation”, 227.
55
Hansard, 2 Aug. 1870, CCIII, 1430-1431.
56
Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1150. On Bulwer’s views also see below, 179.

171
 The remedies proposed, as well as the analysis of the causes responsible for the internal

condition of Greece, although both rested on the British experience, differed fundamentally in

their outlook on the standing and the prospects of the Greek people. Watkin’s plans

represented the notion that material progress was inevitably linked with intellectual advance

and civic virtue. His interpretation of Britain’s transformation through industrialism entailed

the confidence in the impact of ‘applied science and bigger business’ on moral habits as well.

It was a railway system, the most powerful symbol of the new era, that would eradicate the

social evil of brigandage in Greece, not abstract theories and political reform from above. 57

Watkin’s Cobdenite approach to economic, political and social problems was by character

inclusive and potentially ‘internationalist’, as it was founded on an optimistic assessment of

individuals and nations.58 Watkin reflected this optimism when he argued that ‘men, as a rule’

will work and not rob, if convinced that the former is more profitable. This ‘rule’ applied, in

Watkin’s letters, to the Greek people too and, therefore, could guarantee the national progress

of the kingdom, if only the necessary capital and know-how were provided from abroad. On

the other hand, some commentators focused on the unfitness of the Greeks for representative

government. The keystone of British understanding of the Greek political system was the

perception of the uniqueness of Britain’s political settlement founded on an ancient

constitution adapted to the needs and abilities of the ‘Anglo-Saxon genius’. This

interpretation of Britain’s constitutional success had a decisively exclusive character. Free

institutions belonged to ‘the Anglo-Saxon heritage’ and any attempt to imitate them

undertook by ‘races’ lacking the inherent virtues of the British people was doomed to fail. 59

Cave’s references to Ireland and India and the debate in the press on the merits of appointing
57
For a brief discussion on British views of the ‘beneficial’ character of material progress see: Houghton, Walter
E. The Victorian Frame of Mind 1830-1870. London and New Haven, 1957, 38-45.
58
On this reading of the British success, which did not disqualify other nations from a similar course see:
Mandler, “Race and Nation”, 225-230.
59
See: Curtis, Anglo-Saxons, 8, 12. According to this line of argument, progress was the exception and not the
rule in world history; see: Collini, “Character”, 40-41.

172
an Indian administrator, far from being accidental, were grounded on an equation of the

Greek, the Irish and the Indian ‘races’ and ‘characters’. They all shared to a degree their

inability to live in freedom, to appreciate, respect and work with liberal political institutions.

In such cases, ‘highly centralized or authoritarian institutions’ were necessary ‘in order to

prevent violent political and social upheavals’ and ‘it was of benefit… if improved and

superior nations guided (justly and progressively, of course) the affairs of those less

advanced.’60 Still, however, the implication that the Greeks were an ‘inferior race’ did not

deprive them of all claims to civilization, as Cave’s and Bulwer’s comments on their

‘character’ in the House of Commons proved; but the Greeks ranked at least a class below the

English people, as their inability to govern themselves manifested.

The sources of information on the Greek kingdom, on which newspapers’ writers drew in

order to cover the ‘Dilessi murders’ incident, raise the question of the influences that helped

to shape the image of Greece in Britain in the nineteenth century. The British government

placed at the disposal of parliament and the press its correspondence with the Greek

authorities, Erskine’s despatches to the Foreign Office and extracts from the captives’ letters

and journals. The publication of each set of papers was usually followed by leading articles,

in which the new evidence was analyzed. 61 In addition to official sources, the letters of

George Finlay to the Times provided detailed accounts and an insight into Greek politics and

society, which was much wanted during the months of the crisis. The reputation of Finlay,

‘who knows the country intimately’, rendered his correspondence reliable and widely

60
Curtis, Anglo-Saxons, 32; O’ Farrell, Ireland, 50. The ‘Indian model’ was later used in dealing with another
less advanced ‘race’, the people of Egypt, after 1882; see: Biagini, Eugenio F. “Exporting ‘Western &
Beneficent Institutions’: Gladstone and Empire, 1880-1885”, in: Bebbington, David - Swift, Roger (eds).
Gladstone. Centenary Essays. Liverpool, 2000, 216.
61
See for example: Daily Telegraph, 27 April 1870, 6cd; 2 May 1870, 5bc; 7 May 1870 4ef; 13 June 1870, 5b;
Morning Advertiser, 29 April 1870, 4bc; Times, 3 May 1870, 9de; 3 June 1870, 8ef; Daily News, 9 May 1870,
4efg; Morning Post, 11 May 1870, 4f 5a.

173
quoted.62 A host of travellers, ex-captives of brigands and British residents in the East were

prompted by the occasion to offer their experiences to the reading public. 63 It is surprising,

therefore, considering the range of available information, to find that the single most often

referred to and commonly accepted as an authoritative account of Greek brigandage book

was a work of fiction, About’s The King of the Mountains, which was published in French in

1857 and first translated in English in 1859. 64 The work was hailed in Britain during the

‘Dilessi murders’ crisis as revealing evidence of the relations between brigands and the

authorities in Greece and the moral debasement of the Greek people. The narrative of ‘this

mysterious connexion between statesmanship and brigandage, though so extraordinary as to

be sometimes looked upon as a joke of Western satirists, is believed by those most conversant

with the domestic politics of Greece’, was the Times’s verdict. The Pall Mall Gazette

recognized its debt to the French author in dealing with the Greeks: ‘and we are almost

reconciled to the mean, vile, and corrupt nature of the modern Greek, in consideration to the

many brilliant and humorous passages in M. About’s book to which his depravity has given

rise’.65 In this mingling of fiction and reality, historical time was set apart; Greece of King

Otho, as About experienced it in the early 1850s, was regarded as essentially identical with

the Greek kingdom in 1870, a notion that fitted the perception that the Greek ‘character’ was

unchangeable.
62
Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1870, 3a. Also see: Pall Mall Gazette, 6 May 1870, 4b; Globe, 6 May 1870, [1]
b; Saturday Review, 7 May 1870, 591a; Spectator, 7 May 1870, 576b. Finlay’s letters in: Times, 29 April 1870,
5ab; 6 May 1870, 5abc; 19 May 1870, 5cde; 3 June 1870, 9ef; 10 June 1870, 5ab. For a dismissal of Finlay’s
criticism, attributed to ‘the natural acerbity of his character’, see: Gennadius, Notes, 169 (note).
63
See the letters published in: Standard, 25 April 1870, 6c; 3 May 1870, 5b; 6 May 1870, 5e; Morning Post, 26
April 1870, 4e; Times, 28 April 1870, 12f; 29 April 1870, 5e; 4 May 1870, 14f; 5 May 1870, 12c; 7 April 1870,
12c; Pall Mall Gazette, 20 May 1870, 3[163]ab (two letters, the second signed by Sir Charles E. Trevelyan).
64
See above, chapter 1, 33.
65
Times, 26 April 1870, 9c; Pall Mall Gazette, 28 May 1870, 11[283]a. References to About also in: Daily
News, 25 April 1870, 5c; 28 May 1870, 4f 5a; Morning Post, 28 May 1870, 4e; Standard, 28 April 1870, 4e;
Times, 29 April 1870, 9c; 6 May 1870, 9e; Pall Mall Gazette, 16 May 1870, 5[101]b; Daily Telegraph, 4 June
1870, 4f; and by Stephen Cave in the House of Commons: Hansard, 2 Aug. 1870, CCIII, 1430.

174
 The ‘outcry’ against the Greek kingdom in Britain, which resulted from the deaths of British

travellers at the hands of brigands near Athens, and the suggestions with respect to the

country’s future, were founded on a pre-existing image of Greece. This image was reassessed

under the gradually changing criteria by which writers and politicians in Britain confronted

the rest of the world. The underdevelopment of Greece attracted once more attention; but Sir

Edward Watkin’s proposals seemed like a remnant of a previous age, when the introduction

of reforms in the field of material civilization was put forward as the shortest route to the

national progress of Greece. Clarendon, MPs such as Cave and Bulwer, and the majority of

newspapers’ writers, on the other hand, underlined the failure of liberal political institutions

in Greece. For Clarendon, political instability and the emergence of self-seeking demagogues

were the inevitable consequences of a system that made the ‘popular element’ of the body

politic predominant. For sections of the London political press, the case of Greece simply

verified the unique nature of the success of the British polity.

4. 2. Carnarvon and the criticism of Liberal foreign policy

The murders of three British subjects abroad raised the question of the government’s

response to the incident, the form of redress, which Britain was entitled to seek, and the

means the government ought to employ in order to obtain it. The debate in parliament and the

press departed, however, from the particular facts of the Dilessi case to become an

investigation into the foreign policy of Britain in the past and its principles during

Gladstone’s ministry.

The attempted transition from the definite case of the British attitude towards the Greek

kingdom in 1870 to the overall conduct of foreign policy was evident in the speech of

175
Carnarvon in the House of Lords. Of course, his motives in addressing the question were in

part personal. The death of his cousin, Edward Herbert, grieved him and caused distress to his

family.66 His determination to bring the subject before both Houses led him to approach Sir

Roundell Palmer and Shaftesbury and resist the attempts of Gladstone and Clarendon to

persuade him to withdraw or postpone his motion. 67 When finally Carnarvon rose to speak in

the House of Lords, on May 23, 1870, he scrutinized the available evidence, mainly provided

by Erskine’s despatches from Athens, and concluded that on behalf of the Greek authorities

‘there must either have been the grossest mismanagement, or - though I almost shrink from

saying it - there must have been criminal intention’. Alluding to his experience on colonial

affairs, which made him aware of the ‘merits or defects an Eastern people may have’, he then

went on to accuse the Greek authorities of deciding to attack the brigands in order to ‘recover

their reputation’ and ‘avoid the payment of money under any circumstances’ without regard

for the safety of the captives.68 Finally, reaching the point of the British government’s future

task, Carnarvon did not prescribe any specific policy but endeavoured to lay down the

general principles, which ought to guide British foreign policy. He complained that the

doctrine of ‘non-intervention’ had restricted the British diplomats’ freedom of action,

compromised the safety of British subjects abroad and sent the wrong message to Britain’s

rivals:

Our enemies sometimes tell us that the old fire of the English character has burnt out

66
Carnarvon’s Diary, 23 April 1870, 1 May 1870, CP, AddMS 60902.
67
Carnarvon’s Diary, 6 May 1870, 19 May 1870, CP, AddMS 60902. Also see: Hardinge, Sir Arthur. The Life
of Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, Fourth Earl of Carnarvon 1831-1890. Oxford, 1925, vol.II, 30-31.
68
Hansard, 23 May 1870, CCI, 1170-1171. Carnarvon was Secretary for the Colonies in the periods 1866-1867
and 1874-1878. Moreover, his critical views on Greece were formed before the ‘Dilessi murders’, as his
‘Introduction’ to his father’s impressions from Greece manifested; see: Herbert, Henry John George (the Late
Earl Carnarvon). Reminiscences of Athens and the Morea. Extracts from A Journal of Travels in Greece in
1839. Edited by his Son, the Present Earl. London, 1869, xviii-xxix.

176
 like straw, and that a nation whose acts and words has now passed into mere wind

and tongue, and counts for absolutely nothing but a second-rate Power. We have

talked so much of non-intervention that we have deceived ourselves and a good many

other nations (…). Now, if England chooses to proclaim herself to the world as

a second-rate Power she must take the consequences. She must understand that all over

the globe she will be taken at her word, and set down at the value at which she

estimates herself.69

Carnarvon was no stranger to the rhetoric of world status and national pride, which he had

previously used in debates and questions on Gladstonian foreign and colonial policy. 70 He

chose to close his speech with an emotional overture: ‘what I wish is that the world should

know that English life-blood is not to be poured out like dirty water into the kennel’. 71

However, the Conservative leadership in both Houses did not try to exploit the opportunity

for an attack against the government’s foreign policy. Only Salisbury made allusions to the

alleged ‘feebleness’ of Gladstone’s position on foreign policy issues compared to a Whig-

Palmerstonian stand by emphatically expressing the ‘general feeling of confidence in the

noble Earl at the head of the Foreign Office [Lord Clarendon] … encouraged by the manly

and English sentiments he had expressed.’72

In the House of Commons Sir Henry Bulwer tried to elaborate on the meaning of a ‘manly’,

‘English’ foreign policy, which he equated with the conduct of foreign affairs under

Palmerston. In the mid-1820s, Bulwer visited the East as an emissary of the London Greek

Committee and in 1836 he started a diplomatic career that culminated when he was appointed

69
Hansard, 23 May 1870, CCI, 1175-1176.
70
For Carnarvon’s stand on colonial questions in the first months of 1870 see: Stembridge, Parliament, 199,
215.
71
Hansard, 23 May 1870, CCI, 1177.
72
Hansard, 23 May 1870, CCI, 1189.

177
ambassador at Constantinople in 1858.73 In parliament, in a similar incident in 1867, the

Abyssinian controversy, with his ‘scathing criticism of the government’s pusillanimity’,

Bulwer played a leading part in pressing the ministry for a military expedition that would

relieve the British captives of king Theodore. 74 In his most lengthy contribution to the

parliamentary debate on the ‘Dilessi murders’, in May 1870, Bulwer blamed the Greek

government for ‘the tale of treachery and blood which is to be found in the Papers before us’

and deduced from the recent tragedy that the political institutions of the Greek kingdom had

degenerated into ‘a complicated machinery of intrigue and plunder’. 75 However, Bulwer’s

analysis differed from Carnarvon’s exposition of an abstract consideration of Britain’s

position as a great power. Bulwer thought that it was Britain’s duty to intervene in the

internal affairs of the kingdom and remedy the faults of its political system. Britain, which

created Greece and ‘undertook its guardianship’, ought to establish in that country, in

‘concert with its Allies’, ‘a Government capable of satisfying the ordinary requirements of a

civilised state’.76 In August 1870, Bulwer came back to the question of Britain’s share in any

attempt to reform the Greek administration insisting that the special relation with the Greek

kingdom increased Britain’s responsibilities and justified the active policy, which he

suggested and would in the long term benefit the Greek people.77

The oblique hint of Carnarvon about the foreign policy of the Liberal government and

Bulwer’s proposals for openly meddling in Greek politics corresponded to a much more

outspoken criticism of the ‘non-intervention’ doctrine and bold suggestions about the
73
For the diplomatic career of Sir William Henry Lytton Earle Bulwer see: Jones, Diplomatic Service, 26-27,
74-81, 84-96. Bulwer favourably reviewed Palmerston’s foreign policy in: Lytton Bulwer, Palmerston.
74
Harcourt, Freda. “Disraeli’s Imperialism, 1866-1868: A Question of Timing”. Historical Journal. 23:1 (1980),
100-101. Bulwer was also opposed to the cession of the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863; see: Knox, “British
Policy”, 521, 526.
75
Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1149, 1151. For Bulwer’s views on the Greek political system also see above,
172.
76
Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1151.
77
Hansard, 2 Aug. 1870, CCIII, 1416.

178
immediate reaction to the ‘Dilessi murders’ in the press. The debate through newspapers’

columns was more or less conducted along party lines, with the Conservative press exploiting

the situation to attack the government in a manner that Conservative MPs abstained from

employing in parliament. However, the tendency to generalize transformed the debate to a

reappraisal of British foreign policy, in which the rhetoric of ‘pride’ and ‘honour’ were

prevalent.

Although the ‘golden age’ of Britain’s power and prestige was associated with the name of

Palmerston and the newspapers’ interpretation of Palmerstonian orthodoxy in the field of

foreign relations intimated the need for ‘vigorous’ measures against Greece in 1870,

unanimity was lacking as to their nature and extent. In the process of idealizing Palmerston’s

era the legacy of the Don Pacifico affair was recalled, not his more circumspect handling of

international crises in the early 1860s. 78 The Daily Telegraph pin-pointed the two main

elements in ‘Lord PALMERSTON’S idea of the modern “Civis Romanus” ’ that made it

‘essentially sound’, the feeling of security, which British subjects abroad derived from it, and

the consequent strengthening of Britain’s position in the international scene; the ‘civis

Romanus’ principle is ‘merely a compact for mutual assurance, and an expression of the

resolve to hold our rank in the family of nations.’ 79 The Times and the Morning Post plainly

advocated the military occupation of Greece, with the former confining the course of action

of ‘three or four regiments, under an efficient officer, such as our Indian army… rears’ to

making ‘the tracks of Attica as safe as the high roads of England’, while the Morning Post set

a broader objective: ‘firmness must be observed, and, if necessary, force must be used… for

78
Even during his lifetime this change in tone and tactics on questions of foreign policy had a limited negative
impact on Palmerston’s public image and his appeal to a liberal-radical audience; see: Taylor, “Palmerston”,
174-179. In 1870 only the Pall Mall Gazette (3 May, 4c) tried to modify the representation of Palmerston as a
committed interventionist.
79
Daily Telegraph, 28 April 1870, 4e. The ‘civis Romanus’ aphorism was also quoted in: Morning Advertiser,
27 May 1870, 4d; Standard, 26 May 1870, 4d.

179
the regeneration of Greece, if it is to be effected at all’. 80 The Daily Telegraph and the

Standard, both being at the forefront of the ‘vigorous party’, dismissed the plans from the

outset as impracticable on account of the diplomatic difficulties that might arise. 81 Indeed, for

the majority of the London daily press demands for ‘stern and ample satisfaction’, regardless

of their strong expression of anger, were never articulated into specific, ‘aggressive’ steps

beyond the occasionally proposed withdrawal of the British representative from Athens.82

While pragmatic considerations dissuaded public writers from setting out specific measures

in dealing with the Greek case attuned to their perception of Palmerstonian diplomacy, the

general principles, which supposedly guided the foreign policy of the Liberal government,

were the target of bitter criticism, on the one hand, and the subject of vindicating comments

on the other. In the Conservative press, the presence of John Bright, ‘the peace-at-any-price

prophet’, in Gladstone’s ministry provided an occasion for the cry that ‘the prevalence of

Manchester ideas’ would eventually lead up to the sacrifice of the ‘real interests’ of Britain

for the sake of adhering to unworkable doctrines.83 But the most consistent and intense

fulmination against the alleged infiltration of extreme radical ideas into the government’s

policy came from the Pall Mall Gazette, which regarded the ‘Dilessi murders’ episode as

evidence of Britain’s decline as a world power. With the tacit assent of Gladstone, ‘Mr.

RYLANDS and the Manchester mind’ undermined the foundations of Britain’s prestige and

power; therefore, it was only natural that ‘in their behaviour in the matter the Government of

King George have shown no more consideration for England than they would have shown to

80
Times, 26 April 1870, 9c; Morning Post, 29 April 1870, 4d. Also see: Morning Post, 28 April 1870, 4f; 5 May
1870, 4d; Times, 3 June 1870, 8f; Penny Illustrated Paper, 30 April 1870, 274a.
81
Daily Telegraph, 9 May 1870, 4e; Standard, 28 April 1870, 4d; 30 April 1870, 4g.
82
Daily Telegraph, 28 April 1870, 4d. Also see: Pall Mall Gazette, 27 April 1870, 4c; Standard, 27 April 1870,
4d; Echo, 26 April 1870, 4b; Morning Advertiser, 27 April 1870, 4f; Observer, 1 May 1870, 4cd.
83
Standard, 24 May 1870, 4e; Observer, 15 May 1870, 4c. In 1870 Conservative opinion was expressed through
the Globe, the Morning Post, the Observer and the Standard; see: Lee, Alan J. The Origins of the Popular Press
in England 1855-1914. London, 1976, 134.

180
Portugal or Mexico.’84 However, the Daily News and the London Examiner hailed Britain’s

restrained reaction precisely because it was held as indicative of a departure from the

traditions of foreign policy. The two papers responded to their contemporaries’ criticism of

Gladstone’s policy invoking a different set of principles, the law of right over the law of

might and Britain’s duties as the defender and peaceful promoter of political liberty abroad:

‘Surely we have come to a strange pass when rigid adherence to a constitutional principle is

denounced by Englishmen as pedantry and wicked weakness.’ 85 The Examiner, moreover,

underlined an inherent inconsistency in the employment of the ‘civis Romanus’ theory, which

deprived it from any moral weight: ‘suppose this outrage had been committed within the

territories of a strong nation, instead of a weak one, would you then made the same

proposal?’86 Nevertheless, the support to the principle of ‘non-intervention’, in general, and

the policy of modest demands to the Greek government represented a rather small portion of

the comments and recommendations that appeared in the press in the spring and summer of

1870.

The strictures on the moderate stand of the Liberal government on the ‘Dilessi murders’

question and the calls for the adoption of an ‘active’ and interventionist policy that were

published in the British press after the deaths of three British subjects in Greece and on which

comments on the unintelligible, ‘hysterical’, character of British reactions to that event are

based, were not exceptional. In fact, the April-May episode was only the first of a number of

newspapers’ ‘outbursts’ in relation to British foreign policy in 1870 and, therefore, it should
84
Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May 1870, 4c; also: 20 May 1870, 3[153]a; 8 Nov. 1870, 10[2522]ab. On the Cobdenite
Rylands and his views on foreign policy see: Howe, Free Trade, 164 (note 74). The Pall Mall Gazette,
established in 1865 and popular in the ‘Clubland’, started as a moderate Liberal paper but in the 1870s turned
‘fiercely anti-Gladstonian and jingoistic’ in conformity with the sentiments of its readership; see: Koss, Political
Press, 160.
85
Daily News, 26 April 1870, 5a (commenting on the accusations against the Greek authorities for not granting
an amnesty to the brigands in violation of constitutional law). The Daily News was the leading Liberal organ,
while the Examiner flirted with radicalism; see: Koss, Political Press, 95-96, 157, 190.
86
Examiner, 30 April 1870, [272]c; also: 14 May 1870, 307.

181
be re-examined in connection with them. The Franco-Prussian war, the event that dominated

the second half of 1870, and its various phases and related episodes have attracted the

attention of historians, who have also studied the reactions of the press to these crises. In an

article on the impact of the Russian denunciation of the Black Sea clauses of the treaty of

Paris on the British public, Mosse has described ‘an extraordinary outburst of russophobia

and bellicose patriotism’, the conduct of ‘a public debate on some fundamental aspects of

British foreign policy, an inquest into “Palmerstonianism” ’. 87 The ingredients of the

November commentary on Britain’s position in the world were strikingly similar to the

themes addressed during the April crisis, with the Standard, the Morning Post and the Pall

Mall Gazette leading the attack against Gladstone, whom they compared with Aberdeen and

his policy before the outbreak of the Crimean war, and complaining that failure to meet the

Russian challenge would cost Britain ‘her position among the great powers of Europe.’ 88

Again the same rhetoric on national ‘pride’ and condemnation of Gladstonian foreign policy

marked the reaction of a portion of the press to Britain’s stand on the question of the

annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia.89

More generally, the foreign and colonial policies of Gladstone’s first government failed to

avert the gradually emerging identification of patriotism with Conservatism, a crucial element

of which was the attempt to appropriate Palmerston’s legacy by dissociating it from

Gladstonian Liberalism.90 Gladstone’s policy on the Greek problem was probably the only

practicable one but, as it happened in other cases during his first ministry, he did not try to

present his course of action in an emotionally appealing way; indeed, his public praise of the

87
Mosse, W. E. “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: the British Public and the War-Scare of November 1870”.
Historical Journal. 6:1 (1963), 38.
88
ibid., 40-41, 53.
89
Schreuder, Deryck. “Gladstone as “Troublemaker”: Liberal Foreign Policy and the German Annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine, 1870-1871”. Journal of British Studies. 17:2 (Spring 1978), 132-134.
90
The conduct of foreign affairs proved the determinant factor in formulating the new Conservative patriotism
in the 1870s; see: Cunningham, “Patriotism”, 73-77.

182
Greek people appeared incompatible with the feelings of his colleagues and the London

press.91 By 1876 Gladstone had realized the importance of Palmerston’s legacy and he

endeavoured to restore his links with it by reinventing Britain’s tradition in foreign policy, in

general, and distorting Palmerston’s views on Greece, in particular. 92 In the spring of 1870,

however, the sudden and unexpected emergence of the Greek problem provided an

opportunity for the expression of uneasiness and frustration about the British government’s

conduct of foreign affairs.

Therefore, suggestions made in parliament and, mainly, published in the press regarding

Britain’s response to the ‘Dilessi murders’ affair should be considered as reflections of a

wider debate on Britain’s foreign policy. Carnarvon and Bulwer in parliament and the

majority of the writers in the press confronted the Greek question as an indication of Britain’s

decline as a great power and presented the reaction of the government as a manifestation of

an alleged aversion to ‘spirited’ policy. Foreign policy seemed throughout 1870 a fertile field

for attacking Gladstone’s ministry and ready allegations as to its Liberal-radical composition

served this aim.

4. 3. Gladstone, free institutions and ‘political philhellenism’

91
For the same ‘mistake’ in a colonial context see: Matthew, H. C. G. “Introduction”, in: GD, VII, xlix-l. For
Gladstone’s remarks on Greece and the Greeks see below, 188-191.
92
See below, chapter 5, 208-210.

183
 The personal stand of Gladstone on the ‘Dilessi murders’ crisis, attributed to various

reasons, has been regarded instrumental in the adoption of a moderate policy contrary to the

violent demands of the public. Stevens, in his Introduction to Lord Muncaster’s Journal, has

recognized the pivotal role of Gladstone in carefully handling the crisis and taking ‘the

quickest possible route back to normal relations with Greece.’ Gladstone was motivated by

his aversion to the ‘muscular style of diplomacy’ and his commitment ‘to the idea of a fully

independent Greece’.93 Jenkins, in the Dilessi Murders, has represented Gladstone as ‘the

most important’ of the exceptions to the ‘nearly unanimous… voice of the nation’ that called

for the heavy punishment of Greece. The prime minister’s disapproval of ‘interference in the

affairs of another nation’ and of ‘the coercion of the weak by the strong’, his idolization of

democratic institutions, his classical education and the possibility of ‘bloodshed in an unjust

cause’ are cited, though without any references to Gladstone’s speeches and correspondence

during the crisis, as the reasons that produced his moderate and decisive for Britain’s policy

attitude.94

The emphasis on Gladstone’s role in averting Britain’s direct intervention into Greece does

not accurately correspond to the facts of the case and, furthermore, tends to disguise

important elements of his reaction. As we have already seen, military action against the

Greek kingdom was never a serious option for the government, as Clarendon stressed in the

aftermath of the murders. In parliament, Bulwer remained isolated in his calls for meddling

with the Greek political system, while the Conservative party did not exert any pressure at all

on the government in relation to the course of policy it should follow in the Greek question.

In the press, the slating of the Greek government and the strong expressions against the

foreign policy of the Liberal ministry were elaborated into suggestions for British

93
Stevens, “Introduction”, 29-30.
94
Jenkins, Dilessi, 79-82.

184
intervention into the internal affairs of the Greek kingdom in the Times and the Morning Post,

while their contemporaries proved reluctant to commit themselves to specific proposals. 95 In

addition, the ‘Dilessi murders’ episode is not mentioned in studies of Gladstone’s political

career or views on and practices in foreign policy as an event that displayed his personal

contribution to the conduct of foreign affairs or his determination to support an ‘unpopular’

case on moral grounds.96 Therefore, it seems legitimate to argue that Gladstone dealt with the

Greek question in 1870 not in an exceptional way and against the ‘voice of the nation’ but

‘motivated by cautious pragmatism’, which characterized in general the actual conduct of

foreign policy while he remained in office.97

However, for his critics in the press and even for some of his colleagues in government,

Gladstone’s philhellenism, understood as affection to everything Hellenic including the

modern kingdom and its people, acquired the status of an undisputed truth. Gladstone’s

mission to the Ionian Islands and his behaviour there, ‘the pious kiss which he imprinted on

the hand of that most reverend father in GOD, the Archbishop of Naupactus, or of some other

harbour of klephts and murderers’, his enthusiasm in ‘haranguing them [the Ionians] in the

language of their ancestors, which they neither understood nor respected’, manifested that

‘GLADSTONE, the Hellenomane [sic]’ was guided by his ‘theological and sentimental

prejudices’ in his course of action in the spring of 1870. 98 In December 1868, Clarendon, who

had just returned to the Foreign Office and was confronted with the Cretan problem, observed

that the change of government in Britain raised the hopes of the Greeks, who ‘as a last

95
See above, .
96
There are no references to the event in: Knaplund, Paul. Gladstone’s Foreign Policy. New York and London,
1935; Magnus, P. Gladstone: A Biography. London, 1954; Morley, John. Life of William Ewart Gladstone.
London, 1903; Matthew, H. C. G. “Introduction”, in: GD, VII, xxv-cxiii; Shannon, R. Heroic; Swartz, Martin.
The Politics of British Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone. London, 1985.
97
Biagini, Eugenio F. Gladstone. London, 2000, 80.
98
Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May 1870, 4c; News of the World, 8 May 1870, [1]e; Standard, 24 May 1870, 4e;
Saturday Review, 28 May 1870, 695b.

185
resource are now relying on the philhellenism of Gladstone’. 99 The entry in the diary of

Kimberley on April 26, 1870, is more indicative of the certainty even among members of the

government about Gladstone’s ardent philhellenism:

Heard the sad news of the murder of Vyner, Herbert, Lloyd and Boyl by Greek brigands.

De Grey is much hurt (and no wonder) at the conversation he has had with Gladstone.

Proh pudor! Took up the cudgels for the miserable Greek government. This is to be

Philhellene with a vengeance.100

As Gladstone’s philhellenism was regarded self-evident or appeared as a controversial strain

in his critics’ remarks no efforts were made in 1870 to account for his public comments on

Greece beyond the vague allusions to his literary and religious pursuits. However, the

examination of Gladstone’s speeches in the House of Commons on the ‘Dilessi murders’

question and his correspondence with Clarendon on the same topic reveals that Gladstone’s

stand on the problem was much more closely related to his views on European nationalities

and, furthermore, is insufficiently explained by references to his well-documented interest in

the classics and the Orthodox Church.101

Gladstone addressed the House of Commons twice on the April affair and both his speeches

were structured around the distinction between a small number of ‘corrupt’ brigands and

99
Clarendon to Odo Russell, 14 Dec. 1868, AmP, FO918/1, f.2 (private).
100
Drus, Ethel (ed). A Journal of Events during the Gladstone Ministry, 1868-1874, by John, First Earl of
Kimberley. In the series: Camden Miscellany. 21 (1958). London, 1958, 13. Kimberley was Colonial Secretary
from 1870 to 1874. Gladstone’s known interest in classical studies could also generate awkward responses, such
as two poems on the ‘Marathon murders’ written in ancient Greek language and metres and sent to Gladstone in
July 1870; see: G. Butler to Gladstone, 2 July 1870, GP, AddMS 44427, ff.155-158.
101
On Gladstone’s writings on Homer and his contacts with the Eastern Church Association and dignitaries of
the Orthodox Church see respectively: Bebbington, David. “Gladstone and Homer”, in: Bebbington, Gladstone,
58-74; Matthew, H. C. G. “Gladstone, Vaticanism, and the Question of the East”. Studies in Church History. 15
(1978), 425-426, 433-434, 438-440.

186
officials and the Greek people at large and the defence of constitutional institutions. In his

first speech, in May 1870, Gladstone did not rule out the possibility of Greek politicians

conniving with the brigands, which was the main subject of discussion in the press, but

stressed the practical difficulties in establishing the facts. In August 1870, he accused the

Greek government of not fully co-operating with the British representatives, who went to

Athens to be present during the inquiries. 102 But while Gladstone readily criticized the

political establishment in the Greek kingdom, though in a much more restrained manner than

the press did, he went on to accuse ‘the Turkish domination’ and its corrupting influence on

the leading classes in Greek society: ‘the Turkish domination, which so long subsisted there

[in Greece], erased and effaced from Greek society all the natural influences of superior

intelligence, education, rank, descent, and property, and left little but poverty on the face of

the land.’103 Gladstone’s analysis differed fundamentally from the overwhelming majority of

the comments on Greece during the ‘Dilessi murders’ crisis in the assessment of the

‘character’ and virtues of the Greek people. An incident, which happened before his second

speech, on August 2, 1870, is probably more suggestive of his opinion on the subject and his

willingness to express it publicly than the actual contents of his subsequent address. When

Alexander Baillie Cochrane, a life-long advocate of the Greek cause in the House of

Commons, described the Greeks as ‘a generous, hardworking, and patient people’, Gladstone

applauded the speaker.104 Later, Gladstone passed strictures on virtually the whole of the

press observing that ‘there has been great precipitancy [sic] on the part of many persons in

charging to the nation that which is due to a comparatively few.’ 105 With the Greek people

vindicated and the flaws in their leaders’ characters imputed to Turkish misrule before 1830,

Gladstone lectured his audience about the beneficial effects of ‘popular institutions’,
102
Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1154; 2 Aug. 1870, CCIII, 1424.
103
Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1157.
104
Hansard, 2 Aug. 1870, CCIII, 1420: [Mr GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!].
105
ibid., 1423.

187
especially when considerable power was given to the ‘popular’ element. For Gladstone, the

Greek people were fit for constitutional government, which by its own merits could remedy

the problems of the Greek kingdom, while the suggestion that Britain, ‘which has peculiar

obligations in respect of freedom in the face of Europe and the world’, could take the

initiative, or any part at all, in curtailing liberal political institutions abroad needed ‘the most

grave consideration’ among its instigators. 106 In Gladstone’s contributions to the debate in

parliament on the affairs of Greece in 1870, the convictions of the prime minister in relation

to representative institutions coexisted with the image of a virtuous people led by an

incompetent political elite. As Gladstone concluded: ‘It is in the upper, and not in the lower,

classes that the seat of the principal vice is to be found.’107

Gladstone also undertook the defence of ‘free institutions’ in Greece in his correspondence

with his Foreign Secretary, Clarendon. 108 From the early stages of the crisis, Gladstone

endeavoured to restrain the impetuosity of Clarendon wording carefully his objections against

taking premature steps in dealing with the Greek authorities. The day after the news of the

murders reached Britain, Gladstone recommended to Clarendon that ‘a word might be said

publicly in favour of suspense of judgement till we have infor[matio]n’; a week later he came

back suggesting that ‘we must wait a little’ and on May 11, Gladstone added an ulterior

objective to his plea for patience: ‘if we really desire to be at the bottom of the whole matter

we must be content to wait for some time.’ 109 Moreover, Gladstone overtly objected to

Clarendon’s various plans for the amendment of the Greek constitution in favour of the royal
106
Hansard, 20 May 1870, CCI, 1157.
107
Hansard, 2 Aug. 1870, CCIII, 1426-1427. Gladstone’s speeches in parliament were much criticized in the
portion of the press that insisted on a ‘vigorous’ policy towards Greece; see for example: Standard, 23 May
1870, 4e: ‘We have an elaborate apology for the Greek people, and an appeal in favour of the Greek
Constitution; but nothing could be more out of place than such an appeal on the present occasion’.
108
In regard to the relationship between Gladstone and Clarendon in the former’s first Cabinet, Knaplund has
argued that the prime minister ‘abstained from meddlesome interference’ in the Foreign Office; see: Knaplund,
Gladstone’s, 30.
109
Gladstone to Clarendon, GP, AddMS 44538: 26 April 1870, f.135; 2 May 1870, f.138; 11 May 1870, f.144.

188
prerogative.110 With the same firmness and conviction, which he displayed in parliament,

Gladstone rejected the notion that the constitutional system of Greece had led to the

kingdom’s misgovernment: ‘For my own part I have not yet arrived at the belief that

Brigandage in Greece has been owing to the free institutions of the country’. 111 Gladstone

also pointed out to Clarendon the domestic political implications of any attempt to assist in

the abolition of the Greek constitution; ‘our case, if we laid hands upon it, w[oul]d be a very

bad one either in Peers or Commons.’112 Lastly, Gladstone inquired into the responsibilities of

the king and the ‘ruling classes’, on the one hand, and the ‘people’ on the other, for the

present condition of the Greek kingdom. Gladstone even recalled his personal impressions

from a visit to Athens to contest Clarendon’s verdict that brigandage in Greece resulted from

the vices of the Greeks, who kept under control the government of the country through the

‘democratic’ provisions of the constitution of 1864. 113 What seemed inherently wrong in

Clarendon’s suggestions, according to Gladstone, were the efforts of the former to increase

royal power at the expense of the people. Commenting on Clarendon’s despatches to Paris,

Gladstone remarked that ‘there is an equivocal use of the phrase “strengthen the king of

Greece” ’, which the French government would like to interpret as meaning ‘to put more

political power into his hands by curtailing the power of the people’; the Foreign Secretary

was in danger ‘of being understood to mean that this kind of strengthening is desirable were it

practicable’.114

The following extract from the correspondence between Gladstone and Clarendon during

the ‘Dilessi murders’ crisis best summarizes the prime minister’s stand on the Greek

question:

110
See above, .
111
Gladstone to Clarendon, 23 May 1870, GD, VII, 295.
112
Gladstone to Clarendon, 4 June 1870, GP, AddMS 44538, f.159.
113
Gladstone to Clarendon, 4 June 1870, GP, AddMS 44538, f.159.
114
Gladstone to Clarendon, 5 June 1870, GP, AddMS 44538, f.158.

189
 As to the Constitution, I can conceive it perfectly possible to introduce great changes

without diminishing the liberties of the people: but that diminution is, I fear, what

Russia and France will desire. I do not say that in no case should it be effected: but

we ought to require a good case to be made. And in my view of the matter, I feel

convinced there is evil to be removed, & good to be done, without directly, or even

substantially, involving the question of popular privileges.115

It is a tempting hypothesis to connect Gladstone’s observations on the Greek polity with the

gradual development of his political ideology. J. P. Parry has described how Gladstone’s rise

in the Liberal party in the 1860s went along with ‘his invocation of the moral worth of the

‘people’ ’, although his scepticism over the patriotism of the ruling classes developed in the

1870s and 1880s.116 Was Gladstone’s readiness to understand and argue on the Greek

political system in terms of an ‘upper class’, insufficient to perform its duties as the leader of

the nation, and the virtuous ‘people’, as the guarantee for the proper function of constitutional

institutions, part of this transition? Gladstone’s ‘correspondence rivalry’ with Clarendon on

the right equilibrium between royal and popular power in the provisions of the Greek

constitution adds another interesting element to the case. Clarendon, an ‘old Whig’, provided

an analysis of the situation, which was in direct opposition to Gladstone’s understanding,

insisting that the excessive powers bestowed on the people by a too liberal constitution were

to blame for the failure of Greek administration. Moreover, Clarendon was conscious of the

fact that his suggestions for the amendment of the ‘democratic’ clauses of the Greek

constitution touched upon the political susceptibilities of Gladstone. In a letter, written in

115
Gladstone to Clarendon, 7 June 1870, GD, VII, 303.
116
Parry, Rise and Fall, 250-253. T. A. Jenkins has set the chronological boundaries of this evolution between
1874 and 1886 as a result of Gladstone’s confrontation with the Whigs; see: Jenkins, T. A. Gladstone, Whiggery
and the Liberal Party, 1874-1886. Oxford, 1988, 293.

190
June 1870, Clarendon expressed his views on the Greek constitution, namely that ‘neither

improvement nor good Govt are possible under the present system’; he then linked this

verdict with the proposal to increase the royal prerogative with the phrase: ‘In extenuation to

this heresy, as I fear it will appear in your eyes (…)’. 117 Gladstone’s convictions in reference

to domestic politics may have contributed to his defence of ‘popular institutions’ in Greece.

However, I think that Gladstone’s attitude during the ‘Dilessi murders’ affair can be better

explained in association with Liberal ideas on continental nationalities. Gladstone’s lucid

exposition of his belief in the vitality of constitutionalism abroad and the fitness of the Greek

people for adopting liberal institutions sounded singularly optimistic, awkward statements

that in 1870 were opposed to the overall assumptions on the transplantation of British

institutions to other countries. What distinguished Gladstone’s views on Greece from his

contemporaries’ opinion was not their novelty but, in fact, their ‘out-of-date’ character. The

strong conviction that British political institutions were ‘exportable’ and continental states

would eventually imitate and emulate them marked Liberalism in the age of Palmerston. 118

Gladstone’s advocacy of ‘free institutions’ abroad lacked the ‘punishing’ dimension of

Palmerston’s version and, at least in 1870, contained a more detailed account of the character

of constitutional government by stressing the role of the people in any such arrangement. 119

However, Gladstone’s arguments during the crisis of 1870 revealed the same confidence in

the beneficial character of the British political example, the fitness of a European people,

such as the Greeks, for self-government, and the assumption that Britain ought to protect

117
Clarendon to Gladstone, 6 June 1870, GP, AddMS 44134, f.217.
118
On the Whig assumptions about the ‘exportability’ of contemporary British institutions see: Taylor, Decline,
195-196.
119
Gladstone’s emphasis on the role of ‘the people’ in the success of constitutional government, at home and
abroad, constituted a major departure from the Whiggish belief in the aristocratic qualities of the rulers as a
prerequisite for political liberty; for the role of ‘the few’ in the early nineteenth-century Whig version of
representative government see: Kriegel, Abraham D. “Liberty and Whiggery in Early Nineteenth-Century
England”. Journal of Modern History. 52:2 (June 1980), 264-270.

191
constitutional government from the schemes of the absolutist Powers, France and Russia;

these views had already given their place to a more exclusive, often racially based, evaluation

of the nature and requirements of British political institutions according to which an

advanced level of political virtue was the precondition and not the outcome of representative

government.

Was Gladstone’s conduct during the ‘Dilessi murders’ affair the first display of his

‘political philhellenism’, six years before its alleged ‘first full and mature formulation’ in the

Bulgarian agitation?120 Is the episode of 1870 the missing link between Gladstone’s

‘lukewarm enthusiasm in the 1860s’ in relation to Greek affairs and his supposed conversion

to the Greek cause by 1878, when ‘he was finally ready to take a markedly Hellenic line on

the Near Eastern question?’121 In the first place, the term ‘political philhellenism’ confirms

and reinforces instead of clarifying Gladstone’s ‘somewhat misconceived philhellenic

reputation’. The use of the adjective ‘political’ implies that philhellenism is considered as an

entity, with an all-encompassing concept at the centre - interest in and sympathy for the

Greek element throughout history -, which finds expression and fulfilment in ‘literary

philhellenism’, that is admiration for and often occupation with Greek classical civilization,

in ‘religious philhellenism’, the attention to the dogma and rituals of the Orthodox Church,

and in ‘political philhellenism’, namely the favourable approach to the modern Greek state

and people. Gladstone’s relation with the Greek kingdom has suffered much from the

misleading connotations assigned to philhellenism and his initiatives in regard to Greek

nationality are often directly linked to his religious and cultural leanings. 122 Speculations

about the motives of an individual are inherently difficult and the results may seem

ambivalent. In the case of Gladstone’s stand on the Greek question in 1870 the effect of
120
Shannon, Heroic, 190.
121
Sandiford, Keith A. P. “W. E. Gladstone and Liberal - Nationalist Movements”. Albion. 13 (1981), 32-33.
122
See for example: Sandiford, “Gladstone”, 32: ‘As Hellenism and Christianity were the avowed foundations of
Gladstonian politics, it is not surprisingly that he consistently sympathized with Greece.’

192
classical education and theological studies on his views on the Greek kingdom can of course

be alleged, but references to these influences did not appear in any of his public speeches or

private letters. Gladstone’s favourable comments on the aptitude of the Greek people for

representative government were supported not by allusions to their glorious past or their

religiosity but in terms of the prime minister’s overall belief in the merits of free institutions

and their suitability for ‘young nations’. Gladstone’s philhellenism, at least in its display in

1870, lacked the singularity, which is usually attributed to its manifestations in the 1870s and

1880s; his opinion on Greece and the Greek people was in harmony with his approach to

continental nationalities.

4.4. Recapitulation

The ‘Dilessi murders’ case was the first Anglo-Hellenic question since the Don Pacifico

affair in which the relations between the two countries were tried not by a problem with

wider implications for Europe or the East but by a catastrophe inflicted upon British subjects.

The transition from the stage of individual disaster to that of a national calamity, which

occurred through the articles of the London press, gives an added interest to the interpretation

of the crisis and has led to the attribution of a singular and violent character to British

reactions to the Dilessi murders.

The derogatory remarks on the internal condition of the Greek kingdom and the political

abilities of the Greek people, which dominated almost any reference to Greece in 1870, were

largely based on an image of the country, which had been gradually formed during previous

decades. Brigandage and its lamentable results verified what was already known, that Greece

remained an underdeveloped, disorganized, ‘uncivilized’ kingdom, geographically and

literally in the borderline between the progressive Western European states and the still

193
‘barbarous’ East.123 Furthermore, the increasing identification of representative government

with the historical experience of the English people deprived the Greeks of the optimistic

predictions about their political development that had emerged in former debates on the

prospects of the Greek kingdom. Clarendon adopted the ‘exclusive’ interpretation of the

British political arrangement, which, in combination with a picture of Greek political life

portrayed by his subordinate at Athens, sustained his attacks against the Greek constitution,

the political leadership and the political virtue of the Greek people. Lastly, the prevalent

position among the sources of information on the condition of the kingdom in 1870, which

writers in the press gave to a work of fiction written almost 15 years before the ‘Dilessi

murders’ question, corroborates the suggestion that the outline of the image of Greece, which

featured publicly in 1870, had been established long before this particular episode.

On the other hand, the strong language and the bold proposals that appeared mainly in the

press in reference to the line of action that Britain ought to pursue reflected contemporary

criticism of British foreign policy. The theme of the declining power and prestige of Britain

abroad as a result of the application of the ‘non-intervention’ doctrine to foreign policy

emerged in 1870 not only during the ‘Dilessi murders’ case but also during the Franco-

Prussian war. The critics of the Liberal government found an opportunity to censure its

foreign policy also taking advantage of the presumptions which existed about the ministry’s

principles and individual members of the government, such as John Bright. The feverish

rhetoric on ‘pride’, ‘punishment’ and ‘satisfaction’ were used in the Greek case but they pre-

existed and were not specifically designed and circulated for the ‘Dilessi murders’ affair.

123
In reply, Greek narratives of the Dolessi affair exonerated the ‘Greek national body’ by defining its
boundaries in a way that excluded groups and ways of life which became associated with the ‘miasma’ of
brigandage. See: Tzanelli, Rodanthi. “Haunted by the ‘Enemy’ Within: Brigandage, Vlachian/Albanian
Greekness, Turkish ‘Contamination,’ and Narratives of Greek Nationlhood in the Dilessi/Marathon Affair
(1870)”. Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 20 (2002), 54-66.

194
 Gladstone’s comments on the Greek kingdom and its inhabitants differed in almost all

aspects from the prevailing tendency in his own government, in parliament and in the press.

Gladstone reversed the unanimous verdict on ‘free institutions’ in Greece by investing the

Greek people, whom he rather vaguely distinguished from the ruling classes, with the moral

and political virtues needed in order to cope with the requirements of self-government. His

analysis of the problems of Greece and his prescription for the country’s future relied on the

older Liberal tradition, which ascribed a beneficial character to constitutionalism thus

describing its transplantation to continental Europe as both possible and desirable. Gladstone,

moreover, introduced his growing confidence in the moral and political virtue of the ‘people’

in his comments on the Greek case.

The episode of 1870 tested once more the relations between Britain and Greece and attested

to the readiness of the majority of the press and the political world to castigate the

shortcomings of the kingdom and the vices of the Greek ‘race’. The prolonged crisis of the

Eastern Question, which marked the second half of the decade, would confirm or dispute the

main assumptions surrounding the perception of the Greek kingdom in Britain.

195