The Near Eastern question, or Turkey in Europe, has been one of the most difficult and vexatious problems of European statesmen and diplomats ever since the signing of Europe's first treaty with the Ottoman Turks, at Carlowitz, in 1699. It has had a greater influence upon European diplomacy than any other single issue. Reputations have been made and lost by it. Three of the great military conflicts of the nineteenth century—the Russo-Turkish struggle of 1828-29, the Crimean war, and the Russo-Turkish contest of 1877—were caused by one or another phase of this question; and now, within the past two years, recourse to arms has been had twice again over the same debatable ground. The congress of Berlin and the diplomatic moves that followed the war between Russia and Turkey in 1877, led to the creation of the German-Austrian League, and ultimately to the present Triple Alliance. The diplomatic and strategic acts which preceded the war between the Balkan allies and the Ottoman Empire in 1912 and those that accompanied the breaking out and the conclusion of the conflict against Bulgaria in 1913, culminated in new combinations, some of which have elements of permanency.