Looking around for allies, the pasha established contact with the secret ‘Society of Friends’ founded in 1814 by Greek merchants and seeking ‘the liberation of the Motherland’. Its President, Alexander Ypsilantis (1792–1828), an officer in the Russian army, invaded the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia with a small force raised by the society, with the ultimate aim of provoking a war between Russia and Turkey that would liberate Greeks everywhere by destroying the Ottoman Empire.
