Congress of Berlin - The Great Powers in The Balkans

The Great Powers in The Balkans

The Balkans were a major stage for competition between the European Great Powers in the second half of the nineteenth century. The United Kingdom and Russia both had stake in the fate of the Balkans. Russia was interested in the region both ideologically as a pan-Slavist unifier and as a way to secure greater control of the Mediterranean, while the United Kingdom was interested in preventing Russia from doing exactly that. Furthermore, the unification of Italy and Germany had stymied the ability of a third European power, Austria-Hungary, to further expand its domain to the southwest. Germany, as the most powerful continental nation after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and one without large direct interests in the settlement, was the only power which could mediate the Balkan question.

Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two powers most invested in the fate of the Balkans, were allied with Germany in the League of Three Emperors, founded to preserve monarchy and conservatism on continental Europe. This meant that the Congress of Berlin was mainly a dispute among supposed allies with conflicting goals. Otto von Bismarck and the German Empire, the arbiter of the discussion, would thus have to choose before the end of the congress which of their allies to support. This decision was to have direct consequences on the future of European geopolitics.