The Ottomans lived up to their reputation as the sick man of West Asia, suffering defeat after defeat in their war with the Russians.
The eastern front was especially dire. Trabzon and Erzurum had fallen one after the other, and Russian troops were advancing toward Diyarbakir.
On the western front, the Ottoman army had been forced to huddle inside a few fortresses, including Varna and Silistre, but it had indeed managed to hold up the Russian advance.
Behind the Ottomans, however, the Bulgarians had risen up in an unprecedented rebellion. This forced the Ottomans to divert troops to suppress it, plunging the situation in Dobruja into crisis.
Dobruja lay along the Russo-Turkish border, with Moldavia to the west and the Black Sea to the east. It was the Ottomans' foremost line of defense against Russia.
From the very start of the Ninth Russo-Turkish War, the Russians had swept forward in triumph, looking as if they meant to take Constantinople at all costs.
Franz, however, wasn't envious of Russia's successes. His main reason for declaring war on the Ottomans was to force Britain to sign a peace agreement.
Austria had won battle after battle against Britain, even scoring an epic victory, but the British Government's pressure had mainly come from within, not from its war with Austria.
If several crises hadn't erupted at once, the British fleet would have sailed into the Mediterranean Sea again long ago.
Even so, the British, with their vast empire and resources, could keep the war going. Franz, however, had no desire to drag it out. He needed a stable environment in which to deal with the Hungarians and the internal problems that might threaten Austria.
Austria and Russia were invincible together in the Near East. Not even the British could prevail by throwing everything they