3. The Straits

1.       The Straits

 of the Dardanelles are, politically and commercially considered, mouths of the Danube and Volga, and Constantinople is the natural entrepot of all Southern Russia. Once in possession of this city and the Straits, Russia would soon be able to take rank as a great naval as well as military power. By affinity of religion the great majority of the population is allied to Russia, although mainly of a different race, and Russia has for four generations endeavored to assume the position of protector of the Greek Church, with a steady view to the ultimate acquisition of tho country; and Christian Louboutin Sale the prevention of this acquisition has formed one of the cardinal points of tho policy of the other European Powers. The tortuous, and often contradictory action of the two parties in this Eastern qnestion—Russia on the ono hand, Franco and England on the other, with the German Powers sometimes Christian Louboutin Outlet favoring the one and sometimes the other—forms a singular Christian Louboutin Shoes On Sale chapter in political history. At times all parties seemed agreed upon weakening tho Turkish power; then again, one side or the other Christian Louboutin Discount apprehended that the other would gain too much in the distribution of tho spoils; and then all united in holding up the Ottoman State. Hence resulted such apparently contradictory European action as the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino in Christian Louboutin Discount Shoes 1827; the establishment of the kingdom of Greece in 1838, with a Bavarian Prince as King; the crushing out of the revolt of Mehemet Ali, of Egypt, in 1840; the establishment of that pachalik as a really separate power; the treaty of Unkiar Skclessi, in 1833, by which the Porto in effect recognized the Czar as protector of the Christian population of Turkey, and the attempt of Nicholas in 1854 to maintain the Greek Church in the possession of certain privileges secured by that treaty; the resistance of this claim by Napoleon in behalf of the Latin Church, on the ground that it interfered with a treaty made in 1740; and finally the war in the Crimea, wherein Franco and Great Britain appeared as the nominal allies of the Porte, who had been dragooned into refusing the Russian demands. The nominal question at stake in the outset was trifling enough. It was simply whether for the purpose of passing into the Grotto of the Nativity at Bethlehem, the Latin monks should have a key to the great door of the church, or should be put off with a key to a smaller door.