Massacres during the Greek War of Independence Massacres during the Greek War of Independence There were numerous massacres during the Greek War of Independence perpetrated by both the Ottoman forces and the Greek revolutionaries. The war was characterized by a lack of respect for civilian life and prisoners of war on both sides of the conflict. Massacres of Greeks took place especially in Ionia, Crete, Constantinople, Macedonia and the Aegean islands, while Turkish, Albanian, Greeks, and Jewish populations identified with the Ottomans inhabiting the Peloponnese suffered massacres particularly where Greek forces were dominant. Settled Greek communities in the Aegean, Crete, Central and Southern Greece were wiped out,
Background of the Greek War of Independence 1814 the secret Filiki Eteria ("Friendly Society") in Odessa, an important center of the Greek mercantile diaspora. With the support of wealthy Greek exile communities in Britain and the United States and with the aid of sympathizers in Western Europe, they planned the rebellion. The society's basic objective was a revival of the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as the capital, not the formation of a national state. In early 1820, Ioannis Kapodistrias, an official from the Ionian Islands who had become the joint foreign minister of Tsar Alexander I, was approached by the Society in order to be named leader