In the meantime, it will be remembered, the Russo-Turkish war had occurred, and it had the customary effect of increasing the people’s burden and the discontent. The Slavophile party naturally gave birth to a Pan-Slav party, and the traditional Russian ambition to spread over the Balkans was revived. The Turks continued to treat their Balkan subjects with great brutality, and in 1874 Bosnia and Herzegovina broke into revolt, while Serbia and Montenegro, which were semi-independent, joined with their compatriots in the war. The Pan-Slavs now pressed for war, and there were those in the Tsar’s circle, such as his brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas, who warmly supported the agitation. The financial minister, on the other hand, who had carefully nursed the treasury into something like prosperity, strongly opposed the adventure. The Tsar wavered between his hope of getting the ignominous treaty of 1856 set aside and his love of peace and dread of the costly chances of war.
There is now no doubt that Bismarck helped to urge him to war. Alexander was pro-German, and had in 1870 secured the neutrality of Austria while Prussia attacked France. It is true that, when the Germans meditated a fresh attack upon the French in 1875, the Tsar interfered on behalf of France and greatly angered Bismarck. That statesman, however, retained influence at St. Petersburg, and, on the Frederician tradition of encouraging rivals to wear out each other, he urged Russia to attack Turkey. In 1877 (April) Russia entered the war, and its progress was so rapid that in the following March it compelled Turkey to sign the humiliating Treaty of San Stefano. Russia took from it very little territory directly, but, besides securing the recognition of the complete independence of Serbia and Rumania, it created a large principality of Bulgaria in which it hoped to have a predominant interest.
England was, unfortunately, still in its mood of favouring the Turk, through jealousy of Russia, and Austria was less openly hostile. A desultory war continued, and Bismarck astutely offered the services of Germany as mediator, with the intention of curtailing its gains. By the Treaty of Berlin (July 13th, 1878) the San Stefano Treaty was torn up, and Bulgaria was cut down by half. Once more a costly war had, in the eyes of the people, done little for Russia; and there was the customary, and not unjust, cry that the course of the war had revealed a great deal of official corruption. The tragedy of the reign of Alexander ran on to its ghastly finale.