Balkan Wars: The Conflicts That Caused the Demise of the Ottoman Empire

The Congress of Berlin in 1878 had marked a crucial turning point in Ottoman decline while establishing the principle that the great powers would determine the fate of Ottoman territories based on their own strategic interests rather than Ottoman preferences or the expressed wishes of local populations. The congress's decisions to grant independence to Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania while creating an autonomous Bulgaria effectively removed the empire's most valuable European provinces from direct Ottoman control while establishing precedents for external intervention that would encourage further territorial losses. The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary and the British occupation of Cyprus demonstrated how Ottoman weakness invited foreign encroachment while the empire's acceptance of these arrangements revealed the extent to which Constantinople had lost control over its own destiny.