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

332 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
terms of this protocol
Greece was to be erected into
an independent State, and its
frontiers were fixed to
run from the mouth of the river Aspropotamos to
Mount Artolina, and thence, over the comb of the
range of Oxia and Oeta, to the mouth of the Spercheios.
Eubffia and the neighbouring islands were to
be Greek, as also Skyros and the Cyclades.
Prince
Leopold of Coburg was proposed
as the ruler of the
newly-constituted State, but with the title, not of king,
but of ' sovereign prince.' 1
Except the guarantee of complete independence,
so grudgingly conceded, this settlement had nothing
to recommend it to the acceptance of the Hellenes.
Apart
from the confinement of the new State within
limits which would have made effective government
impossible, and which rendered the gift of independence
a hollow mockery, the lines of the frontier had
been so drawn as to appear almost purposely offensive
to Greek national feeling.
Attica and Bo3otia, where
the population was mainly Albanian, were to
be included
in the new State, while Acarnania and ^Etolia,
which were inhabited by a Greek-speaking race, were
to remain Turkish! Strategically, too, the proposed
frontier was impossible;
for it left in the hands of the
Turks ' the barrier which nature pointed out ' : that
i
Holland, p. 11.