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From General History, 1938 by E. H. Carter and C. K. Ogden
In the troubled Balkans the Great Powers went on with their complex designs for getting more
control or keeping others from doing so. Britain and Russia, specially, had reason to keep a sharp watch on that part of Europe. Russia seemed to herself the natural head and helper of the Christian peoples ruled by the Turks, most of all of her sister nation,* the Slavs of Serbia. Britain had fears that the Russians might take Constantinople, and so put the road to India in danger. British and Russian expansion in Asia was still going on, and the two Empires were slowly getting nearer to one another on the Himalayas, ' the roof of the world.'
These and other causes were responsible for a number of different wars in connection with the complex question of the East, which has been so important in the world's history for more than five hundred years, and was at the root of most of the political moves of the eighteen hundreds. In the Crimean War (1853-56) fear of Russia made the British and French (under the rule of Napoleon III) take the side of the Turks. The one good thing which came out of that war was the great work of looking after the wounded done by Florence Nightingale, which gave the first impulse to the organization of hospitals as we have them to-day.
GENERAL HISTORY In Outline and Story
Edward Henry Carter and Charles Kay Ogden
London etc. : Nelson 1938, pp. 227-8.
* The religious tolerance under the Turkish rules seems to have been greater than in the Christian countries (confer the Unitarian historians). (Still, the controversiorum theologicorum would be likely to have been present.)
'Sister Slavs' there may be : but whatever in Russia was Slav had been largely got from Poland (confer Eversley, Lutosławski, etc.).
This is not to say that the authors cited are not generally reliable — but rather that disinformation was rampant, including in Poland, especially in the 19th century and during the period of the Soviet influence 1945-1980. — WPT 30 Nov 04
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