the beginnings of ottoman-german partnership - Bilkent University

integrity and gave Russia a dominant position within the Ottoman Empire. At the
Congress of Berlin (1878), Bismarck forced the Great Powers to accept revision of
the Treaty of San Stefano since he feared that to accept it would bring not only
hostility from Austria-Hungary but also rapprochement between France and England,
since both hated Russia and feared the danger which its expansion into the Ottoman
Empire would bring. The final Treaty of Berlin denied Russia most of the territorial
gains it had achieved at San Stefano, while at the same time compensating Austria-
Hungary with what was promised to be a temporary military occupation and
administration of the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Ottomans also
were forced to allow Great Britain to occupy Ottoman Cyprus in return for Britain’s
promise to pretext its interest at the Congress. Bismarck thus angered the Russians,
but he was successful in defending Ottoman integrity while keeping the Balance of
Power in Europe.
In the process, however, Great Britain gave up its 19 th century policy of
preventing Ottoman collapse and supporting Ottoman integrity once it saw that the
Ottoman Empire could no longer act as a buffer state against Russian expansion
against the British dominions in the East. On the other hand, the substantial military
and diplomatic defeats inflicted on the Ottomans demonstrated very clearly to Sultan
Abdulhamid that the Ottoman Empire was weaker than he thought at the start of his
reign and he could not trust Britain to defend its interests since it had used the
occasion of the Congress of Berlin to occupy Cyprus, and was clearly intending to
take over Egypt as well, if for no other reason than to control access to the eastern
seas and India through the Suez Canal.
Abdulhamid also felt that he could not trust the other Great Powers either.
The French occupation of Tunisia in 1881, Russian claims on the Balkans and the
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