Original subtitles

- The Ottoman Empire's failure to capture Vienna in 1683

was a turning point marking not just

the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe,

but signaling the start of the empire's slow decline.

(dramatic music)

By the 19th century, a new world order was emerging

that would leave the Ottoman Empire struggling

for its very existence.

Vienna may have dashed Ottoman hopes of further expansion

into Europe, but it perfectly coincided with the emergence

of a new threat on Europe's eastern horizons: Russia.

For the next two centuries these two imperial powers

would be locked in a deadly embrace,

the fallout from which would have profound consequences

for the destiny of Europe.

(haunting music)

Founded in 1703, St. Petersburg expresses perfectly

Russia's early imperial ambitions.

The city was the creation of one of the country's

most celebrated czars, Peter the Great, who wanted to

build a new Russian capital to rival those

of the great European powers.

Peter the Great is still hugely revered in St. Petersburg

and every day at noon, a cannon salute is fired off

in his honor.

I believe it's a very big bang.

(band playing military march)

(cannon fires)

Ooh, bloody!

(cheering)

- Peter the Great was a modernizer, a reformer,

which in Russian in the early 18th century

meant a Westernizer, so his model of reform

was to import everything he thought useful for Russia

in terms of technology.

He dictated to his nobles that they should

shave their beards, and bring women into society,

build their palaces in a certain way

for his new capital in St. Petersburg.

- In 1721, just four years before his death,

Peter the Great was proclaimed Emperor of all the Russias.

It was a bold statement, and it announced his intention

to turn Russia into a major European superpower,

an agenda that was subsequently followed by all the czars

that came after him.

But this was an ambition that was not so easily realized.

Russian expansion brought them into direct confrontation

with the Ottoman Empire.

And the Ottomans were not about to relinquish their

own imperial dreams without a fight.

(violin music)

If Russia was to become a great power,

it would need a strong navy.

And that required access to warm water ports.

This drove Russian expansion southwards

towards the Black Sea.

Throughout the 18th century, Russian forces confronted

the Ottomans repeatedly.

They pushed into Ottoman territory on the northern coast

of the Black Sea, and the Caucasus, and occupied

the Ottoman vassal states of Moldova and Wallachia.

- Russia needed to expand southwards in the 18th century

because its saw that its economy needed to diversify.

And that depended on the development of ports

on the Black Sea to open up Russia's trading routes

through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean.

- But Russian expansion was not limited

to Ottoman domains.

Poland and Lithuania were absorbed into the Empire as well,

raising tensions with Western Europe.

But it was Russia's role in bringing Napoleon's armies

to their knees that secured its position

as a new superpower.

By the 19th century Russia had become the fastest

growing empire in Europe, and a major force

to be reckoned with.

Russia's defeat of Napoleon was accompanied by

a burgeoning sense of nationhood, of imperial pride.

This column behind me, standing in the middle

of St. Petersburg's main square,

was erected as a celebration of that triumph.

But, as one empire rises, so another slips into decline.

And by this time, the Ottoman Empire was so diminished

that it would soon come to be known

as the Sick Man of Europe.

From its territorial height at the end of the 17th century

the Ottoman Empire slowly contracted,

losing Croatia, parts of Romania,

and all of Hungary to Austria.

- The Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century

was seen throughout Europe as an empire in decline.

It had large Christian minorities that were increasingly

becoming conscious of the need for religious liberation

from the Ottoman Empire.

- There were lots of armed bands going about the place.

There were local warlords setting themselves up as dictators

in various areas, in the Balkans, in particular.

- [Julian] Rebellions flared up across Ottoman lands

in the Balkans, Wallachia, and Moldova.

And a Greek independence movement was gaining momentum.

- In the 1820's the Greek communities of the Ottoman Empire

were beginning to rise up against Muslim rule.

And they were encouraged by fellow Hellenic sympathies

of western intellectuals such as Byron,

and in particular, by the support of officials

in St. Petersburg.

- [Julian] Central to the Empire's problems

were the army's elite corps, the Janissaries,

who had become corrupt and resistant to change.

- The army really needed modernization,

but it meant pushing back the influence of this caste

of Ottoman military leaders, the Janissaries, who

had inherited their positions, who passed them on

to their sons, and who were really fiefdoms within the army.

- The famous Janissary Corps, these were the,

originally had been a sort of Praetorian Guard

around the sultan.

They had become a very disruptive, power-hungry element,

jealous of their own privileges.

- They rose in rebellion in 1826 and were suppressed,

but remained an element within the army that was going to

oppose any modernization even after 1826.

So that was the sort of problem facing

Ottoman military leaders.

- The sultan at the time realizes that he has

to do something about this.

There has to be a reform.

- So he dumped them into the Bosporus

with cannonballs tied to their feet,

hundreds of them, thousands of them.

- The Janissaries, once famed for their discipline

and loyalty to the sultan, had come to a tragic end.

But when it came to the rebellions raging across the empire,

the new Ottoman army was no better at keeping order.

Stories of brutal massacres stoked old resentments

and divisions, and in the case of Russia,

provided a pretext for invasion.

Like so many times before, the Danube River

became the front line of Ottoman defense.

In 1828 the Russian army once again invaded

the Romanian province of Wallachia, just over there.

But they weren't content to stay put this time.

They crossed over the Danube into Bulgaria, there.

Now Bulgaria had been part of the Ottoman Empire

for centuries, and suddenly here was the Russian army

in the Ottoman heartlands.

In spring the following year Russian forces

swept southward, capturing the city of Ederne,

just 200 kilometers west of Istanbul.

As Russian battleships closed in on the Ottoman capital

the sultan had no option but to sue for peace.

As a result, Greece was given autonomy that would

lead to independence.

But the Dardanelle Straits were open to Russian shipping.

For rebels across the Balkans it was a rallying cry.

For the powers of Western Europe,

a distressing turn of events.

But for Russia, the Ottoman Empire's near collapse

had a more profound significance.

By the 19th century the Russian empire

had religion at its heart.

More Russian Orthodox pilgrims visited Jerusalem

than any other branch of the Christian church.

Since the fall of Constantinople Russia saw itself

as the natural heir to Byzantium,

and protector of all Orthodox Christians.

Russian nationalists dreamed of conquering Istanbul

and transforming it into Tsargrad,

a Russian capital for an Orthodox Christian empire

stretching from Siberia to Jerusalem.

Until that dream could be realized Moscow would be

the capital of the Orthodoxy, and its new Jerusalem

monastery, here just outside the city,

a symbol of its intense faith and ambitions.

(haunting vocalizations)

The Monastery of the New Jerusalem was an extraordinary

project, an attempt to replicate the Holy Land

in the heart of Mother Russia.

And this was the very centerpiece of the church,

the tomb of Christ, no less.

And it's an incredible idea, really.

As if by replicating the sacred architecture

of the Holy Land could provide Russian Christians

with a place of pilgrimage until such a time that

Orthodox Christianity could reclaim Jerusalem for its own.

It's a strange and rather dislocating experience.

Hmm.

(echoing vocal music)

The monastery was founded in 1656 by the Russian patriarch

Nikon, who wanted its central church to be a faithful

replica of the holiest Christian site in Jerusalem,

the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Vasily Martysevich is a spokesman for the monastery.

- (speaking foreign language)

- Where we're standing right now,

actually inside the church, what are the specific features

that we see around us?

How do they relate to Jerusalem?

- (speaking foreign language)

- What does that tell us about the idea of Jerusalem

and Christianity in relation to Russia as a country?

- (speaking foreign language)

- Russia's religious fervor gained added momentum

when in 1825 Czar Nicholas the First became

Emperor of All the Russias.

He was a devout Christian

and champion of the Orthodox Church whose advancement

he placed at the center of his foreign policy.

- Nicholas the First was a man of order.

He was a military man.

He saw the Napoleonic wars.

To a certain extent he was hostile to European powers

because he saw the West as a source of infection

for his Russian empire.

His unreligious ideas were strongly messianic.

There was a strong sense that Russia had to promote

an idea of Russianness which was inseparable

from the protection and promotion of Orthodoxy

right across the world.

This went way back in Russian history to the idea

of Moscow as the Third Rome.

- Czar Nicholas visited New Jerusalem in 1818,

and this was the same year that his son was born.

And he saw this conjunction as a kind of divine providence.

Now Nicholas was a very religious man,

there's no doubt about that, but he also suffered from

mental illness, an affliction the Romanov family.

And sometimes it's hard to unravel the religious enthusiasm

from imperial ambitions, from the delusions of a madman.

This is what he had to say to King William of Prussia:

"I wage war not for worldly advantage or conquest,

"but solely for a Christian purpose.

"Am I to be left alone to fight under a holy banner

"and see others who call themselves Christians

"unite around the crescent, and to attack Christendom?

"There is nothing left for me but to fight, to win,

"or to perish with honor, a martyr to our holy faith.

"And when I say this, I declare it on behalf of all Russia."

(solemn music)

Czar Nicholas' Christian zeal may have been genuine,

but the Western powers weren't buying it.

By the 19th century a third of all Russian exports

were passing through Black Sea ports.

They feared Russian expansion was less about religion

and more about empire.

Eager to thwart Russian ambitions,

Europe threw its weight behind Ottoman reforms

hoping to shore up the Empire and its ties with

Western Europe while protecting its Christian populations.

The result was a series of reforms known as the Tanzimat.

- What the Tanzimat reforms did, slowly, over a long period,

beginning in 1839, was to give more religious rights,

more autonomy, to the Christian minorities

to make government in those areas a little more autonomous

and accountable, and reform administration along

more Western lines.

- This, then, bleeds out into having an impact

on how people live their lives on the streets.

So we start to get reforms in clothing,

that suddenly women and men are encouraged to wear

Western-style clothes.

So the fez replaces the turban, and a frock coat

and a shirt with a collar replaces what was

the kind of typical Ottoman gear,

and even Western shoes are worn on the streets.

And women are allowed to be educated.

You have women who are allowed to be actresses,

and they perform on the stage.

Some of the sultan's harem are taught to paint

in the Western style, and to play the piano.

- [Julian] Ottoman reforms coincided with a sudden

enthusiasm for all things Eastern in the West.

The exotic and erotic idea of an orientalist fantasy

is romanticized in literature and art

with the Ottoman court perceived as the ultimate

realization of a decadent world of opulence and indulgence.

- In the 18th and 19th centuries, certain elements

of Western society become obsessed with the East.

This is something that we now call Orientalism,

and at the time was sometimes called Ottomania.

Men and women, particularly those with money

and standing and influence, start to wear Ottoman-style

clothes to parties.

We even have this lovely sketch of Jane Austen

who's wearing what's called a mamluk cap.

People start to commission paintings describing the Orient

and the East.

So rather than being somewhere that was considered

dark and dangerous, it becomes somewhere

which is exciting and enticing.

- There is a sort of western Orientalism which softens

western perceptions of Islam and the Turk.

I think it's partly to do with increased Western travel

to the Holy Land, to the Ottoman territories.

The Islamic religion is sort of quiet,

contemplative, peaceful.

They luxuriate in this sense of liberation

and those change attitudes, I think, towards the Turk.

- It definitely has this erotic tinge to it.

The idea of women in the harem shut up, and they're only

there to service the sultan and to bring him pleasure,

is something which men, to be honest, cannot get enough of.

They love hearing harem stories.

There are paintings of the women in the harem.

And the Western fascination and imagination is really

fired for the Ottomans.

This was an incredibly mundane thing that women would do,

they would go to get clean and to have a gossip, basically,

and they would come home.

There was nothing erotic about it.

- [Julian] The craze for all things Eastern

reached new heights in the 19th century when English

painter and sculptor Lord Leighton designed his sumptuous

London residence.

- Lord Leighton was one of the real drivers

who brought an Ottoman aesthetic into the British

middle and upper classes.

He was a passionate collector.

He was a brilliant painter himself,

and he really appreciated the beauty that he saw

around him in north Africa, in Istanbul,

in the Balkans, in the Middle East.

And he started to bring back both the inspiration

and the influence, and actual things from that world.

Here we have beautiful ceramic tiles that were made

in the 17th century.

There are inscriptions from the Koran,

and the actual shape of this room is based

on an Arab-influenced hall from Sicily.

So you can feel the Orient around you when you sit here.

(Turkish music)

- Czar Nicholas, ensconced in his luxuriously appointed

Winter Palace in St. Petersburg,

seemed oblivious to European attitudes regarding the Turks.

Assuming Western powers would always support

a fellow Christian nation over a Muslim one,

he decided to discuss the Ottoman problem

with the British ambassador.

This throne room was where the czars gave audience

to foreign dignitaries, ambassadors, emissaries,

that kind of thing.

And it was in one such exchange

between Czar Nicholas the First and the British Ambassador

that he famously declared "We have a sick man on our hands,

"a man gravely ill.

"It would be a great misfortune if he were to slip

"through our hands, especially before the necessary

"arrangements have been made."

Well, there was no mistaking who the sick man was.

That was the Ottoman Empire.

And that rather chilling phrase, "...before the necessary

"arrangement have been made."

- Nicholas believed that the Ottoman Empire

was going to collapse, and that it was therefore

wise, even legitimate, for the western powers

to take measures so that the Ottoman territories

were split between themselves in a way that would

give Russia, if not direct control of the Balkans,

then at least a dominant influence over those areas

of the Balkans where the Orthodox were in majority.

- The Sick Man of Europe becomes sicker.

Everybody gathers around it with keener intent

to work out what their best interests are.

(contemplative music)

- [Julian] Russia was poised to deliver the fatal blow,

but the catalyst for action would not take place

in Istanbul or the Balkans, but in the Ottoman-controlled

holy city of Jerusalem.

Built on what is believed to be the location

of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection,

the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the city's most

important Christian site, and has long been a contested

property between various branches of the Christian faith.

The ceremony of the Holy Fire, held every Easter,

is one of the church's most spectacular events.

But it has also been a flashpoint for conflict.

In 1846 disputes between French Catholics

and Orthodox Russians over privileges at the site

became so embittered that an all-out riot erupted

during the Easter celebrations.

Pilgrims joined priests on both sides

in a spree of violence.

When the fighting was eventually quelled,

more than 40 people lay dead on the floor.

(crowd noise)

- France had the idea that it was the main protectorate

of the Christian community in the Holy Lands.

An idea of France's mission going back to the crusades

of the Middle Ages.

And they had secured from the Ottoman government,

which ruled in Jerusalem, what they thought was

a privileged access to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

in Jerusalem.

But that was, for the Russians, negated by their own

treaties with the Ottomans which they thought

gave the Orthodox privileged access

to these very same places.

You can imagine the position of the Ottomans.

They prevaricated, saying yes to everybody

in order to let the problem, they hoped, go away.

But it didn't go away.

- To force the issue, Russian troops once again

occupied the principalities of Wallachia and Moldova

and amassed forces on the Ottoman frontier in the Caucasus.

For Czar Nicholas, the situation was becoming intolerable.

Determined to fulfill Russia's Christian duty,

he issued an ultimatum.

The Russians demanded a restoration of Orthodox privileges

in Jerusalem, and also that Russia be recognized

as the protector of Orthodox Christians,

not just in the Holy Lands,

but throughout the Ottoman Empire.

Well obviously this was going to greatly compromise

Ottoman sovereignty.

The Russian invasion of the Danube provinces

had already compromised Ottoman territorial integrity.

And so Sultan Abdul-Medjid felt compelled to declare war.

(percussive music)

Russia was a major power, but its army was obsolescent,

unprofessional, and ill-equipped.

Russia's navy, however, was another story.

Since its founding by Peter the Great in the 17th century,

it had developed into a formidable force.

By the 19th century, it was turning the Black Sea

into a Russian lake, and threatening Western shipping

by making repeated incursions into the Mediterranean.

In the north the island fortress of Kronstadt,

here just outside of St. Petersburg,

dominated the Gulf of Finland,

protecting the city from invasion.

Kronstadt continues to be an important naval base.

Roman.

- Ah, good day, Julian.

How are you doing?

- Beautiful day, what?

- Yeah, it is. (laughing)

- Local historian, Roman Shaposhnik

is going to show me one of the Russian navy's

most impressive 19th century creations.

Roman, this is a fantastic landscape you've brought me to.

Sea, sky, and everywhere I look, fortifications.

Tell me something about the history.

- This battery was built in times of Nicholas the First

All this fortification, they're official islands.

Imagine how difficult was to create.

And this fort was armed by 137 guns.

- Wow.

- In 1854 the English and French naval forces

came to the Gulf of Finland and Admiral Napier

the commander, said in the telegraph newspaper

that his breakfast will be in France,

and his dinner will be in St. Petersburg.

But when he saw it first time, I think he changed

his plans a bit.

- Understandably.

So imagine with all these fortifications,

very complex systems of lines of fire.

- Sure.

At this period of time, Russia had very sophisticated

and very strong navy, and the Kronstadt Fortress

became the strongest naval fortress in Europe.

- [Julian] The Russian navy may have been largely defensive

in the north, but here in the Black Sea,

it was on the attack, prowling the waters in search

of Ottoman war ships and supply convoys

heading for the Caucasus.

Initially, they met with little success.

In November 1853, Russian fortunes changed completely

when they came across the Ottoman squadron,

quite by chance, sheltering from a storm

in the Port of Sinop on the northern coastline of Anatolia.

Completely unprepared for battle, the Ottoman vessels

were sitting ducks.

(dramatic music)

Russian guns bombarded the ships relentlessly.

As the bombs ripped into the wooden planking,

they exploded, tearing the ships apart

and setting them alight.

It was the first time explosive shells had been used

in naval warfare.

The effect was devastating.

The Russian assault destroyed the entire Ottoman squadron

and laid waste to the port, killing thousands of sailors

and civilians.

It was a great victory for Russia,

but for Western Europe, a troubling turn of events.

- Britain and France realized they have to intervene

cause there is now nothing left to stop the Russians

getting hold of the Bosporus and potentially

taking Constantinople.

They have to enter the war at this point.

- In March 1854, Britain and France declared war

on Russia.

The Ottoman Empire, once the embodiment of evil,

had become an ally.

Like so many times before, the Danube River became

the front line in the early stages of the war.

Stretching from the Black Sea through the Balkans

and into Central Europe, the Danube was a hugely

strategic prize.

Whoever controlled it gained a military

and economic advantage.

The Ottomans had fought hard to take it

back in the 15th century, and they certainly weren't

going to give it up without a fight.

This stretch of the Danube is where, in 1953,

Russian troops crossed to lay siege the fortified

Ottoman town of Silistra, just there.

The idea was that once they'd taken Silistra

they would then march on Istanbul

as they had done 25 years earlier.

But, as so often in war, the best laid plans

just don't happen that way.

Russian forces positioned themselves on hilltops

overlooking the city and began a relentless bombardment

day and night.

It was, in effect, a shock and awe offensive

designed to topple the town quickly.

To the casual observer, it was simply a fantastic spectacle.

The young Leo Tolstoy, who was an officer

in the Russian army here at the time,

provides us with a vivid picture of the scene

in a letter that he wrote to his aunt.

"I amused myself, watch in hand, counting the cannon shots

"that I heard, and I counted 100 explosions

"in the space of a minute.

"The spectacle was truly beautiful,

"especially at night."

What at first seemed like a spectator sport

to Russian onlookers soon turned into a nightmare.

The Ottomans had learned from the last Russian siege

of Silistra, and built a ring of sturdy fortifications

around the city.

- The Russians found themselves held up in Silistra

by Turkish forces that turned out to be much better

than they'd expected.

The Turks were good at fortifications, artillery.

They were used to siege warfare against fortresses.

- As the siege dragged on, the death toll steadily rose,

numbering thousands on both sides.

And the war descended into particularly grisly

hand-to-hand combat.

Czar Nicholas urged his commanders to put a speedy end

to the siege, but the Ottoman resistance was ferocious.

The Turks fight like devils, reported a captain

in the Russian artillery.

After one particularly bloody assault

there were 2,000 Russian dead lying on the field of battle.

The very next day the people of Silistra came out

and cut off their heads, hoping for prize money.

When this was refused, they simply flung their grisly

trophies outside the city walls where they lay unburied

for the longest time.

The huge loss of Russian life, fears that Austria

would join the campaign, and news that British and French

troops had landed at the Black Sea port of Varna,

little more than 100 kilometers away,

compelled the Russian general to call an end

to the siege and retreat back across the river.

The Russian offensive had been a complete failure,

and the war was just beginning.

The Russian withdrawal from Silistra removed any

immediate threat to the Ottoman Empire,

and the war could have ended there and then.

But the sultan didn't want to let

the Russians go that easily.

And the French and the English, they'd come too far.

They didn't want to go home without a fight.

Moreover, they were keen to put an end to Russian

influence in the Black Sea once and for all.

So they reembarked their soldiers on the troop carriers

and set sail for the Crimean Peninsula,

with the intent of destroying the Russian naval base

at Sebastopol.

Unfortunately, what looked like an easy victory on paper

turned out to be a disastrous military quagmire

for all concerned.

Waged almost entirely on the Crimean Peninsula,

what became known as the Crimean War would drag on

for two more years, and enter history as one of

the most disastrous military campaigns of its time.

Famed for Florence Nightingale

and the Charge of the Light Brigade,

the Crimean War was plagued by incompetence

and mismanagement.

Thousands of soldiers on all sides met their death

in battle, but many more died of disease or froze to death

over the winter months.

When Russia finally surrendered, the estimated loss of life

had reached some 700,000.

At least a half million of those were Russian.

- In Russia the neglect of the troops,

the poor supply, this was all blamed on Nicholas.

And the defeat for a war that many in Russia believed

hadn't been necessary in the first place,

it was a war fought for delusional goals.

And so when Nicholas the First dies in February 1855,

he knew that it was his responsibility.

This was a catastrophe for him because it was

the collapse of his ideology, his worldview,

his religious belief, his sense that he was

on a divine mission.

This failure was a personal catastrophe.

The legacies of the Crimean War were equally profound.

Russians ambitions in that area would not go away.

The pan-Slav movement was strengthened by the Crimean War.

The sense of Russia's mission in the Balkans

also strengthened.

In the ethnic-religious fault line between Christian

and Muslim Europe remains, and is indeed exacerbated

by the Crimean War.

- The Russians may have been defeated in Crimea,

but their incursions into the Balkans opened a

Pandora's box of nationalist movements

across the Ottoman's European territories.

With Russia's encouragement, Christian-led rebellions

erupted throughout the Balkans.

Ottoman reprisals were savage, stoking the flames

of religious division.

One of the most infamous examples occurred here

in the small Bulgarian town of Batak

in the spring of 1876.

Joining the wave of uprisings spreading across Bulgaria

the townsfolk of Batak overthrew their Ottoman overlords.

But their success was short-lived.

Ottoman retaliation was so brutal,

the memory of it continues to haunt

the collective consciousness of Bulgarians to this day.

The Ottoman retribution, when it came, was terrible.

At that time the regular army was in Serbia

putting down an uprising there, so they sent in

the Bashi-bazouks, the crazies, to quell the rebellion

here in Batak.

Now many were local men, so there's an element

of old scores being settled, which makes things

particularly nasty, Christian versus Muslim.

The massacre was frightful.

Thousands dead, women, children, babes in arms.

The bodies piled up.

What became known as the Batak massacre

culminated in the Sveta Nedelya church here in the center

of town where hundreds of villagers

fleeing attack took refuge.

In an effort to flush them out the Bashi-bazouks

laid siege to the church, setting it alight.

By the time the ordeal had ended,

thousands of villagers had died.

Today, the church stands as a memorial to the tragedy.

And the skulls of the many victims are kept on display

as a sobering reminder of the atrocities

that took place here.

Stories of the massacre were widely reported

in the Western press, causing a huge upswell

in public disgust at what the Turks had done.

Disraeli was dismayed, Gladstone wrote a pamphlet,

Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo

were the outraged celebrities of their day.

But nowhere was the trauma more deeply felt than

in Bulgaria, and especially here in Batak

where the shockwaves of those ancient killings

still reverberate.

The Batak Massacre has become a national tragedy

in the story of Bulgarian independence.

To learn more, I'm meeting Stefka Dimitrova,

former director of the Batak Museum of History.

- (speaking foreign language)

- A very major and terrible event,

the beginning of Bulgarian nationhood,

how do the people of Batak feel about the massacre today?

- (speaking foreign language)

- The massacres were appalling,

but they did ensure that the Bulgarian question

was placed firmly on the agenda of the European powers.

There was a growing feeling that this should never

happen again, and that the creation of a Bulgarian

state perhaps was an obligation to those

who died so terribly in the massacres.

- Western Europe may have sympathized with the plight

of the Balkan Christians, but it was Russia

who took decisive action.

The following year, Russian troops crossed the Danube

once again, and with the aid of local rebel militias

attacked Ottoman forces.

What became known as the Russo-Turkish War of 1877

only lasted a year, but it completely redrew the map

of southeastern Europe, and greatly diminished

the Ottoman presence in the region.

Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro

would all gain independence.

Russia took control of key Ottoman territories

in the Caucasus, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire

occupied, and eventually annexed, Bosnia and Herzegovenia.

The Balkan nationalist movement seemed unstoppable,

but their success had profoundly altered the balance

of power in the region.

Fears of Austro-Hungarian dominance fueled a rise

in secretive and extreme nationalist groups

like the Black Hand Society in Serbia.

The defining moment came in the summer of 1914

when Black Hand member Gavrilo Princip assassinated

the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Ferdinand

and his wife while they were on a state visit to Sarajevo.

(gun fires)

What began as an extreme act of Serbian nationalism

quickly spiraled out of control.

Austro-Hungary, followed by Germany, declared war on Serbia.

In retaliation, Russia declared war on Germany

and Austro-Hungary.

France, Great Britain, and Belgium joined Russia.

While the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany

and Austro-Hungary.

In little more than a month, World War I had begun.

(dramatic music)

As battles waged across Western Europe,

one of the bloodiest theaters of the conflict

took place far away in the Ottoman heartland

of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the very spot where

Ottoman warriors first crossed into Europe

some 600 years before.

(cannons firing)

In an effort to break through the Dardanelles Strait

and occupy Istanbul itself, French, British, Australian

and New Zealand forces engaged the Ottomans in a

grueling, eight month-long struggle.

(cannons firing)

When it was over the Ottoman army could claim victory

at Gallipoli, but at a price.

The Gallipoli campaign was the final act

in the Ottoman Empire's long history of military

engagement on European soil.

The Turkish war memorial here at Gallipoli

at the entrance to the Dardanelle Straits

stands as a powerful reminder of the devastation

that war brought to all those who took part in it.

Kenon Celik is a local guide

and a veteran of the Turkish army.

His relatives fought and died at Gallipoli.

The Battle of Gallipoli, a moment of nationhood

for modern Turkey, but the soldiers who were fighting here

they were fighting for their homeland and Ottoman Empire.

It was a matter of survival, was it not?

- Of course, it was a matter of survival.

As you know, navy attacked the force through Dardanelles.

It was Churchill's idea.

It would be easy to get through and occupy Istanbul

and the city would be sandwiched.

Meanwhile, Russians were supposed to come from

northern way by Istanbul, and then a Turkish existence

in Europe would be exterminated, and folks would have

no lands in Europe at all.

This was the idea in 1915.

So then what about Turkish people?

Where they go?

Where they have a nation?

- Right, so I mean this was the heartlands

as well as the homelands.

It was the heartlands of the Turkish empire by this time.

There was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.

- We'd rather die here in the battle rather than see

this, for it was homeland of course.

- For the Allies, Britain, Australia, New Zealand,

we remember this battle for the huge loss of life,

but equally on the Turkish side there was also

many, many casualties.

- 57th Regiment, for example, joined the fighting.

Turkish regiments at that time had nearly 3,000 men,

and only a dozen survived from this regiment.

Distance between trenches eight yards, that is certain.

- [Julian] Eight yards?

- Eight yards. - Goodness.

- And man in the first row die, and then man behind

the second row know they will replace them

in a few minutes, and they will die.

And knowing this, without any hesitation,

without any orders, they move, and they replace

first line which was wiped out already.

'Twas the spirit of Turkish army which saved the country

motherland for us, and that was very important,

significant thing.

- [Julian] They built a fantastic memorial

to all these dead.

- All the Turks visit this memorial

and try to find their relatives.

My family lost two members.

My great-uncle died here.

My grandmother used to say when he was called

to join the army he said before leaving home,

if I go to Gallipoli, don't expect me anymore.

A month later, army sent a report to the village

he was killed here.

In war, everybody suffered.

We know this definitely.

We welcome people, and we think there's no point

in keeping hatred or animosity anymore.

And we see this as a place of reconciliation.

Gallipoli should be a place of peace, not war anymore.

- By the end of the Gallipoli campaign

there were 100,000 dead.

For the Allies it was a military disaster.

For the Ottoman Empire, which was pretty much on its knees

by this time, it was a last, glorious victory,

a shout of defiance.

For the modern Republic of Turkey, Gallipoli is remembered

as a moment of nationhood, a defense of the motherland

when all else was lost.

Gallipoli can be all these things.

- When it comes to Gallipoli, the Turks are fighting

for their own independence, in a sense,

in the same way that the Bulgarians, the Serbs,

the Montenegrons, the Greeks had,

and they're in a sense the last country

in the Ottoman Empire to declare independence.

- The Ottoman Turks may have won the battle for Gallipoli

but they were on the losing side of the war.

And in the aftermath, they found themselves

fighting for their very existence as the map of Europe

and the Middle East was redrawn.

The Allied powers occupied Istanbul and carved up

Ottoman lands in the Levant, Arabian Peninsula,

and Anatolia, reducing the empire to a small area

within Anatolia.

As for the Balkans, Serbia merged with Bosnia-Herzegovina,

Slovenia, and Croatia to form the kingdom of Yugoslavia.

In central Europe, Hungary and Czechoslovakia

became independent states.

Under the leadership of army commander Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Turkish forces launched a war of liberation,

regaining Anatolia and territory in southeastern Europe

corresponding to modern-day Turkey.

By November 1922 Ataturk had dissolved the Ottoman Empire.

The last sultan, Mehmed VI, was exiled

and the Turkish republic was born.

Built on principles of democracy and secularism,

it aimed, in many respects, to become the model

of a modern European nation.

After nearly six centuries, the Ottoman Empire was no more.

But its legacy endures to this day,

not just in Turkey, but throughout its former lands.

- The Ottomans ruled huge swaths of both the east

and the west, so we cannot escape their influence today.

It is all around us.

A lot of the national boundaries that were created

were created in reaction to the Ottoman Empire.

- It's a legacy that can be seen in a very positive light

because it was an empire which lasted for centuries,

it was multicultural, was successful,

it proved that groups could live together,

that is religious groups, Muslims, Christians, Jews.

- They certainly did enable some form

of cultural cohabitation, if not mutual tolerance,

and the creation of national states created the atmosphere

in which cultural aggression could more easily take place.

- A huge area has been affected by that long engagement

with this superpower that perhaps stopped

the development of these countries,

and when that was withdrawn things have degenerated,

you might say, in all kinds of ways.

- I think there are less legacies from the history

of Ottoman incursions into Europe than there are

legacies of European incursions into the Ottoman Empire.

And if we've learned anything from the history

of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century,

it is that you intervene in the Islamic world

at your peril.

- Gallipoli, and the narrow stretch of water

separating Asia from continental Europe.

This is where the Ottomans first crossed over

into Europe and where they fought their last

great battle against a European army.

Five and a half centuries separate these two events

which bookend the Ottoman engagement with Europe.

This is a period in history which is often portrayed

as a clash of civilizations.

But the reality is much more complex than that.

More a meeting of civilizations,

a cross-cultural exchange of people, commodities,

ideas, even religious precepts.

One can no more take the Ottomans out of Europe

than Europe out of the Ottomans.

Theirs was a shared destiny.