Masters Thesis

Between public perception and political policy: British reactions to the Bulgarian Atrocities and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877

[ABSTRACT ONLY; NO FULL TEXT] In May and June of 1876, sensational reports began appearing in the British press describing the ruthless suppression of a revolt in the Ottoman-controlled Sanjak of Bulgaria. The severe measures employed by the Turkish forces tasked with putting down this uprising were such that the actions soon became known as the "Bulgarian Atrocities." The vociferous public indignation that followed in the wake of these disturbing reports initiated a major policy debate in Britain between Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative Government and the Liberal Party opposition. Events in the Ottoman Empire also created a crisis for British policy makers when war broke out between Russia and Turkey in April 1877. The prospect of a total Ottoman defeat and a subsequent Russian occupation of Constantinople six months later raised a difficult question: How to reconcile the growing public opposition to the Ottoman government with the long standing tenet of British foreign policy that mandated upholding the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against the existential threat Russian imperial growth posed to British imperial interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. Several important questions are raised by the appearance of this, at the time, unprecedented crisis. First, how can the breach between public perception and long-standing government policy be explained? This study examines three sets of inter-related factors: the influence of the political and satirical press, the divisive nature of partisanship and party politics, and the impulses and projections of religion, humanitarianism, and imperialism. Second, how was the denouement of the Russo-Turkish War affected by the divide between public perception and British imperial policy? Despite eighteen months of public debate and political acrimony, when faced with the complete collapse of the Turkish front in December 1877, the Disraeli government decided, regardless of the threat of political censure at home and the risk of war abroad, to dispatch the Mediterranean fleet through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara to prevent the Russians from occupying Constantinople. How, and why, considering the great divergence between public opinion and the policy of supporting Turkey, did Disraeli and the Conservative Government successfully pursue such a policy? Finally, why was this an important historical moment? What were the long-term effects of the division between public opinion and imperial policy on the landscape of British political culture? The public outrage that effectively paralyzed the Disraeli Government's ability to craft foreign policy represented the opening of a political process - previously operating almost exclusively behind closed doors - to public censure. It also marked the first time the primacy of the Empire was meaningfully challenged, establishing a precedent around which, in time, subsequent defenders of the imperial inheritance would find it increasingly difficult to navigate.

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