On 3rd March 1878 a preliminary peace treaty was signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the Constantinople suburb of San Stefano. But the Western Great Powers – and most of all the United Kingdom and Austro-Hungary – were concerned that a big Slav state in the middle of the Balkan Peninsula would become an important fulcrum of the Russian influence. That is why the Congress of Ber-lin held in the summer of 1878 disrupted the territorial integrity of the newly created state to satisfy self-interested political ambitions. So Thrace – which was given the name Eastern Roumelia – was left in subordination to the Sublime Porte. Macedonia remained under Turkish power Holidays Bulgaria. Indigenous Bulgarian lands were included in the boundaries of Serbia and Romania. Thus Bulgaria was ruptured into five pieces. In fact, the Congress of Berlin set the charge of irreconcilable national and territorial contradictions in the relations between the young Balkan states…
The Third Bulgarian Kingdom Between Two Fateful Treaties and Through Two National Catastrophes: 1878-1919
The Liberation
Alarmed by the increasing prestige of Russia – as demonstrated by the eventual establishment of a Greater Bulgaria obedient to the will of the Tsar – the Western Powers convened the Congress of Berlin (July 1878) which revised the treaty of San Stefano. Its chairman, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismark, roared: “Gentlemen, we have gathered here to ensure the European peace and not the happiness of the Bulgarians!” Well, that far with the Bulgarian happiness… Northern Bulgaria, or the Bulgarian Principality, became a vassal state dependent on the Sultan and was to be governed by an elected prince. Macedonia and Lower Thrace were tached from the hew kingdom, thus depriving it
of a valuable outlet to the Aegean, and under the name Eastern Roumelia, with a governor designated by the Sublime Porte, would depend politically and militarily on Turkey.
Historical Ottoman 