EASTERN QUESTION, The. The rivalry between the Great Powers for control of the Balkans and the political struggle among the Balkan states themselves constitute the East ern Question. Prior to the 19th century the rivalry between the Great Powers turned upon religion as an ostensible motive, while politics remained at the same time the underlying cause for interference in Balkan affairs. The young and recalcitrant national states of the Balkan Peninsula have always been striving to gain self-government and religious autonomy. The liberation of Serbia was acknowledged in 1804, that of Greece in 1827. Rumania and Bulgaria secured their independence by Rus sia's support in 1878.
Before the Congress of Paris political con trol of the Balkans rested largely in the hands of Turkey; after that date the Balkan Ques tion concerned not only Turkey but all Europe. Russia's interest was identified with the pro tection of Orthodox Christians and the gaining thereby of a route through Constantinople to the Mediterranean Sea; France pretended to protect Roman Catholics in the Levant, in order to maintain there her trade-hold; Austria worked for aggrandizement of her empire through economic and political supremacy con sistent with her policy Drang mach Osten, which in this case meant Drang each Salonika. Great Britain regarded the safety of the route to her Asiatic possessions as paramount, and Germany planned a commercial outlet through the Balkans to the Persian Gulf.
From the end of the 18th century to the Treaty of Paris (6 March 1856), Russia's policy with Turkey in regard to the Balkans was of the character of the door." She began by allying with Turkey (Unkiar-Skelessi, 8 July 1833), a move which in 1840 was ob jected to by France, England and Austria, and which Russia opposed in 1850 only to find that Turkey was on the side of her enemies. In 1853 the Russo-Turkish War showed England and Franceas Turkish allies, and Austria and Germany were neutral till the war had reached the point where the latter two powers threat ened to join the Turkish allies if Russia proved intractable. The Treaty of Paris
(1856) consequently left Constantinople in the hands of the Turks. Russia gained Sebastopol but she was humiliated to a strict limitation of her armaments in the Black Sea, to withdrawal from the mouth of the Danube by the partial retrocession of Bessarabia, and finally to a renunciation of all special rights to protect Christians in the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey, possessor of the field, continued a Balkan policy of massacre and torture; a massacre of Christians in Syria occurred in 1860, an insurrection in Crete followed, and finally in 1875 an insurrection broke out in Herzegovina. Russia held consistently to her policy, that of Catharine II, to expel the rurks from Europe, but England was split by awo parties, that of Gladstone which favored the liberation of the Balkan nations, and that of Lord Beaconsfield which sanctioned Turkish policy. In 1876 the clash came. Serbia and Montenegro arose against Turkey on behalf of oppressed Serbians in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The sympathy of Europe was won for valiant Balkan fighters. Tennyson in Eng land idealized the Montenegrins as a nation of °warriors beating back the swarm of Turkish Islam for 500 years." Gladstone said: °The Balkans for the Balkan peoples.° This was answered later on in Turkey by °Turkey for the Turks" In 1877-78 Russia carried the cause ST the Balkan nations further by march ineher army to the very walls of Constanti nople and dealing a defeat to Turkey. The Russian forces now sat down with the repre sentatives of the Sublime Porte and dictated the Peace of San Stefano (3 March 1878), by which was declared the complete independence of Serbia, Rumania and Montenegro. Bosnia and Herzegovina were left to the European powers for future decision, yet Austria being the contiguous power was recognized to have a predominating voice in the disposal of the latter. Bulgaria was made an °autonomous principality," which extended from the Black Sea to the Albanian Mountains, and from the Danube to the JEgean.