ABSTRACT
The world powers were alone capable of waging war; hence the peace of the world could be maintained only through agreement among themselves. In the Near East the rise of world powers was marked by three wars of Russia against Turkey, in 1828, 1854, and 1877. With the rise of world power the field of anxious and even aggressive diplomatic activities of European nations began to cover the world. As population and industry, military strength and wealth, did not remain the exclusive prerogative of European nations, and as the European powers continued to rival and checkmate one another, the rise of world powers in Europe was followed, in the generation after the Congress of Berlin, by the rise of world powers in America and eastern Asia. The Congress of Berlin made an honest effort to find a solution of the Near Eastern question that would avoid a general European war.
