The Dangerous Marriage

As I explained in this novel, from 1873 onwards, the Russians were influenced and excited and by the idea of a ‘Slavic Federation’ with Russia at its head and with its Capital in Constantinople’. The Czarina, particularly, looked on it as a Religious Crusade, a chance to alleviate the lot of the oppressed Balkan Christians. It was also a good chance to bring back the great Church of Santa Sophia to its rightful Orthodoxy and re-establish Constantinople as the greatest City in Christendom. A revolt in the Turkish Province of Herzegovina in the summer of 1875 set the first sparks flying and a year later Serbia declared war on Turkey and scores of Russian volunteers poured into Belgrade. Soon after the outbreak of the Serbian War, stories began to filter back into the European Press of an uprising in Bulgaria that had been put down by terrible Turkish reprisals. It was said that sixty villages were destroyed and twelve thousand people slaughtered. It was not until Queen Victoria had had her way and the presence of the British Navy alarmed Grand Duke Nicholas so that the Russians, who had advanced to within six miles of Constantinople, were forced to withdraw.