[Boundary of Greece.] No. 142.-PROTOCOL of Conference between Great Britain, France, and Russia, relative to the Continental and Insular Boundaries of Greece, &c. London, 22nd March, 1829.* [The Porte declared its adhesion to this Protocol in its Treaty with Russia of 14th September, 1829, Art. IX.] TABLE. Reference to Treaty of 6th July, 1827. Continental and Insular Boundary. (Translation.†) PRESENT: The Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, France, and Russia. The Plenipotentiaries of the Alliance, after having read and taken into consideration the documents annexed to the Protocol, Litt. A. B. C. D., determined what follows. Reference to Treaty of 6th July, 1827. The Ambassadors of France and Great Britain at the Ottoman Porte, shall open at Constantinople, so soon as they shall arrive there, a negotiation with the Turkish Government, in the name of the 3 Courts who signed the Treaty of the 6th July, 1827 (No. 136), respecting the Pacification and future organisation of Greece, in conformity with the bases hereinafter pointed out. It is, however, fully understood that each of the Allied Courts reserves to itself the right of weighing the merit of the objections which the Ottoman Porte may make to the propositions which shall be communicated to it, in virtue of the present Protocol; and that in the event of such objections being raised, it will be open to the 3 Powers to concert other proposals, founded upon the desire which will always animate them, of terminating speedily the question upon which they are at present engaged. Continental and Insular Boundary. It shall be proposed to the Porte that the point of departure *See also Protocols of the 22nd March, 1829, and 3rd February, 1830; Arrangement of 21st July, 1832; and Treaties of 7th May, 1832; 30th April, 1833; 13th July and 14th November, 1863; and 29th March, 1864. + For French Version, see "State Papers," vol. xvi, p. 1095. [Boundary of Greece.] for the Continental Boundary shall be near the entrance of the Gulf of Volo; from whence the line ascending to the crown of the Othryx, shall follow its whole range as far as the summit, situated to the east of Agrapha, which forms its point of junction with the chain of Pindus. From this summit it will descend into the valley of the Aspropotamos, by the south of Leontitos, which it will leave to Turkey; crossing afterwards the chain of the Macrinoros, it will include in the Greek Territory the defile of that name, which leads from the plain of Arta, and will terminate in the sea at the Ambraciot Gulf. All the provinces situated to the south of that line shall be comprised in the new Greek State. The Islands adjoining the Morea, the Island of Euboea, or Negropont, and the Islands commonly called Cyclades, shall form part of that State. Tribute to the Porte. It shall be proposed to the Ottoman Porte, in the name of the three Courts, that the Greeks shall pay to it an annual Tribute, amounting in the whole to 1,500,000 Turkish piastres. To prevent all controversy, the relative value of the Turkish piastre to the Spanish dollar shall be settled, once for all, by common agreement. Considering the state of penury to which Greece is reduced, it shall be agreed that from the time at which the payment of the Tribute shall commence, Greece shall pay to the Porte for the first year a sum which shall be neither less than a fifth, nor more than a third, of the total of the Tribute; that that sum shall be augmented from year to year, until, in the course of four years, the annual Tribute shall reach the maximum of 1,500,000 piastres, which the State shall continue to pay every year, without any diminution or addition whatsoever.. Indemnity. It shall be proposed to the Ottoman Porte that the Indemnity mentioned in Article II of the Treaty of 6th July, 1827 (No. 136), shall be regulated in the manner hereinafter pointed out. The parties who shall be admitted to prove their titles shall be: 1. The individual Mussulman proprietors of real estates situated in the territory which is to constitute Greece. 2. The individual Mussulmans, who, either as usufructuaries, or as hereditary administrators, had a beneficial interest in the Vacoufs-ady, holding of the Mosques situated in the same terri [Boundary of Greece.] tory; saving the deduction there from of the amount of the fines with which those Vacoufs were burthened. The individual Mussulmans of these two classes, whose titles shall have been recognised as regular, shall be at liberty themselves to sell their properties in the space of one year, saving the previous payment of the debts hypothecated upon them. If, during that period, this sale should not have been effected, Commissioners shall value the unsold properties, and, as soon as the amount of the sum due to the former proprietors, their heirs or assigns, shall be fixed, the Greek Government, in effecting the liquidation of the claims, shall deliver to the recognised creditors bonds on the State, payable at fixed periods. The verifying of the titles, as well as the valuation of the properties, shall be confided to a mixed Commission, composed of Greek and Mussulman Commissioners, in equal number on both sides, which shall be charged to receive and examine all the claims with the least possible delay, and to decide upon the validity of the documents which shall be produced to them. The Commission shall besides fix general regulations for cases in which the titles of the claimants may have perished during the Revolution, and those regulations shall be communicated to the parties interested. In order to solve the difficulties to which these operations may possibly give rise between the Greek and Ottoman Commissioners, and in order to establish at the same time a system calculated to abridge the period of this liquidation, and to lead in each case to a definitive decision, there shall be instituted a Commission of appeal and arbitration, composed of Commissioners of the three Allied Powers, who shall decide in the last instance upon all the claims respecting which the Ottoman and Greek Commissioners shall not have been able to come to an understanding. Suzerainty of the Porte. Greece shall enjoy, under the Suzerainty of the Porte, the internal administration best calculated to guarantee the religious and commercial liberty, as well as the prosperity and the repose, which it is desred to assure to it. With this view, that administration shall be assimilated, as much as possible, to monarchical forms, and shall be confided to a Christian Chief or Prince, whose authority shall be hereditary, in the order of primogeniture. [Boundary of Greece.] the Archipelago, declared to exist de facto on the part of the Turks towards the Greeks. The three Courts shall equally require, grounding their demand upon the existence of the same Armistice, upon the steps which they are taking to assure its maintenance, and upon the negotiations which are about to be opened at Constantinople for the purpose of fixing the fate of Greece; that the Greeks shall immediately cease hostilities on all points, and that the Provisional Government of Greece shall withdraw within the limits of the territory guaranteed by the Alliance the Greek troops which may have passed that frontier; it being understood, however, that this last-mentioned step shall not in any way prejudge the question of the Boundary of the future Greek State. The arrangements above pointed out, when concluded with the Porte, shall be placed, in conformity with the VIth Article of the Treaty of the 6th July [1827] (No. 136), under the Guarantee of such of the signing Powers as shall think it advantageous or possible to contract that obligation, the effects and operation of which shall become the object of further stipulations between the High Powers, agreeably to the purport of the said Article of the Treaty of the 6th of July. It is nevertheless understood, from henceforth, that the guarantee in question shall assure the Ottoman Porte against every hostile enterprise or act on the part of the Greeks, and the Greeks against every hostile enterprise or act on the part of the Porte. Great Britain and France not to conclude any Arrangement not conformable to above Bases. The Ambassadors of Great Britain and France shall not conclude any Arrangement which shall not be conformable to the bases above established. Representation of Russia. Although in this negotiation Russia consents not to be represented by a Russian Plenipotentiary, it is understood that this same negotiation shall be conducted by the Representatives of the Courts of London and Paris, in the name of Russia, equally as in the names of England and France; that all the proposals shall be put forward on behalf of the three Contracting Powers of the Treaty of 6th July, 1827 (No. 136); and that no demand tending to exclude Russia, directly or indirectly, from the negotiation in question, or from its results, shall ever be admitted. |