Congress of Berlin
At the Congress of Berlin, the major European powers revised the territorial and political terms imposed by the Russian Empire on the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of San Stefano, which had ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The Congress was the result of escalating tensions; particularly British opposition to Russian hegemony over the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, through the creation of a Russian-aligned 'Greater Bulgaria'. To secure the European balance of power in favour of its splendid isolation achieved after the Crimean War, Britain stationed the Mediterranean Fleet near Constantinople to enforce British demands. To avoid war, Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the newly formed German Empire, was asked to mediate a solution that would restore the Ottoman Empire's position as a counterbalance to Russian influence in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, in line with the principles of the 1856 Treaty of Paris.
Attended by delegates from Europe's then six great powers: Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Germany; the Ottomans as well as representatives of four Balkan states, the Congress culminated in the Treaty of Berlin. This agreement essentially dismantled the autonomous Greater Bulgarian State envisaged at San Stefano, and reorganised the borders of south-eastern Europe. The main results were the Austro-Hungarian forcible occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the British de facto annexation of Cyprus under false pretenses, and the formal recognition of the self-declared independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro; allies of Russia in the previous war. While the settlement averted war, it exacerbated nationalist grievances in the Balkans and deepened the rivalry between Britain and Russia, contributing to long-term regional instability that foreshadowed the Balkan Wars and World War I.
As mediator of the Congress, Otto von Bismarck negotiated along the lines laid down by Britain in its secret negotiations before the Congress. He also wanted to avoid Russian domination of the Balkans, or the formation of a Greater Bulgaria, and to keep Constantinople in Ottoman hands. Finally, Bismarck helped to secure civil rights for Jews in the region, as a precondition for international recognition of the newly formed states.
The affected territories were instead granted varying degrees of independence. Romania became fully independent, though was forced to give part of Bessarabia to Russia, and gained Northern Dobruja. Serbia and Montenegro were also granted full independence but lost territory, with Austria-Hungary occupying the Sanjak of Novi Pazar along with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Britain took possession of Cyprus. Of the territory that remained within the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria was made a semi-independent principality, Eastern Rumelia became a special administration, and the region of Macedonia was returned to the Ottomans on condition of reforms to its governance.
The results were initially hailed as a success for peace in the region, but most of the participants were not satisfied with the outcome. The Ottomans were humiliated and had their weakness confirmed as the "sick man of Europe". Russia resented the lack of rewards, despite having won the war that the conference was supposed to resolve, and felt humiliated by the other great powers in their rejection of the San Stefano settlement. Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece all received far less than they thought they deserved, especially Bulgaria which was left with less than half of the territory envisioned by the Treaty of San Stefano. Bismarck became hated by Russian nationalists and Pan-Slavists, and later found that he had tied Germany too closely to Austria-Hungary in the Balkans. Although Austria-Hungary gained substantial territory, this angered the South Slavs and led to decades of tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, culminating in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
In the long term, the settlement led to rising tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary, and disputes over nationalism in the Balkans. Grievances with the results of the congress festered until they exploded in the First and Second Balkan Wars. Continuing nationalism in the Balkans was was a major factor for the First World War in 1914.
Background
In the decades leading up to the congress, Russia and the Balkans had been gripped by Pan-Slavism, a movement to unite all the Balkan Slavs under one rule. The Treaty of San Stefano, which had created a "Greater Bulgaria", was opposed as a display of Pan-Slavic hegemonic ambition in southeastern Europe. In Imperial Russia, Pan-Slavism meant the creation of a unified Slavic state, under Russian direction, and was essentially a byword for Russian conquest of the Balkan peninsula. The realisation of the goal would have given Russia control of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, thus economic control of the Black Sea and substantially greater geopolitical power. Pan-Germanism and Pan-Italianism reflected similar nationalist desires and had resulted in two unifications; it took different forms in the various Slavic nations.Balkan Slavs felt they needed both an equivalent to Piedmont to serve as a base and an outside sponsor corresponding to France. The state that was meant to serve as the locus for unification of the Balkans under a "Slavic" rule was not always clear, as initiative wafted between Serbia and Bulgaria. Italian rhetoric by contrast cast Romania as Latin, a "second Piedmont".
The recognition of the Bulgarian Exarchate by the Ottomans in 1870 had been intended to separate the Bulgarians, religiously from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and politically from Serbia. Pan-Slavism required the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. How and whether that goal would be realised was the major question to be answered at the Congress of Berlin.
Great powers in the Balkans
The Balkans were a major stage for competition between the European great powers in the second half of the 19th century. Britain and Russia had interests in the fate of the Balkans. Russia was interested in the region, both ideologically, as a pan-Slavist unifier, and practically, to secure greater control of the Mediterranean. Britain was interested in preventing Russia from accomplishing its goals. Furthermore, the Unifications of Italy and of Germany had stymied the ability of a third European power, Austria-Hungary, to expand its domain to the southwest any further. Germany, as the most powerful continental nation since the 1871 Franco-Prussian War had little direct interest in the settlement and so was the only power that could mediate the Balkan question credibly.Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two powers that were most invested in the fate of the Balkans, were allied with Germany in the conservative League of Three Emperors, which had been founded to preserve the monarchies of Continental Europe. The Congress of Berlin was thus mainly a dispute among supposed allies of Bismarck. The German Empire, the arbiter of the discussion, would thus have to choose before the end of the congress which of their allies to support. That decision was to have direct consequences on the future of European geopolitics.
Ottoman brutality in the Serbian–Ottoman War and the violent suppression of the Herzegovina Uprising fomented political pressure within Russia, which saw itself as the protector of the Serbs, to act against the Ottoman Empire. David MacKenzie writes that within Russia "sympathy for the Serbian Christians existed in Court circles, among nationalist diplomats, and in the lower classes, and was actively expressed through the Slav committees".
Eventually, Russia sought and obtained Austria-Hungary's pledge of benevolent neutrality in the coming war, in return for ceding Bosnia Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary in the Budapest Convention of 1877. act: The Berlin Congress in effect postponed resolution of the Bosnian question and left Bosnia and Herzegovina under Habsburg control. This was the goal of Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Count Gyula Andrássy.
Treaty of San Stefano
After the Bulgarian April Uprising in 1876 and the Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, Russia had liberated almost all of the Ottoman European possessions. The Ottomans recognised Montenegro, Romania and Serbia as independent, and the territories of all three of them were expanded. Russia created a large Principality of Bulgaria as an autonomous vassal of the sultan. That expanded Russia's sphere of influence to encompass the entire Balkans, which alarmed other powers in Europe. Britain, which had threatened war with Russia if it occupied Constantinople, and France did not want another power meddling in either the Mediterranean or the Middle East, where both powers were prepared to make large colonial gains. Austria-Hungary desired Habsburg control over the Balkans, and Germany wanted to prevent its ally from going to war. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck thus called the Congress of Berlin to discuss the partition of the Ottoman Balkans among the European powers and to preserve the League of Three Emperors in the face of the spread of European liberalism.The Congress was attended by Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Delegates from Greece, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro attended the sessions that concerned their states, but they were not members.
The Congress was solicited by Russia's rivals, particularly Austria-Hungary and Britain, and was hosted in 1878 by Bismarck. It proposed and ratified the Treaty of Berlin. The meetings were held at Bismarck's Reich Chancellery, the former Radziwill Palace, from 13 June to 13 July 1878. The congress revised or eliminated 18 of the 29 articles in the Treaty of San Stefano. Furthermore, by using as a foundation the Treaties of Paris and of Washington, the treaty rearranged the East.