the last days of 1876 was startled by the salvo of artillery which heralded the promulgation of a liberal constitution, not for the European provinces only, but for the whole empire, and the institution of a Turkish parliament. The decisions of the conference, moderate though they were, in the end requiring merely the nomination of an international commission to investigate the state of the European provinces of Turkey, and the appointment by the sultan, with the approval of the Russo-Turkish War. powers, of governors-general for five years, were rejected by the Porte. The statesmen of Europe still continued their efforts to avert a conflict, but to no purpose. On the 24th of April 1877 Russia declared war and her troops crossed the Turkish frontiers. Hostilities were conducted both in Europe and Asia for nearly a year. Rumania joined the Russians, and in Europe no effective opposition was encountered by the invaders until the assaults on Plevna and the Shipka Pass, where the valiant resistance of the Turks won for them the admiration of Europe. By November the defence of the Turks in Asia Minor had entirely collapsed. Plevna surrendered on the 9th of December 1877 after a heroic struggle under Osman Pasha. Thereafter the Russians advanced practically unchecked (see Russo-Turkish Wars). An armistice and preliminaries of peace were signed on the 31st of January 1878 at Adrianople, and a definitive treaty was concluded at Treaty of San Stefano. San Stefano on the 3rd of March 1878. Its terms were: the creation of an autonomous tributary principality of Bulgaria extending from the Black Sea to the Aegean; the recognition by Turkey of the independence of Rumania, Servia and Montenegro, with increased territories; the payment of a war indemnity; the introduction of reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the cession to Russia of Bessarabia and the Dobruja; the opening of the passage of the straits at all times to the merchant vessels of neutral states; and the razing of the fortresses on the Danube.
Great Britain had throughout the war preserved strict neutrality, but, while making it clear from the outset that she could not assist Turkey, had been prepared for emergencies. Turkey's severity in repressing the Bulgarian insurrection had raised up in England a storm of public opinion against her, of which the Liberal opposition had taken the fullest advantage; moreover the suspension of payments on the Ottoman debt had dealt Turkey's popularity a blow from which it had never recovered. But upon the approach of the Russians to Constantinople the British reserves were called out and the fleet was despatched to the Bosporus. Accordingly, and as her line of retreat might be threatened by Austria, Russia consented to a revision of the Treaty of San Stefano at a congress to be held at Berlin. Congress of Berlin, 1878. Before the meeting of this congress, which assembled on the 13th of June 1878, the powers principally interested had arrived at an understanding as to the modifications to be introduced in the treaty, and by a convention concluded with Turkey on the 4th of June 1878 England had undertaken to defend the Asiatic dominions of the sultan by force of arms, provided that his majesty carried out all the necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later, and assigned to England the island of Cyprus, which was however to be restored if Turkey fulfilled her engagements as to reforms and if Russia gave back to her Kars, Ardahan and Batum. On the 13th of July 1878 the Treaty of Berlin was signed: the Great Bulgaria of the San Stefano Treaty was diminished to an autonomous province north of the Balkans, the south-eastern portion, no longer extending to the Aegean, was formed into a self-governing tributary province styled Eastern Rumelia; Turkey abandoned all pretension to suzerainty over Montenegro; Servia and Rumania received their independence (but the last named was made to cede Bessarabia to Russia, receiving instead the Dobruja); the Asiatic frontier was readjusted, Kars, Ardahan and Batum becoming Russian. It was further provided that Bulgaria should pay to Turkey an annual tribute, and should moreover (as well as the other Balkan states receiving accessions of territory at Turkey's expense) bear a portion of the Ottoman debt. The sums payable by the different countries were to be fixed by the powers; but no effect has so far been given to this reasonable stipulation, which may now be looked upon as null and void. Turkey undertook to pay to Russia a war indemnity of 300,000,000 roubles, and the status of the straits remained unchanged. Measures of reform in Armenia were also provided for, as also the convocation of an international commission for drawing up a reform scheme for the European provinces left to Turkey. The organic law for Crete was to be carried out, and special laws enacted for other parts of Turkey. Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to the administration of Austria; Montenegro and Greece received accessions of territory to which only strong pressure coupled with a naval demonstration induced Turkey to consent three years later.
Peace once restored, some attempt was made by Turkey in the direction of complying with her engagements to institute reform. Financial and military advisers were procured from Germany. English officers were engaged to reform the gendarmerie, and judicial inspectors of foreign nationality were to travel through the country to redress abuses. It was not long before the unsubstantial character of all these undertakings became apparent; the parliament was dissolved, the constitution was suspended and its author exiled. Egyptian affairs next threatened complications. In May 1879 the misgovernment of Ismail Pasha and the resulting financial crisis rendered the deposition of the khedive inevitable; in order to anticipate the action of England and France, who would otherwise have expelled the erring viceroy, the sultan deposed him himself; the succession devolved upon his son Mahommed Tewfik Pasha. The Egyptian Question. (For the subsequent history of the Egyptian question see Egypt: History.) The revolt of Arabi Pasha in 1881 broke up the Anglo-French condominium in Egypt and led to outrages at Alexandria followed by a bombardment on the 11th of July 1882. The occupation of the country by Great Britain gradually took a more permanent form, and though negotiations were more than once entered into with Turkey with a view to its termination, these either proved abortive or were rendered so (as e.g. the Drummond-Wolff convention of 1887) by the action of other powers. The Anglo-French agreement of 1904 left England in undisputed mastery.
The financial straits of Turkey after the war became so acute Public Debt. that the sultan was compelled to consent to a measure of foreign control over the finances of the country; the administration of the public debt being established in December 1881. (See Finance, above.)
In 1885 the practically bloodless revolution of Philippopolis on the 18th of September united Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, severed by the Treaty of Berlin. A conference held at Constantinople sanctioned the union on terms which were rendered acceptable to the sultan; but Said Pasha, who had assisted the sultan in centralizing at Yildiz Kiosk the administration of the country, and who had become grand vizier, was a strong adherent of the policy of armed intervention by Turkey, and the consequence was his fall from office. His successor in the grand vizierate, Kiamil Pasha, was soon called upon to deal with Armenian unrest, consequent on the non-execution of the reforms provided for in the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention, which first found vent about 1890. But Kiamil Pasha was not subservient enough to his imperial master's will, and his place was taken by a military man, Jevad Pasha, from whom no independence of action was to be apprehended.
It is from this period that the German ascendancy in Constantinople is noticeable. Railway concessions were given to German Activity in Turkey. Germans over the heads of British applicants already in possession of lines from which they were expropriated, thus affording the nucleus of the Bagdad railway (of which Germany obtained the concession in November 1899). (See Bagdad, vol. iii. p. 197.)
From 1890 Crete was frequently the scene of disturbance; the Christian communities in other parts of Turkey began to chafe under the attempted curtailing of their privileges; about Christmas 1893 the Greek patriarch caused all the Orthodox churches to be closed as a protest; and the Armenian agitation
