The Protocol of St. Petersburg was an 1826 Anglo-Russian agreement for the settlement of the Greek War of Independence.
Background
In 1821, the Greeks revolted against the Ottoman empire. The majority of the European powers committed to uphold the status quo established by the Congress of Vienna supported the Ottomans. After the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe consisting of Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia were all united in the Quintuple Alliance and a policy of holding congresses to reach a consensus on all the issues facing European diplomacy, to maintain the Concert of Europe to prevent war and revolution in Europe. Of the European powers, the one most interested in the war was Russia, which under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca had a vague claim to be the protector of all the Orthodox peoples in the Ottoman empire. Russian foreign policy was torn between the desire to help a fellow Orthodox people struggling against the Muslim Ottoman empire, which was Russia's traditional archenemy vs. the desire to uphold the established order in Europe and the unwillingness to risk a breach within the "Concert of Europe" who were supporting the Ottomans. In July 1821, following the hanging of the Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople on Easter Sunday 1821, Russia threatened war and broke off diplomatic relations with the Sublime Porte for this insult to the Orthodox faith. The Russian ultimatum threatened war “jointly with the whole of Christendom” if the Ottoman state continued to execute Orthodox clergy, which turned out to a bluff as the other Great Powers of Europe, namely Britain, France, Austria and Prussia all supported the Ottomans, arguing that the Sublime Porte had the right to crush the Greeks who rebelled against their legitimate government, and Russia backed down.
Breakdown of the Congress system
Following further news of Ottoman atrocities against the Greeks, the Emperor Alexander I issued a mémoire for the other Great Powers, suggesting that the war be settled by breaking Greece into three semi-sovereign principalities whose princes were to be nominated by the Sultan as in the case of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Alexander’s plan was opposed by both the Austrian Foreign Minister Prince Klemens von Metternich and the British Foreign Secretary George Canning; one of the two sabotaged the Russian plan by leaking it to a Paris newspaper in May 1824, and moreover the Russian plan was rejected by the Greeks and the Ottomans. The Greeks insisted on full independence while the Ottomans were unwilling to cede any power to the Greeks.
One of the main issues for 19th century British foreign policy was the “Eastern Question”, namely how to maintain the declining Ottoman empire and keep Russia out of the Balkans, which led the British to generally support the Sublime Porte against Russia. At the same time, widespread sympathy for the Greeks in Britain had led Canning to take certain pro-Greek steps, which as recognising Greek warships as legitimate belligerents instead of pirates in March 1823, much to the intense annoyance of Metternich, who was consistently the most pro-Ottoman statesman in Europe. In March 1824, Canning allowed a loan to be raised in the City of London for the Greek government. Canning stated in a speech he was opposed to intervening for the Greeks as to attack the Sublime Porte would be to “engage in unprovoked hostilities against that Power in a quarrel not her own”, but at the same time offered to mediate an end to the war, prepared that the Greeks and the Sublime Porte were willing to accept it. Canning stated he was only willing to offer mediation “conjointly with other Powers”, and Britain would not be bound by any decisions of the congresses of the Quintuple Alliance which united Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia. Canning used a story from the Arabian Nights of a young man who to honor a miller stepped inside a mill wheel and agreed to turn it for a half an hour, “but being once in, is whipped on, every time that he attempts to pause; the miller, in the meantime, turning his thoughts to other business” . In Canning’s analogy, Britain was the young man and the Congress system in Europe the miller; if Britain agreed to abide by the congresses of the Quintuple Alliance, Britain would do the bidding of other European powers, which is why Canning preferred bilateral negotiations instead.
