As the Ottoman Empire weakened in the 18th century, the Sultan gradually lost grip on the Balkans. His efforts to modernise the Ottoman State with his Tanzimat movement of the mid 19th century was too little too late. A Russia fomented Orlof-rebellion in the Southern Peloponnesos had failed in 1770 but half a century later Greek freedom fighters started roaring again, in 1821. Assisted by foreign volunteers like Lord Byron, they managed to liberate the country from centuries of Turkish-Ottoman occupation, first in the Peloponnesos, then gradually moving North, to Attica, Athens and Thessaly. In 1830 an independent Greek Kingdom was constituted with a territory of what is now, roughly, Central Greece and the Peloponnesos. The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 added the North and a number of Aegean islands to the country' territory. The islands of the Dodekanisos were only integrated into Greece after the Italian defeat in the Second World War. Visiting a folklore museum, one sometimes wonders how the people of this country have managed to preserve culture and genuine folk customs and art throughout the turbulent history of post-Byzantine and Modern times.