Congress of Berlin

For a month in the summer of 1878, from 13 June to 13 July, the great powers of Europe met in Berlin under the chairmanship of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck to redraw the map of the Balkans. They overturned much of the peace Russia had just imposed on the defeated Ottoman Empire, confirmed the independence of several Balkan states and handed new footholds to Britain and Austria-Hungary. The settlement left almost every party dissatisfied and stored up rivalries that later fed the Balkan Wars and the First World War.

Uprisings in Herzegovina and Bulgaria in 1875–1876, and their violent suppression, stirred pan-Slav sentiment in Russia, which saw itself as protector of the Orthodox Slavs. Having secured Austro-Hungarian neutrality by promising it Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia went to war and won the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The resulting Treaty of San Stefano recognised Serbia, Montenegro and Romania as independent, enlarged all three, and created a large autonomous Bulgaria reaching into Macedonia and down to the Aegean.

Such a "Greater Bulgaria" alarmed the other powers. Britain feared a Russian client state close to the Straits and the eastern Mediterranean, while Austria-Hungary wanted its own influence in the western Balkans. Bismarck, whose Germany had no direct stake, claimed impartiality and hoped to preserve the League of the Three Emperors that bound Germany to both Russia and Austria-Hungary.

The delegates gathered at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire took part, while Greece, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro were admitted only to sessions on their own affairs. Much had been agreed in advance. On 4 June the British prime minister, Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), had concluded the secret Cyprus Convention with the Ottomans, and two days later Britain and Austria-Hungary had settled their positions on Bosnia. The congress revised or dropped 18 of San Stefano's 29 articles.

Romania, Serbia and Montenegro became fully independent, but within narrower borders than at San Stefano. Romania had to give southern Bessarabia back to Russia, receiving Northern Dobruja instead. The large Bulgaria was split: a self-governing Principality of Bulgaria under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, a separately administered province of Eastern Rumelia, and Macedonia, which was returned to direct Ottoman rule on condition of reforms. Austria-Hungary was given the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the right to keep garrisons in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, and Britain took over the administration of Cyprus. Both territories stayed formally Ottoman until Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1908 and Britain annexed Cyprus in 1914.

The Ottoman Empire emerged with its weakness exposed. In Russia the outcome was widely regarded as a humiliation, and Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov reportedly described the treaty as the darkest page of his life. Bulgaria was left with less than half the territory promised at San Stefano, and Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians all felt cheated. Russian anger at what it saw as Germany's lack of support destroyed the League of the Three Emperors. The Greek–Ottoman border was settled only in 1881, when Greece gained Thessaly and Arta.

The congress succeeded in curbing Russian power in the Balkans for the moment, but it deepened the rivalry between Russia and Austria-Hungary and left many Slavs under foreign rule. Unresolved national claims erupted in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, and tensions over Bosnia culminated in Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 and the outbreak of World War I.

Our 1878 and 1880 maps show the Balkans as rearranged at Berlin, with the shrunken European lands of the Ottoman Empire, the new independent states and Austro-Hungarian Bosnia.