This was the problem created by the slow collapse of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire. Turkey's weakness became apparent in a series of wars with Russia in the late 18th cent. The British feared that, if the Turkish empire broke up, Russian power would threaten the British empire in India. The Crimean War of 1854-6, in which Britain, France, and Turkey fought Russia, was the result of miscalculations, arising from France and Russia's over-vigorous championing of the rights of Turkey's catholic and orthodox Christians respectively, and Britain's fears that Russia wished to seize Constantinople (Istanbul). Nationalist feelings in the Balkans grew and the problem flared up again in the 1870s. The Bosnians rose in 1875, followed by the Bulgarians in 1876. Russia declared war on Turkey but the other powers thought the treaty of San Stefano (1877) too favourable to Russia and amended it at the Congress of Berlin (1878). European opinion wavered over the next 30 years between the comparative stability provided by the Ottoman empire and the volatility of the emerging Balkan states. It can be argued that the Eastern Question caused the First World War. Austria angered Serbia by annexing Bosnia in 1908. Russia helped to organize the Balkan League of Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Greece, which went to war with Turkey in 1912. Militarily they were successful but then fought between themselves. The situation was still unstable when the heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in 1914. The Austrians blamed the Serbs: Russia backed them. War followed within weeks.
Eastern Question
| British History: Eastern Question |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia: Eastern Question |
In the 18th cent., France supported the Turks against Russia and Austria. The Eastern Question came into sharp focus during the reign of Czarina Catherine II with the first two of the Russo-Turkish Wars (1768-74, 1787-92), when Russia, in alliance with Austria, planned the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople was the chief prize coveted by Russia, which lacked an adequate warm-water outlet to the sea. These designs aroused alarm in Prussia and, more especially, in Great Britain, which saw its dominance in the Mediterranean threatened by Russian ambitions. (Later it was the strategic importance of the Suez Canal that most concerned Britain.) The formation of a diplomatic alliance by Great Britain, Prussia, and the Netherlands and the Austrian defeats at the hands of the Turks offset Russian successes; yet the first stage of the struggle, terminating with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), left Russia with a foothold on the north shore of the Black Sea.
During the Napoleonic era, when attention shifted elsewhere, Russia, after another war with Turkey, again secured favorable terms in the Treaty of Bucharest (1812). Russian conquests against Persia and in the Caucasus were confirmed in the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmanchai (1828). These developments and the outbreak of national aspirations among the oppressed peoples of the Balkans again made the Eastern Question a major European problem. The Holy Alliance was committed to defending the territorial integrity of Turkey, but the rival imperialistic interests of the Great Powers, each of which hoped to profit from Ottoman disintegration, soon caused the abandonment of this principle.
In the Greek War of Independence (1821-30), both England and Russia assisted the Greek insurgents, each trying to impose its influence on the newly formed state. The Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, connected with the Greek war, ended successfully for Russia (see Adrianople, Treaty of), but the subsequent Russian assistance to Turkey against Muhammad Ali of Egypt, followed by a Russo-Turkish alliance (1833), greatly disquieted Britain and France. Still, the five Great Powers (Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) acted in concert in the final settlement of the Egyptian question, and a treaty signed (1840) in London offered international guarantees of the Ottoman Empire's integrity.
In 1853, however, rivalry among Britain, France, and Russia brought on the Crimean War. The treaty that ended it (see Paris, Congress of) attempted to deprive Russia of pretexts for intervention, to check Russia's naval power on the Black Sea, and to place the empire under international protection. By this time, Turkey had become the "sick man of Europe," and its disintegration could not be arrested.
Events in Bosnia and Herzegovina once more led to a Russo-Turkish War (1877-78); the Treaty of San Stefano was so favorable to Russia that Britain went to the verge of war to compel a revision. The Congress of Berlin (see Berlin, Congress of) revised the Treaty of San Stefano-a setback for Russian influence-but it created fresh problems. The new Balkan states, dissatisfied with their borders, turned to individual great powers to back their claims.
Austria, allied with Russia in the late 18th cent., had come to fear Russian influence in the Balkans; after its defeat by Prussia in 1866, it had joined in an alliance with Germany (see Triple Alliance and Triple Entente). Germany, which had assumed the role of "honest broker" at the Congress of Berlin, became increasingly interested in extending its influence over the Ottoman Empire. The German-Austrian Drang nach Osten [drive to the East] policy became manifest in the reorganization of the Turkish army by German officers, the construction of Baghdad Railway, the crisis over Morocco, and the Austrian annexation (1908) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russian Pan-Slavism in the Balkans and the almost total disappearance of European Turkey in the Balkan Wars caused Turkey to seek German and Austrian support and to join the Central Powers after the outbreak of World War I. The war destroyed the Ottoman Empire and closed the old Eastern Question, but the problem of maintaining stability in the area once ruled by the empire remained.
Bibliography
See M. S. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774-1923 (1966); A. J. Toynbee, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (1970); D. Djordjevic and S. Fischer-Galati, The Balkan Revolutionary Tradition (1981).
| Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia: Eastern Question |
A concept coined in the initial stage of the Greek War of Independence (1821 - 1829) to describe the territorial effect of the political decline of the Ottoman Empire on great-power diplomacy in Europe.
In the seventeenth century the Ottoman Empire, at its greatest extent, sprawled across southeast Europe (Hungary included), southwest Asia, and northern Africa (Morocco excluded). The weakening of the sultan's power began in the last decade of the reign of Sultan Süleyman (1520 - 1566). Europe, however, remained paralyzed by religious wars until the Peace of Westphalia (1648), and the Sublime Porte (the Ottoman imperial government) did not admit its growing frailty vis-à-vis Europe until the end of the seventeenth century. Only then did it negotiate treaties and other international acts, chiefly with the great powers of Europe. In the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), for the first time, the sultan ceded large tracts in Christian Europe - in this instance to Austria and Poland - which were never recovered.
For a century longer, Ottoman military might was still respected on the Continent. Tsar Peter I (1682 - 1725), the first European monarch to send troops into Ottoman Asia, occupied the Sea of Azov and its Crimean rim in 1696, only to lose the short-lived conquest along with a claim to power over the Black Sea after a disastrous defeat (1711) at the Prut River (later in Romania). The Ottoman recapture of the Crimea's Tatar khanates was ratified in 1713, in the Treaty of Edirne (Adrianople). That delayed for six decades - until Catherine II (1762 - 1796), after a six-year war with Turkey - Russia's taking the first solid step toward establishing itself as a Black Sea power through the treaty of Kuçuk Kaynarca (1774), which detached the khanates from the sultan's realm by declaring them independent. Russia did not annex them until nine years later. Finally in 1792, after four more years of war, the Sublime Porte, in the treaty of peace at Jassy, the capital of the Ottoman province of Moldavia (later part of Romania), at last acknowledged this segment of the Black Sea coast as Russian. The victories set in motion Ottoman territorial attrition in southwest Asia; it spread to North Africa in 1830, when France began its conquest of Algeria.
Europe's expansion into the Ottoman Empire at times appeared to consist of predators rushing as far and as fast as they could, paying no heed to the risks of collision. Such a judgment, however, belies the realities. Contenders for the same or overlapping districts were sensitive to one another's interests. Avoidance of conflict became the name of the game as early as the Congress of Vienna (1814 - 1815). At the end of the Congress the conveners - Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia - styled themselves the Concert of Europe to act as a permanent executive for settling all their disputes by conference or consensual diplomacy.
In 1818, at Aachen, the four powers admitted France to their ranks and promptly instructed the restored Bourbon monarchy to join Britain, as the Concert's sole maritime powers, in suppressing the institutionalized piracy in the western Mediterranean, carried out by the sultan's autonomous ocaklar (garrisons) or provinces of Tripoli (Libya), Tunis, and Algiers. A dozen years elapsed before the Barbary garrisons of the Ottoman Maghrib were finally put out of the piracy business.
Only once between 1815 and 1914 did the great powers resort to war over a dispute arising from the Eastern Question. In that case Britain, France, and Russia were the Concert's belligerents in the Crimean War (1854 - 1856); Austria served as mediator, and Prussia stayed aloof. The entry of the Kingdom of Sardinia, alongside Britain and France, as allies of the Sublime Porte against Russia served, in effect, as its application for membership in the Concert. Having led the Risorgimento for the political unification of the city-states in the Italian peninsula after 1848, Sardinia provided the monarchs following the emergence in 1861 of the kingdom of Italy, which was promptly made a member of the Concert.
The great-power contest for ownership or denial of the sultan's strategic realm reflects the pace and the modes of Europe's expansion into Asia and Africa. The Ottoman Empire spanned the heart of the eastern hemisphere by joining its three continents. The desire to control the Turkish Straits, which separate Asia and Europe while linking the Black and Mediterranean Seas, became a fixed, if also thwarted, aim of Russia after 1774. The Black Sea remained closed to Russia's naval power while the tsardom was exposed to possible attack by hostile maritime powers, as occurred in the Crimean War.
Similarly, on occupying Egypt in 1798, Napoléon declared, in the name of France, his intention to construct and own a manmade waterway from the Mediterranean's landlocked southeast corner to the Red Sea. By cutting across Asia and Africa, such a canal would reduce the distance (and the time) of uninterrupted travel from western Europe, notably from Britain and France, to India by two-thirds, and by lesser amounts to all points along the African and Asian shores of the Indian Ocean.
Given the challenge of two rivals, the cautious shaping by Britain, as the world's foremost maritime and naval power, of its own strategy to deny Russia and France a naval presence on the Mediterranean's eastern littorals was remarkable.
As the decades passed, Saint Petersburg's aspiration became an obsession. In preparation for the expected takeover of the Turkish Straits, Russia continued swallowing Ottoman property that circled the Black Sea in both Europe and Asia, in the latter from the Crimea through the Caucasus; the last bit was the adjacent corner of Anatolia in 1878. To support the quest for the Turkish Straits even before the Crimean War, Russia established precedents to assert its right to protect the sultan's Orthodox subjects in Anatolia and Syria (including Lebanon and Palestine). In 1856, the Islahat Fermani (Reform Edict) of Sultan Abdülmecit I (1839 - 1861), reinforced by Article 9 of the Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War, briefly interrupted, but did not end, the Russian practice.
Meanwhile, over Britain's resolute opposition, French investors in the late 1850s launched the Suez Canal Company, which in 1869 completed the waterway. Backed by the government of France, these entrepreneurs also preempted Britain's moves to take control of the company's policy-framing executive before and after Britain's occupation of Ottoman Egypt in 1882. By 1914 Algeria and Tunisia were part of France's empire, although the Sublime Porte withheld formal recognition of the protectorate in Tunisia. Of the surviving Ottoman provinces in Asia, France's interest centered on Lebanon and Syria from 1860 on. After a lapse of about a century, France in the 1840s had revived earlier treaty rights to custody of papal institutions and their members, covering affiliated eastern Uniate churches as well as Roman Catholicism. Finally, the financial community of France bankrolled railway, harbor, and other concessions in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine and became the dominant shareholder in the Ottoman Imperial Bank, the Ottoman Empire's official agent.
But above all, the overseers of Britain's empire saw the shrinking Islamic state as both a continuing barrier and an unfolding passage to India. In both functions, the Ottoman Empire had grown into a major asset for Britain. Little wonder that, under Britain's persistent lead, the Concert of Europe in 1840 began nearly four decades as guarantor of the integrity of Ottoman Asia and Africa. The chosen formula was that of a self-denying protocol, first used in the Concert's convention of 1840 for "the Pacification of the Levant," which stated that "in the execution of the engagements resulting to the Contracting Powers from the . . . Convention, those Powers will seek no augmentation of territory, no exclusive influence, no commercial advantage for their subjects, which those of every other nation may not equally obtain." Even France, which had upheld Egypt in the crisis, rejoined the Concert in 1841.
Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, the strategy's author, saw in Egypt's threats to the Osmanli dynasty's survival (1831 - 1833, 1839) a threat to the British Empire. With the appearance of the steamship in the 1820s, Britain belatedly discovered what the East India Company had begun learning under sail more than half a century earlier: that through the sultan's realm there ran developing routes of communication and transportation between the métropole and the empire in India. In the regional contest of the 1830s, Russia backed the sultan, and France, the viceroy. The main problem, in Palmerston's diagnosis, was to keep Russia and France apart, for if they joined forces, Britain would suffer along with the Osmanli dynasty. Palmerston preferred a weak Ottoman Empire to a powerful Egypt. He thus responded favorably in 1839 and 1840 to the tsar's proposal for joint military intervention, with the cooperation of the Sublime Porte, to contain an ominous threat to the survival of the Ottoman Empire posed by Muhammad Ali, the viceroy of Egypt, backed by France. Austria and Prussia adhered to this plan of action.
France returned to the fold in 1841, as part of the settlement of the regional crisis. It reduced Muhammad Ali from quasi independence to Ottoman vassalage, but only upon his being recognized as the founder of a hereditary provincial dynasty with full domestic autonomy (though subject to Ottoman control of Egypt's foreign policy). "[A]ll the Treaties concluded and to be concluded between my Sublime Porte and the friendly Powers," read the Sultan's ferman, "shall be completely executed in the Province of Egypt likewise." This clause immediately imposed on Egypt the Porte's obligations to Britain, France, and the Netherlands to change the basis of Ottoman foreign commerce from protection to free trade. That deprived Muhammad Ali of the assured revenues from his commercial and industrial monopolies and put an early end to his integrated program of economic and military modernization. Those steps reduced the innovative, self-made, ambitious governor to manageable size. Later they enabled Palmerston, as foreign minister and prime minister, to delay for a dozen years execution of Egypt's grant of a ninety-nine year concession to a national of France to build and operate the Suez Canal.
In 1840 and 1841 the Concert had thus created a subsidiary system expressly to defuse crises in Europe arising from the rivalry over the Middle East (and North Africa) portions of the sultan's realm. For nearly forty years the great powers, with the Sublime Porte taking part and Britain playing the balancer in alternating alliances with Russia against France or the reverse, met five times - in London (1840 - 1841, 1871), Paris (1856, 1860 - 1861), and Berlin (1878) - and framed obligatory guidelines on policies toward the Ottoman Empire. Military occupation without time limit, commonly unilateral, was denied legitimacy; formal protectorates were legitimated by the powers, not by the Sublime Porte (in the end by the Turkish Republic); direct annexation was invariably solemnized by formal agreement with Constantinople. All three practices rested on general usage under (Western) international law.
Other styles of Europe's imperialism were particular to the Eastern Question. In the economic sphere the practices derived from the capitulations (nonreciprocal commercial treaties that the Porte had concluded with Europe's governments from the fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries), assured Western residents unilateral extraterritorial privileges. They and their enterprises - banks, railroads, harbors, the Suez Canal - were immune from sultanic and provincial laws and taxes, and subject only to those of home governments. To such built-in dominance by Europe over key developmental aspects of the Ottoman economy was added guardianship of selected religious communities, with Russia and France the leading practitioners. The prevalence in the same districts of resident missionaries and their many charitable, medical, and educational, as well as religious, institutions attested to this.
Strategy apart, Britain's most valuable interest was commerce. As the sole industrializing nation from the last third of the eighteenth century through the Napoleonic wars, Britain speedily moved into first place in the foreign trade of the Ottoman Empire. By 1850, the Porte had become Britain's third-best customer. Britain clung to its commercial lead up to the outbreak of World War I. Financial investment by British nationals lagged far behind. The quest for oil in Ottoman Arab Asia quickened only when the Anglo - Persian Oil Company discovered commercial quantities in Persia in 1908, too late for the find to become practicable before the outbreak of war six years later. Still, the oil potential of the vilayet (province) of Mosul riveted the attention, during World War I and afterward, of Britain's companies and their bureaucratic supporters on the Sublime Porte's promise of a concession, in June 1914, to the Turkish Petroleum Company, a non-operating international consortium of British, Dutch, and German interests registered in London.
Meanwhile, Italy, upon its unification in 1861, promptly entered the fray. After losing a bid for Tunisia in Berlin in 1878, Italy finally occupied Libya and the Dodecanese Islands in a lackluster war with the Ottoman Empire (1911 - 1912). One of Italy's primary aims in entering the war in 1915 was to legalize the titles to both and, if possible, enlarge its imperial holdings.
Upon replacing Continent-centered Prussia in 1871, unified Germany was the final entrant into the competition. Otto von Bismarck moved into the role vacated by Benjamin Disraeli. Germany centered its regional activity after 1882 on serving as military and naval adviser and supplier to Sultan Abdülhamit II (1876 - 1909). And from 1903, German entrepreneurs, with their government's encouragement and protection, sponsored the building of the Baghdad Railroad to link Europe, across Anatolia through the vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, to the head of the Persian Gulf, with Ottoman assurances of privileged investment rights along the way.
Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1882 helped draw Russia and France together, binding them twelve years later in a formal alliance. In all this time and for a decade longer, France kept urging Britain to fix a date for leaving Egypt, while Britain refused to ratify the 1888 Suez Canal Convention until France accepted, for the duration of the occupation, Britain's exercise of the supervisory powers of the projected international commission. Finally the two quarrelers signed an entente cordiale in 1904 that rested on a trade: Britain's responsibility for the canal's security by occupation in return for France's creating a protectorate in Morocco. Before the year's end, the Concert ratified the amended convention that implied approval of Britain's military presence in Egypt. Finally, Britain and Russia reduced irritants in their relations in the Ottoman Empire by reaching an accord on Iran, Afghanistan, and Tibet in 1907.
The three bilateral instruments underlay the formation of the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and Russia) on the outbreak of war in 1914 against the Central Powers (Germany and Austria). For the first time, the Sublime Porte, which entered World War I in November 1914 as an ally of the Central Powers, placed itself simultaneously at war with the three countries that had territorial scores to settle with the sultan - Britain in Egypt (and Sudan), France in Tunisia, and Russia at the Turkish Straits. The secret accords of the Entente powers (the Constantinople Agreement of 1915 and the Sykes - Picot Agreement of 1916) proposed assigning the Turkish Straits and eastern Anatolia to Russia, parceling the Fertile Crescent (later Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Transjordan) under variable terms among the three allies, and declaring the Arabian Peninsula a British sphere of influence.
In April 1915, Italy associated itself with the Entente for the express aim of legitimizing its occupation of Libya and the Dodecanese Islands. Two years later, after the overthrow of the tsarist regime, Italy concluded a separate agreement (treaty of Saint-Jean de Maurienne) with Britain and France, to become a party to the Entente plans for sharing in the Ottoman spoils; to the Sykes - Picot arrangement were added zones for Italy's administration and influence in southern and western Anatolia. But the instrument never won the requisite assent from the Bolshevik regime, which seized power in the fall of 1917. After the war the unratified draft did not deter Italy from trying - but failing - to anchor itself in Anatolia.
Meanwhile, the secret correspondence of Sir Henry McMahon (Britain's high commissioner for Egypt) with Sharif Husayn ibn Ali of Mecca (the Ottoman governor of the province of Hijaz) served as the basis for mounting an Arab rebellion against the sultan. Clearly, Britain perceived McMahon's exchanges with Husayn, which were started and finished (July 1915 - March 1916) before the Sykes - Picot negotiations (December 1915 - April 1916), as a solidifying step in the Arabian Peninsula. They agreed on mutual military commitments but left unsettled their political differences that gave rise to bitter Anglo - Arab quarrels. The later conflicting Anglo - French - Arab claims in the Fertile Crescent were compounded by the Balfour Declaration: Britain's secret understanding with the Zionists and public declaration of sympathy for the formation in Palestine of a Jewish national home. This was the price that Britain's government had to pay for finally acquiring an exclusive mandatory presence in Palestine in defense of the Suez Canal.
The Eastern Question thus was not resolved until the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the empire's formal dissolution in 1922, and the peace treaty of Lausanne - the only such settlement negotiated but not imposed after that war - that the Entente and associated powers signed with the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and ratified a year later. Even then, Turkey's nationalist regime at Ankara contested the proposed transfer of two territorial slivers, losing one (the vilayet of Mosul to Iraq) in 1926 but winning the other (the return to Turkey by France, as mandatory of Syria, of the sanjak [provincial district] of Alexandretta) in 1939. In between, at Turkey's insistence, in the Montreux Convention of 1936, the naval signatories of the Treaty of Lausanne restored to the Republic of Turkey full sovereignty over the Turkish Straits by dissolving the International Straits Commission.
Bibliography
Anderson, M. S. The Eastern Question, 1774 - 1923: A Study inInternational Relations. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's, 1966.
Hurewitz, J. C. The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics:A Documentary Record, 2d edition. 2 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975 - 1979.
Marriott, J. A. R. The Eastern Question: An Historical Study inEuropean Diplomacy, 4th edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.
— J. C. HUREWITZ
| Wikipedia: Eastern Question |
The "Eastern Question", in European history, encompasses the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. The expression does not apply to any one particular problem, but instead includes a variety of issues raised during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including instability in the European territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
The Eastern Question is normally dated to 1774, when the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 ended in defeat for the Ottomans. As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was believed to be imminent, the European powers engaged in a power struggle to safeguard their military, strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. Imperial Russia stood to benefit from the decline of the Ottoman Empire; on the other hand, Austria and the United Kingdom deemed the preservation of the Empire to be in their best interests. The Eastern Question was put to rest after World War I, one of whose outcomes was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
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Background
The Eastern Question emerged as the power of the Ottoman Empire began to decline during the 17th century. The Ottomans were at the height of their power in 1683, when they lost the Battle of Vienna to Austria. Peace was made much later, in 1699, with the Treaty of Karlowitz, which forced the Ottoman Empire to cede many of its Central European possessions, including Hungary. Its westward expansion arrested, the Ottoman Empire never again posed a serious threat to Austria, which became the dominant power in its region of Europe.
The Eastern Question did not truly develop until the Russo-Turkish Wars of the 18th century. The first of the wars, which began in 1768, ended in 1774 with the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji. The treaty was interpreted as permitting Russia to act as the protector of Orthodox Christians under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan, and established Russia as a major Black Sea power. Another Russo-Turkish conflict began in 1787. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II, entered into an alliance with the Austrian ruler, the Emperor Joseph II; the two agreed to partition the Ottoman Empire between their respective nations, thereby alarming many European powers, especially the United Kingdom, France, and Prussia. Austria was forced to withdraw from the war in 1791. In the ensuing Treaty of Jassy (1792), Russia's dominance of the Black Sea grew.
During the early 19th century, the positions of the Great Powers on the Ottoman Empire became clear. Russia was the power most directly concerned with the Eastern Question. She was primarily concerned with control of the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean (especially by acquiring the important port of Constantinople). Russia was especially eager to secure navigation rights for her merchant vessels and warships while denying similar privileges to other European powers. Another more or less important Russian interest was the protection of the many Orthodox Christians in the territories of the Ottoman Empire, given that Russia was the foremost Orthodox world power. Constantinople's status as the home of the most important patriarchate in Orthodoxy added to the Russian desire to possess it.
Austria was most directly opposed to the Russian designs on the Ottoman Empire. Though the Austrian House of Habsburg was the foremost opponent of the Ottomans in prior centuries, Austria deemed the Ottoman threat to be much less serious than a Russian advance along the Danube River. Austria also feared that the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire into several nation states would foster the sentiment of nationalism among the many ethnic groups in her own Empire. Thus, Austria made it one of her primary goals to maintain the unity of the Ottoman Empire.
Similarly, Britain saw the containment of the Russian Empire as vital to the security of British colonial possessions in India (seen also in the prosecution of the Great Game in Afghanistan). It was also concerned that Russian control of the Bosporus could impede British domination of the eastern Mediterranean, including the Suez Canal. The UK was also concerned with the preservation of the traditional global balance of power, which would have been upset by the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Napoleonic Era
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the attention of Europe was captured by Napoleon Bonaparte. To secure his own domination and to render the rest of Europe virtually powerless, Napoleon established an alliance with Russia by concluding the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. Russia undertook to aid Napoleon in his war against the United Kingdom; in turn, the Emperor of Russia would receive the Ottoman territories of Moldavia and Wallachia. If the Sultan refused to surrender these territories, France and Russia were to attack the Empire, and the Ottoman domains in Europe were to be partitioned between the two allies. The Napoleonic scheme threatened not only the Sultan, but also the United Kingdom, Austria and Prussia, which was almost powerless in the face of such a potent alliance. The alliance naturally proved incommoding to the Austrians, who hoped that a joint Franco-Russian attack, which would probably have utterly devastated the Ottoman Empire, could be prevented by diplomacy; but if diplomatic measures failed, the Austrian minister Klemens, Fürst von Metternich decided that he would support the partition of the Ottoman Empire—a solution disadvantageous to Austria, but not as dangerous as a complete Russian takeover of Southeastern Europe.
An attack on the Empire, however, did not come to pass, and the alliance concluded at Tilsit was dissolved by Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. Following Napoleon's defeat by the Great Powers in 1815, representatives of the victors met at the Congress of Vienna, but failed to take any action relating to the territorial integrity of the decaying Ottoman Empire. This omission, together with the exclusion of the Sultan from the Holy Alliance, was interpreted by many as supportive of the position that the Eastern Question was a Russian domestic issue that did not concern any other European nations.
Serbian revolution
Serbian revolution or Revolutionary Serbia refers to the national and social revolution of the Serbian people between 1804 and 1815, during which Serbia managed to fully emancipate from the Ottoman Empire and exist as a sovereign European nation-state, and a latter period (1815-1833), marked by intense negotiations between Belgrade and Ottoman Empire. The term was invented by a famous German historian Leopold von Ranke in his book Die Serbische Revolution, published in 1829.[1] These events marked the foundation of modern Serbia.[2] While the first phase of the revolution (1804-1815) was in fact a war of independence, the second phase (1815-1833) resulted in official recognition of a suzerain Serbian state by the Porte, thus bringing the revolution to its end.[3] The above mentioned time frame covers several phases of the revolution:First Serbian Uprising (1804–13), led by Karađorđe Petrović; Hadži Prodan's revolt (1814);Second Serbian Uprising (1815) under Miloš Obrenović, followed by the official recognition of the Serbian state (1815-1833) by the Porte.
The Proclamation[4] (1809) by Karadjordje in the capital Belgrade represented the peak of the revolution. It called for unity of the Serbian nation, emphasising the importance of freedom of religion, Serbian history and rule of law- all of which Ottoman Empire couldn't- or has denied to provide, being a non-secular Muslim state.[4] It also called on Serbs to stop paying taxes to the Porte because they were based on religious affiliation.
The ultimate result of the uprisings was Serbia's suzerainty from the Ottoman Empire. Principality of Serbia was established, governed by its own Parliament, Government, Constitution and its own royal dynasty.[5] Social element of the revolution was achieved through introduction of the bourgeois society values in Serbia,[6] which is why it was considered the world's easternmost bourgeois revolt,[7] which culminated with the abolition of feudalism in 1806- just 15 years after the French revolution.[8] First constitution in the Balkans and its oldest university- Belgrade's Great Academy (1808) added to the achievements of the young Serb state.[9] By 1833, Serbia was officially recognized as a tributary to the Porte and as such, ackgnowledged as a hereditary monarchy. De jure independence of the Principality was internationally recognized during the second half of the 19th century.
Greek Revolt
The Eastern Question once again became a major European issue when the Greeks declared independence from the Sultan in 1821. It was at about this time that the phrase "Eastern Question" was coined. Ever since the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, there had been rumours that the Emperor of Russia sought to invade the Ottoman Empire, and the Greek Revolt seemed to make an invasion even more likely. The British foreign minister, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, as well as the Austrian foreign minister, Metternich, counselled the Emperor of Russia, Alexander I, not to enter the war. Instead, they pleaded that he maintain the Concert of Europe (the spirit of broad collaboration in Europe which had persisted since Napoleon's defeat). A desire for peaceful co-operation was also held by Alexander I, who had founded the Holy Alliance. Rather than immediately putting the Eastern Question to rest by aiding the Greeks and attacking the Ottomans, Alexander wavered, ultimately failing to take any decisive action.
Alexander's death in 1825 brought Nicholas I to the Imperial Throne of Russia. Deciding that he would no longer tolerate negotiations and conferences, he chose to intervene in Greece. The United Kingdom also soon became involved, interested in imposing its will on a newly formed Greek state in part to prevent it becoming a wholly Russian vassal. The spirit of Romanticism that then dominated Western European cultural life also made support for Greek independence politically viable. France too aligned itself with the Greeks, but Austria (still worried about Russian expansion) did not. Outraged by the interference of the Great Powers, the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmud II, denounced Russia as an enemy of Islam, prompting Russia to declare war in 1828. An alarmed Austria sought to form an anti-Russian coalition, but its attempts were in vain.
As the war continued into 1829, Russia gained a firm advantage over the Ottoman Empire. By prolonging hostilities further, however, Russia would have invited Austria to enter the war against her and would have resulted in considerable suspicion in the United Kingdom. Therefore, for the Russians to continue with the war in hopes of destroying the Ottoman Empire would have been inexpedient. At this stage, the King of France, Charles X, proposed the partition of the Ottoman Empire amongst Austria, Russia and others, but his scheme was presented too belatedly to produce a result.
Thus, Russia was able to secure neither a decisive defeat nor a partition of the Ottoman Empire. She chose, however, to adopt the policy of degrading the Ottoman Empire to a mere dependency. In 1829, the Emperor of Russia concluded the Treaty of Adrianople with the Sultan; his empire was granted additional territory along the Black Sea, Russian commercial vessels were granted access to the Dardanelles, and the commercial rights of Russians in the Ottoman Empire were enhanced. The Greek War of Independence was terminated shortly thereafter, as Greece was granted independence by the Treaty of Constantinople in 1832.
Mehmet Ali
Just as the Greek Revolt was coming to an end, a conflict broke out in the Ottoman Empire between the Sultan and his nominal viceroy in Egypt, Mehmet Ali. The modern and well trained Egyptians looked as though they could conquer the entire empire. The Tsar of Russia, in keeping with his policy of reducing the Ottoman Sultan to a petty vassal, offered to form an alliance with the Sultan. In 1833, the two rulers negotiated the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, in which Russia achieved the aim of securing complete dominance over the Ottomans. The Russians undertook to protect the Empire from external attacks; in turn, the Sultan pledged to close the Dardanelles to warships whenever Russia was at war. This provision of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi raised a problem known as the "Straits Question." The agreement provided for the closure of all warships, but many European statesmen mistakenly believed that the clause failed to restrict Russian vessels. The United Kingdom and France were angered by the misinterpreted clause; they also sought to contain Russian expansion. The two kingdoms, however, differed on the means of achieving their objective; the British wished to uphold the Sultan, but the French preferred to make Mehmet Ali (whom they saw as more competent) the ruler of the entire Ottoman Empire. Russian intervention led the Sultan to negotiate a peace with Mehmet Ali in 1833, but war broke out once again in 1839.
Sultan Mahmud II died in the same year, leaving the Ottoman Empire to his son, Abd-ul-Mejid I. The state of affairs at the time of the new Sultan's accession were extremely critical; the Ottoman army had been signally defeated by the forces of Mehmet Ali. Another disaster followed when the entire Turkish fleet was seized by the Egyptian insurgents. Great Britain and Russia now intervened to prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but France still continued to support Mehmet Ali. In 1840, however, the Great Powers agreed to compromise; Mehmet agreed to make a nominal act of submission to the Sultan, but was granted hereditary control of Egypt.
The only unresolved issue of the period was the Straits Question. In 1841, Russia consented to the abrogation of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi by accepting the London Straits Convention. The Great Powers — Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Austria and Prussia — agreed to the re-establishment of the "ancient rule" of the Ottoman Empire, which provided that the Turkish straits would be closed to all warships whatsoever, with the exception of the Sultan's allies during wartime. With the Straits Convention, the Russian Emperor Nicholas I abandoned the idea of reducing the Sultan to a state of dependence, and returned to the plan of partitioning Ottoman territories in Europe.
Thus, after the resolution of the Egyptian struggle which had begun in 1831, the weak Ottoman Empire was no longer wholly dependent on Russia. It was, however, not a truly independent state, for it relied on the Great Powers of Europe for protection. Attempts were made at internal reform, but they failed to terminate the decline of the once great Empire. By the 1840s, the Ottoman Empire had become the "sick man of Europe," and its eventual dissolution appeared inevitable.
Revolutions of 1848
The Great Powers having reached a compromise to end the revolt of Mehmet Ali, the Eastern Question lay dormant for approximately a decade until revived by the Revolutions of 1848. Though Russia could have seized the opportunity to attack the Ottoman Empire—France and Austria were at the time occupied by their own insurrections—she chose not to do so. The Emperor Nicholas instead committed his troops to the defence of Austria, deeming that the goodwill established in the process would allow him to seize Ottoman possessions in Europe at a later date.
After the Austrian Revolution was suppressed, an Austro-Russian war against the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent. The Emperors of both Austria and Russia demanded that the Sultan return Austrian rebels who had sought asylum in the Empire, but met with refusal. The indignant monarchs withdrew their ambassadors to the Sublime Porte, threatening armed conflict. Almost immediately, however, the United Kingdom and France sent their fleets to protect the Ottoman Empire. The two Emperors, deeming military hostilities futile, withdrew their demands for the surrender of the fugitives.
Crimean War
A new conflict was ostensibly provoked during the 1850s by an obscure religious dispute. Under treaties negotiated during the eighteenth century, France was the guardian of Roman Catholics in the Ottoman Empire, whilst Russia was the protector of Orthodox Christians. For several years, however, Catholic and Orthodox monks had disputed possession of the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Palestine. During the early 1850s, the two sides made demands which the Sultan could not possibly satisfy simultaneously. In 1853, the Sultan adjudicated in favour of the French, despite the vehement protestations of the local Orthodox monks.
The Emperor Nicholas dispatched a diplomat, Prince Menshikov, on a special mission to the Porte. By previous treaties, the Sultan was committed "to protect the Christian religion and its Churches," but Menshikov attempted to negotiate a new treaty, under which Russia would be allowed to interfere whenever she deemed the Sultan's protection inadequate. At the same time, however, the British government sent Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, who learnt of Menshikov's demands upon arriving. Through skilful diplomacy, Lord Stratford convinced the Sultan to reject the treaty, which compromised the independence of the Ottomans. Shortly after he learnt of the failure of Menshikov's diplomacy, the Emperor Nicholas marched into Moldavia and Wallachia (Ottoman principalities in which Russia was acknowledged as a special guardian of the Orthodox Church), using the Sultan's failure to resolve the issue of the Holy Places as a pretext. The Emperor Nicholas I believed that the European powers would not object strongly to the annexation of a few neighbouring Ottoman provinces, especially given Russian involvement in suppressing the Revolutions of 1848.
When the Emperor sent his troops into Moldavia and Wallachia (the "Danubian Principalities"), the United Kingdom, seeking to maintain the security of the Ottoman Empire, sent a fleet to the Dardanelles, where it was joined by another fleet sent by France. At the same time, however, the European powers hoped for a diplomatic compromise. The representatives of the four neutral Great Powers—United Kingdom, France, Austria and Prussia—met in Vienna, where they drafted a note which they hoped would be acceptable to Russia and the Empire. The note met with the approval of the Emperor of Russia; it was, however, rejected by Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid I, who felt that the document's poor phrasing left it open to many different interpretations. The United Kingdom, France and Austria were united in proposing amendments to mollify the Sultan, but their suggestions were ignored in the Court of Saint Petersburg. The United Kingdom and France set aside the idea of continuing negotiations, but Austria and Prussia did not believe that the rejection of the proposed amendments justified the abandonment of the diplomatic process. The Sultan proceeded to war, his armies attacking the Russian army near the Danube. Nicholas responded by despatching warships, which destroyed the entire Ottoman fleet at Sinop on 30 November 1853, thereby making it possible for Russia to land and supply her forces on the Ottoman shores fairly easily. The destruction of the Ottoman fleet and the threat of Russian expansion alarmed both the United Kingdom and France, who stepped forth in defence of the Ottoman Empire. In 1854, after Russia ignored an Anglo-French ultimatum to withdraw from the Danubian Principalities, the United Kingdom and France declared war.
The Emperor Nicholas I presumed that Austria, in return for the support rendered during the Revolutions of 1848, would side with him, or at the very least remain neutral. Austria, however, felt threatened by the Russian troops in the nearby Danubian Principalities. When the United Kingdom and France demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Principalities, Austria supported them; and, though it did not immediately declare war on Russia, it refused to guarantee its neutrality. When, in the summer of 1854, Austria made another demand for the withdrawal of troops, Russia (fearing that Austria would enter the war) complied.
Though the original grounds for war were lost when Russia withdrew her troops from the Danubian Principalities, the United Kingdom and France failed to cease hostilities. Determined to address the Eastern Question by putting an end to the Russian threat to the Ottoman Empire, the allies proposed several conditions for the cessation of hostilities, including a demand that Russia was to give up her protectorate over the Danubian Principalities; secondly, she was to abandon any claim granting her the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs on the behalf of the Orthodox Christians; thirdly, the Straits Convention of 1841 was to be revised; and finally, all nations were to be granted access to the river Danube. As the Emperor refused to comply with the "Four Points," the Crimean War proceeded.
Peace negotiations began in 1856 under the Emperor Nicholas I's successor, Alexander II. Under the ensuing Treaty of Paris, the "Four Points" plan proposed earlier was largely adhered to; most notably, Russia's special privileges relating to the Danubian Principalities were transferred to the Great Powers as a group. In addition, warships of all nations were perpetually excluded from the Black Sea, once the home to a Russian fleet (which, however, had been destroyed in the course of the war). Furthermore, the Emperor of Russia and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the coast of that sea. The Black Sea clauses came at a tremendous disadvantage to Russia, for it greatly diminished the naval threat she posed to the Ottomans. Moreover, all the Great Powers pledged to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
The Treaty of Paris stood until 1871, when France was crushed by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War. Whilst Prussia and several other German states united to form a powerful German Empire, the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III, was deposed to permit the formation of a French Republic. During his reign (which had begun in 1852), the Emperor Napoleon, eager for the support of the United Kingdom, had opposed Russia over the Eastern Question. Russian interference in the Ottoman Empire, however, did not in any significant manner threaten the interests of France. Thus, France abandoned her opposition to the Emperor of Russia after the establishment of a Republic. Encouraged by the decision of the French, and supported by the German minister Otto, Fürst von Bismarck, Russia denounced the Black Sea clauses of the treaty agreed to in 1856. As the United Kingdom alone could not enforce the clauses, Russia once again established a fleet in the Black Sea.
Great Eastern Crisis
In 1875, the territory of Herzegovina rebelled against its ruler, the Sultan, in the now famous Herzegovinian rebellion, which led to insurrection in the Province of Bosnia as well as in Bulgaria. The Great Powers believed that their intervention was necessary, lest a disastrous and bloody war break out in the Balkans. The first to act were the members of the League of the Three Emperors (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia), whose common attitude toward the Eastern Question was embodied in the Andrassy Note (named for the Hungarian diplomat Julius, Count Andrassy). The Note, seeking to avoid a widespread conflagration in Southeastern Europe, urged the Sultan to institute various reforms, including one granting religious liberty to Christians. A joint commission of Christians and Muslims was to be established to ensure the enactment of the appropriate reforms. With the approval of the United Kingdom and France, the Note was submitted to the Sultan, whose agreement was secured on 31 January 1876. The Herzegovinian leaders, however, rejected the proposal, pointing out that the Sultan had already made promises to institute reforms but had failed to fulfill them.
Representatives of the Three Emperors met once again in Berlin, where they approved the Berlin Memorandum. To convince the Herzegovinians that the Sultan would indeed keep his promises, the Memorandum suggested that international representatives be allowed to oversee the institution of reforms in the rebelling provinces. Before the Memorandum could be approved by the Porte, the Ottoman Empire was convulsed by internal strife, which led to the deposition of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz. The new Sultan, Murad V, was himself deposed three months later due to his mental instability, bringing Abd-ul-Hamid II to power. In the meantime, the hardships of the Ottomans had increased; their treasury was empty, and they faced an insurrection not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria (the so-called April uprising). Still, the Ottoman Empire managed to crush the insurgents in August 1876. The result incommoded Russia, which had planned to take possession of various Ottoman territories in Southeastern Europe in the course of the conflict.
After the uprising was largely suppressed, however, rumours of Ottoman atrocities against the rebellious population shocked European sensibilities. Russia now intended to enter the war on the side of the rebels, for she hoped to take advantage of the situation to acquire some of the Ottoman possessions in Southeastern Europe. A further attempt for peace was made by delegates of the Great Powers (who now numbered six due to the rise of Italy) assembled for a conference in Constantinople. The Sultan, however, refused to compromise his independence by allowing international representatives to oversee the institution of reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1877, the Great Powers once again attempted to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire, but their proposals continued to meet with rejection.
Russia declared war on 24 April 1877. Her chancellor Prince Gorchakov had effectively purchased Austrian neutrality with the Reichstadt Agreement, under which Ottoman territories captured in the course of the war would be partitioned between the Russian and Austria-Hungarian Empires, with the latter obtaining Bosnia and Herzegovina. The United Kingdom, though still fearing the Russian threat to British dominance in Southern Asia, did not involve herself in the conflict. However, when Russia threatened to secure Constantinople, Disraeli urged Austria and Germany to ally with him against this tyrannical war aim. As a result, Russia sued for peace through the Treaty of San Stefano, which imposed harsh terms: the Empire was to grant independence to Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro; to grant autonomy to Bulgaria; to institute reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and to cede the Dobruja and parts of Armenia to Russia, which would also be paid an enormous indemnity. As Russia could dominate the newly independent states, her influence in Southeastern Europe was greatly increased by the Treaty of San Stefano. Due to the insistence of the Great Powers (especially the United Kingdom), the treaty was heavily revised at the Congress of Berlin so as to reduce the great advantages acquired by Russia.
The Treaty of Berlin adjusted the boundaries of the newly independent states in the Empire's favour. Furthermore, Bulgaria was divided into two separate states (Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia), as it was feared that a single state would be susceptible to Russian domination. Ottoman cessions to Russia were largely sustained, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (though still nominally within the Ottoman Empire) were transferred to Austrian control. This final procedure was predominantly forced by Benjamin Disraeli, who was famously described by Bismarck as 'the man' after his level headed Palmerstonian approach to the Eastern Question.
Germany and the Ottoman Empire
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the positions of some of the Great Powers in relation to each other and to the Ottoman Empire began to shift. Distressed by the conduct of the Germans in revising the Treaty of San Stefano, Russia left the League of the Three Emperors. Germany drew closer to Austria-Hungary, with whom she concluded the Dual Alliance in 1879. Germany also became more friendly towards the Ottoman Empire, which became a close German ally. The Germans took over the re-organisation of the Ottoman military and financial system; in return, they received several commercial concessions, including permission to build the Baghdad Railway, which secured for them access to several important economic markets. Germany was driven not only by commercial interests, but also by an imperialistic and militaristic rivalry with the United Kingdom (previously the Empire's foremost ally). The United Kingdom, meanwhile, agreed to the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904, thereby resolving differences between the two countries over international affairs. The United Kingdom also reconciled with Russia in 1907 with the Anglo-Russian Entente.
Bosnian Crisis
In 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress (more commonly called the Young Turks), a political party opposed to the absolute rule of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II, led a rebellion against their ruler. The pro-reform Young Turks deposed the Sultan in 1909, replacing him with the ineffective Mehmed V. In the following years, various constitutional and political reforms were instituted, but the decay of the Ottoman Empire continued.
Austria-Hungary's plans were opposed by Serbia, which sought Russian assistance. Russia, however, could not comply; a defeat in the Russo-Japanese War had devastated her, and Germany threatened to support Austria-Hungary during a war. The United Kingdom and France, who were not directly concerned by the annexation, did not become involved. Thus unaided, Serbia was forced to renounce her opposition to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
See also
References
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This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (February 2008) |
- ^ English translation: Leopold Ranke, A History of Serbia and the Serbian Revolution. Translated from the German by Mrs Alexander Kerr (London: John Murray, 1847)
- ^ L. S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453 (London: Hurst and Co., 2000), p. 248-250.
- ^ Rados Ljusic, Knezevina Srbija pg 483/485
- ^ a b Povest - Prikljucenije
- ^ Čedomir Antić (1998). "The First Serbian Uprising". The Royal Family of Serbia. http://www.royalfamily.org/ustanak/USTANAK_ENG.htm.
- ^ The History of Yugoslavia Serbia and Montenegro until 2006
- ^ 200 godina ustanka
- ^ http://www.nbs.bg.ac.yu/view_file.php?file_id=57
- ^ University of Belgrade
Bibliography
- Anderson, M.S. (1966). The Eastern Question, 1774-1923: A Study in International Relations. Macmillan.
- Duggan, Stephen P (1902). The Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy. P.S. King & Son.
- Millman, Richard (1979). Britain and the Eastern Question, 1875-78. Oxford University Press.
- Seton-Watson, R. W. (1935). Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question. Macmillan and Co..
- Taylor, A(lan) J(ohn) P(ercivale) (1956). The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918. Oxford University Press.
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Mentioned in
- Convention of Balta Liman
- Treaty of Bucharest
- Treaty of London
- Potsdam Convention
- Viscount Stratford Canning Stratford de Redcliffe (English statesman)
- Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji (treaty, Russia/Turkey)
- Nikolas Pavlovich Ignatiev
- Henry Charles Keith Petty Fitzmaurice Lansdowne
- London Convention
- Treaty of London
- Crimean War
- Fertile Crescent
- Greek Warof Independence
- Husaynibn Ali
- Husayn–mcmahon Correspondence (1915–1916)
- Lausanne, Treatyof (1923)
- Mcmahon, Henry
- Montreux Convention (1936)
- Muhammad Ali
- Palmerston, Lord Henry John Temple
- Paris, Treatyof (1857)
- Sublime Porte
- Sykes–picot Agreement (1916)
