Disaster in Berlin

It should have been the greatest triumph of his political career. Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl Beaconsfield, and Prime Minister of Great Britain came to the Congress of Berlin intent to maintain the pea e in Europe, stop Russian expansion in Balkans, and gain Cyprus for the British Empire. Instead it all went horribly wrong.

The congress started on 13th June 1878, called by Bismark in response to the Russian victory in its war with Turkey. Bulgarian Christians had risen up against oppressive Turkish rule, and, after the Turkish army had tried, and failed, to brutally suppress the revolt Russian forces had stepped in and utterly defeated the Turks.  They were advancing on Constantinople, which Disreali thought would give Russia 'the keys to India', when Dizzy had played a desperate gambit. He had sent Admiral Hornby and a squadron of six ironclads through the Dardanelles where they dropped anchor in the Sea of Marmara, their guns facing the Russian advance.

In response the Russians played a card of their own, mobilising an army in Central Asia to march to Afghanistan, where a friendly welcome would leave it on the borders of British India. This though was countered immediately by Britain playing an Asian card of its own, with the arrival of a division of the Indian Army in Malta. The two great powers were now on the brink of war.

At the same time an Austro-Hungarian Army was massing on the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Russians and the Austrians had had a pact of benevolent neutrality, as they had planned to divide up Turkey's European empire between them. Vienna now wanted its slice, but Russia was being proposing that Bosnia be self-governing.

This was the background to the congress that Bismark presided over. But what Bismark did not know, when he invited the six great powers to Berlin, was that Disraeli had already signed a secret deal with Turkey, over the head of his own Foreign Secretary, that in exchange for the island of Cyprus, Britain would back Turkey against the others.

It might have worked too, and Britain could have walked away with more territory than Russia, but for the work of one man: Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatiev As the Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire he had done more than anyone else to bring about the war, often working in secret. His network of shady contacts now served him well,bringing him a copy of the Cyprus Convention which he released to the world on the eve of the Congress.

Disraeli was humiliated. His Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury, resigned. The Congress was a failure. On the same day that it was dissolved by Bismark, the Royal Navy landed in Galliopli.

It was to be war.