What Was the Treaty of Berlin of 1878?
The Treaty of Berlin was signed on 13 July 1878 in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, after a congress chaired by the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and attended by the six great European powers — Russia, Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty revised the earlier Treaty of San Stefano (3 March 1878), which had ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and which had been seen in Vienna and London as a Russian advance in the Balkans incompatible with the post-1815 European order. The Berlin settlement was, accordingly, a concerted revision of the Russian gains of 1878, imposed on Russia by the other great powers (see Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774-1923, 1966).
The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878
The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 had been the most ambitious Russian military campaign of the post-Crimean period. The Russian army, commanded by the Grand Duke Nicholas, the tsar’s brother, advanced through the Balkans; it took the key Ottoman fortress of Pleven after a five-month siege (December 1877), and by January 1878 the Russian forces were on the outskirts of Constantinople. The Ottoman government accepted the armistice of Adrianople on 31 January 1878 and signed the Treaty of San Stefano on 3 March 1878.
The Treaty of San Stefano created a large autonomous Bulgarian principality under Russian influence, extending from the Danube to the Aegean, and the Ottoman government accepted a Russian indemnity of 310 million rubles. The Russian position in the Balkans was, by the terms of the San Stefano treaty, dominant; the Russian army occupied the territory; the Russian delegation had dictated the terms (Henze, Bulgaria, 1878-1918, 1979).
The Berlin Congress
The San Stefano treaty alarmed the other European powers. The British government, in particular, feared that the large Bulgarian state would be a Russian client state, and that the Russian position in the Straits would threaten British interests in the Mediterranean and the route to India. The Austrian government, which had its own interests in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was equally alarmed. The French government, which had its own designs on North Africa, was less directly concerned but generally sympathetic to the anti-Russian position. The German government, under Bismarck, was concerned to maintain the post-Congress European order; Bismarck had been instrumental in 1876 in restraining Russian action in the Balkans, and he now played the role of “honest broker” at the Congress.
The Congress of Berlin met from 13 June to 13 July 1878, and the resulting treaty was signed by the six great powers. The treaty was, in effect, a substantial revision of the San Stefano settlement, in favour of the British and Austrian positions and at the expense of the Russian (Anderson, 1966).
The terms of the treaty
The principal provisions of the Treaty of Berlin were:
- The Bulgarian principality was substantially reduced in size, becoming a smaller state between the Danube and the Stara Planina, with the southern part of the San Stefano Bulgaria becoming the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, under direct Ottoman administration.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under Austro-Hungarian administration, although they remained formally part of the Ottoman Empire. The Austrian occupation began in July 1878.
- Russia acquired the eastern part of Armenia, including the key fortress of Kars, the Ardahan, and the Batum oblast.
- Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro were recognised as fully independent states; Romania received the northern Dobruja, in exchange for the southern Bessarabia that it had received at San Stefano.
- The Ottoman government undertook a series of reforms for the protection of the Christian populations of the empire.
- The Anglo-Ottoman Cyprus Convention of 4 June 1878 had separately given Britain the right to administer Cyprus, in exchange for British support at the Congress of Berlin.
The Russian position was, accordingly, much weaker than the San Stefano treaty had promised. Russia gave up the large Bulgarian state, gave up the indemnity, and received only a small territorial gain in the Caucasus. The Russian foreign minister, Alexander Gorchakov, who had been the chief architect of the Russian position at the Congress, was widely blamed for the Russian failure; his reputation never recovered (Henze, 1979).
The consequences
The Berlin settlement was the basis of the new south-eastern European order, and it shaped the next forty years of Russian foreign policy. The Austrian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina was, in particular, the first step in the Austrian advance into the Balkans that would lead, in 1914, to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the outbreak of the First World War. The Russian disappointment at Berlin was, in turn, an important element in the subsequent development of the Russian position in the Balkans, including the development of the Panslavist movement and the eventual Russian alliance with France in 1891-1894.
The Treaty of Berlin was, in this sense, the closing of one chapter of the Eastern Question and the opening of another. The question of the Balkans, which had been the focus of the Eastern Question in the 1870s, would be the focus again in 1912-1914. The Russian position in 1914, particularly in the context of the 1908-1909 Bosnian crisis and the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars, can be read as a long-term Russian response to the 1878 settlement (Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918, 1954).