This book is the first detailed narrative of British foreign policy during the famous Eastern crisis of 1875-1878, from the outbreak of insurrection in Bosnia to the Congress of Berlin, since R. W. Seton-Watson's pioneering work. It differs greatly in outlook from that book, which was much more sympathetic to Gladstone and much less to Turkey.

Dr. Millman gives full consideration to the explosion of British public opinion, both parliamentary and public, which developed in reaction to the Bulgarian massacres and to the Russian threat to Constantinople and the Straits. Perhaps never before in Britain had such sustained public controversy resulted from questions of foreign policy. The author weaves together both the formulation and execution of external policy with the domestic dispute and argumentation. He reinterprets the events of the Eastern crisis in these years and closely investigates the Bulgarian massacres, revealing them to have been largely, though not completely, exaggerated. A significant contribution has been made in demonstrating the impact of the personality of Lord Derby upon the nature of his country's foreign policy.