Great Eastern Crisis

The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878 began in the Ottoman Empire's administrative territories in the Balkan Peninsula in 1875, with the outbreak of several uprisings and wars that resulted in the intervention of international powers, and was ended with the Treaty of Berlin in July 1878.

The war is referred to differently in various languages of the peoples involved in it due to differing sociocultural backgrounds. In Serbo-Croatian and Turkish, the war is likewise referred to as Velika istočna kriza ("Great Eastern Crisis") and Şark Buhranı ("Eastern Crisis") respectively. However, the occasionally used Turkish name Ramazan Kararnamesi ("Decree of Ramadan") refers specifically to the sovereign default declared on 30 October 1875 in historiography while 93 Harbi ("War of 93") refers to the Russo-Turkish War (the year 1293 of the Islamic Rumi calendar corresponding to the year 1877 on the Gregorian calendar).

Background

The state of Ottoman administration in the Balkans continued to deteriorate throughout the 19th century, with the Sublime Porte occasionally losing control over whole provinces. Reforms imposed by the European Great Powers did little to improve the conditions of the Christian population, while at the same time managing to dissatisfy a sizable portion of the Muslim population. The Ottoman province of Bosnia suffered at least two waves of rebellion by the local Muslim population, the most recent in 1850. The Austro-Hungarian Empire consolidated after the turmoil of the first half of the century and sought to reinvigorate its longstanding policy of expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile, the nominally autonomous, de facto independent principalities of Serbia and Montenegro also sought to expand into regions inhabited by their compatriots. Nationalist and irredentist sentiments were strong and were encouraged by Russia and its agents.