Background
Harsh criticism from the European powers followed the conditions of the San Stefano peace treaty. Austria-Hungary declared violations of the previous Austro-Russian agreements. Austria-Hungary and England opposed strengthening the positions of Russia in the Balkans, against the national liberation of the Slavic peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, especially against the formation of a large Slavic state there – Bulgaria.
It was obvious that Russia was not able to launch a new war against the coalition. Germany’s support could not have been expected. In private conversations with the Russian ambassador to Germany, Bismarck recommended agreeing to a discussion of the terms of the treaty at an international congress.
Once isolated, Petersburg was forced to recognize the contract as preliminary and go for its revision at the Berlin Congress. Representatives of Russia, England, Austria-Hungary and Germany took part in the congress. The delegations of France (led by Foreign Minister Waddington ), Italy (Foreign Minister Corti ) and Turkey ( Caratheodory ) also attended. Representatives of Greece, Iran, Romania, Montenegro and Serbia were invited to the congress.
And again, as in the early 1860s, Russia decided to imitate the threat of British maritime trade and long-distance approaches to British India. Alexander II, in the summer of 1878, ordered 20,000 troops stationed in Turkestan to move to Balkh, Bamiyan and Kabul in Afghanistan. A mission headed by General Nikolai Stoletov went to the emir of Afghanistan Shir-Ali to Kabul to conclude an alliance. Plans to invade Kashmir and Chitral were considered.
However, this pressure on India in the depths of Asia did not help Russian diplomacy at the congress.
Berlin Congress was preceded by a series of agreements. On May 18 (30), 1878, a secret Anglo-Russian agreement took place, which predetermined in general terms the conditions for the revision of the Treaty of San Stefano. On May 23 (June 4), England signed a secret treaty with Turkey on a defensive alliance – the Cyprus Convention, under which Great Britain obtained the right to occupy Cyprus and the right to control the implementation of reforms by the Turkish government in Asia Minor. England, on the other hand, pledged to defend the borders in Asia with “force of arms”, if Russia demands that they be corrected outside the limits defined in San Stefano. The Anglo-Austrian Agreement on May 25 (June 6) also defined a common course of action for both powers at the congress.
The German Chancellor Bismarck presided at the congress. Major issues were usually tentatively resolved at private meetings of representatives from Germany, England, Austria-Hungary and Russia, whose delegations were headed respectively by Bismarck, Prime Minister B. Beaconsfield, Foreign Minister D. Andrássy and Chancellor A. M. Gorchakov. The disputes were mainly about Bulgaria, the territory of which, defined by the Treaty of San Stefano, Austria-Hungary and England wanted to be cut to a minimum, about Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Austria-Hungary claimed, and about the territory in Transcaucasia, which ceded from Turkey to Russia, against which England protested. Bismarck declared himself a neutral mediator, but in fact supported the demands of Austria-Hungary and England, forcing Russia to accept most of them.
The Treaty of Berlin
The Treaty of Berlin was signed, which was the result of the work of the Berlin Congress convened at the initiative of the Western powers to revise the terms of the Treaty of San Stefan to the detriment of Russia and the Slavic peoples of the Balkan Peninsula.
- Bulgaria was divided into three parts: the vassal principality from the Danube to the Balkans, with its center in Sofia; The Bulgarian lands south of the Balkans formed an autonomous province of the Turkish Empire – Eastern Rumelia with its center in Philippopolis;
- Macedonia – lands to the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea were returned to Turkey without any changes in status.
- Bulgaria with the center in Sofia was declared an autonomous principality, the elected head of which was approved by the Sultan with the consent of the great powers. The provisional administration of Bulgaria until the introduction of the constitution in it was retained by the Russian commandant, but the tenure of the Russian troops in Bulgaria was limited to 9 months. Turkish troops did not have the right to be in the principality, but it was obliged to pay Turkey annual tribute.
- Turkey received the right to protect the borders of Eastern Rumelia with only regular troops stationed in the border garrisons.
Thrace and Albania remained for Turkey. In these provinces, as well as in Crete and in Turkish Armenia, Turkey pledged to reform local self-government in accordance with the organic regulations of 1868, equating the rights of Christians with Muslims. - Turkey refused in favor of Persia from the rights to the controversial frontier city of Hotur.
- The independence of Montenegro, Serbia and the Romanian principality was recognized.
- Territorial increments of Montenegro and Serbia, stipulated by the San Stefano Treaty, were cut down.
- Montenegro, which received the port of Antibari on the Adriatic Sea, was deprived of the right to have a fleet, and the sea and sanitary control in these waters was transferred to Austria-Hungary.
- The territory of Serbia somewhat increased, but not at the expense of Bosnia, but at the expense of the land claimed by Bulgaria.
The Romanian principality received the Bulgarian Northern Dobrogea and the Danube Delta. - Austria-Hungary secured the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina and to deploy garrisons between Serbia and Montenegro – in Novopazarsky Sandzak , which remained in Turkey.
- The rectification of the Greek-Turkish border was provided to the negotiations of these two countries with the mediation of the European powers in case of their failure. The final decision to increase the territory of Greece was made in 1880 by the transfer of Greece to Thessaly and part of Epirus.
- Guaranteed freedom of navigation on the Danube from the Black Sea to the Iron Gate.
- Russia refused Bayazeta and the Alashkert Valley and acquired only Ardahan, Kars and Batumi, in which it pledged to introduce a free port regime (port of free trade). Southern Bessarabia passed to Russia.
The Berlin Treaty remained in force until the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, but some of its resolutions remained unfulfilled or were later amended. So, the reforms of local government promised by Turkey in areas inhabited by Christians were not carried out. Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1885 merged into a single principality. In 1886, Russia abolished the free port in Batum. In 1908, Bulgaria declared itself a kingdom independent of Turkey, and Austria-Hungary turned the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into annexation.