Metternich visited the Ottoman Empire once before the outbreak of the war, in order to understand the current state of the country and to assess the outcome of the war.

Metternich discovered that the dignitaries and dignitaries of the Ottoman Empire, in order to show their openness and proficiency in European etiquette, had contempted their own Muslim customs, drank champagne, played cards, and danced with European ladies. Metternich was taken aback. Metternich argues that reform was necessary in the Ottoman Empire due to a deep social crisis, but that the problems of the Ottoman Empire were not only reflected in the technological inferiority to the West, but also in the general degeneration and decline of the entire society.

Privilege prevailed under Mahmud II, and while reforms were introduced, extravagance and waste in Ottoman society continued unabated. At the same time as the reforms were carried out, Sultan himself was engaged in a large construction project, building a new palace, the Dormabahcher Palace. The palace is luxurious, in the French style, with some of the furnishings and décor in the palace imitating the Palace of Versailles.

There are demonstrations of the court, and European-style furniture and daily necessities are placed in the homes of dignitaries and wealthy citizens. Merchants, aristocrats, and celebrities moved out of their old city residences and into Italian-style villas along the Bosphorus. In the big cities of the Ottoman Empire, many French-style parks were built. French and Italian opera, music and performances are popular in cities such as Istanbul. How Westerners consume and enjoy themselves, the dignitaries and wealthy merchants of the Ottoman Empire are not lagging behind.

All this shows that the top leaders of the Ottoman Empire have cleared the ideological obstacles to reform, and they have begun to admire the West from the heart, and there is no contempt for the West, and this admiration will allow them to learn Western culture and ideas without hindrance.

But institutionally, reform has been a mere manifestation. According to the reforms of Mahmud II, the most powerful figures in the empire under the Sudan were the Grand Vizi, the commander-in-chief of the army, and the Muslim Grand Imam. The Grand Vizi changed his name to the Prime Minister, but with much less power than the Prime Minister, and the ministers were called Ministers, began to wear uniform dresses and had their own offices. Officials and service personnel at all levels also wore neat Western-style clothing and went in and out of formal occasions. However, the traditional habits and styles, ways of doing things, hierarchies and privileges of the bureaucracy have remained unchanged.

After the administrative reform, the efficiency of work has not been significantly improved, and the promotion of officials relies on the old methods, and Su Dan has full control over the appointment and dismissal. Western-style clear powers and responsibilities have not been implemented in the imperial government, the political system of the empire has not changed, and the big problems that need to be solved have not been touched.

One can't help but wonder whether the Sultan's motives for reform are for the sake of strengthening the country or his own power. Including in the use of people, he also made great use of power, not to put the most suitable people in the most suitable positions, but to let loyal people in the power department.

In the Balkans, Mahmud II extorted the power of the nobility through power tricks. When a dignitary died, his position was not taken over by the sons of the nobility, but to new officials from Istanbul, and the deceased's heirs were placed to serve elsewhere in order to sever the old power ties. Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria were all brought under the effective control of the imperial government in this way. As soon as this approach fails to achieve the goal, force is used. In Anatolia, the methods that had worked well in the Balkans were also used, both soft and hard, dividing and disintegrating, dividing the territories of the dead dignitaries into smaller regions, thus weakening local powers.

He also frequently changed the positions of officials, making it difficult for officials to develop lasting prestige in their own jurisdictions; The promotion of lower-level officials and the entrustment of them to control the military or key administrative departments are not aimed at actually replacing the old bureaucrats with these new talents. After achieving their goal of attacking the elites, these upstarts were quickly dismissed from their posts and even exiled, and their political opponents were promoted to replace them. In this way, those magnates who lost their prestige after being struck quickly became dependent and loyal to the Sultan.

Through these initiatives, politically, Mahmoud reorganized the ruling class of the empire into three parts: the imperial administrative and civilian class, which included scribes, clerical workers, etc., and the officer class, and the religious class.

On the military front, Mahmud II's main move was to purge the Janisseri army and create a new army called the Victorious Army of Mohammed. Increase the authority of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army to assume the position of Commander-in-Chief of Muhammad's Victorious Army, making him superior to all army commanders. The Office of the Military Inspector General was abolished and replaced with a civilian assistant in charge of munitions affairs. The financial power of the military director was transferred to the Imperial treasury. Mahmud II incorporated the other armies, along with the arsenals, munitions, etc., into the "Victorious Army of Muhammad".

The Department of Instruction and the Department of Quartermaster have also been established in the management of the army, and the Navy Department remains an independent body. Previously, there was also a military inspector in charge of munitions, and after the reform, a civilian official was appointed to act as a deputy to the commander of the navy. In order to meet the needs of military spending, every effort should be made to standardize the military financial system. Efforts have been made to control military revenues and expenditures and to establish a military expenditure supervision department responsible for controlling military expenditures. The Supervision Department is directly responsible for the supply of military salaries, rations, and uniforms, while the General Headquarters only performs military-technical functions. Although the Navy is independent of the control of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the supply of munitions is also the responsibility of the Ministry of Military Expenditure. The military treasury actually became the largest treasury of the empire, as all kinds of revenues (along with poll taxes, sheep taxes, etc.) were transferred to the military treasury. The military treasury became a central component of the state treasury, providing ample financial support for the army.

The reform of the top echelons of the army and the creation of new institutions, the reorganization and renewal of equipment of different units. The establishment and size of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and the number of troops all changed, as did the salaries and equipment of the camps. However, the training of many units could not keep up. Moreover, the tactics learned by the officers were too old, and they were never trained in a more professional way.

Except for the implementation of the principle of loyalty to the Sudan, the new army has changed very little, and there are many factions within the officer group to compete for power; The positions of senior officers are reserved for the privileged; Officers are seldom promoted on the basis of actual military merit, and military power is still in the hands of ignorant and incompetent; Schools for training officers are always in the planning process and have not been established; From the perspective of the composition of the officer group, it is mainly the people installed by courtiers, high-ranking officials, and dignitaries, and it is still a system of distributing fat among the powerful; The group of officers soon became the new privileged class, who enjoyed high treatment, were favored, and had privileges. The new army became only an instrument of Mahmud II's rule, not a modern national army.

This did not solve the fundamental problem of increased combat effectiveness, but rather greatly strengthened the power of the Sultan by holding all the armies in his hands.

There are also some economic reforms, such as directly returning the power of taxation to the central government, breaking down trade barriers between regions, and promoting the establishment of a unified market, but these measures will not be reflected in the short term.

When he saw the army and officials in European uniforms, who still ruled the country according to the old ways, Metternich assessed that the most serious mistake of Mahmoud II's new policy was to focus too much on the surface and form, and ignore the essence; His reform measures are many, but their concrete implementation is limited; It would have been a different outcome if he had been able to turn these measures into a way suited to the characteristics of his own people.

However, when the war broke out, Metternich still judged that the Ottoman Empire would win, because there was only one Greece at that time, and when the Manchu Empire entered the war, Metternich still could not judge the victory or defeat of the war, because the Manchu Empire was organized according to another form, and the highly politicized system was completely different from that of Europe, so that Metternich could not judge the true strength of such a country.

When Egypt entered the war, Metternich was certain that the Ottoman Empire would be defeated.

Things went according to these trends, and the Ottoman Empire, which was attacked by the emerging Egypt, was overwhelmed and had no choice but to give in. The submission of the Ottomans caused a huge geopolitical impact, even affecting the Austrian Empire. Again, this was something that Metternich had not expected.

Forced to make concessions, Metternich quickly made a visit to Greece in order to reformulate his foreign policy towards Greece, and he needed to get a feel for the country as a country.

What he saw in this country made him even more worried.

With the completion of the territorial settlement, King Zhou's prestige for success reached its peak and was worshipped as a hero. He personally led the army to accept the territory handed over by the Ottoman Empire, and by the way, he used the army in his hand to purge the local forces. The main method was to transfer a large number of local elite officials to other places, to reorganize the army under their control, and to suppress those who did not obey immediately, and the army he cultivated in the war to be absolutely loyal to the king did not play a much role in the war, but played a major role in the suppression of the local powerful faction.

The purges were mainly aimed at the newly acquired region of South Macedonia, an agricultural region comparable to the Thessaly region, with a population of more than 200,000, which greatly complemented the population of Greece that had been reduced by the war.

The size of the country and the number of people are not a concern for Austria, because Greece is not of the same order of magnitude as the Austrian Empire in terms of land and population, and the population of Greece is only a little more than a million in the lower Macedonian plain, and the population of the Austrian Empire is more than 20 million.

What worries Metternich is that the national consciousness of the Greeks is beginning to be highly condensed, and the Greeks were previously a highly fragmented concept, whose basic characteristics were that they spoke Greek and believed in Orthodox Christianity, and that the Greeks referred more to a cultural community than to a national community. Not mixed with modern concepts such as nation and bloodline, the war brought the Greeks together like never before.

After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Greeks on the Greek Peninsula immigrated in large numbers, and two waves of immigration arose. The first was the migration of the Greek intellectual class to Western Europe, which inspired the Renaissance. Second, some of the Greeks left the plains and took refuge in the mountains. Since Greece was a mountainous country, and the Ottomans never succeeded in establishing their military or administrative presence in the mountains, the Ottomans never completely conquered Greece in this sense.

Communities on the Greek mainland and islands who refused to submit to Ottoman rule began to form secret societies, such as those found on Crete, in Epirus, and in the mountains of the Peloponnese. From the end of the 16th century to the 17th century, as Ottoman rule became more relaxed, many Greeks began to move from the mountains back to the plains.

However, due to this migration, Greece was emptied, and the Slavs and Macedonians from the north moved south in large numbers to integrate with the indigenous people of Greece. Therefore, after independence, the national composition of Greece was very complex.

Even many of the ethnic groups that participated in the revolution of independence were not actually identified with by the Greeks, who regarded them as outsiders; This was the case for example, with the Alvin tribe from Epirus and the Arromunites from Macedonia. The Alvin tribe is a mixture of Macedonians, Greek aborigines, and Slavs, and has accepted Greek culture and speaks Greek dialects. The Arromonians and Romanians are actually members of the same clan, and both speak the same Greek dialect.

In Orthodox culture, ancient Greece does not refer to the ideas that Westerners have begun to admire, such as freedom and democracy, but to barbaric cultures such as polytheism, superstition and fornication. The pure Greeks of the Peloponnese, who called themselves Romans, were in the context of people with Roman citizenship and people from other regions as barbarians.

But now these Greek communities speaking different dialects are beginning to unite under the same banner of the king, proudly calling themselves Greeks.

Metternich found that through a brutal war, a modern Greek nation was formed.

The Greek nation, if formed, was only a small nation, and the point was that they were united under the banner of the king, which would have an attraction and centripetal force for the Greek-speaking peoples of other regions, and apart from the Ottoman Empire, the largest number of Greek-speaking peoples lived in the Austrian Empire.

Metternich hoped that the Greek king could redefine the Greek nation as a people living on the Greek peninsula, rather than all Greek-speaking peoples; But King Zhou successfully refused, declaring that Greece is not only the spiritual home of all Greeks, but also the material home of all Greeks, that Greece is open to all Greeks, and that the Kingdom of Greece has no right to prevent any Greek from returning to their homeland as long as they are willing to return to their homeland!

Metternich was worried about the ambitions of the Greek kings, especially this one, and it seems that he didn't just want to be the king of Greece, he wanted to be the king of the Greeks.