The Eastern Question

The Eastern Question centers in the Ottoman or Turkish Empire. The Ottoman Empire is the highway, or key, to Asia. Europe cannot afford to give the key into the keeping of any single European power. Asia has also ambitions and rivalries which she cannot afford to yield to "the Great Powers of Europe," and so the Eastern Question practically means Turkey. But ever since the Crimean War of 1854 the Eastern Question has expanded, and the question of Russian expansion has become involved in it.

In the Crimean War France and England said to Russia, "So far and no farther," and Russia did not take Constantinople.

From this refrain the war-party came to be known as the "Jingoes." But the "Jingoes" were not strong enough to affect the Court; the Queen had not ceased to deplore the Crimean disaster, yet England could not afford to let Russia take Constantinople, and the Powers agreed with her that that gate, or port, between the East and the West could not be held by any single European power. Hence the Eastern Question has become many-sided and complex, and the main problem to be solved is how to settle the disputes, political and religious, in the East of Europe, or between Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey, or the Ottoman Empire, comprehends all the countries in which Turkish supremacy is directly or indirectly recognized, including some of the fairest portions of the earth, and several of its earliest and most celebrated seats of civilization.

An armistice in the Russo-Turkish War was agreed to when Russia seemed to have Turkey at her feet, and the celebrated Berlin Conference followed. This was a great Congress of Nations, assembled in Berlin June 13th to July 13th, 1878, at the invitation of Prince Bismarck of Germany. The object was to settle the Eastern Question, or, in other words, to readjust Eastern Europe, since the Treaty of Paris, following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871, had now been broken by this Russo-Turkish War. Prince Bismarck was host in his palace at Berlin. Lord Beaconsfield, Prime Minister of England at the time, with Lord Salisbury, Foreign Secretary, represented the Queen. The result of the Congress was that Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania and Montenegro became independent of Turkey, upon the basis of religious freedom to all within their territory. Greece had her rights in Crete protected, and Turkey in Europe was greatly contracted. Turkey had also to pay an immense war indemnity to Russia; but not being able to do this, Russia accepted, as an equivalent, territory north of the Black Sea. It was the people of Russia, not the Court, that forced the Czar to undertake, single-handed, a war with Turkey. Nominally the object of the war was to secure protection to Christian citizens within the Turkish dominions. The failure on the part of the Czar, Alexander II., who conducted the war in person, to reap the fruit of Russia's successful and costly campaign by accepting the Treaty of Berlin, aroused the Nihilistic element in Russia. This secret society developed in 1874, and had for its object, as a remedy for all existing evils in Russia, the annihilation of all existing authority, both of Church and State. Their efforts seemed to culminate in the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II., by the explosion of a bomb at his feet, March 13th, 1881. His death was greatly lamented throughout the civilized world. He was regarded as the wisest, most liberal, most humane ruler that Russia had ever had. He gave freedom to the Serfs, and made St. Petersburg one of the finest cities in the world.