[1][2] In the aftermath of the Russian victory against the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the major powers restructured the map of the Balkan region.

They reversed some of the extreme gains claimed by Russia in the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano, but the Ottomans lost their major holdings in Europe.

It was the final act of the Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) and included the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

In 1870, Russia invoked the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus and effectively terminated the treaty by breaching provisions concerning the neutrality of the Black Sea.

As the conflict in the Balkans intensified, atrocities during the 1876 April Uprising in Bulgaria inflamed anti-Turkish sentiments in Russia and Britain, which eventually culminated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877.

[16] Historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote, "If the congress was a defeat for Russia, it was not a complete success for Austria-Hungary or even for Great Britain...

Austria-Hungary was allowed to station military garrisons in the Ottoman Vilayet of Bosnia and the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.

The Vilayet of Bosnia was placed under Austro-Hungarian occupation although it formally remained part of the Ottoman Empire until it was annexed by Austria-Hungary thirty years later, on 5 October 1908.

The Austro-Hungarian garrisons in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar were withdrawn in 1908, after the annexation of the Vilayet of Bosnia and the resulting Bosnian Crisis,[14] to reach a compromise with the Ottoman Empire, which was struggling with internal strife because of the Young Turk Revolution (1908).