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Revolt of the Greeks

At the Congress of Laibach, which had been adjourned in the spring of 1821, Alexander received news of the Greek revolt against the Ottoman Empire. From this time until his death, Alexander's mind was torn between his dreams of a stable confederation of Europe and his traditional mission as leader of the Orthodox crusade against the Ottomans. At first, under the careful advice of Metternich, Alexander chose the former.

Siding against the Greek revolt for the sake of stability in the region, Alexander expelled its leader Alexander Ypsilantis from the Russian Imperial Cavalry, and directed his foreign minister, Ioannis Kapodistrias (known as Giovanni, Count Capo d'Istria), himself a Greek, to disavow any Russian sympathy with Ypsilantis; and in 1822, he issued orders that a deputation from the Greek Morea province to the Congress of Verona be turned back on the road.

He made some effort to reconcile his loyalties. The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II had been excluded from the Holy Alliance under the principle that the affairs of the East were the "domestic concerns of Russia" rather than of the concert of Europe; but Alexander now offered to surrender this claim and act in the East as "the mandatory of Europe", as Austria had acted in Naples, and so march as a Christian liberator into the Ottoman Empire.

Metternich opposed this, putting the Austrian-led balance of power (including the Ottoman Empire) above the interests of Christendom. This opened Alexander's eyes to the Austria's true attitude towards his ideals. Back in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, he was once again moved by the aspirations of his people, and Russian policy swung toward the Greek cause.

In 1823 the 1817–1824 cholera pandemic reached Astrakhan, and the Tsar ordered an anti- cholera campaign that was imitated in other countries.