164 • 10 EUROPEAN INTERESTS AND IMPERIALISMHabsburg Austria
Russia's rivals had positive reasons to get involved in the Ottoman Empire.
The Habsburg Empire, for instance, bordered directly on Ottoman lands
in southeastern Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Having whetted its appetite by taking Hungary in 1699, Austria hoped to
move down the Danube River toward the Black Sea. It also wanted to con¬
trol lands south of the Danube, especially Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. The
Habsburg emperors may have pursued commercial interests, but they also
saw themselves as carrying on the old crusading traditions against the
Muslim Turks. During the nineteenth century, as each of the Balkan states
wrested its independence from the Ottoman Empire, Austria would step
forward as its patron, protector, and trading partner. Some seemingly
traded one master for another. Bosnia and Herzegovina, two regions cul¬
turally and geographically close to Serbia (but with large Muslim popula¬
tions), were placed under Habsburg military occupation as part of the
1878 Berlin Treaty. Thirty years later, with no prior consent from the Otto¬
man Empire (and to Russia's dismay), Austria annexed Bosnia and Her¬
zegovina. But their acceptance of Habsburg rule was undermined by
propaganda from nearby Serbia, leading to the 1914 assassination at Sara¬
jevo of the heir to Austria's throne. You may know that this event ignited
World War I. Some historians see Austria's Balkan policy as a cause of that
great conflict once facetiously named "the War of the Turkish Succession."
2 The Middle East Before Muhammad
Britain was a naval, imperial, and Indian power. Safe sea transport to India
became a primary British concern once it had consolidated its Asian em¬
pire by defeating France in the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)
of 1756-1763. As long as most maritime transport between Europe and
Asia went around South Africa, Britain hardly worried about the Ottoman
Empire and at times even backed Russian expansionism in the Balkans. It
did not, however, favor French control of Egypt and Syria, as we shall soon
see. From about 1820, the growth of steamship transport and the improve¬
ment of overland communications made it faster and safer to transship
people and goods across Egypt or the Fertile Crescent, both nominally
Ottoman lands, instead of taking the long route around Africa. Britain de¬
cided in the 1830s that the Ottoman Empire would be the best guardian of
its routes to India and soon committed itself firmly to the empire's defense.
It also had a commercial motive, for Britain and the Ottoman Empire
signed a treaty lowering their import duties on each other's goods. By 1850
the Ottoman Empire had become a leading customer of British manufac-