Richard Church - Revision history

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Irlandos at 13:35, January 6, 2006

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'''Sir Richard Church''' ([[1784]] - [[March 30]], [[1873]]), Anglo-Irish military officer and general in the Greek army, was the son of a Quaker, Matthew Church of Cork.

At the age of sixteen he ran away from home and enlisted in the British army. For this violation of its principles he was disowned by the Society of Friends, but his father bought him a commission, dated [[July 3]], [[1800]], in the 13th (Somersetshire) Light Infantry. He served in the demonstration against Ferrol, and in the expedition to Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby in [[1801]]. After the expulsion of the French from Egypt he returned home, but came back to the [[Mediterranean]] in [[1805]] among the troops sent to defend the island of Sicily. He accompanied the expedition which landed in Calabria, and fought a successful battle against the French at the Battle of Maida on [[July 6]], [[1806]]. Church was present on this occasion as captain of a recently raised company of Corsican Rangers. His zeal attracted the notice of his superiors, and he had begun to show his capacity for managing and drilling foreign levies. His Corsicans formed part of the garrison of Capri from October [[1806]] till the island was taken by an expedition directed against it by Murat, in September [[1808]], at the very beginning of his reign as king of [[Naples]]. Church, who had distinguished himself in the defence, returned to Malta aftel the capitulation.

In the summer of [[1809]] he sailed with the expedition sent to occupy the [[Ionian Islands]]. Here he increased the reputation he had already gained by forming a Greek regiment in English pay. It included many of the men who were afterwards among the leaders of the Greeks in the [[War of Independence]]. Church commanded this regiment at the taking of Santa Maura (now [[Lefkada]]), on which occasion his left arm was shattered by a bullet.

During his slow recovery he travelled in northern Greece ([[Macedonia]]), and to [[Constantinople]]. In the years of the fall of Napoleon (1813 and 1814) he was present as English military representative with the Austrian troops until the campaign which terminated in the expulsion of Joachim Murat from Naples. He drew up a report on the Ionian Islands for the [[congress of Vienna]], in which he argued in support, not only of the retention of the islands under the British flag, but of the permanent occupation by Britain of [[Parga]] and of other formerly Venetian coastal towns on the mainland, then in the possession of [[Ali Pasha]] of [[Ioannina|Iannina]]. The peace and the disbanding of his Greek regiment left him without employment, though his reputation was high at the war office, and his services were recognized by the grant of an[[Order of the Bath|companionship of the Bath]].

In [[1817]] he entered the service of King Ferdinand of Naples as lieutenant-general, with a commission to suppress the brigandage then rampant in Apulia. Ample powers were given him, and he attained a full measure of success. In [[1820]] he was appointed governor of Palermo and commander-in-chief of the troops in Sicily. The revolution which broke out in that year led to the termination of his services in Naples. He escaped from violence in Sicily with some difficulty. At Naples he was imprisoned and put on his trial by the government, but was acquitted and released in January [[1821]] ; and King George IV conferred on him a knight commandership of the Hanoverian order.

The rising of the Greeks against the Turks, which began at this time, had his full sympathy from the first. But for some years he had to act only as the friend of the insurgents in England. In [[1827]] he took the honorable but unfortunate step of accepting the commandership-in-chief of the Greek army. At the point of anarchy and indiscipline to which they had now fallen, the Greeks could no longer form an efficient army and looked for salvation to foreign intervention. Sir Richard Church, who landed in March, was sworn ''archistrategos'' on [[April 15]], [[1827]]. But he could not secure loyal co-operation or obedience. The rout of his army in an attempt to relieve the [[Acropolis]] of [[Athens]], then besieged by the Turks, proved that it was incapable of conducting regular operations. The acropolis capitulated, and Sir Richard turned to partisan warfare in western Greece.

Here his activity had beneficial results, for it led to a rectification in [[1832]], in a sense favourable to Greece, of the frontier drawn by the powers in 1830 (see his ''Observations on an Eligible Line of Frontier for Greece'', London, 1830). Church had, however, surrendered his commission, as a protest against the unfriendly government of [[Ioannis Kapodistrias]], on [[August 25]], [[1829]]. He lived for the rest of his life in Greece, was created general of the army in [[1854]], and died at Athens on the [[March 30]], [[1873]]. Sir Richard Church married in 1826 Elizabeth Augusta Wilmot-Horton, who survived him till [[1878]].

==References==
*''Sir Richard Church'', by Stanley Lane Poole (London, 1890)
*''Sir Richard Church in Italy and Greece'', by EM Church (Edinburgh, 1895) based on family papers (an Italian version, ''Brigantaggio e societé segrete nelle Fugue'', 1817-1828, executed under the direction of Carlo Lacaita, appeared at Florence in 1899).
*The Manuscripts Correspondence and Papers of Sir Richard Church, in 29 vols, now in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 3654336571), contain invaluable material for the history of the [[Greek Revolution|War of Greek Independence]], including a narrative of the war during Church's tenure of the command, which attempts to vindicate Church's reputation against the strictures of Finlay, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and other historians of the war (see ''Cam. Mod. Hist.'' x. p. 804).
----

[[Category:1784 births|Church, Richard]]
[[Category:1873 deaths|Church, Richard]]
[[Category:Greek War of Independence|Church, Richard]]

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 In the summer of [[1809]] he sailed with the expedition sent to occupy the [[Ionian Islands]]. Here he increased the reputation he had already gained by forming a Greek regiment in English pay. It included many of the men who were afterwards among the leaders of the Greeks in the [[War of Independence]]. Church commanded this regiment at the taking of Santa Maura (now [[Lefkada]]), on which occasion his left arm was shattered by a bullet.
-During his slow recovery he travelled in northern Greece ([[Macedonia]]), and to [[Constantinople]]. In the years of the fall of Napoleon (1813 and 1814) he was present as English military representative with the Austrian troops until the campaign which terminated in the expulsion of Joachim Murat from Naples. He drew up a report on the Ionian Islands for the congress of Vienna, in which he argued in support, not only of the retention of the islands under the British flag, but of the permanent occupation by Britain of [[Parga]] and of other formerly Venetian coastal towns on the mainland, then in the possession of [[Ali Pasha]] of [[Ioannina|Jannina]]. The peace and the disbanding of his Greek regiment left him without employment, though his reputation was high at the war office, and his services were recognized by the grant of an[[Order of the Bath|companionship of the Bath]].
+During his slow recovery he travelled in northern Greece ([[Macedonia]]), and to [[Constantinople]]. In the years of the fall of Napoleon (1813 and 1814) he was present as English military representative with the Austrian troops until the campaign which terminated in the expulsion of Joachim Murat from Naples. He drew up a report on the Ionian Islands for the congress of Vienna, in which he argued in support, not only of the retention of the islands under the British flag, but of the permanent occupation by Britain of [[Parga]] and of other formerly Venetian coastal towns on the mainland, then in the possession of [[Ali Pasha]] of [[Ioannina|Jannina]]. The peace and the disbanding of his Greek regiment left him without employment, though his reputation was high at the war office, and his services were recognized by the grant of a companionship of the Bath.
 In [[1817]] he entered the service of King Ferdinand of Naples as lieutenant-general, with a commission to suppress the brigandage then rampant in Apulia. Ample powers were given him, and he attained a full measure of success. In [[1820]] he was appointed governor of Palermo and commander-in-chief of the troops in Sicily. The revolution which broke out in that year led to the termination of his services in Naples. He escaped from violence in Sicily with some difficulty. At Naples he was imprisoned and put on his trial by the government, but was acquitted and released in January [[1821]] ; and King George IV conferred on him a knight commandership of the Hanoverian order.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 '''Sir Richard Church''' ([[1784]] - [[March 30]], [[1873]]), Anglo-Irish military officer and general in the Greek army, was the son of a Quaker, Matthew Church of Cork.
-At the age of sixteen he ran away from home and enlisted in the British army. For this violation of its principles he was disowned by the Society of Friends, but his father bought him a commission, dated [[July 3]], [[1800]], in the 13th (Somersetshire) Light Infantry. He served in the demonstration against Ferrol, and in the expedition to Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby in [[1801]]. After the expulsion of the French from Egypt he returned home, but came back to the [[Mediterranean]] in [[1805]] among the troops sent to defend the island of Sicily. He accompanied the expedition which landed in Calabria, and fought a successful battle against the French at the Battle of Maida on [[July 6]], [[1806]]. Church was present on this occasion as captain of a recently raised company of Corsican Rangers. His zeal attracted the notice of his superiors, and he had begun to show his capacity for managing and drilling foreign levies. His Corsicans formed part of the garrison of Capri from October [[1806]] till the island was taken by an expedition directed against it by Murat, in September [[1808]], at the very beginning of his reign as king of [[Naples]]. Church, who had distinguished himself in the defence, returned to Malta aftel the capitulation.
+At the age of sixteen he ran away from home and enlisted in the British army. For this violation of its principles he was disowned by the Society of Friends, but his father bought him a commission, dated [[July 3]], [[1800]], in the 13th (Somersetshire) Light Infantry. He served in the demonstration against Ferrol, and in the expedition to Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby in [[1801]]. After the expulsion of the French from Egypt he returned home, but came back to the [[Mediterranean]] in [[1805]] among the troops sent to defend the island of Sicily. He accompanied the expedition which landed in Calabria, and fought a successful battle against the French at the Battle of Maida on [[July 6]], [[1806]]. Church was present on this occasion as captain of a recently raised company of Corsican Rangers. His zeal attracted the notice of his superiors, and he had begun to show his capacity for managing and drilling foreign levies. His Corsicans formed part of the garrison of Capri from October [[1806]] till the island was taken by an expedition directed against it by Murat, in September [[1808]], at the very beginning of his reign as king of Naples. Church, who had distinguished himself in the defence, returned to Malta aftel the capitulation.
 In the summer of [[1809]] he sailed with the expedition sent to occupy the [[Ionian Islands]]. Here he increased the reputation he had already gained by forming a Greek regiment in English pay. It included many of the men who were afterwards among the leaders of the Greeks in the [[War of Independence]]. Church commanded this regiment at the taking of Santa Maura (now [[Lefkada]]), on which occasion his left arm was shattered by a bullet.
-During his slow recovery he travelled in northern Greece ([[Macedonia]]), and to [[Constantinople]]. In the years of the fall of Napoleon (1813 and 1814) he was present as English military representative with the Austrian troops until the campaign which terminated in the expulsion of Joachim Murat from Naples. He drew up a report on the Ionian Islands for the [[congress of Vienna]], in which he argued in support, not only of the retention of the islands under the British flag, but of the permanent occupation by Britain of [[Parga]] and of other formerly Venetian coastal towns on the mainland, then in the possession of [[Ali Pasha]] of [[Ioannina|Iannina]]. The peace and the disbanding of his Greek regiment left him without employment, though his reputation was high at the war office, and his services were recognized by the grant of an[[Order of the Bath|companionship of the Bath]].
+During his slow recovery he travelled in northern Greece ([[Macedonia]]), and to [[Constantinople]]. In the years of the fall of Napoleon (1813 and 1814) he was present as English military representative with the Austrian troops until the campaign which terminated in the expulsion of Joachim Murat from Naples. He drew up a report on the Ionian Islands for the congress of Vienna, in which he argued in support, not only of the retention of the islands under the British flag, but of the permanent occupation by Britain of [[Parga]] and of other formerly Venetian coastal towns on the mainland, then in the possession of [[Ali Pasha]] of [[Ioannina|Jannina]]. The peace and the disbanding of his Greek regiment left him without employment, though his reputation was high at the war office, and his services were recognized by the grant of an[[Order of the Bath|companionship of the Bath]].
 In [[1817]] he entered the service of King Ferdinand of Naples as lieutenant-general, with a commission to suppress the brigandage then rampant in Apulia. Ample powers were given him, and he attained a full measure of success. In [[1820]] he was appointed governor of Palermo and commander-in-chief of the troops in Sicily. The revolution which broke out in that year led to the termination of his services in Naples. He escaped from violence in Sicily with some difficulty. At Naples he was imprisoned and put on his trial by the government, but was acquitted and released in January [[1821]] ; and King George IV conferred on him a knight commandership of the Hanoverian order.