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The war soon became a European war when Britain and France allied with the Ottomans in order to protect their lucrative trade interests in the region. The war ended badly for the Russians, and the Paris peace of 1856 was unfavorable to them. In textbooks, the Crimean War is presented entirely from the perspective of the Europeans, for it brought home the fact that more European powers were willing to overthrow the old order than to maintain it. It had, though, important consequences for the Ottoman Empire, as well. From this point onwards, the Ottoman Empire saw itself as being heavily controlled by Europeans. The Crimean War initiated a decline in Ottoman morale and a helplessness. Europeans, for their part, no longer saw the Ottomans as an equal force to be reckoned with, but as a tool to be used in larger European concerns.
The Balkan Rebellion

The expansionist Russians desired several key territories from the Ottomans, and the only thing that really prevented them from aggressively annexing them was the balance of power in Europe. In particular, they feared Austria and Germany, which did not want to see Russia in control of eastern Europe. The real prize for the Russians was the city of Istanbul, which the Russians still called Constantinople. If they could seize this city, that meant that they would control all trade between Europe and Asia that proceeded through the Black Sea. The Ottomans, for their part, had lost morale. The old military state, confident in its ability to protect the Islamic world from European predation, was crumbling in its confidence because of a series of defeats and draws in wars with Russia.

In 1875, the Slavic people living in the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (currently the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina), led an uprising against the Ottomans in order to gain their freedom. The general weakness of the Ottomans led two independent, neighbor Slavic states, Montenegro and Serbia, to aid the rebellion. Within a year, the rebellion spread to the Ottoman province of Bulgaria. The rebellion was part of a larger political movement called the Pan-Slavic movement, which had as its goal the unification of all Slavic people&emdash;most of whom were under the control of Austria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire&emdash;into a single political unity under the protection of Russia. Anxious also to conquer the Ottomans themselves and seize Istanbul, the Russians allied with the rebels, Serbia, and Montenegro and declared war against the Ottomans

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