A free, if undefined, Greek state is established by the spring of 1828.

Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias, elected president of the fledgling state by the Assembly of Troezene convened by the insurgents in May 1827, takes up the post in May 1828.

Kapodistrias had enjoyed a long and fruitful career in the foreign service of the Russian Empire, at one point holding the rank of privy councilor to Tsar Alexander I.

Because he had not been associated with any Greek faction during the war for independence and because the Great Powers know and trust him, Kapodistrias seems an ideal choice as president at this crucial juncture.

He faces enormous problems, however.

Hostilities continue with the Ottoman Empire, which has not given up hopes of maintaining control of Greece.

Within Greece, political factions continue to control what amount to private armies.

On his arrival, Kapodistrias launches a major reform and modernization program that covers all areas.

He reestablishes military unity, ending the second phase of the civil war, and reorganizes the military, which is then able to reconquer territory lost to the Ottoman military during the civil wars.

He introduces the first modern quarantine system in Greece, which brings epidemics like typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery under control for the first time since the start of the War of Independence.

He negotiates with the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire the borders and the degree of independence of the Greek state and signs the peace treaty that ends the War of Independence with the Ottomans.

He introduces the phoenix, the first modern Greek currency, organizes local administration, and, in an effort to raise the living standards of the population, introduces the cultivation of the potato into Greece.