Editing Pylos (section)

=== The Naval Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827) ===
[[File:Navarin Garneray.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|''The Naval [[Battle of Navarino]]'', by [[Ambroise Louis Garneray]]]]A strong current of [[philhellenism]] had developed in Western Europe, especially after the fall in 1826 of Missolonghi, where the poet [[Lord Byron]] had died in 1824. Many artists and intellectuals like [[François-René de Chateaubriand|Chateaubriand]], [[Victor Hugo]], [[Alexander Pushkin]], [[Gioachino Rossini]], [[Hector Berlioz]] or [[Eugène Delacroix]] (in his paintings ''Scenes massacres of Scio'' in 1824, and ''Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi'' in 1826), amplified the current of sympathy for the Greek cause in the public opinion. By the [[Treaty of London (1827)|Treaty of London of July 1827]], France, Russia and the United Kingdom recognised the autonomy of Greece, which remained a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The three powers agreed to a limited intervention in order to convince the [[Ottoman Porte|Porte]] to accept the terms of the convention. A plan to send a naval expedition as a demonstration of force was proposed and adopted; subsequently a fleet of 27 warships of the allied navies of [[British Empire|United Kingdom]], [[Kingdom of France|France]] and [[Russian Empire|Russia]] was sent to exert diplomatic pressure against Constantinople.<ref name=":7" /> It included twelve British ships (for 456 guns), seven French ships (352 guns) and eight Russian ships (490 guns), for a total firepower of nearly 1,300 guns. The [[Battle of Navarino]] (20 October 1827) resulted in the total destruction of the combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleet (around 60 warships destroyed).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Woodhouse |first=Christopher Montague |title=The Battle of Navarino |publisher=Hodder and Stoughton, London |year=1965}}</ref><ref>Eugène Bogdanovitch, ''La Bataille de Navarin d'après des documents inédits des archives impériales russes.'', G. Charpentier, E. Fasquelle, Paris, 1897.</ref>

An obelisk-shaped memorial dedicated to the victory of the Allied fleets and their three admirals, the British [[Edward Codrington]], the French [[Henri de Rigny]] and the Russian [[Lodewijk van Heiden]] was later erected on the central square of Pylos. The monument was the work of the sculptor Thomas Thomopoulos (1873–1937) and its unveiling took place in 1930, although it was completed in 1933.<ref>https://web-greece.gr/destinations/pylos-messinia/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200926151659/https://web-greece.gr/destinations/pylos-messinia/ |date=2020-09-26 }} (in greek)</ref>