CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

TOPIC

EASTERN QUESTION

Submitted To : ………………………..

Submitted By : AMIT DIPANKAR

B.B.A.LLB

2nd semester

1609

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Acknowledgments
As is true of most authors of scholarly works, I owe a great deal of thanks to many people for
assisting me with advice, funding, and guidance in my research and writing. I would like to
thank particularly my LEGAL HISTORY PROFESSOR …………………………………………..
under whose guidance , I structured my project. I owe the present accomplishment of my
project to Dr Manoj Mishra faculty of marketing , who helped me immensely with materials
throughout the project and without whom I couldn’t have completed it in the present way. I
would also like to extend my gratitude to my college librarian and all those unseen hands
that helped me out at every stage of my project.

THANK YOU,

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Contents

PART I

CHAPTER 1. The Eastern Question in the Eighteenth Century. Russia and Turkey, 1689-
1792 and the Advent of the Ottomans. Conquests in Europe and the Ottoman Empire : its
Zenith, 1453-1566 Suleiman the Magnificent.
CHAPTER 2. Napoleon and the Near Eastern Problem.
CHAPTER 3. The Powers and the Eastern Question, 1830.
CHAPTER 4. The Balkan States,1878-1898, The Making of Bulgaria and modern Greece
(1832-1898). The Cretan Problem.
CHAPTER 5. The Balkan League and the Balkan Wars.

PART II

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY

7.1 BOOKS

7.2 INTERNET

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INTRODUCTION

"The Eastern Question" revolved around one issue: what should happen to the Balkans if and
when the Ottoman Empire disappeared as the fundamental political fact in the South-eastern
Europe? The Great Powers approached each crisis with the hope of emerging with the
maximum advantage. Sometimes this led one or another to support revolutionary change.
More often, state interests led them to support the status quo. The diplomacy of the Eastern
Question went forward in disregard, and often ignorance, of the wishes of the Balkan
peoples. Because of its traditions and structures, old-style diplomacy was poorly equipped to
deal with popular movements like nationalism. The diplomacy of the Eastern Question began
in the Early Modern Period, before modern nationalism or representative governments.
Diplomats from the Great Powers did not take into account the wishes of their own citizens,
so why listen to Balkan peasants?

Following are some effect of it are explained

1. Treaties: Markowitz and Kuchuk Kainarji : The issues that created the Eastern Question
emerged when the Ottoman high tide in Central Europe began to recede. The failed Ottoman
siege of Vienna in 1683 was the last important Turkish threat to a European Power. Under
the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699, the Habsburgs (who were allied with Poland, Russia and
Venice) took control of Hungary (including Croatia), and Russia got part of the Ukraine.
Thereafter, the Ottomans were on the defensive. However, 1699 is a little remote for our
purposes. The modern group of Great Powers had not yet formed at that time (Poland and
Venice were still major forces). Diplomatic practices had not yet assumed their modern form,
involving permanent embassies and specialized ministries. Nor were economic interests
involved in the same way that they came to be after the Industrial Revolution. It is really in
1774 that the elements of the modern Eastern Question come into play. In that year, after
Russia defeated Turkey again the two powers signed the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji. That
treaty altered the Balkan scene in three important ways:

 Russia gained access to the Black Sea coast, so that for the first time Russia
physically impinged on the Turkish heartland, including the Balkans.
 Russian merchant ships got the right to enter the Black Sea, the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles, Russian merchants got the right to trade in the Ottoman Empire, and
Russia got the right to appoint consular agents inside Turkey.

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  Russia became protector of the Orthodox Christians of Turkey, with special rights in
Wallachia and Moldavia.

These clauses set in train a competition among the Great Powers for influence in Turkey
because no power was willing to permit Russia (or any other) to dominate the vast Ottoman
holdings.

2. The interests of the Great Powers : Besides Turkey, there were six Great Powers during
the late nineteenth century: Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and
Germany. These states followed rather consistent Balkan policies. Some of the Powers
expressed an interest in the Balkan population, but in a crisis each followed its own national
security and defense needs. When Great Powers made compromises, they did so out of a
belief in the tactical value of stability because the outcomes and risks of war were too hard to
predict. States also compromised to retain their position as members of the "Concert of
Europe," the legal concept under which these large states gave themselves the right to settle
matters of war and peace. Policies crafted for such reasons often failed to address the real,
local causes of the repeated Balkan crises which took up so much of Europe's attention in
these years.

3. Russia: Russia tended to be the most visible disturbing agent and was usually the agent of
each new Turkish defeat. Russia began the Early Modern period as the most backward of the
Great Powers but also was the state with the greatest potential to tap new resources and
grow. In Eastern Europe and the Balkans, a succession of states have opposed Russian
interests (or at least perceived Russian interests): the French under Napoleon, then the
British Empire, then the Germans and their allies during the two world wars, and most
recently the United States. Russia's emergence onto the wider world stage coincides with the
emergence of the Eastern Question as a conscious focus of international politics. Under the
1774 Kuchuk Kainarji Treaty, Russia gained access to the north shore of the Black Sea.
More important, the same treaty gave Russia important rights to intercede on behalf of the
Orthodox millet and to conduct commerce within the Ottoman Empire. Most of Russia's
subsequent policies expanded on these two concessions. One aim of Russian policy was
control of local client states. Russian policy toward the Orthodox Christians of the Balkans
involved mixed elements of compassion and self-interest. Russians deplored the abuse of
Balkan fellow Christians and Slavs (the Pan-Slav movement of the 1800s brought forward
similar Russian interests, in a slightly different form). On the other hand, as we saw during
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Serbia's revolution, St. Petersburg abandoned its Balkan proteges when higher policy
required. After autonomous or independent Christian states appeared, Russian policy was
complicated by the need to find reliable client states in the region. When a state like Serbia
fell under Austrian influence, the Russians would switch their support to a regional rival,
such as Bulgaria. Russia had fewer ties to non-Slavic states like Romania: absent Pan-Slav
ties, Russian policy often came across as mere domination, especially when Russia annexed
territory, such as Bessarabia which was seized in 1878 and in 1940.

A second aim of Russian Balkan policy was retention and expansion of rights of navigation
from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Russia wanted full rights not only for its
merchant trade but also for warships to pass through the Straits, while resisting the rights of
other states to send ships (especially warships) into the Black Sea. In general, Russia has
had to accept compromises that allow free traffic for all merchant ships and no traffic for
warships (except the largely harmless Turkish navies).

A third aim of Russian policy, arising from the first two, has been outright physical
possession of Istanbul and the Dardanelles. Annexation of that region would guarantee
passage of the Straits, and make Balkan client states unnecessary. However, that step implied
complete partition of the Turkish Balkans and was never acceptable to the other Powers.
This idea came up in talks with Napoleon in 1807, and was later revived during World War I.
Limited partitions were a staple of Balkan discussions, especially with Austria, but never
came to any concrete result. No other Power would concede such a great prize to the
Russians. With the years of the Cold War behind us, and the spectacle of the collapse of the
Soviet Union, it seems doubtful that Russia could have absorbed half the Balkans
successfully. At the time, however, the difficulty of ruling in the absence of local consent was
never strongly considered. Rather than go into the details of Russian policy in Serbia, Greece
and the other Balkan states, here we can only point to themes. The greatest check to Russian
expansion took place after the Crimean War. By the Treaty of Paris of 1856, Russia lost
much that she had gained. All warships were barred from the Black Sea, and it was opened
to merchant ships of all states: by these actions, Russian lost her special status. All the Great
Powers and not just Russia became the guarantors of the Balkan Christian states like Serbia
and Romania: again, Russia lost a former special right. Above all, losing the war cast Russia
in the role of an outcast state. Russian policy after 1856 aimed at overturning the toughest
clauses of the Paris Treaty, and restoring Russia's status as a full member of the Concert.

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4. The Ottomans: The Ottoman Empire was the weakest of the Great Powers. As an ally of
Britain and France when the 1856 Treaty of Paris ended the Crimean War, the Turks gained
a legal status that was beyond their real powers. Ottoman Balkan policy was simple: to
prevent the loss of additional territory in the Balkans. In many instances, the sultan had to be
satisfied with nominal control: the lands of the disobedient ayans like Ali Pasha of Jannina
or the purely legal vassalage of Serbia and Romania come to mind as examples. The
Ottoman regime mistrusted all the other Powers, in part because those states were made up
of infidels and in part from practical experience. However, Russia was clearly Turkey's
greatest enemy because tsarist policies implied or required dismantling the empire. To ward
off Russian threats, Turkey engaged in close cooperation with other states but was always
wary of falling too much under the influence of any one Power. From the time of the Greek
War of Independence up to the 1870s, Britain most often acted as Turkey's guardian. After
1878, Germany largely replaced Britain as an economic and military sponsor. Turkish
relations with the Balkan successor states were uniformly bad, because their interests and
plans involved expansion at Turkish expense .

The struggle between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ot toman Empire is one of the great
dramas in the diplomatic and military history of the early modern period. After the battle of
Mohacs in 1526, which brought the houses of Habsburg and Osman into direct conflict, these
two mighty states engaged in repeated wars to determine which one would ul timately
dominate southeastern Europe. The rivalry was far more than a struggle of great political
powers; it became in the popular mind a contest between Christianity and Islam, between
gods and prophets. The ability of the Habsburgs to halt and eventually to roll back the
advance of the Moslem Turks won for them the title of defenders of Christendom. Without
Habsburg troops forming battle lines and manning fortresses only a few miles east of Vienna,
many villagers and townspeople of central Europe were convinced that hordes of unbelievers
would overrun their homes and property, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Such
an image was popular in early modern Europe, and it has remained so among historians. As
early as 1498, as Hans Sturmberger has pointed out, Emperor Maximilian I listed fear of the
advancing Turks as a major reason for re forming his administration. From that point
onward, al though Habsburg policy was not always trusted by all Chris tians or by all the
political figures of central Europe, the duty of the Habsburgs to defend Christianity was
increasingly em phasized in public ordinances and official statements. In the early eighteenth
century, when Charles VI called upon his lands to recognize the Pragmatic Sanction, he

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stressed that its acceptance was essential because "Against the ever present Turkish might
one can do nothing else than maintain a pow erful central control over the patriarchal
kingdoms and lands."1 In 1732 the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire accepted 4
Introduction the Pragmatic Sanction, in part because Austria represented the "bastion of
Christianity" against the Turks. In his study of the last years of the Empire, Karl Otmar von
Aretin noted that, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the "true pur pose" of the House of
Habsburg in the eyes of the German princes was to protect them and their lands from the
Turks.2 That "true purpose" underwent its severest test in 1683. The advance on Vienna by
Grand Vizier Kara Mustapha and his mighty army, the ensuing siege, the salvation of the
city, and the flight of the Turkish army constituted a high point in the history of the
Monarchy.3 The strategically significant consequence of the victory, however, was the
subsequent ex pulsion of the Turks from Hungary. So often before, Habsburg victories had
been wasted by an inability or unwilling ness to exploit them, but in 1683 the opportunity
was seized. The war with the Turks continued until 1699 when the Treaty of Carlowitz
(Karlowitz, Sremski Karlovci) confirmed the Habsburg triumph. Turkish Hungary and
Transylvania, with the exception of the small region in the south known as the Banat of
Timi§oara (Temesvar), came under the scepter of the Habsburgs. More importantly, the
treaty initiated significant changes in the atmosphere of Austro-Turkish relations. For two
centuries the Habsburgs and their subjects had stood in fear of the Turks; henceforth the
Turks expressed a growing dread of the Habsburgs. By the opening of the eighteenth century,
the Austrians for the first time in almost two hundred years could feel some confidence in
their military superiority over their dangerous foe. Although relations remained somewhat
strained, the Austrians could find consolation in the great victories achieved between 1683
and 1699, victories that would surely make the Sublime Porte reluctant to take up arms soon
without good cause or serious provocation. Within fifteen years of the Treaty of Carlowitz,
the Austrians came to believe that the Ottoman state had in fact grown even weaker than they
had imagined. In 1715 an Austrian envoy in Constantinople in formed Vienna that Turkey
had become so enfeebled that a Introduction 5 Habsburg army could march with ease to the
Ottoman capital and, in the process, expel the Turks from Europe altogether.

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I. THE EASTERN QUESTION IN THE EIGHEENTH
CENTURY AND THE ADVENT OF THE OTTOMAS [1689-
1792],[1453-1566]

The importance of Prince KlemensWenzel Lothar Nepomuk von Metternich- Winneburg for
19th century European history can hardly be denied, and numerous books and articles
dedicated to this man and his diplomatic career would seem to show that his significance has
been given due attention. This appearance is, however, deceptive. A considerable number of
these works are biographies of a merely popular nature or brief surveys offering but a
superficial overview of the relevant topics, often based upon a rather limited number of
sources and negatively influenced by the personal feelings of their authors towards
Metternich, regardless of whether their biases were positive or negative. Despite the fact that
Metternich played a significant role in European diplomacy from 1809 to 1848, some of his
activities in international relations have been insufficiently researched, and this is
particularly evident for the period after 1822 and especially after 1830. It is true that his
influence decreased after the end of the congress era, but he undoubtedly remained an
important player on the diplomatic chessboard. Consequently, more than 150 years after
Metternich’s death in 1859, thorough and impartial research on this statesman and his time
is still needed. This book seeks to partly rectify this omission and, with an analysis of
Metternich’s Near Eastern policy, add more detail to the mosaic of the diplomatic history of
his period. It attempts to present Metternich’s policy within the broader scope of the Eastern
Question and introduce the subject as a complex issue of not only diplomatic but also
economic, military, religious and social history.
The Eastern Question, the question that can be briefly explained as what should become of
the Ottoman Empire, was an important part of European politics from the late 18th to the
early 20th century and it is also one of the crucial issues of Metternich’s era. Although at
that
time no Great Power wanted to destroy the Ottoman Empire, their geopolitical, economic
and even prestigious interests in south-eastern Europe, North Africa, the eastern
Mediterranean and the Black Sea significantly shaped not only the development of these
parts of the world but also strongly affected the relations among the Great Powers
themselves, thus having a significant impact on the history of both European as well as non-
European regions. The denomination of this important question as “Eastern” results from

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the fact that this term originated in Europe, more accurately in Western Europe, whose
populations usually viewed the Ottoman Empire a remote – geographically as well as
culturally – country in the East, consequently the Near East/Levant/Orient. Metternich also
understood the Ottoman Empire with regard to the term “East” in this way, and the fact that
he saw in this not only a geographical but also cultural boundary is very important because
the term East/Levant/Orient was used by him for the whole of the Ottoman Empire, whose
territory he never entered, including its Balkan domains, which were for him, a man born
in the Rhineland deeply rooted in Western civilisation and 18th century enlightenment, as
alien as those in Asia or Africa. This outlook is clearly evident not only from the studied
documents but also from his often declared statement, probably not greatly exaggerated from
his point of view, that he regarded the garden on the road leading from Vienna to Pressburg,
owned by the House of Schwarzenberg and divided by the frontier between Austria and
Hungary as “the place where Europe ends and Asia begins” 1.Consequently, when
Metternich talked about affairs as Eastern/Oriental, he meant any of the affairs concerning
the Ottoman Empire.
The period covered in this book is from the beginning of the Greek insurrection against
Ottoman rule in 1821 to the end of the second Turko-Egyptian crisis in 1841. These twenty
years were chosen because the most important affairs of the Eastern Question in
Metternich’s era occurred during these two decades. The preceding Serbian uprising was
undeniably of some importance to Austria, and it occupied Metternich after his accession to
the helm of the Austrian foreign ministry in 1809, but first, it was a matter of far less
significance for European politics than later incidents like the Greekuprising or two Turko-
Egyptian crises, and second, Austria’s policy towards the Serbian uprising has already been
thoroughly researched by Ulrike Tischler 2 t. The same applies for the period from 1841 to
Metternich’s political downfall seven years later when no incident in the Balkans or the
Levant raised such serious issues for the Great Powers as those in the two preceding
decades. Their involvement in the Mount Lebanon affairs launched in 1840 surely was of
some importance but it has been adequately researched by Caesar E. Farah3 .

1
Langsdorff to sainte-aulaire, Vienna, 6 May 1836,AMAE,CP,Autriche 423
According to a similar story, Metternich was said to claim that the Orient began
at the Landstrasse leading out from Vienna. L. Wolff, “‘Kennst du das Land?’
The Uncertainty of Galicia in the Age of Metternich and Fredro,” SR 67, 2008, 2,
p. 294.
2
U. Tischler, Die habsburgische Politik gegen¨uber den Serben und Montenegrinern
1791–1822, M¨unchen 2000.
3
C. E. Farah, The Politics of Interventionism in Ottoman Lebanon, 1830–1861,
London, New York 2000.

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This volume is strictly limited to the history of the Eastern Question from Austria’s point of
view, it does not examine the internal history of the Ottoman Empire or its relations with all
European Powers, and although Austria’s involvement in the Near Eastern affairs must
naturally be put into the wider context of European history, this book is not and cannot be a
comprehensive survey of Metternich’s entire diplomacy, including his activities in Germany
or Italy. The choice of the Near East does not imply that this area was of more significance
than the two previously mentioned regions, which of course it was not, nor that Austria
played the most important role of all the Great Powers in the Eastern Question, which it
definitely did not, but it should prove that for the Danube Monarchy and Metternich himself
the importance of the Ottoman Empire as well as the politics connected with its decay have
generally been underestimated and that much remains to be discovered with regard to
Metternich’s character and activities in general. The appropriate question is not whether the
areas of German Confederation and the Apennines were of greater importance for
Metternich’s Austria but whether the Ottoman Empire was actually of far less importance for
the Central European Power. The significance of this question becomes apparent when one
considers that Austria was connected to the Ottoman Empire by the longest frontier of all
European countries and this border was also the longest of all Austria’s neighbours. The
book should thus also contribute tothe research on Austrian as well as Central European
history from the “south-eastern point of view”. It is my intent to offer an in-depth analysis
probably not entirely in compliance with the latest fashion of broad theorisation of
diplomatic frameworks, standards and rules, as for example American historian Paul W.
Schroeder or German historian Matthias Schulz did,4 but perhaps making it possible to refute
the misinterpretations, deep rooted myths and some prejudices concerning not only
Metternich’s diplomacy but also his personality. This does not mean that my purpose is to
glorify this man and repudiate all his critics. In contrast to Paul W. Schroeder, as he has
mentioned in the introduction of his book on Metternich, I did not start my research with any
supposition that the revisionist, meaning positive, views on Metternich are correct. 5 To be
frank, my original interest focused on Austria’s activities in the Levant and not at all on
Metternich. I was not among his admirers then and I still do not consider myself one of them.
In the course of time, however, through the study of relevant archival sources, I started to

4
P. W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848, Oxford
1996; M. Schulz, Normen und Praxis: Das Europ¨aische Konzert der Großm¨achte
als Sicherheitsrat, 1815–1860, M¨unchen 2009.
5
P. W. Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, 1820–1823, New York
1962, p. x.

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better understand this man and what motivated him, and I dare say that I gradually
discovered a considerable number of incorrect statements and appraisals made by historians
in the past. This particularly happened at the moment when I went through the documents
covering a longer time span, which helped me to better, and I hope more correctly, evaluate
Metternich’s policy, its motivations and goals. For this reason, the characteristics of my
findings approach more closely those of Alan J. Reinerman, Ulrike Tischler, and particularly
Wolfram Siemann6 , all of them having dealt with or still dealing with Metternich in a wider
timeframe, than to the general views of Paul W. Schroeder, who focused intently on
Metternich’s diplomacy within only a short period.7
The picture of Metternich that materialised after the end of my research is a portrait of a
man who was conservative, but this term, which is frequently used in the literature about
him, does not adequately explain his policy and leads to the assumption that his diplomacy
was dogmatic and unrealistic. What I want to do with this book is to contribute to the re-
evaluation of Metternich and his time; it is the fact that his policy, at least during the given
period of 1821–1841 and in relation to the Eastern Question, was conservative as well as
rather realistic and so to speak pragmatic, based upon his rational and usually unbelievably
accurate analysis of events and his profound knowledge of facts and people; it is even
possible to claim that in many respects his opinions relating to Near Eastern affairs were
quite rational and his corresponding policy very consistent and actually not duplicitous – at
least not to the degree generally attributed to him. Furthermore, the following chapters
should demonstrate that the vast regions of the Ottoman Empire constituted a politically and
economically important area for the Danube Monarchy; and although Metternich would
definitely have liked to avoid dealing with Ottoman affairs, he was unable to do so and not
only dealt with them but also paid remarkable attention to various problems resulting from
the decay of the sultan’s weak empire. I would dare to go so far as to claim that no other
member of the European political and diplomatic elites of the period under research paid so
much attention to the internal situation of the Ottoman Empire as Metternich did, but of
course this is always hard to evaluate. Another objective of the presented study is to show
that Metternich’s views and steps in the Eastern Question in the 1830s were not actually
anti-Russian but markedly anti-French and that Austria’s relations with Russia in the
Ottoman

6
A. J. Reinerman, “Metternich and Reform: The Case of the Papal State, 1814–
1848,” JMH 42, 1970, 4, pp. 526–527; W. Siemann, Metternich: Staatsmann zwischen
Restauration und Moderne, M¨unchen 2010.
7
Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy, p. 266.

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affairs during the same decade were surprisingly good because the two Powers’ interests in
the Ottoman Empire were identical, they needed each other’s support in the West as well as
in the East and it can be said that a specific sort of an “entente cordial” existed between
them. And last but not at least, with this book I will attempt to refute the opinion advocated
by the “apostles” of structural history in the last several decades that after 1815 an
important transformation in European politics occurred and that the Great Powers limited
their self-serving ambitions with their alleged sense of an all-European responsibility. I
originally did not plan to deal with this subject, but since a correct assessment of European
politics in the so-called Pre- March period (Vorm¨arz ) is naturally crucial for a correct
evaluation of Metternich’s role in it and because my own research and conclusions
persuaded me that the “transformation theory” is for the most part entirely baseless and
distorts the real image of European politics, the character of which did not significantly
differ from the periods before
1815 and after 1848, the Eastern Question will also serve in this book as a model example
for the re-evaluation of the motivations behind the Great Powers’ conduct and Metternich’s
position in the diplomatic relations still mostly shaped by the egoistic interests of their
protagonists. Furthermore, if in this generally predatory world someone was actually
motivated by any principles surpassing simple national or power-hungry interests in
determining his policy, then it is difficult to see a better candidate than Metternich. It does
not mean that I will try to enter into the dispute as to whether Metternich was more an
Austrian or a European statesman, in other words whether his steps were directed more by
Austrian or European interests, simply because it is impossible to find a definite answer
when the crucial question can never be clearly defined: what Europe’s interest actually was
– the preservation of general peace, or the spread of liberalism, or the establishment of
national states? What I want to prove is the fact that Metternich, more than any of his allies
or opponents on the diplomatic chessboard, not only wanted to maintain the existence of the
Ottoman Empire and never deviated from pursuing this goal, but that he also maintained a
highly consistent politico-legal strategy in his Near Eastern policy with the aim of applying
the rules shaping the relations among the European countries, or at least the rules he wished
to apply to them, to their relations with the Ottoman Empire and through his willingness to
observe these rules to ensure not only the political status quo beyond Austria’s south-eastern
border but also to prevent the rivalry between the European Powers in the regions beyond it
from destabilising their own relations and thereby threatening the general peace of Europe.

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II. NAPOLEON AND THE NEAR EASTERN PROBLEM

The Treaty of Jassy closed one important chapter in the history of the Eastern Question .The
next open with the advent of Napoleon. By the year 1797 he had begun to arrive not only in a
military but in a political sense. During the five years which elapsed between the Treaty of
Jassy (1792) and that of Campo Formio the Eastern Question, as in this work we understand
the term, was permitted to rest. This brief interval of repose was due to several causes, but
chiefly to the fact that the year which saw the conclusion of the war between Russia and
Turkey witnessed the opening of the struggle between the German Powers and the French
Revolution.
Catherine’s ambition in regard to Poland had been whetted rather than sated by the partition
of 1772 But between 1772 and 1792 she was as we have seen, busy elsewhere.Poland seized
the opportunity to put what remained of its house in oreder –the last thing desired by
Catherine. But in 1792 her chance came. She had been ‘cudgelling her brains to urge the
Courts of Vienna and Berlin to busy themselves with the affairs of France' so that she might
liave Mier own elbows free'. The German Courts played her game for her, and by the
summer of 1792 her elbows were free. In 1793 the second partition of Poland was carried
out. Prussia and Russia divided the spoil Austria got nothing. But in the third and final
partition of 1795 Austria was admitted to a share. In the same year Prussia concluded peace
with France at the expense of the empire ; two years later Austria followed suit. Prussia had
made her peace with the Directory. With Austria the peace was negotiated directly by the
young general who had commanded the French army in the great campaign of 1796-7. And
General Bonaparte had already begun to comport himself as an independent conqueror. 'Do
you suppose', said he to Miot de M^lito, 'that I have been winning victories in Italy to
enhance the glory of the lawyers of the Directory—Barras and Carnot? Do you suppose that
I mean to establish the Republic more securely The nation wants a chief, a supreme head
covered with glory.' In Bonaparte's view they had not very far to look for him. Nor was the
chief in any doubt as to his real antagonist. From the outset his eyes were fixed upon
England, and upon England not merely or mainly as a unit in the European polity, but as a
world-power, and above all as an Oriental power.
Before the Treaty of Campo Formio was actually signed Bonaparte had written to the
Directors (August 16,1797). ‘Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia are of more interest to us than

P a g e | 14
all Italy.' ' Corfu and Zante ', he said to Talleyrand, ' make us masters both of the Adriatic
and of the Levant. It is useless to try to maintain the Turkish Empire ; we shall see its
downfall in our lifetime. The occupation of the Ionian Isles will put us in a position to
support it or to secure a share of it for ourselves.' Amid the much more resounding
advantages secured to France in 1797—Belgium, the Rhine frontier, and so on—little
significance was attached to the acquisition of these islands. But Bonaparte was looking
ahead. To him they were all important. Might they not serve as stepping stones to Egypt.' To
Choiseiil Egypt had seemed the obvious compensation for the loss of the French Empire in
India. Napoleon regarded the occupation of the first as a necessary preliminary to the
recovery of the second. Volney, whose book, Les Ruines, had a powerful influence upon him,
had written in 1788, 'Par I'Egypte nous toucherons k I'lnde ; nous retablirons I'ancienne
circulation par Suez, et nous ferons deserter la route du cap de Bonne-Esp^rance.' Nor was
Napoleon without warrant from his nominal masters. On October 23, 1797, the Directors
had indicted an elaborate dispatch commending to his consideration the position of Turkey,
the interests of French commerce in the Levant, and indicating the importance they attached
to the Ionian Isles and Malta.^ The views of the Directors coincided with his own. It is safe to
assume that if they had not done so they would not have found an agent in General
Bonaparte. But alike to the Republicans and to the future emperor they came as a heritage
from the Ancien Regime. French policy in the Near East has been, as we have repeatedly
seen, singularly consistent. So far as Napoleon initiated a new departure, it was only in the
boldness and originality with which he applied traditional principles to a new situation.
In the summer of 1797 Napoleon had already made overtures to the Mainotes, the Greeks,
and the Pashas of Janina, Scutari, and Bosnia. In regard to the Greeks of the Morea he was
particularly solicitous. ' Be careful ', he wrote to General Gentili, whom he sent to occupy the
Ionian Isles, ' in issuing your proclamations to make plenty of reference to the Greeks, to
Athens, and Sparta.' He himself addressed the Mainotes as ' worthy descendants of the
Spartans who alone among the ancient Greeks know the secret of preservingpolitical liberty
'. But it was on Egypt that his attention was really concentrated, and on Egypt mainly as a
means to the overthrow of the Empire of England. Talleyrand represented his views to the
Directory : ' Our war with this Power (England) represents the most favourable opportunity
for the invasion of Egypt. Threatened by an imminent landing onher shores she will not
desert her coasts to prevent our enterprise (in Egypt). This further offers us a possible

P a g e | 15
chance of driving the English out of India by sending thither 15,000 troops from Cairo via
Suez.'8
It was, however, to the command of the Army of England that Bonaparte was gazetted in
November, 1797. He accepted it not without an arriere-jyensee. 'This little Europe', he said
to Bourrienne, ' offers too contracted a field. One must go to the East to gain power and
greatness. Europe is a mere mole-hill ; it is only in the East, where there are 600,000,000 of
human beings, that there have ever been vast empires and mighty revolutions. I am willing to
inspect the northern coast to see what can be done. But if, as I fear, the success of a landing
in England should appear doubtful, 1 shall make my Army of England the Army of the East
and go to Egypt9.
A visit to the northern coast confirmed his view that the blow against England should be
struck in Egypt. The French navy was not in a condition to attempt direct invasion, Besides,
he had his own career to consider. He must 'keep his glory warm', and that was not to be in
Europe. He persuaded the Directors to his views, and in April, 1798, he was nominated to
the command of the army of the East. His instructions, drafted by himself, ordered him to
take Malta and Egypt, cut a channel through the Isthmus of Suez, and make France mistress
of the Red Sea, maintaining as far as possible good relations with the Turks and their Sultan.
But the supreme object of the expedition was never to be lost sight of. ' You ', he said to his
troops as they embarked at Toulon, ' are a wing of the Army of England.' The preparations
for the expedition were made with a thoroughness which we have been too apt of late to
associate
with the Teutonic rather than the Latin genius. On Napoleon's staff were at least a dozen
generals who subsequently attained renown ; but not generals only. Egypt was to be
transformed under French rule ; the desert was to be made to blossom as the rose. To this
end Napoleon took with him Berthollet, the great chemist, Monge, the mathematician,
engineers, architects, archaeologists, and historians. The expedition sailed from Toulon on
May 19, 1798. Nelson had been closely watching the port, though quite ignorant of
Napoleon's destination. But he was driven out to sea by a storm, and before he could get
back the bird had flown. Meanwhile, Napoleon occupied JVIalta without resistance from
the Knights of St. John (June 13) ; the French troops landed in Egypt on July 1 ; took
Alexandria on the 2nd, fought and won the battle of the Pyramids on the 21st, and on the next

8
Jonquiere, VExpMition d'£gypte, i. 161 (cited by Foiirnier).
9
I combine two separate conversations, both with Bourrienne, but, of
course, without altering the sense and merely for the sake of brevity.

P a g e | 16
day occupied Cairo. Three weeks had sufficed for the conquest of Lower Egypt. But Nelson
and the English fleet, though successfully eluded during the voyage, were on Napoleon's
track, and on the 1st of August they came up with the French fleet lying in Aboukir Bay, and,
by a manoeuvre conceived with great skill and executed Avith superb courage, they
succeeded in completely annihilating it. Nelson's victory of the Nile rendered Napoleon's
position in Egypt exceedingly precarious. Cut off" from his base, deprived of the means of
transport and supply, a lesser man would have deemed it desperate. Napoleon was only
stimulated to fresh efforts. The attack upon Egypt was, as we have seen, directed primarily
against England. But the lord of Egypt was the Sultan, and to him the French conquest was
both insulting and damaging. Encouraged by Nelson's success Sultan Selim plucked up
courage to declare war upon France on September 1, and prepared to reconquer his lost
province. Napoleon thereupon determined to take the offensive in Syria. He took by assault
El Arisch, Gaza, and Jaffa, laid siege to Acre,(March, 1799), and on April 16 inflicted a
crushing defeat upon the Turks at Mount Tabor.
Acre, thanks to the support of the English fleet under Sir Sydney Smith, sustained its
reputation for impregnability ; the sufferings of Napoleon's army were intense ; their
general,
reluctantly resigning his dream of an advance through Asia Minor upon Constantinople, was
compelled to withdraw to Egypt. Instead of conquermg Constantinople, and from
Constantinople taking his European enemies in the rear, he found himself obliged to defend
his newly conquered province against the assault of its legitimate sovereign. Convoyed by the
English fleet a Turkish expedition reached Egypt in July, but Napoleon flung himself upon
them and drove them headlong into the sea (July 25). This second battle of Aboukir firmly
established Napoleon's supremacy in Egypt. But the victory, though militarily complete, was
politically barren. News from France convinced Napoleon that the pear was at last ripe, and
that it must be picked in Paris. Precisely a month after his victory over the Turks at Aboukir
he embarked with great secrecy at Alexandria, leaving his army under the command of
Kleber. The Mediterranean was carefully patrolled by the English fleet, but Napoleon
managed to elude it, landed at Frejus on October 9, and precisely a month later (18th
Brumaire) effected the coup d'4tat which made him, at a single blow, master of France.

P a g e | 17
IV. The Powers and the Eastern Question, 1830-1841. Mehemet Ali of Egypt.

It is proverbially dangerous in public affairs to confer a favour ; it is even more dangerous to

accept one. Never has there been a more apt illustration of this truth than that afforded by
the curious phase of the Eastern Question which it is the purpose of this chapter to
disclose.Had it not been for the intervention of the Powers, Mehemet Ali of Egypt and
Ibrahim Pasha would indubitably have rescued the Ottoman Empire from imminent
dismember-ment. Such a service it was difficult for the recipient to requite, and still more
difficult to forgive. Mehemet Ali, on his part, was not disposed to underrate the obligations
under Avhich he had placed his suzerain, and the cession of Crete seemed to him a wholly
inadequate reward. In the disgust thus engendered we have one of the clues to the\
intricacies of the period which intervened between the Treaty of Adrianople and the Treaty of
London of 1841. Recent events had, moreover, revealed the weakness, military, naval, and
political, of the Ottoman Empire. If Greece, an integi'al part of his European dominions,
could so easily be detached from the sceptre of the Sultan, why not other parts of the empire,
connected with Constantinople by a looser tie ? Algiers, which still acknowledged the titular
sovereignty of the Sultan, had been seized in 1830 by the French, who had proclaimed their
purpose to deliver that promising land from the yoke of the Ottoman Sultan. If Algiers, why
not other parts of Africa or of Asia ? The extraordinary success already achieved by
Mehemet Ali might well inspire that brilliant barbarian—half an illiterate savage, half a
consummate statesman, wholly a genius—with ambitions even more far reaching. Born in
1769 at Kavala, a small seaport in eastern Macedonia, Mehemet Ali Avas, like Ali Pasha of
Janina, by race an Albanian. The son of a peasant cultivator he was himself a small trader,
but Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 gave him his chance of carving out a career for
himself. It was not neglected. As second-in-command of a regiment of Albanian irregulars,
he took part in the Turkish expedition to Egypt, which began and ended so disastrously with
the battle of Aboukir. Driven into the sea with his comrades he was picked up by the gig of
the English admiral. Sir Sydney Smith, and two years later (1801) he returned to Egypt in
command of his regiment.

P a g e | 18
Mehemet Ali was greatly impressed by the military superiority of troops trained on European
models, and still more impressed of the career open, in such times, to a man of genius like
Napoleon or himself. After the successive evacuations of the French and English Egypt was
in a terrible condition of anarchy. The Mameluke Beys were as independent of their suzerain
the Sultan as they were impotent to rule the Egyptians.

P a g e | 19
V. The Balkan League and the Balkan Wars.

' These newly emancipated races want to breathe free air and not through Russian
nostrils.'— Sir William White (1885). 'A Bulgaria, friendly to the Porte, and jealous of
foreign influence, would be a far surer bulwark against foreign aggression than two
Bulgarias, severed in administration, but united in considering the Porte as the only obstacle
to their national development.' Lord Salisbury (Dec. 23, 1885). ' It is next to impossible that
the Powers of Christendom can permit the Turk, however triumphant, to cast his yoke again
over the necks of any emancipated Provincials. There is much reason to think that a chain of
autonomous States, though still, perhaps, tributary to the Sultan, might be extended from the
Black Sea to the Adriatic with advantage to that potentate himself. But, at all events, the very
idea of reinstating any amount of Turkish misgovemment in places once cleared of it is
simply revolting. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. ' Greece wants something more than the rules of
political procedure that are embodied in written constitutions in order to infuse better moral
principles among her people whose social system has been corrupted by long ages of
national servitude until the people undergo a moral change as well as the government,
national progress must be slow, and the surest pledges for the enjoyment of true liberty will
be wanting.' Dr. George Finlay. ' Crete is an unexplored paradise in ruins, a political
volcano in chronic activity, a theatre on the boards of which rapine, arson, murder, and all
manner of diabolical crimes are daily rehearsed for the peace, if not the delectation, of the
Great Powers of peace-loving Christendom. Truly this is far and away the most grotesque
political spectacle of the nineteenth century.'-E. J. Dillon. To pass from the Congress of
Berlin to the early struggles Balof the reborn Balkan States means more than a change of
temperature and environment. It involves an abrupt transition from drab prose to highly
coloured romance ; from a problem play to transpontine melodrama ; from the traditional
methods of nineteenth century diplomacy to those of primitive political society. Transported
to the Balkans we are in the midst of boideversements and vicissitudes, political and personal
; sudden elevations ; sudden falls ;democratic constitutions and autocratic cot(2JS d'etat ;
plotting and counterplotting ; the hero of yesterday, the villain of to-day, and again the hero
of to-morrow ; abductions, abdications, and assassinations ; the formation and dissolution of

P a g e | 20
parties ; a strange medley of chivalry and baseness ; of tragedy and comedy ; of
obscurantism and progress.

The Treaty of Berlin meant the end of ' Turkey in Europe' as term had been understood by
geographers for the last four hundred years. The place of the provinces of the " Ottoman
Empire is now taken by independent, or virtually independent. States : Greece, Roumania,
Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. But although the Ottoman Empire is broken and crippled
the new States are by no means fully fashioned. The garment woven at Berlin had many
ragged edges. Greece got nothing at the moment, and had to wait three years before even a
portion of her claims upon Thessaly and Epirus were conceded ; Crete remained in Turkish
hands for another generation. Serbia was profoundly dissatisfied and with reason : the
arrangement proposed at San Stefano would have divided the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar between
herself and the sister State of Montenegro, thus bringing the two Slav States into immediate
contact, and giving Serbia indirect access, through Montenegro, to the Adriatic. The crafty
restoration of the Sanjak to Turkey ; the retention of the great harbour of the Bocche di
Cattaro by Austria, and the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina inflicted a
series of terrible blows upon the aspirations of the Southern Slavs, and kept open sores which
might have been healed. The Habsburgs were, however, far too clever to allow their hopes
of access to the Aegean to be frustrated by the interposition of a compact Jugo-Slav State,
whether that State was unitary or federal. The disappointment of Serbia was the immediate
disappointment of Montenegro, and ultimately the disappointment of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina.
Of the cruel blow to the legitimate hopes of Roumania enough, Butthe fatal character of the
bhmder then committed by Russia, Avjthout protest, be it added, from any of the Powers,
cannot be too strongly emphasized. Most significant of all, however, was the partition of the
proposed Bulgaria. That partition not only served to keep the Balkans in ferment for the next
thirty years but introduced into European diplomacy, or at least into its vocabulary, a new
problem, that of ' Macedonia '. Whether Serbia and Greece would or could have acquiesced
in the San Stefano settlement is a question which must be reserved for subsequent discussion
but it is obvious that if Lord Beaconsfield had not torn that treaty into shreds the
Macedonian problem would never have emerged in the shape with which the present
generation is familiar. The Greater Bulgaria might ultimately have raised as many problems
as it solved; but those problems would have been approached from a different angle and
might have been solved with less friction and more satisfactory results. As things were, it was
P a g e | 21
upon the fortunes of Bulgaria that the attention not merely of the Balkans but of Europe at
large was concentrated during the twenty years succeeding the Congress of Berlin. In 1878
the Russian army was in occupation of the principality which Russian diplomacy proposed to
create.
The plans of the future edifice had been, it is true, profoundly modified at Berlin, but the task
of executing them was committed to Russia. The first business Avas to provide the new
principality with a constitution. Accordhig to the Treaty of Berlin the ' Organic Law of the
Principality ' was to be drawn up 'before the election of the Prince' by an assembly of
notables of Bulgaria convoked at Tirnovo ; particular regard was to be paid to the rights and
interests of the Turkish, Roumanian, Greek, or other populations, where these were
intermixed with Bulgarians, and there was to be absolute equality between difierent religious
creeds and confessions. Until the completion of the Organic Law the principality was
provisionally administered by a Russian Commissary ,assisted by a Turkish Commissary and
Consuls delegated ad hoc by the Powers. The Constituent Assembly, elected in December
1878, met on February 26, 1879, and duly drafted an Organic Law which was adopted on
April 28. Mainly the work of the fii'st ruler of the independent Bulgaria, Petko Karaveloff,'
10
this Law was amended in 1893 and again in 1911, but neither in its original nor amended
form has it worked satisfactorily. It was said of modern Itah , perhaps with truth, that she
was made too quickly. The saying is certainly true of Bulgaria. Her young men and old men
were alike in a hurry. Without any training whatever in the most difficult of all political arts,
that of self-government, Bulgaria adopted a form of constitution which presupposed a long
political apprenticeship. Karaveloff was a sincere patriot, but he belonged to the worst type
of academic radicals. The constitution reflected, in every clause, the work of the doctrinaire.
The Legislature was to consist of a Single Chamber, the Sobranje or National Assembly ; any
man over thirty years of age who could read and write, unless he were a clergyman,
a soldier on active service, or had been deprived of civil rights, was eligible for election to it
all members were to be paid ; the Assembly Avas to be elected on the basis of universal
manhood suffrage, and each electoral district was to consist of 20,000 votei-s who were to
return one member ; unless dissolved by the prince (now the king) the Assembly was to sit for
four years. Questions concerning the acquisition or cession of territory, a vacancy of the
crown, regencies and constitutional revision were to be reserved from the competence of the
ordinary Sobranje and to be referred to a Grand Sobranje, elected in the same manner by the
same people but in double strength. The Executive was entrusted to a Council of eight
10
For an admirable portrait see Laveleye, The Balkan Peninsula pp. 259 sq.

P a g e | 22
ministers, to be nominated by the prince (king), but responsible to the Assembly 11.Had this
constitution been the outcome of a slow political evolution there would have been little to be
said against it. Imposed upon a people totally inexperienced, it proved, as the sequel will
show, unworkable. Having drafted the Organic Law the Assembly proceeded to the election
of a prince. The Treaty of Berlin had provided that he was to be 'freely elected by the
population, and confirmed by the Porte with the assent of the Powers, but no member of the
reigning dynasty of a Great Power was to be eligible. The Tsar recommended and the
Assembly elected (April 29, 1879) Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a scion, by a morganatic
marriage, of the House of Darmstadt, a nephew by marriage of the Tsar, and an officer in the
Prussian army. Born in 1857 Prince Alexander was at this time a young Prince man of
twenty-two, of fine presence, and with plenty of character and brains. A close observer
described him as a wise statesman, a brave soldier, a remarkable man in every
respect'.12The description was perhaps partial, but the choice was unquestionably a good
one, and if Prince Alexander had had a fair chance he would probably have done a great
work for his adopted country. He was, however, hampered from the outset on the one hand
by the jealousy and arrogance of the Russian officials by whom he was at first surrounded,
and on the other by the opposition of the Sobranje, which was elected under the ridiculous
provisions of the Organic Law. Out of 170 members elected to the first Sobranje in 1879 The
not more than thirty were supporters of the ministers appointed by the prince, and after a
session which lasted only ten days it was dissolved. A second Sobranje, elected in 1880, was
even less favourable to the prince and his ministers. The appointment of a new ministry,
under the Russophil radicals Zankoff" and Karavelofl", temporarily eased the situation, but
in May, 1881, the prince suspended the Organic Law, and in July a new Assembly ratified his
coup d'etat and conferred upon him extraordinary powers for a period of seven years. In
September, 1883, however, the prince was compelled by pressure from St. Petersburg to re-
establish the abrogated constitution. The new Tsar, Alexander III13was much less friendly
than his father to the Prince of Bulgaria, and from this time onwards there was more or less
avowed hostility between St. Petersburg and Sofia.

11
For convenience the subsequent amendments are incorporated
12
Majoi" A. von Huhn, The Struggle of the Bulgarians for Independence (1886), p. 6.
13
Succeeded in 1881 on the assassination of Tsar Alexander 11.

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