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

THE CZAR DENOUNCES THE REVOLT 37
have at once brought
it to an end. The Patriarch of
Constantinople issued his anathema against the He-
and denounced the curse of the Church on the
tairia,
rebels. Henceforward Hypsilanti became, not the
leader of an orthodox crusade, but the head of a band
But a still
of ambitious and turbulent conspirators.
more serious blow was impending. Hypsilanti had
himself believed, and had suffered it
to be generally
understood, that he had the support
enterprise;
of Russia in his
but now there came letters from Laibach
in which the Emperor Alexander denounced the revolt,
upbraided the prince for his perfidy in misusing
the Czar's name, struck his name from the Russian
army list,
arms. 1
and called on him at once to lay down his
The right and reasonable course would have
been to obey;
for the whole enterprise had been initiated
and supported on the confident assumption that it
had the sanction of the Czar. Deprived of this sanction
it was foredoomed to failure; and all that remained
was, by a speedy submission, to obtain the best
possible terms for its deluded supporters. But Hypsilanti
was too foolish, or too blinded by vanity, to take
a just view of the situation ;
he preferred to continue
his course, and to cover its fatuity from the eyes of his
i Prokesch. iii. 65. The letter is signed by Count Capodistrias.