Danube front

The Balkan volunteers were barely formed when the Russian army, under the threat of an Austrian attack, was forced to evacuate the Danubian Principalities in July 1854.^[11] According to the Russian historian E. Kovalesky, a small detachment of 25 local Greeks recruited by Chrysovergis is reported to have inflicted 78 casualties on a British landing detachment at Sulina in early June, before departing without losses. Chrysovergis, in his own account, places the incident against Cossacks fighting for the Ottomans.^[11][12] Some volunteers under Papadoukas also fought in the battle between Soymonov's troops and an Ottoman army at Giurgiu on 5–6 July.^[11] Finally, the 3rd company of the 2nd battalion (under Sterios Harisis) fought at the village of Cherna in October 1854, losing almost 100 of its men.^[13]

The retreat of the Russian forces north of the Danube reduced the usefulness of the various Balkan volunteers, and the costs of their upkeep led to suggestions of disbanding them and incorporating those who wished to stay on into regular Russian units.^[11] Indeed, most of the Moldavians and Wallachians left, and their two battalions were disbanded; but most of the two battalions of Bulgarians and Serbs stayed on, as did virtually all (1045 of 1079) of the Greeks.^[14]

Given the impossibility of the volunteers returning to their homelands under the conditions of war—especially as, unlike the Serbs and Bulgarians, most of the Greek volunteers had come by sea rather than overland—their inability to survive otherwise in a foreign and largely hostile country, and their potential usefulness against a feared Austrian attack, it was decided to retain the volunteers' services at reduced pay.^[15] Furthermore, the volunteer battalions were disbanded and their individual companies attached to Russian units. At least some of the Greeks were discharged, for by September only 672 men are recorded on the rolls; the battalions were broken up into six companies, which were then attached to the regiments of the 5th Infantry Division: Stamatis Karamadis' company to the 25th Smolensk Infantry Regiment [ru]; Nikolaos Karaiskos' to the 26th Mogilev Infantry Regiment [ru]; Dimitrios Tandalidis' to the 27th Vitebsk Infantry Regiment [ru]; and Sterios Harisis' and Aristeidis Chrysovergis' companies (later amalgamated to a single company under Chrysovergis) to the 28th Polotsk Infantry Regiment [ru]. Papadoukas' company was attached to the 5th Division's Rifles battalion.^[15]

Nevertheless, the Russian commanders were still seeking for a suitable employment for the volunteers, especially as their lack of discipline often forced the regular Russian troops to intervene to maintain order among them.^[16] Gorchakov again dismissed suggestions that they be disbanded, but stressed that his decision was mainly to ensure that they would not starve to death.^[16]

Crimea and Sevastopol

At this point, the thoughts of both the Russian command and the Greek volunteers increasingly turned to the Crimea, where British, French, and Ottoman forces had landed. Already in September, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia suggested attaching them to the extant Greek Battalion of Balaklava, while the Greeks also sent a stream of letters to the Russian commanders pleading to be moved to Crimea and gainfully employed there.^[16] General Alexander von Lüders supported their wish, and suggested that after the end of the war, the Greeks might be settled in the Crimea. It appears that this suggestion found a favourable reception with the Emperor, since the Greeks could replace the Crimean Tatars who had surrendered to the allied forces.^[17]

On 5 January [O.S. 24 December] 1855, the five companies of Greek volunteers, numbering 823 men, left Izmail for Odessa, where they arrived twelve days later. The Odessa Greek community collected funds for their upkeep, and the corps was reinforced with new recruits, in large part from those volunteers who had been discharged in 1854, but also with new arrivals.^[18] There were hopes that as many as 500–600 new recruits could be gathered, and Captain Antonios Gines was appointed as recruiting agent. Gines made his base at Kishinev, where he was to gather the recruits and, after careful selection, send them on to the Crimea in groups of sixty. The volunteers were to be promised the right to settle in the Crimea after the war.^[19]

In early February, the Greek Legion, some 700 strong, arrived at Eupatoria in the Crimea.^[20] At this time, a member of the princely Phanariote Mourouzis family who had followed the Russian withdrawal from Moldavia to Bessarabia, was appointed as commander of the Greek Legion.^[20] The Legion fought in the Battle of Eupatoria on 17 February, which ended in a Russian defeat, the Greeks suffering about sixty casualties.^[21] In the aftermath of the battle, the Legion was sent into Sevastopol to reinforce the garrison during the siege of the city. They arrived in early March, with a complement of 823 men.^[20]

Prince Pavel Aleksandrovich Urusov [ru], appointed the Legion's provisional commander until the arrival of Mourouzis, was dismayed at the disorderly picture the Legion presented:

"There exists neither discipline nor any organization. The volunteers absent themselves from distant hospitals and arrive here without any document whatever; the other ranks do not obey the officers; the company commanders, of whom no responsibility is sought, are only in formal command of the companies".^[22]

Urusov made recommendations for instilling discipline by means of a formal organization of the Legion; Mourouzis and the Sevastopol garrison's chief of staff, Prince Viktor Ilarionovich Vasilchikov [ru] were tasked with drawing up a draft.^[22] The attempts to regularize the Greek Legion included the insistence, by Mourouzis and many officers, that the Greeks abandon the fustanella and adopt uniforms that were similar to the Russian ones; a suggestion vehemently opposed by Chrysovergis.^[23] It was also recommended that the volunteers be rearmed; they were good marksmen, but armed mostly with flintlocks whose ammunition would be difficult to come by in the besieged city.^[22]

Following the death of Emperor Nicholas I on 2 March [O.S. 18 February] 1855, the Legion received the name "Greek Legion of Emperor Nicholas I" (Russian: Греческий легион императора Николая I).^[23] The Greeks suffered in Sevastopol, especially from the typhus that broke out in February: of the 743 men on the lists in late March, almost 200 were hospitalized. According to Chrysovergis, 96 died of typhus.^[24] The hardships and disease, as well as the realization that the hoped-for liberation of the Balkans from Ottoman rule was receding into the distant future, also demoralized many volunteers; about a hundred resigned.^[23]

In early April, the Greeks were withdrawn from the city itself to the environs, where Prince Mourouzis tried to improve the corps' discipline and training, and give it a more regular character. The Legion was divided in two commands, one headed by Papadoukas and the other by Chrysovergis.^[23] In May, Chrysovergis with thirty men were again sent into Sevastopol, to replace a contingent of Plastuns.^[23] In an engagement against the French in July, Chrysovergis distinguished himself enough to be decorated and placed in charge of a part of the Russian line at Maly Kurgan.^[25]

Following the end of the siege and the Russian retreat, followed by the start of the diplomatic talks that ended the war, the Greek Legion was superfluous. In November, after another incident of unruliness in the corps, Mourouzis was replaced by Grigorios Kantakouzinos. Kantakouzinos again tried to impose discipline, and get the volunteers to accept the regulations. However, only 150 men under Papathanasopoulos—an officer held in high esteem by Chrysovergis, but completely unmentioned in the Russian sources—stayed on, while the rest refused to obey and were discharged.^[25] The former volunteers mostly headed for Bessarabia, where they tried to eke out an existence until the war's end. Although again they were helped by the Odessa Greek community, many of them were soon in dire straits. According to the historian Maria Todorova,

"the files of the Russian war ministry are full of pleas by Greeks and Bulgarians from the beginning of 1856 who, left penniless, begged for a job or assistance".^[25]