History for ready reference, Volume 1, A-Elba

volume 10, chapter 22-23.

Chapter 179409 wordsPublic domain

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878, and 1878.

BALKAN: A. D. 1878. Treaty of Berlin. Transfer of Bosnia to Austria. Independence of Servia, Montenegro and Roumania. Division and semi-independence of Bulgaria.

"(1) Bosnia, including Herzegovina, was assigned to Austria for permanent occupation. Thus Turkey lost a great province of nearly 1,250,000 inhabitants. Of these about 500,000 were Christians of the Greek Church, 450,000 were Mohammedans, mainly in the towns, who offered a stout resistance to the Austrian troops, and 200,000 Roman Catholics. By the occupation of the Novi-Bazar district Austria wedged in her forces between Montenegro and Servia, and was also able to keep watch over the turbulent province of Macedonia. (2) Montenegro received less than the San Stefano terms had promised her, but secured the seaports of Antivari and Dulcigno. It needed a demonstration of the European fleets off the latter port, and a threat to seize Smyrna, to make the Turks yield Dulcigno to the Montenegrians (who alone of all the Christian races of the peninsula had never been conquered by the Turks). (3) Servia was proclaimed an independent Principality, and received the district of Old Servia on the upper valley of the Morava. (4) Roumania also gained her independence and ceased to pay any tribute to the Porte, but had to give up to her Russian benefactors the slice acquired from Russia in 1856 between the Pruth and the northern mouth of the Danube. In return for this sacrifice she gained the large but marshy Dobrudscha district from Bulgaria, and so acquired the port of Kustendje on the Black Sea. (5) Bulgaria, which, according to the San Stefano terms, would have been an independent State as large as Roumania, was by the Berlin Treaty subjected to the suzerainty of the sultan, divided into two parts, and confined within much narrower limits. Besides the Dobrudscha, it lost the northern or Bulgarian part of Macedonia, and the Bulgarians who dwelt between the Balkans and Adrianople were separated from their kinsfolk on the north of the Balkans, in a province called Eastern Roumelia, with Philippopolis as capital. The latter province was to remain Turkish, under a Christian governor nominated by the Porte with the consent of the Powers. Turkey was allowed to occupy the passes of the Balkans in time of war."

_J. H. Rose, A Century of Continental History, chapter 42._

See TURKS: A. D. 1878.

ALSO IN: _E. Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty,