The Royal Bavarian Auxiliary Corps (, ) was a military force formed in 1832 to accompany the Bavarian prince Otto to the newly independent Kingdom of Greece, after he was chosen as the country's first king. As part of the treaty provisions of Otto's accession, a Bavarian-staffed volunteer military corps was to be formed to replace the forces maintained there by the Great Powers—chiefly the French troops of the Morea Expedition—as well as the remnants of the Greek forces organized during the Greek War of Independence, and provide cadres and training for the new Hellenic Army.
Because not enough volunteers could be found in time, regular Bavarian Army troops formed much of the actual corps that arrived with Otto in Greece in early 1833. The Bavarian Army regulars were gradually replaced by volunteers until 1834. These came chiefly from Bavaria, but also included men from diverse nations, and often of non-military background. Most of the Bavarians left by 1837, but many remained behind, dominating the Greek army and the administration. This "Bavarocracy" (Βαυαροκρατία), coupled with the huge expenses involved in maintaining the Bavarians, provoked great resentment among the Greeks, and was one of the chief causes of the 3 September 1843 Revolution.
Background
Article 14 of the 1832 Treaty of London, where Britain, France, and Russia, agreed on the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece, under the Bavarian prince Otto, stipulated that Otto's father, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, would recruit a force of up to 3,500 soldiers, at the expense of the Greek treasury, to replace the allied troops (i.e., the French expeditionary corps). The latter would remain under the disposition of the King of Greece until the arrival of the Bavarian troops. In Article 15, the King of Bavaria promised to supply Bavarian officers for the establishment of a national army in Greece.
The Philhellene professor Friedrich Thiersch and Colonel Carl Wilhelm von Heideck, who had served in Greece under Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias and was now a member of Otto's regency council, reported on the situation in Greece to King Ludwig. Following the assassination of Kapodistrias in 1831, Greece was in near-constant civil war. The regular and irregular military forces organized by Kapodistrias were practically dissolved, but many thousands of their members retained their weapons and lived off the countryside. The Bavarians distrusted the irregular fighters who had fought the civil war, and wanted to avoid being drawn into the local factional struggles. Therefore, it was decided early on that Otto's new regime could rely solely on the Bavarian troops, who would enforce the new government's policies. To that end, all Greek military formations, chiefly composed of irregulars, would be disbanded, and Greeks were to be excluded from all senior positions in the administration and the military.
Formation and arrival in Greece
The expeditionary corps was formed following a convention concluded on 1 November 1832 between Karl von Abel, one of the three members of the projected regency for the underage Otto, on behalf of Greece and Philippe de Flad on behalf of the Kingdom of Bavaria.
The convention's 27 articles stipulated that the expeditionary corps of 3,500 men would be composed of staff, four infantry battalions, six cavalry companies, four artillery companies, and a technician company. The corps was to be composed of volunteers, but until these could be recruited, regular Bavarian Army troops would be provided; half of the corps were to stay in Greece for two years, and the rest for four; the mission of the Auxiliary Corps was slated to end on 1 January 1837. The costs for the maintenance of the corps were set at 50,000 florins annually, to be covered by the Greek government. Officers and adjutants were to receive pay equivalent to one rank above their own.
According to the Greek military historian Andreas Kastanis, the treaty contained "basic omissions" in terms of the corps' recruitment: First, the complete lack of a provision for engineering troops, which were an absolute necessity in war-ravaged and under-developed Greece. Indeed, for most of the 19th century the main occupation of Greek military engineers was building basic infrastructure across the country. Second, no formal requirements were placed for the Bavarian volunteers, and third, no requirements were placed for the Bavarian officers sent to oversee the training and organization of the nascent Hellenic Army.
Preparations for Otto's departure were confused, and little headway was made in the recruitment of the Auxiliary Corps before Otto was due to set out for Greece. As a result, King Ludwig was obliged to initially fill its ranks with troops seconded from the Bavarian Army: of the 3,582 men sent to Greece, about half were Bavarian Army regulars and the rest volunteers. The Bavarian Army units formed two combined regiments (one from 1st Battalion/ and 2nd Battalion/, and the other from 1st Battalion/ and 2nd Battalion/), two light cavalry squadrons and eight field guns, under Brigade General Friedrich von Hertling. The Auxiliary Corps set out for embarkation at Trieste, while Otto left Munich on 6 December 1832 for Brindisi. On board the British frigate Madagascar, Otto joined the troop convoy at Corfu, but it took further two weeks of sailing through heavy weather before the fleet of 43 ships arrived at the Greek capital of Nafplion on 30 January 1833.
Service in Greece Arrival of the corps and the Bavarocracy
The regency council that led the government during Otto's minority quickly became extremely unpopular. Following King Ludwig's instructions, they disregarded Greek demands for a constitution and ruled the country autocratically. Furthermore, in their efforts to quickly transform Greece into a European-style state, the regency did not examine the conditions objectively, but tried to directly import European norms and regulations, which were often inappropriate for the war-ravaged and destitute country, and completely failed to take into account the sensibilities of the local population. The regency was particularly suspicious of the irregular soldiers who had fought the War of Independence, and failed to either recompense them with the public lands captured from the Turks, as promised, nor to provide them with employ by taking them into the army. This led to them turning to brigandage, both in Greece and across the border into the Ottoman territories.
Per the terms of the Greco-Bavarian treaty, the Auxiliary Corps was to be an independent formation, not to be mixed or combined with native Greek units, and subject to Bavarian military law, rather than the French regulations followed in Greece. However, in its efforts to reduce the country to obedience and establish order, as well as to minimize the influence of the Greek factions and Westernize the country as fast as possible, the regency could only rely on foreign, chiefly Bavarian officials, and on the bayonets of the Bavarian troops. As a result, the separation of the Bavarian and Greek troops was disregarded, and on 6 February 1834, by Royal Decree, the relevant article in the treaty was modified unilaterally, with the Auxiliary Corps becoming a part of the Hellenic Army. Two companies in each infantry battalion, as well as in the single cavalry regiment and artillery battalion, were to be manned exclusively by Bavarians. While the stated purpose of this arrangement was to promote the training of the Greek units, in reality this was a measure designed to ensure absolute control of the army by the Bavarians.
Likewise, all senior military positions were given to Bavarians or other foreigners: Wilhelm von Le Suire became Minister for Military Affairs; Inspector-General of the Army; Anton Zäch head of the Engineers; Ludwig von Lüder head of the Artillery; the French Philhellene head of the Gendarmerie; and the British Philhellene Thomas Gordon chief of the General Staff. The Bavarians, moreover, remained subject to their own military regulations, received higher salaries, and swifter promotions, setting themselves further apart from their Greek colleagues. In contrast, similar measures to concentrate command authority in the hands of foreigners were not undertaken in the navy, which on its own could not challenge the regime.
This "Bavarocracy" (), both in the army and the civil administration, quickly became a source of resentment among the Greeks, and was a major rallying cry of political opposition to the regency, and later to Otto himself. The exorbitant costs of the Auxiliary Corps became a particular point of contention, particularly since, by 1834, its strength reached 5,000 men, well above the provisions of the treaty.
Life of the Bavarian troops in Greece
Most of the Bavarian Army regulars left Greece after a year, and were replaced by volunteers. Between 1832 and 1835, 5,410 volunteers were recruited for the Corps. 3,345 were Bavarians, 1,440 from minor German states, 235 Swiss, 186 Prussians, 135 Austrians, 23 French, 19 Danes, 10 Russians, 6 Italians, 3 Swedes, 2 British, 1 each from Holland, Spain, and Belgium, and even 3 Turks.
Many of these volunteers were disappointed by the realities they found in Greece, which matched neither the romantic expectations current in Europe nor the often excessive promises made by recruiting agents. Service in Greece was unpopular, and considered almost a death sentence: half of the volunteers died in Greece from disease. Bavarian Army personnel, especially officers, sometimes had to be effectively cajoled by their superiors into signing up.
Life in Greece also proved to be too expensive for the Bavarians, who were accustomed to comforts alien to the Greeks and unobtainable in Greece except at great cost. Furthermore, the divides of religion and language also meant that few of them were able to find Greek wives. In the Athenian suburb of Iraklio, founded as a Bavarian military colony, the local Catholic pastor had to function as match-maker, bringing in a boatload of Catholic girls from Syros to secure the colony's continued existence.
Maniot uprising of 1834