The Turkey-Russia Relationship in Historical Perspective: Patterns, Change and Contrast.

• Author: Hale, William

Introduction

This paper does not aim to offer any new or original information on the history of the Turkey-Russia relationship over the past 250 years. Instead, it draws mainly on the existing scholarly literature, suggesting a three-pattern model which highlights the continuities as well as systemic shifts in a complex but strategically crucial story.

For over two centuries following the Ottoman defeat by Russia in the war of 1768-74, and the consequent establishment of Russian power on the northern shores of the Black Sea, the frontier between the Turks and Russians has been seen as the critical fault line in the politics of south-east Europe and the Near East. For the most part, Russia's prime objective was to gain control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, so as to achieve unimpeded naval access to the Mediterranean. To put the historical case at its simplest, since the western powers were determined to prevent a Russian takeover of the region, they saw an alliance with Turkey as central to this defensive strategy. For their part, the Turks were usually prepared to accept this alliance, and at times of danger actively sought it, as the best way of tipping the balance of power in their favour. Hence, their relations with the rest of Europe were relatively intense and complicated, while their relations with Russia were at best cautious, and frequently hostile. Remarkably, in large part, the strategic dilemmas of the nineteenth century carried on into the twentieth.

While the Ottoman and Romanov empires were seen as historical enemies, there were remarkable similarities between the two. In principle, both were absolute monarchies, although in practice the ruler's power could be limited by the capacity (more exactly, lack of it) of the incumbent. Domestically, the ruler's authority could periodically be challenged by powerful local power brokers and, in the Ottoman case, by his own soldiers. Both rulers based their legitimacy on their role as protectors of religion, although this was actually or potentially contested by the existence of large communities of the opposite faith within their respective borders. (1) Both empires faced the problem of backwardness compared with contemporary states in western Europe, although commentators in both empires mostly avoided comparisons with each other, seeking comparisons with the western states instead. (2) Russia was the first to address the problem seriously, under Peter the Great, in the early eighteenth century. The Ottomans did not follow suit until a century later, starting in the 1820s under Sultan Mahmud II. This gave Russia a head start. (3) Combined with the rise of irredentist nationalist movements in the Balkans, it meant that the relationship was asymmetric, with Russia normally able to win in a direct military collision between the two, as in 1768-74, 1828-9, 1877-8 (albeit not without some difficulty) and 1915. The Ottoman Empire's administrative and military resources were more effective and durable than nineteenth century European statesmen often assumed, but when Russia was strong, hostile, and could be identified as their main enemy, Ottoman-Turkish rulers had to look for allies to redress the balance of power. Throughout, Russia's relations with its southern neighbour were shaped by continental politics, rather than purely local disputes or convergences.

Historical conditions are seldom static, and this simplified model needs elaboration and detail to explain the twists and turns of Ottoman-Turkish policies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While there were frequent periods of hostile relations with Russia, there were also occasions of rapprochement, as the two sides combined against a third party. These changes can be crudely divided into three systemic patterns, applying to successive historical periods.

The first pattern can be seen as multipolar with shifting alliances, defined by Morton Kaplan as the 'balance of power' system, in which the relevant states '[a]ct to oppose any coalition or single actor which tends to assume a position of predominance with respect to the rest of the system'. Since the actors will 'negotiate rather than fight', they seek to maintain peace by constructing a deterrent alliance against a potential aggressor. (4) As alignments are only temporary, two states may be enemies in one situation, then allies in another, in a rapidly changing pattern of perceived threats or challenges from third parties. (5)

In the second, contrasting pattern, a particular actor - in this case, Russia - is seen as an imminent and lasting threat by other actors - more immediately Turkey, but also by the main western and central European states. In this case, alliances will be long-term and relatively stable, in what may become an essentially bipolar system. However, alliances may face challenges and internal conflicts, as well as problems for the weaker state in an asymmetric relationship.

The third pattern is less easy to define, but recognisable as periodic detente. On occasion, global changes may substantially reduce the external security threat, or even eliminate it altogether. Republican Turkey and its Ottoman predecessor benfitted from this pattern of relationships on occasions of Russian weakness or engagement in other theatres, when it was able to maintain a tolerable degree of security without alliance commitments (or with weakened commitments). In this environment, the Turks could potentially develop valuable economic as well as political ties with Russia, using this relationship as a counterweight to that of the western powers. By engaging with both sides, they could try to bid up their value to both.

To summarise a long and complicated story, Turkey's relationship with Russia since the end of the eighteenth century can be crudely fitted into this three-pattern model as follows: (1) the first pattern, between 1798 and 1841; (2) the second pattern, between 1841 and 1878, then between 1945 and 1991; (3) the third pattern, between 1878 and 1914, between 1921 and 1939, and lastly since 1991. This periodisation is admittedly crude and approximate, but is offered as a rough guide to the continuities and discontinuities of a long history. It also leaves out the years of the two world wars, in the first of which Turkey was actually at war with Russia between 1914 and the end of 1917, and in the second of which Turkey had tense relations with Russia but without an effective protective alliance. More broadly, it is striking that, since the 1840s, the highly fluid system of the first pattern has never repeated itself, and seems unlikely to do so. The reasons for this require investigation and discussion outside the scope of this paper.

Shifting Alliances in a Multipolar System (1798-1841)

During the first four decades of the nineteenth century-more precisely, between 1798 and 1841-relations between the Ottoman and Tsarist empires serve as an apt example of Kaplan's multipolar 'balance of power' system in action, in which the Ottomans were periodically in reluctant alliance with Russia, then either neutral or at war with it. While control of the straits was the ultimate aim of Russia, it had no consistent policy for achieving it, varying between plans for a direct military takeover as part of a partition of the Ottoman empire, agreed with the other 'Great Powers' of Europe, versus the idea of reaching some sort of agreement with the Ottoman government which would provide for joint control, and agreed access for Russian warships to the Mediterranean. (6) Alternatively, periodically, the Tsar's government simply put the whole idea of gaining control of the straits on the shelf, allowing it to drop off the international agenda for a time. This reluctance was evidently based on the fear that if the Ottoman state disintegrated, then other powers - notably the Habsburg empire (hereafter 'Austria') and Britain - would seize its territories.

Until the late eighteenth century, Austria had been the Ottomans' main opponent in southeastern Europe, with France serving as their traditional ally. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 abruptly reversed this relationship, prompting the Ottoman government to sign a treaty with Russia, to which Britain rapidly adhered. This lasted until 1801-2, but was then revived in 1805, producing an Ottoman-Russian agreement in September of that year, in which the two empires agreed to cooperate if they were attacked by a third country (read, France). However, this was never ratified by the Sultan's government, and denounced in 1806. (7) In the same year, the Ottoman government switched sides, by starting negotiations with France. In response, the British and Russian fleets made an unsuccessful bid to capture the straits in February-March 1807. This was followed by a dramatic reversal in July 1807, when Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I signed a peace agreement at Tilsit. This opened up the real danger for the Ottomans that the French and Russian governments might decide to partition the Ottoman empire between them. They were saved by the fact that Napoleon was determined to prevent Russia from occupying the straits, and concerned that Austria would be the main gainer from an Ottoman collapse in the Balkans. In 1809, the Ottoman government, already involved in a prolonged struggle with Russia for control of the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia (today's Moldova and northern Romania), duly entered an alliance with Britain confirming that the straits would be closed in peacetime to all non-Ottoman warships. The fighting with Russia continued, with periodic ceasefires, until 1812, when Napoleon launched his fateful invasion of Russia. Forced onto the back foot, under the Treaty of Bucharest of May 1812, the Tsar's government conceded control of the disputed provinces to the Ottomans, who effectively dropped out of the Napoleonic wars thereafter.

In 1821, the scene of conflict shifted to Greece, with the...