THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

THE OTTOMAN RULE 7
by
The Greek then became attached to his religion
a double tie of faith and national sentiment. To
his religion and to the head of his religion alone does
he owe allegiance ;
and no element of loyalty has ever
entered into his relations to the Sultan, who ruled him,
and rules him, by force alone. As soon then as the
rigour of the Turkish tyranny relaxed, no obligation
lay upon the ' rayah ? to obey a government which
could no longer enforce its claims.
It is a mistake to
suppose that it was the intolerable tyranny of the Turk
which forced the Greeks into rebellion. All history
and experience indeed prove that a people
without murmuring the most crushing burdens;
will bear
and it
is
only when the cords have been relaxed, and the load
lightened, that the oppressed will feel the energy to
turn upon the oppressor. It was the conscientious efforts
at reform of the government of Louis XVI.
which directly produced the French Revolution. It
was the lessening pressure of Turkish rule,
and the
growing prosperity of the Greek population, that rendered
the Hellenic revolt possible and inevitable. 1
The rule of the Ottoman is indeed harmful rather
i Cf. De Tocqueville, L'Ancien Regime et La Revolution, p.
259: L'experience apprend que le moment le plus dang-ereux
'
pour un mauvais gouvernement est d'ordinaire
celui ou il commence a se reformer. . . . Le mal qu'on
souffrait patiemment comme inevitable semble insupport-