Constantinople Conference

The Great Powers were represented at the conference respectively by:H. Sutherland Edwards. [https://archive.org/stream/sirwilliamwhite00edwagoog/sirwilliamwhite00edwagoog_djvu.txt Sir William White K.C.B., K.C.M.G., For Six Years Ambassador at Constantinople.] London: John Murray, 1902.

• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland:

: Lord Salisbury and Sir Henry Elliot;

• Russian Empire:

: Count Nikolay Ignatyev (historical spelling Nicolai Ignatieff);

• French Republic:

: Count Jean-Baptiste de Chaudordy and Count François de Bourgoing;

• German Empire:

: Baron Karl von Werther;

• Austro-Hungarian Empire:

: Baron Heinrich von Calice and Count Ferenc Zichy;

• Kingdom of Italy:

: Count Luigi (Lodovico) Corti.

Of these, Lord Salisbury, Count de Chaudordy and Baron von Calice were Ambassadors Plenipotentiary to the conference, while Count Ignatyev, Sir Henry Elliot, Count de Bourgoing, Baron von Werther, Count Zichy and Count Corti were the resident Ambassadors of their countries in Constantinople.

The US Consul General in Constantinople, Eugene Schuyler also took an active part in drafting the conference decisions.[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1876/12/31/93824050.pdf The Eastern Question. The Constantinople Conference. What May Be Expected from the Meeting. The Foreign Representatives and How They Are Treated. The Report of the American Consul General. Various Items of Interest.] New York Times, 31 December 1876.{{citation |last=Schuyler|first= Eugene|contribution= United Bulgaria|title=The North American Review|volume=141 |issue=348 |date= November 1885 |pages=464–474 |publisher= University of Northern Iowa|jstor=25118547 }}

The Ottoman Empire was represented at the conference by:

• Midhat Pasha, Saffet Pasha and Edhem Pasha.

Midhat Pasha was the Grand Vizier (First Minister), and Saffet Pasha the Foreign Minister of the Ottoman Empire. Although the Ottoman representatives participated in the plenaries of the conference, they were not invited to the preceding working sessions at which the Great Powers negotiated and elaborated their agreement.

Lord Salisbury and Count Ignatyev played a leading role in the process. Ignatyev was trying to dispel British misgivings about Russia's assumed role of a protector of the Eastern Orthodox Slavs being but a disguise of its drive to take over the Black Sea Straits and Constantinople itself and thus – as Prime Minister Disraeli feared – potentially threaten the vital Mediterranean routes to British India via the Suez Canal, completed in 1869.Buckle G.E., W.F. Monypenny, [https://archive.org/stream/lifeofbenjamindi05monyuoft/lifeofbenjamindi05monyuoft_djvu.txt The Constantinople Conference], in: The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Vol. VI, p. 84. On his part, Salisbury saw the conference as a promising opportunity for mapping out a comprehensive deal with Russia over their conflicting territorial ambitions in Central Asia.Sneh Mahajan. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl7sYKcR6hwC&q=%22Sneh+Mahajan%22 British Foreign Policy, 1874–1914: The role of India.] London and New York: Routledge, 2002. p. 40.

File:Marqués de salisbury.jpg|Lord Salisbury

File:Sir-Henry-Elliot-2.png|Sir Henry Elliot

File:N.P.Ignatiev by Kustodiev.jpg|Count Ignatieff

File:Hottinger Volksblatt 1878 065 Bild1.jpg|Sultan Abdul Hamid II

File:Nadar - Portrait of Midhat Pasha.jpg|Midhat Pasha

File:Photo of Eugene Schuyler, American Consul-General in Constantinople.jpg|Eugene Schuyler

The conference envisaged the creation of an autonomous province including Bosnia and most of Herzegovina, while a southern part of the latter was to be ceded to the Principality of Montenegro.{{cite book |last1=Van Duesen |first1=Glyndon |title=The Constantinople Conference, 1876-1877 |date=1926 |publisher=Amherst College |pages=350–355 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VYaJNwAACAAJ}}

The Great Powers agreed on a substantial Bulgarian autonomy to take the form of two new Ottoman provinces (vilayets) established for the purpose: Eastern, with capital Tarnovo, and Western, with capital Sofia.

The conference determined that, as of the late 19th century, the Bulgarian ethnic territories within the Ottoman Empire extended to Tulcea and the Danube Delta in the northeast, Ohrid and Kastoria in the southwest, Kirklareli and Edirne in the southeast, and Leskovac and Niš in the northwest. These territories were to be incorporated into the two Bulgarian autonomous provinces as follows:

• Eastern Bulgarian autonomous province, including the Ottoman sandjaks – second level administrative divisions – of Tırnova, Rusçuk, Tulça, Varna, Sliven, Filibe (bar the kazas – third level administrative divisions – of Sultaneri and Ahıçelebi), and part of the Edirne sandjak including the kazas of Kırkkilise, Mustafapaşa and Kızılağaç.Conference de Constantinople. Reunions Préliminaires. Compte rendu No. 8. Scéance du 21 décembre 1876. Annexe III Bulgare. Règlement organique. (in French)Further Correspondence respecting the affairs of Turkey. (With Maps of proposed Bulgarian Vilayets). Parliamentary Papers No 13 (1877).
• Western Bulgarian autonomous province, including the sandjaks of Sofya, Vidin, Niş, Üsküp, Manastır (bar the kazas of Debre and Korça), the Nevrokop, Melnik and Demirhisar kazas of the Serez sandjak, and the kazas of Ustrumca, Köprülü, Tikveş and Kesriye.

The Great Powers elaborated in detail the constitutional, legislative, executive, defense and law enforcement arrangements, cantonal administrative system, taxation, international supervision etc. for the proposed autonomous provinces.

The agreed decisions of the six Great Powers were formally handed over to the Ottoman Government on 23 December 1876,Correspondence respecting the Conference at Constantinople and the affairs of Turkey: 1876–1877. Parliamentary Papers No 2 (1877). p. 140. dismissing the opening Ottoman suggestions that the Conference's mission might be unnecessary, given a new Ottoman Constitution approved by Sultan Abdul Hamid II that same day.L.S. Stavrianos. [https://web.archive.org/web/20010311191618/http://www.serbianunity.net/culture/history/berlin78/index.html#Constantinople%20Conference Constantinople Conference], in: The Balkans Since 1453. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. In the subsequent conference's plenary sessions, the Ottoman Empire submitted objections and alternative reform proposals that were rejected by the Great Powers, and attempts to bridge the gap did not succeed.[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1877/01/16/80361295.pdf Turkey and the Great Powers. The Constantinople Conference. The Commissioners' Last Proposals to the Porte. An Ultimatum Presented the Great Dignitaries of State to Decide Upon an Answer.] New York Times, 16 January 1877. Eventually, on 18 January 1877 Grand Vizier Midhat Pasha announced the definitive refusal of the Ottoman Empire to accept the conference decisions.N. Ivanova. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120314015523/http://members.multimania.co.uk/rre/Constantinople-Conference-BG.pdf 1876 Constantinople Conference: Positions of the Great Powers on the Bulgarian political question during the Conference.] Sofia University, 2007. (in Bulgarian)

File:Balkan boundaries1876map1914.png

The rejection by the Ottoman Government of the decisions of the Constantinople Conference triggered the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, depriving at the same time the Ottoman Empire – in contrast to the preceding 1853–1856 Crimean War – of Western support.

Tsarigrad Peak in Imeon Range on Smith Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after the conference (‘Tsarigrad’ being the old Bulgarian name for Constantinople).[http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/scar/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=136841 Tsarigrad Peak.] SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica.

Bulgarian historiography treats the conference as the most reliable international evidence for the Bulgarian character of the local Slavic population of Macedonia due to the fact that the Ottoman Empire and the 6 European Great Powers, regardless of the differences in their geopolitical interests, recognized the majority of the area as such with a predominantly Bulgarian population, although the April Uprising, which drew international attention to the Bulgarian national question, hardly broke out in Macedonia.[https://www.duma.bg/quo-vadis-makedonio!-n210682 Quo vadis, Македонио!]

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20180916153416/http://www.archives.government.bg/images/karta.jpg Bulgaria in the borders after the Treaties of Constantinople, San-Stephano, Berlin, London, Bucharest and Neuilly.] Scale 1:1600000 map. (in German)

• April Uprising of 1876
• Congress of Berlin
• Eastern question
• Great Eastern Crisis
• Herzegovina uprising (1875–1877)
• International relations (1814–1919)
• Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)

{{Reflist|30em}}

• R.W. Seton-Watson. Disraeli, Gladstone and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1972. p. 108. {{ISBN|978-0-393-00594-3}}
• {{Cite book |last= Washburn|first=George |year=1909 |title=Fifty Years in Constantinople and Recollections of Robert College |publisher=Houghton Mufflin Company |place=Boston & New York |edition= 1 |pages=115–119 |url=https://archive.org/stream/fiftyyearsincons00wash#page/n7/mode/2up|via= Internet Archive}}.

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Category:1876 in the Ottoman Empire

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Category:Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury