Bismarck’s Berlin congress trimmed Russia’s Balkan victory
From 13 June to 13 July 1878, Europe’s great powers rewrote the Treaty of San Stefano that had ended the Russo-Turkish War. Otto von Bismarck mediated toward British lines: no Greater Bulgaria, Constantinople kept Ottoman, and Balkan borders reshuffled into the Treaty of Berlin.
Russia won the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878 and in March 1878 dictated the Treaty of San Stefano to the Ottomans, including a large, Russian-aligned Greater Bulgaria. Britain objected to Russian dominance in the Balkans and parked its Mediterranean Fleet near Constantinople to press the point. To head off war, Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the young German Empire, was asked to broker a deal that would restore the Ottomans as a counterweight to Russia, in the spirit of the 1856 Treaty of Paris.
The sessions took place in the Reich Chancellery on Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse, lasting a month. The six great powers of the day, Russia, Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany, attended alongside the Ottomans and envoys from Greece, Serbia, Romania and Montenegro. Bismarck largely followed terms Britain had agreed in secret beforehand, aiming to block a Greater Bulgaria and keep Constantinople Ottoman. He also made civil rights for Jews a condition for recognising the new states.
The Treaty of Berlin broke up the Greater Bulgaria of San Stefano. Bulgaria became a semi-independent principality, Eastern Rumelia a special administration, and Macedonia went back to the Ottomans on condition of reform. Romania, Serbia and Montenegro won recognised independence, but Romania had to surrender part of Bessarabia to Russia in exchange for Northern Dobruja, and the other two lost ground. Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, and Britain took Cyprus.
It was greeted as a triumph for peace, yet almost everyone left unhappy. The Ottomans were confirmed as the sick man of Europe. Russia felt cheated of a victory it had earned. Bulgaria was left with less than half the land San Stefano had promised, and Serbia and Greece also felt short-changed. Russian nationalists came to loathe Bismarck, who found Germany tied too tightly to Austria-Hungary. Vienna's gains in Bosnia angered South Slavs for decades, a grievance that ended with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the settlement deepened the Anglo-Russian rivalry known as the Great Game.
Source: Congress of Berlin
