THE EASTERN QUESTION: RUSSIA
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Why did
Britain feel
threatened
by Russia?
Britain for much of the 19th Century
had a very difficult relationship with
Russia.
The autocratic nature of Russia’s
rulers was very alien to Britain’s
parliamentary democracy and British
newspapers and pamphlets enflamed
public opinion with anti Russian
rhetoric.
There was a bigger issue at stake,
however, and it was Russia’s imperial
ambitions. She had her eyes on
Britain’s empire in India and
constantly tried to encroach on
Afghanistan and Persia, two natural
buffer states between Russia and
British India.
Why did Britain want to keep
Russia out of the Balkans and
the Mediterranean?
After the Crimean War Russia had
been forced out of the Black Sea and
was no longer a naval threat
If the Russians controlled the
Balkans, they could gain easy access
to the Mediterranean. This would
threaten the route to India
GREAT GAME? The Great Game was the
name given to the secret battle between
British and Russian spies in the Himalayas
over India.
CRIMEAN WAR: `The British and French
had fought the Crimean War to break the
power of Russia in the Ottoman Empire and
to prop up the Ottoman Empire
NICHOLAS I AND HIS DESCENDANTS
British public opinion was often warlike when
the question of Russia was raised. The British
disliked the idea of autocratic rulers, viewing
it as despotism and tyranny.
THE EASTERN QUESTION: THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
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Why did
Britain care
what
happened to
the Turks?
The Ottoman Empire had been
crumbling since the 18th Century and
by the mid 19th Century it was in
terminal decline. Having a weak
power in South East Europe and the
Middle East suited the British
because it gave them easy access to
markets that were once dominated by
the Turks. The British did not want to
see the empire collapse, because it
would either lead to a powerful Russia
controlling what was left, or a newly
resurgent Turkish state.
What was Britain’s main
interest in the Ottoman
Empire?
British ships traded up and down the
Ottoman controlled River Danube,
and even before the Suez Canal was
created, much British trade had to
cross the Sinai peninsula to the Red
Sea on the way to India. Britain from
the 1880s onwards became far more
interested in exporting Christianity
and wished to protect missionaries
traveling in Arabia and beyond.
TRADING ON THE DANUBE: British ships
used the River Danube as a major trading
route, eventually the Ottoman Empire
became Britain’s biggest market
CURBING RUSSIAN INFLUENCE: The
Crimean War had been fought to keep the
Russians from gaining any further control
over the Ottoman Empire
PROTECTING CHRISTIAN
MISSIONARIES IN THE BALKANS
AND MIDDLE EAST: This became much
more of a priority later in the 19th Century.
THE EASTERN QUESTION: SUEZ
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ST DAVID’S COLLEGE 19.6.13
Why was this
waterway so
important to
Britain?
The Suez Canal was opened in 1869,
but by 1875 a controlling stake in the
canal had been bought by British
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
The British were keen to protect Suez
as it connected them directly with
their empire in India, which was the
source of much of Britain’s wealth
and power. The Russians had for
decades wanted to seize part of
British India and if they controlled
the Mediterranean and blocked off
the canal they could make it much
harder for Britain to get to India in
the event of an uprising or a Russian
invasion.
Why would Britain threaten
war over Suez?
There had been a mutiny in India
against the British in 1857 and
Britain was concerned there might be
another. Britain was developing her
empire and trade in China from 1842
onwards and needed the canal to
reach other parts of Asia.
INDIAN MUTINY The British needed
constant and speedy access to India in the
case of future uprisings.
BRITISH CONTROL IN CHINA Britain’s
control of the canal was also based around
the fact that she waged several wars in China
for trade.
THE COTTON INDUSTRY Cheap cotton
from India was woven into clothes and sold at
a profit back to India. Weaving was forbidden
in India, making the rural poor dependent on
the British cloth trade.