To what extent was Britain only involved in the Balkans to protect is trade routs?

Authors Avatar

To what extent was Britain only involved in the Balkans to protect is trade routs?

The famous Eastern Question, of what should happen to the Balkan regions of Eastern Europe after the decline of the Ottoman empire was one that dominated both British and international foreign police for much of the 19th Century.                                                                                        

British interests led to intermittent support for Ottoman rule. British Balkan interests derived from interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. Given Britain's position as the most industrialized European state in the early 1800s, economic interest played a large role. In essence Britain needed to secure the shipping lanes to India. Those trade routes passed through areas like Suez that were Turkish. The Turks themselves were too weak to act as a threat, so British policy opposed France, then Russia and eventually Germany, when those states seemed most likely to get too much influence over a weak Turkey. The empire was the heart of British life, and India, the crown within it. Turkey had historically been tolerant of British traders passing through their waters en rout to India, so when Turkish rule of the area was under threat, Britain was keen to intervene, not so much for its general fondness of the Turks, but their want to keep the Suez and other trade routs on side. Thus as a result Britain was fairly unambiguous in its messages to other powers. The treaty of Paris 1856 banned Russian warships in the black sea, thus limiting the danger to the trade routes, and later in 1877 almost the entire British Mediterranean fleet was sent to Constantinople (Besika Bay, the entrance straits), and troops to Malta to act as a clear message to the progressing Russian troops that they were getting too close to land of British interest.

Join now!

However Britain also had humanitarian interests in the Balkans: with the most developed system of representative government in Europe and the most influential popular press, British politicians were under pressure when Ottoman misrule led to uprisings, atrocities and repression. Britain's strategic and humanitarian interests in the Ottoman parts of the Balkans tended to be in conflict. In 1876, Gladstone wrote a pamphlet called "The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East" condemning the massacres that the Turks carried out while suppressing the latest Balkan revolt. After that year, no British cabinet could provide unlimited support for the sultan, as ...

This is a preview of the whole essay