Papro's monologue
Editor|Papro's monologue
Britain and Russia were undoubtedly the poles of the European powers after the Napoleonic Wars and played a major role in maintaining European coordination.
However, the two countries spent two decades at peace in Europe, and the rivalry in the Near East eventually turned into a war. Russia's centuries-old expansion into the Mediterranean and Britain's growing interests in the Near East formed an important backdrop to the war.
Eastern question
The "EastcrnQucstion" in the term "EastcrnQucstion" refers to the East in the sense of Western European countries, including parts of the Near and Middle East, and in the 19th century it can be said to refer exclusively to the "Oriental Question" of the Oss Empire and its dependencies at that time.
First introduced at the Verona Conference, it has since become a diplomatic term "used to summarize the international problems created by the decline of the Turkish Empire and its supposed imminent collapse".
Marx described the Eastern problem as an "unsolvable problem" and "endless source of difficulties" that always arose in Western countries after revolution and apparent stability in the 19th century, and summarized the image of the Eastern problem as "what to do with Turkey".
It is generally believed that the beginning of the Eastern problem can be counted from the Treaty of Cookkenagi in 1774, or that the Eastern problem evolved into an international problem when Greece under the Ottoman Empire demanded independence, and the Eastern problem ended with the Treaty of Lausanne signed between the Allies and Turkey in 1923 after World War I.
Throughout the 19th century, this question hovered like a spirit in Europe, and from time to time it surfaced, and "no other problem occupied so long in 19th-century international relations that could not be resolved" The Crimean War was a direct product of the Eastern problem in the mid-19th century, and it was also a climax of the Eastern problem.
Whether from the name or the description of Western scholars, the "Eastern Question" is obviously proposed and discussed in Europe, and the solution is obviously carried out with Europe as the center, and the Eastern issue seems to be a factor in the instability of the international situation in Europe.
Located at the crossroads of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, the Ottoman Empire, despite its large territory in Europe, the European powers never regarded the Ottoman Empire as a European country, let alone treated it as an equal.
Marriott believes that the essence of the Eastern problem is that the conflict between the West and the East in customs, concepts, cultures, prejudices, etc. in Southeast Europe has appeared to the world in different historical stages, but the manifestation in modern times is more special.
The Ottoman Empire rose in Asia Minor in the 14th century, and its history of conquest is brilliant, and after the Ottoman Empire destroyed Byzantium in 1453, it moved the capital to Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul (although Western countries continue to call it Constantinople).
The Ottosian Empire was also an Islamic power that challenged European countries from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and at its peak it dominated much of the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Balkans.
Ottoman expansion
Like other historical empires, the Ottoman Empire expanded with multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and different political structures, and at the same time laid the seeds for future disputes, and some occupations were purely military, because the Ottoman Empire lacked technical, economic, legal, and institutional assimilation power, and could not integrate many different ethnic groups and religious groups into a single political entity.
As a result, the whole country is largely fragmented. Before the 18th century, the European enemies of the Ottosian Empire were mainly Habsburg Austria, while the European ally was France. The Battle of Vienna in 1683 ended in defeat for the Ottoman Empire, marking the end of its continued expansion into Europe.
In 1699, the Ottoman European territory of Hungary was forced to cede to Austria, and with the expansion of Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman greatest enemy has gradually become Tsarist Russia. In the 18th century, the Ottosian Empire granted varying degrees of autonomy to local rulers, while Egypt and Algeria, nominally under imperial rule, were in fact difficult to truly control.
By the late 18th century, the decline of central government control in the Ottoman Empire left the empire without sufficient strength to maintain effective control internally, and externally unable to defend such a large territory against foreign enemies. The long process of disintegration of the empire, like the expansion, continued to have a major impact on the European countries.
Unlike other empires in history, such as the decline of ancient Rome and ancient Greece, the Ottoman Empire had to deal not only with the challenges of its geographical neighbors Russia and Austria, but also from the distant other empires such as Britain and France.
The Eastern problem was ostensibly caused by the continued expansion of Russia and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, but in fact it was caused by the European powers' covetous interest in the Ottoman Empire and the fear of an uneven distribution of interests.
After all, the Ottoman Empire was not a divided Poland, with a larger territory, a larger population, and more complex ethnic and religious components, and even if Britain, France, Russia, Austria and other countries reached a partition agreement on the Ottoman Empire, there was no guarantee that it would not cause war again due to uneven distribution of spoils and internal strife.
For Russia, Constantinople (Istanbul) is not only of strategic importance to the state but also of special religious significance, and it was from Byzantium that Russia historically received Orthodox Christianity. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, Russia regarded itself as inheriting the Byzantine mantle and calling Moscow the "Third Rome", and Russia became the center of the Orthodox Church.
Continuous war
As Russian expansion advanced southward, wars between Russia and Turkey would have been fought almost every two years after 1676. At the time of Peter the Great, he was already planning to "put his throne on the ruins of Turkey."
"The two Russo-Turkish wars (1768-1774 and 1787-1791) launched by Tsar Catherine II were far-reaching, with Russia occupying all the territory on the northern shore of the Black Sea, including the Krilean Peninsula and the Kerch Sea, and Russia captured the southern outlet to the sea that Peter the Great dreamed of.
The Treaty of Kuchuk-Kenagi signed between Russia and Turkey in 1774 is one of the most famous and important treaties in the history of European diplomacy, marking Russia as a Black Sea power and laying the foundation for Russia's special rights to claim Turkish affairs.
Turkey had to abandon the Sling-dominated Crimean Khanate and allow the Crimean Khanate to become independent, and Crimea was formally annexed by Russia only a few years later in 1783.
Turkey suffered most not only from land cession reparations, the Black Sea, once Turkey's internal sea, was banned from non-Turkish ships at the end of the 16th century, and the Treaty of Kuchuk and Kenagi stipulated that "the Turkish Government shall allow Russian ships and merchant ships to pass freely in Turkish ports and everywhere while they engage in commerce from the Black Sea to the White Sea and from the White Sea to the Black Sea".
Russian merchant ships could henceforth sail freely on the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles to the Mediterranean, and Russia enjoyed all the benefits and privileges enjoyed by Britain and France in the commercial aspects of the Ottoman Empire, and the treaty also provided for some of Russia's religious rights in Turkey.
For example, Russia can set up an Orthodox church in Constantinople, which provides an ambiguous basis for Russia to protect Orthodox Christians in Turkey and interfere in Turkish Orthodox affairs.
Britain had little interest in the Osto-Empire before the 19th century. In the 17th century, with the prosperity of maritime trade, the opening of the sea route to the East made English trade in the Ottoman Empire stop growing, and in 1698, the English tried to establish a shorter route to India through Egypt, but the Ottoman Empire refused.
Soon after Russia's formal annexation of the Crimean Khanate, Britain issued a decree prohibiting seafarers from serving the Russian army, "highlighting Britain's concern about Russian expansion, although similar policies are not universal, and Britain did not yet believe that Russia's growing power in the Black Sea affected the European balance."
Long-term Anglo-French contradictions, the growth of Anglo-Russian trade and the European balance-of-power policy, etc., the Eastern issue appeared in the early days Turkey was only a subordinate position in the British diplomatic strategy, and Britain had not yet formed a clear and systematic Near East policy.
However, Pitt Jr.'s proposal to maintain the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire was more in line with British interests and became an important ideological basis for future British Near East policy, which was later inherited and developed by Canning and Palmerston.
"During the Napoleonic Wars, in order to counter French expansion in the Near East, Britain signed the Treaty of Dardanelles with the Ottoman Empire, which recognized the ancient Ottoman custom of prohibiting all warships from entering the waters of Constantinople in peacetime, namely the Dardanelles and the Black Sea, and Britain made a commitment to abide by this practice.
Bind by treaty
Britain in fact wanted to use treaties to govern the conduct of other countries in the region, which became an important basis for the London Straits Convention of 1841. In 1821, when Greece sought independence from the Ottosian Empire, Britain and Russia were ambivalent about the Greek Revolution.
Britain feared that the Greek incident would be used by Russia to expand its power in the Mediterranean and further weaken the Ottoman Empire, so it was reluctant to involve itself in the Greek Revolution, but the people sympathized with the Greek Revolution: on the one hand, Russia believed that if Greece became independent, it would be a major blow to the Ottoman Empire, and Orthodox Greece and Russia would undoubtedly be able to further cooperate in the Near East.
On the other hand, Russia agreed with Austria on the Greek issue, believing that Greece was rebelling against its own de jure suzerainty, fearing that Greek independence would undermine the existing international order, so despite the high domestic calls for war against Turkey, Russia avoided direct force at the initial stage.
It was only that the Greek struggle lasted for several years, and the brutal suppression of the Greek revolution by the Ottoman Empire caused widespread discontent in Europe. Britain, France, and Russia reached an agreement in London in 1827 urging Turkey to allow Greek autonomy while retaining suzerainty, which Turkey refused.
Immediately afterwards, the combined fleets of Britain, France and Russia sent troops to Greek waters, hoping to promote an armistice. However, after the combined fleets of the three countries destroyed the Turkish fleet, Turkey took tougher measures and declared a holy war to Russia, which quickly responded. This Russian-Turkish war ended with Turkey's crushing defeat and reparations, and the Russian army was even only tens of kilometers away from Constantinople at one point.
The Treaty of Adriatic, which recognized the mouth of the Dori River and the eastern shore of the Black Sea as belonging to Russia and the autonomy and protection of the Duchi principalities, also emphasized in article VII of the freedom of Russian trade and the full freedom of navigation of merchant ships in and around the Black Sea, which the Turkish Government could not obstruct under any pretext.
bibliography