ABSTRACT
For Russia the Congress of Berlin plunged the Eastern Question into a diplomatic stalemate that lasted until 1907. During that time Russia’s military, economic and political difficulties compelled her to pursue a conservative policy towards the Ottoman Empire. From the renewal of the Three Emperors’ League in 1881, through the alignment with France in the 1890s, down to the Anglo-Russian rapprochement of 1907, Russia worked in harmony with the Concert Powers-especially Austria-to preserve the status quo in the Ottoman Empire. The active focus of her foreign policy switched from the Balkans and the Near East to Persia and the Far East, with the war against Japan and the subsequent revolution absorbing most of her attention between 1904 and 1906.1
Not that the traditional ‘historic tasks’ of the Eastern Question had been forgotten or forsworn. Control over the Straits, national statehood for the Balkan Christian peoples, and ascendant political influence throughout the region remained the ultimate goals of Russian policy.2 But these very long-term, elusive-even utopian-targets had to be stalked with ever greater caution and patience. Broadly speaking, Russia could pursue these ends in three ways: by the use of force, by diplomatic combination with the Powers, or by alliance with the Porte itself. The events of 1877-8 had emphasised once again, and with unparalleled clarity, that the issues involved were inextricably intertwined, of general European concern and incapable of solution simply by Russian pressure against the Porte. Successive diplomatic alignments, first with the Central Powers, then with France, brought some security but no unequivocal or lasting support for Russia’s eventual aims in a region where all the Powers cherished important interests.3 Bismarck’s acknowledgement of Russia’s right to seize Constantinople and the Straits should Turkey collapse ended with the demise of the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890. From then on Germany was concerned to deflect Russian ambition to the Far East.4 From 1894, Russia’s new ally, France, sought to strengthen Russia’s presence on Germany’s eastern borders, rather than to encourage her ambitions in the Near East.5 By the end of the century Britain, Russia’s traditional opponent in the Eastern Question, may no longer have considered the Ottoman Empire as worthy and capable of indefinite preservation or that the Royal Navy could prevent a Russian descent on the Bosporus, but this implied no slackening of Anglo-Russian hostility as Russian expansionism gained momentum in Persia and China.6 The third stratagem, a RussoTurkish rapprochement as briefly achieved against Napoleon in 1797 and 1805, or at Unkiar Skelessi in 1833, was kept alive by the sultan’s resentment of Western tutelage and his natural desire to play off Power against Power, but remained highly unlikely on account of
ineradicable and well-founded Turkish russophobia. Russia’s determined hostility to all schemes for Ottoman economic and military rejuvenation also inevitably hampered close Russo-Turkish understanding.7
