P. Kodrikas face aux projets de l'ordre de Malte en Grece : un echange de lettres avec le Colonel Voutier
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Abstract
P. Kodrikas who living in Paris and working for the French Foreign Ministry, played an active part in trying to frustrate the Greek projects of the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem (known as the Order of Malta) at the time of
the Greek Revolution. The Order had been expelled from Malta by the English in 1798 and wanted to return to the island of Rhodes, where it had been located from 1309 to 1522. One of its representatives, Jourdain, concluded a treaty with the Greek government by which the Order’s claims in regard to Rhodes were recognized in return for the Order’s assistance in securing a foreign loan. Kodrikas favoured the idea of a treaty between the Order and the Greek government, seeing in it—among other advantages for the Greeks—that of international recognition. But he was vigorously opposed to the treaty signed by Jourdain, the validity of which he contested. Kodrikas therefore wrote a report to the French Foreign Ministry about the matter. He also circulated his views in Greece, with the aim of upsetting the Maltese Order’s intrigues. To the Greek government itself he transmitted —by the intermediary of the philhellene Colonel Voutier—the repudiation by the Maltese Order’s leading officials of the treaty signed by Jourdain, after the reactions provoked by the premature disclosure of the treaty. Kodrikas and Voutier exchanged several letters on the subject, two of which have been preserved in the Kodrikas Archives of the Neo-hellenic Institute of the Sorbonne. One of these, from Kodrikas dated the 5 March 1824, is reproduced at the end of the article. In this letter Kodrikas urges Voutier, who was then in Greece, to work to prevent or abort any further schemes of the Maltese Order and to establish a mutual correspondence for the exchange of information on the situation in Greece.
Order of St. John of Jerusalem (known as the Order of Malta) at the time of
the Greek Revolution. The Order had been expelled from Malta by the English in 1798 and wanted to return to the island of Rhodes, where it had been located from 1309 to 1522. One of its representatives, Jourdain, concluded a treaty with the Greek government by which the Order’s claims in regard to Rhodes were recognized in return for the Order’s assistance in securing a foreign loan. Kodrikas favoured the idea of a treaty between the Order and the Greek government, seeing in it—among other advantages for the Greeks—that of international recognition. But he was vigorously opposed to the treaty signed by Jourdain, the validity of which he contested. Kodrikas therefore wrote a report to the French Foreign Ministry about the matter. He also circulated his views in Greece, with the aim of upsetting the Maltese Order’s intrigues. To the Greek government itself he transmitted —by the intermediary of the philhellene Colonel Voutier—the repudiation by the Maltese Order’s leading officials of the treaty signed by Jourdain, after the reactions provoked by the premature disclosure of the treaty. Kodrikas and Voutier exchanged several letters on the subject, two of which have been preserved in the Kodrikas Archives of the Neo-hellenic Institute of the Sorbonne. One of these, from Kodrikas dated the 5 March 1824, is reproduced at the end of the article. In this letter Kodrikas urges Voutier, who was then in Greece, to work to prevent or abort any further schemes of the Maltese Order and to establish a mutual correspondence for the exchange of information on the situation in Greece.
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