Greek independence war 6

Because of the Greek origin of so much of the West's classical heritage, there was tremendous
sympathy for the Greek cause throughout Europe. Some wealthy Americans and Western
European aristocrats, such as the renowned poet Lord Byron and later the physician Samuel Howe,
took up arms to join the Greek revolutionaries. [40]
Many more also financed the revolution. The London Philhellenic Committee helped insurgent
Greece to float two loans in 1824 (£800,000) and 1825 (£2,000,000). [41] The Scottish
philhellene Thomas Gordon took part in the revolutionary struggle and later wrote the first histories
of the Greek revolution in English. According to Albert Boime, "The philhellenes willingly overlooked
many of the contradictory stories about Greek atrocities, because they had nowhere else to deposit
their libertarian impulses."[42]

The mountains look on Marathon --

And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might yet be free
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
...
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? – Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae.

Byron, The Isles of Greece[43]

In Europe, the Greek revolt aroused widespread sympathy among the public, although at first it was
met with lukewarm and negative reception from the Great Powers. Some historians argue that
Ottoman atrocities were given wide coverage in Europe, while Greek atrocities tended to be
suppressed or played down.[44] The Ottoman massacres at Chios in 1822 inspired Eugène
Delacroix's famous painting Massacre of Chios; other philhellenic works by Delacroix were inspired
by various Byron poems. Byron, the most celebrated philhellene of all, lent his name, prestige and
wealth to the cause.[45]
Byron organized funds and supplies (including the provision of several ships), but died from fever
at Missolonghi in 1824. Byron's death helped to create an even stronger European sympathy for the
Greek cause. His poetry, along with Delacroix's art, helped arouse European public opinion in favor
of the Greek revolutionaries to the point of no return, and led Western powers to intervene directly. [46]
Philhellenism made a notable contribution to romanticism, enabling the younger generation of artistic
and literary intellectuals to expand the classical repertoire by treating modern Greek history as an
extension of ancient history; the idea of a regeneration of the spirit of ancient Greece permeated the
rhetoric of the Greek cause's supporters. Classicists and romantics of that period envisioned the
casting out of the Turks as the prelude to the revival of the Golden Age. [47]