Greek Wars

Mary Shelley's The Last Man imagines a remote future in which the Mediterranean region, Greece and the Levant, is still a site of international conflict, as it was when Shelley wrote. In 1820, the Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, leading in 1821 to the War of Independence that lasted for nearly a decade. In 1827, European allies (including Great Britain) who had earlier supported Turkish forces intervened on behalf of Greece. In 1830 the "London Protocol" negated the new Greek constitution and established Greece as a united kingdom under European protection. After a period of civil wars, King Otto I was crowned in 1832.

Mary Shelley supported Greece in its early struggle for independence and knew personally one of its prominent leaders, Prince Mavrocordato.

Like Byron, on whom he is largely modeled, Lord Raymond goes to Greece to fight as a volunteer leader.