page_title: Humanitarian intervention
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Humanitarian intervention / History
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Картина «Болгарские мученицы» была написана знаменитым русским художником Константином Маковским по возвращении его из поездки на Балканы. Летом 1877 года Маковский уехал на Балканы, где делал зарисовки, двигаясь вслед за наступающей русской армией по Сербии и Болгарии. Рассказы очевидцев о жестоком подавлении турецкими властями народного восстания, вспыхнувшего в Болгарии в 1876 году, и о зверствах башибузуков против мирного населения произвели сильное впечатление на художника. Маковский создает полотно в короткий срок и в 1877 году представляет картину на выставке в Петербурге, планируя все деньги от продажи произведения направить в Болгарию в помощь пострадавшему населению. Русско-турецкая война (1877—1878) English: "The Bulgarian Martyresses", 1877 painting by the Russian painter Konstantin Makovsky, depicting the rape of Bulgarian women by Africanised Ottoman bashi-bazouks during the suppression of the April Uprising a year earlier, served to mobilise public support for the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) waged with the proclaimed aim of liberating the Bulgarians. Čeština: "Bulharské mučednice", malba z roku 1877 od ruského malíře Konstantina Makovského, zobrazující znásilnění bulharských žen otomanskými baši-bazouky při potlačení Dubnového povstání z předešlého roku, za účelem pozvednutí veřejné podpory pro Rusko-Tureckou válku (1877–1878) vedené s proklamovaným cílem osvobodit Bulhary.
context_page_description: Humanitarian intervention has been defined as a state's use of military force against another state, with publicly stating its goal is to end human rights violations in that state. This definition may be too narrow as it precludes non-military forms of intervention such as humanitarian aid and international sanctions. On this broader understanding, "Humanitarian intervention should be understood to encompass… non-forcible methods, namely intervention undertaken without military force to alleviate mass human suffering within sovereign borders."
  There is not one standard or legal definition of humanitarian intervention; the field of analysis often influences the definition that is chosen. Differences in definition include variations in whether humanitarian intervention is limited to instances where there is an absence of consent from the host state; whether humanitarian intervention is limited to punishment actions; and whether humanitarian intervention is limited to cases where there has been explicit UN Security Council authorization for action. There is, however, a general consensus on some of its essential characteristics:
context_section_description: Getting involved in the affairs of another state on humanitarian grounds has been a subject of discussion in public international law since the 19th century.
  According to Jonathan Friedman and Paul James, explicit assertions about humanitarian motives are not a new phenomenon and military action is instead often rationalized through such moral rather than political arguments. As a pretext for deploying troops in Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea for an intended invasion of Ethiopia, Benito Mussolini thus claimed that he was attempting to both secure the Wal Wal border area where some Italian soldiers had been killed and abolish the local slave trade. Similarly, Adolf Hitler justified his own forces' occupation of the Sudetenland by suggesting that they were attempting to quash ethnic tensions in Czechoslovakia.
  Possibly the first historical example of a state expressly intervening in the internal affairs of another on the grounds of humanitarian concern was during the Greek War of Independence in the early 19th century, when Britain, France and Russia decisively intervened in a naval engagement at Navarino in 1827 to secure for the Greeks independence from the Ottoman Empire.
  Popular opinion in England was sympathetic to the Greeks (philhellenism), in part due to the Greek origin of the West's classical heritage. The renowned poet Lord Byron even took up arms to join the Greek revolutionaries,  while the London Philhellenic Committee was established to aid the Greek insurgents financially.
  In 1823, after initial ambivalence, the Foreign Secretary George Canning declared that "when a whole nation revolts against its conqueror, the nation cannot be considered as piratical but as a nation in a state of war". In February that same year, he notified the Ottoman Empire that the United Kingdom would maintain friendly relations with the Turks only under the condition that the latter respected the Christian subjects of the Empire. He was also instrumental in the outcome of the St. Petersburg Protocol 1826, in which Russia and Britain agreed to mediate between the Ottomans and the Greeks on the basis of complete autonomy of Greece under Turkish sovereignty. When this did not end the War, Canning negotiated a following treaty that ultimately led to the destruction of the Egyptian-Turkish fleet at the Battle of Navarino.
  The treatment of minorities under the Ottoman aegis proved a rich source of liberal agitation throughout the nineteenth century. A multinational force under French leadership was sent to Lebanon to help restore peace after the 1860 Druze–Maronite conflict, in which thousands of Christian Maronites had been massacred by the Druze population. Following an international outcry, the Ottoman Empire agreed on 3 August 1860 to the dispatch of up to 12,000 European soldiers to reestablish order. This agreement was further formalized in a convention on 5 September 1860 with Austria, Great Britain, France, Prussia and Russia.
  In May 1876 Ottoman troops began massacring unarmed agitators for autonomy in Bulgaria, leading to the Eastern Crisis. The British launched a government investigation into the events, which confirmed that as part of an official policy, the Turks had killed at least 12,000 Bulgarians and obliterated about 60 villages. Lurid reports began to appear in newspapers, especially accounts by the investigative journalist William Thomas Stead in the Northern Echo, and protest meetings were called across the country.
  Despite the unprecedented demonstration of the strength of public opinion and the media, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli remained an unmoved practitioner of realpolitik, and considered British interests to lie in the preservation of Ottoman sovereignty in Eastern Europe. Lord Derby the Foreign Secretary disagreed and telegraphed the Sublime Porte that "any renewal of the outrages would be more fatal to the Porte than the loss of a battle." Apart from issuing stern advice and proposals for internal Turkish reform and the legal protection of minorities, the Disraeli government did nothing. Howe
caption: The Bulgarian Martyresses (1877), a painting by Konstantin Makovsky, which shocked Europe.
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