RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 



From 1768 to 1886. 



Before entering upon the policy of Russia in the various States 

 included in the Empire of Turkey, it may be of interest, as well as 

 useful, to enable the reader to form a clear judgment of the crisis, 

 which threatened in 1876, for the fifth time in the past one hundred 

 years, to disturb the peace of Europe, to trace, in the first instance, 

 the history of the rise and career of the Ottoman Empire in Europe ; 

 and secondly, to pass in review the course of events in the East, from 

 the first intervention of Russia in Eastern Affairs in 1768, down to 

 the outbreak of the insurrection in the provinces of Turkey in 1875, 

 and the conclusion of the peace between Russia and Turkey, signed 

 at Berlin July, 1878. 



It was towards the end of the thirteenth century that Ottoman, a 

 Turkish Emir, laid the foundation-stone of the Turkish Empire in 

 Asia Minor, and allied with other Emirs, invaded the possessions of 

 the Greek Empire, under the feeble reign of Andronicus II., and the 

 successor of Ottoman, Orchan, assuming the title of Sultan in 1358, 

 captured Gallipoli and other fortresses, and thus forced his conquest 

 into Eastern Europe. 



Amurath I. succeeded Orchan as Sultan, captured Adrianople, and 

 in 1363 Thrace was conquered, and advancing his forces, portions of 

 Macedonia, Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia fell under the power of the 

 Ottoman rule. 



In 1390 he overthrew at Kossova a formidable confederacy from 

 beyond the Danube, estimated at 500,000 warriors, and on the day of 

 the battle he was assassinated, and was succeeded by his son, Bajazet I., 

 who gained a complete victory at Nicopolis over Sigismund, King of 

 Hungary, which completed the conquest of Bulgaria, but in 1400 he 

 was assailed by Tamerlane, and defeated and taken prisoner at the 



