...Greece's somewhat inept effort to exploit the…

...Greece's somewhat inept effort to exploit the latter's discomfiture in the great Middle Eastern crisis of 1875–78.

The Great Powers, besides cutting down to size the “Big Bulgaria” that had arisen from the conflict, press the Ottoman government to cede the rich agricultural province of Thessaly and a part of Epirus to Greece.

A combination of intense Greek lobbying and Turkish intransigence leads to Great Power support for a bilateral treaty transferring the two regions from the Ottoman Empire to Greece.

As a byproduct of the complex negotiations of the Congress of Berlin to end the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the Great Powers decide in 1881 to cede Greece only the formerly Ottoman-ruled territories of Thessaly and ...