In January 1824 Russia send a memorandum to the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire for the settlement of the Greek cause. According to this memorial, known as the three-part plan, three autonomous Greek states under the regime of principality would be created. These small states were to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire, which would maintain some security but with restricted authority. The territory of one of the principalities would comprise Thessaly and east-central Greece; the second would be composed of Epirus and west-central Greece; while a third, the Peloponnese and Crete. Finally, the Russian memorial referred to the expansion of the communal administration of the Aegean Islands. The suggested regulation referred to the legal regime of the Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Walachia), which allowed Russian intervention and thus provoked tension in relations with the Ottoman Empire. Thus, despite the fact that the other Powers did not reject the plan they did not contribute to its promulgation. Nonetheless, the Russian memorial referred for the first time to the creation of independent Greek states while it also mentioned for the first time the possibility of military intervention of the Great Powers for the settlement of the Greek cause - which finally occurred after three and a half years at Navarino.

Two and a half years after the Russian memorial, in the middle of April 1826, the Greek question seemed to be diplomatically stagnant. Conversely, the situation in the fields of battle was quite different. Ibrahim controlled a great part of the Peloponnese while he contributed decisively to the fall of Missolonghi, which meant complete control of west-central Greece by the Ottomans. Despite the apparent diplomatic stagnation Russia and Great Britain had decided, each country for its own reasons, to take action. This action resulted in the signing of the Protocol of St. Petersburg on 4 April 1826. This protocol confirmed the intention of the two Powers to intervene between the Greek side and the Ottoman Empire to create an independent Greek state. The protocol was notified after several months, and France, Austria and Prussia were invited to participate in a conference to reach a final decision. This procedure, which tried the cohesion of the Holy Alliance, was accepted only by France.

In the summer of the next year and despite the fact that the Greek Revolution had virtually been restricted to certain regions of the Peloponnese and the islands of the Argo-Saronic Gulf after the fall of the Acropolis, France sided with Russia and Great Britain creating a new power combination in the field of European diplomacy. The result of this development was the signing of the Treaty of London on 6 July 1827. The terms of this treaty, which were just as vague as those of the Protocol of St. Petersburg, defined that the three Powers were obliged to use military force in order to make the two opposite sides conclude a truce and begin negotiations. This was the so-called secret supplementary article which legalized the sinking of the Egyptian fleet at Navarino by the Allied navy a few months later, in early October 1827.