The struggle was a bitter one. The sultan was atrocious in his cruelties. In the island of Chios alone he brutally murdered 20,000 Greeks, But the spirit of the old Athenians and Spartans was in the people, and they kept on fighting in the face of defeat. For four years this went on, while the powers of Europe looked on without raising a hand. Some of their people indeed took part, among them Lord Byron, who died in Greece in 1824; but the governments failed to warm up to their duty. Their apathy vanished in 1825, when the sultan, growing weary of the struggle, and bent on bringing it to a rapid end, called in the aid of his powerful vassal, Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt. Mehemed responded by sending a strong army under his son Ibrahim, who landed in the Morea (the ancient Peloponnesus), where he treated the people with shocking cruelty. [=The Powers Come to the Rescue of Greece=] A year of this was as much as Christian Europe could stand. England first aroused herself. Canning, the English prime minister, persuaded Nicholas, who had just succeeded Alexander as Czar of Russia, to join with him in stopping this horrible business. France also lent her aid, and the combined powers warned Ibrahim to cease his cruel work. On his refusal, the fleets of England and France attacked and annihilated the Turkish-Egyptian fleet in the battle of Navarino. The Sultan still hesitated, and the czar, impatient at the delay, declared war and invaded with his army the Turkish provinces on the Danube. The next year, 1829, the Russians crossed the Balkans and descended upon Constantinople. That city was in such imminent danger of capture that the obstinacy of the sultan completely disappeared and he humbly consented to all the demands of the powers. Servia, Moldavia and Wallachia, the chief provinces of the Balkan peninsula, were put under the rule of Christian governors, and the independence of Greece was fully acknowledged. Prince Otto of Bavaria was made king, and ruled until 1862. In Greece liberalism had conquered, but elsewhere in Europe the reaction established by the Congress of Vienna still held sway. [=The Spirit of Revolution=] The people merely bided their time. The good seed sown could not fail to bear fruit in its season. The spirit of revolution was in the air, and any attempt to rob the people of the degree of liberty which they enjoyed was very likely to precipitate a revolt against the tyranny of courts and kings. It came at length in France, that country the ripest among the nations for revolution. Louis XVIII., an easy, good-natured old soul, of kindly disposition towards the people, passed from life in 1824, and was succeeded by his brother, Count of Artois, as Charles X. [=Charles X. and His Attempt at Despotism=]