This "Bavarocracy" (Βαυαροκρατία), coupled with the huge expenses involved in maintaining the Bavarians, provoked great resentment among the Greeks, and was one of the chief causes of the 3 September 1843 Revolution.

[7] According to the Greek military historian Andreas Kastanis, the treaty contained "basic omissions" in terms of the corps' recruitment: First, the complete lack of a provision for engineering troops, which were an absolute necessity in war-ravaged and under-developed Greece.

On board the British frigate Madagascar, Otto joined the troop convoy at Corfu, but it took further two weeks of sailing through heavy weather before the fleet of 43 ships arrived at the Greek capital of Nafplion on 30 January 1833.

Furthermore, in their efforts to quickly transform Greece into a European-style state, the regency did not examine the conditions objectively, but tried to directly import European norms and regulations, which were often inappropriate for the war-ravaged and destitute country, and completely failed to take into account the sensibilities of the local population.

The regency was particularly suspicious of the irregular soldiers who had fought the War of Independence, and failed to either recompense them with the public lands captured from the Turks, as promised, nor to provide them with employ by taking them into the army.

[13] Per the terms of the Greco-Bavarian treaty, the Auxiliary Corps was to be an independent formation, not to be mixed or combined with native Greek units, and subject to Bavarian military law, rather than the French regulations followed in Greece.

[2][14] As a result, the separation of the Bavarian and Greek troops was disregarded, and on 6 February 1834, by Royal Decree, the relevant article in the treaty was modified unilaterally, with the Auxiliary Corps becoming a part of the Hellenic Army.

While the stated purpose of this arrangement was to promote the training of the Greek units, in reality this was a measure designed to ensure absolute control of the army by the Bavarians.

[2] This "Bavarocracy" (Βαυαροκρατία), both in the army and the civil administration, quickly became a source of resentment among the Greeks, and was a major rallying cry of political opposition to the regency, and later to Otto himself.

3,345 were Bavarians, 1,440 from minor German states, 235 Swiss, 186 Prussians, 135 Austrians, 23 French, 19 Danes, 10 Russians, 6 Italians, 3 Swedes, 2 British, 1 each from Holland, Spain, and Belgium, and even 3 Turks.

[18] Many of these volunteers were disappointed by the realities they found in Greece, which matched neither the romantic expectations current in Europe nor the often excessive promises made by recruiting agents.

This was a typical example of Bavarian insensitivity to local peculiarities: where the regency saw in these buildings only a dangerous military asset that might be used to challenge its authority, to the Maniots these were their homes, whose destruction without recompense would leave them destitute.

[18] Unable to make headway, the regency was forced to issue a general amnesty to calm the situation,[18] and negotiate terms: the Maniots were promised subsidies, respect for the privileges of Orthodox monasteries, and non-interference in their affairs.

The upshot of the affair was that the government ended up pouring into Mani twice the sums that it received from it in taxes, and that the myth of the Bavarians' invincibility was broken, severely tarnishing the regency's prestige and authority and encouraging future revolts.

[27] In the assessment of the Austrian ambassador, Anton von Prokesch-Osten, "the foreign auxiliary troops cost money, without doing much", while the "insistence on European clothing and armament in the army have removed the most usable people from military service and made them into disgruntled men".

[18] In 1841, when Otto was finally forced to call upon a Greek politician, Alexandros Mavrokordatos, to become Prime Minister, the latter demanded that the Bavarians be removed from their commanding positions, and that a process of replacement of the remaining volunteers be begun.

Most of the volunteers were low-ranking soldiers or even simple artisans, who in Greece found themselves promoted to officers; many of the recruits were adventurers, while others were the dregs of society in their home countries.

According to newspaper accounts from 1842, of the remaining Bavarian officers at the time, only the four technicians in the Nafplion arsenal, and a single captain of the Engineers were absolutely necessary due to their technical skills.

So great was the financial burden, that France refused to provide guarantees for the third installment of the 60,000,000-franc loan stipulated in the Treaty of London, unless the Bavarian army left the country.

During World War II, Heinrich Himmler, who learned of the German origin of many Irakliotes, came in person to the area and took measures to ensure their comfort amidst the Great Famine.