II.

The Eastern Question

The roots of the conflict lay in the Eastern Question posed by the decline of the Ottoman Empire, a development fraught with explosive implications for the European balance of power. From the late 18th century, Russia had become increasingly eager to take advantage of this situation to increase its influence in the Balkans and to wrest from the Turks control of the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Following their victory in the Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829) and especially after the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (1833), the Russians moved towards the establishment of a unilateral protectorate over the Ottoman Empire.

Britain and France viewed the possibility of Russian control of the straits as a threat to their own interests in the Middle East, and many in those countries despised Russia as the despotic enemy of liberalism (see British Foreign Policy Since 1800). Austria too, despite a long tradition of diplomatic cooperation with Russia, was uneasy about growing Russian influence in the Balkans. In 1841, the European powers and the Ottoman Empire managed to replace the Unkiar-Skelessi agreement with a general European protectorate.