London Convention of 1827

signed by representatives of the governments of Russia, Great Britain, and France on July 6 during the Greek National Liberation Revolution of 1821-29.

Great Britain and France concluded the London Convention in order to weaken the influence of Russia, which was interested in establishing friendly states in the Balkans; for this purpose Russia aided the liberation struggle of the Greeks. The convention provided for collective action by the three powers to induce Turkey to cease military action against the Greeks and to grant Greece autonomy on the condition that an annual tribute be paid to the sultan.

A secret clause of the convention, included at Russia’s insistence, contemplated, in the event of the sultan’s refusal, closer ties between the signatory nations and the Greeks (the establishing of consulates in the most important Greek cities and the simultaneous recall of the ambassadors of the powers from Constantinople); if these measures were to prove insufficient, the convention provided for the uniting of naval squadrons of the three countries in the Mediterranean Sea in order to prevent the expansion of military action between the Greeks and Turkey and to establish a truce between the parties. The sultan rejected the proposals of the powers; an immediate result of this was the battle of Navarino, which led to the destruction of the Turkish-Egyptian Navy by the combined squadrons of the three powers.