Great Powers in the context of "Montenegro"

The Perry Expedition (Japanese: 黒船来航, kurofune raikō, "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition in two separate voyages (1852–1853 and 1854–1855) to the Tokugawa shogunate (徳川幕府) by warships of the United States Navy. The goals of this expedition included exploration, surveying, and the establishment of diplomatic relations and negotiation of trade agreements with the various nations in the region. Opening contact with the government of Japan was considered a top priority of the expedition, and was one of the key reasons for its inception.

The expedition was commanded by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, under orders from President Millard Fillmore. Perry's primary goal was to force an end to Japan's 220-year-old policy of isolation and to open Japanese ports to American trade, through the use of gunboat diplomacy if necessary. The Perry Expedition led directly to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and the western Great Powers, and eventually to the collapse of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the Emperor. Following the expedition, Japan's burgeoning trade routes with the world led to the cultural trend of Japonisme, in which aspects of Japanese culture influenced art in Europe and America.

The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a multinational European great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, it was the third most populous nation in Europe after the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom, while geographically, it was the third-largest empire in Europe after the Russian Empire and the First French Empire.

The empire was proclaimed by Francis II in 1804 in response to Napoleon's declaration of the First French Empire, unifying all Habsburg possessions under one central government. It remained part of the Holy Roman Empire until the latter's dissolution in 1806. It continued fighting against Napoleon throughout the Napoleonic Wars, except for a period between 1809 and 1813, when Austria was first allied with Napoleon during the invasion of Russia and later neutral during the first few weeks of the Sixth Coalition War. Austria and its allies emerged victorious in the war, leading to the Congress of Vienna, which reaffirmed the empire as one of the great powers of the 19th century.

The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, beginning in the late 14th century, with the Ottoman conquest of smaller kingdoms from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire. In the late 19th century, Bulgaria was liberated from the Ottoman Empire, and by the early 20th century it was declared independent.

The brutal suppression of the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 and the public outcry it caused across Europe led to the Constantinople Conference, where the Great Powers tabled a joint proposal for the creation of two autonomous Bulgarian vilayets, largely corresponding to the ethnic boundaries drawn a decade earlier with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate.

The London Conference of 1912–1913, also known as the London Peace Conference or the Conference of the Ambassadors, was an international summit of the six Great Powers of that time (Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Russia) convened in December 1912 due to the successes of the Balkan League armies against the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War. In particular, the conference intended to arbitrate between the warring powers as to territorial acquisitions, and also to determine the future of Albania, whose independence was proclaimed during the conflict.

The Bosnian Crisis, also known as the Annexation Crisis (German: Bosnische Annexionskrise, Turkish: Bosna Krizi; Serbo-Croatian: Aneksiona kriza, Анексиона криза) or the First Balkan Crisis, erupted on 5 October 1908 when Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, territories formerly within the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire but under Austro-Hungarian administration since 1878.

This unilateral action – timed to coincide with Bulgaria's declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire on 5 October – sparked protestations from all the Great Powers and Austria-Hungary's Balkan neighbors, Serbia and Montenegro. In April 1909, the Treaty of Berlin was amended to reflect the fait accompli and bring the crisis to an end. Although the crisis ended with what appeared to be a total Austro-Hungarian diplomatic victory, it permanently damaged relations between Austria-Hungary and its neighbors, especially Serbia, Italy and Russia, and in the long term helped lay the grounds for World War I. Austro-Serbian relations – harmed by the annexation's inflaming of Serbian nationalists – continued to be strained to the point of declaring war on each other in 1914.

The two ad hoc divans were legislative and consultative assemblies of the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia), vassals of the Ottoman Empire. They were established by the Great Powers under the Treaty of Paris. By then, the Crimean War had taken the two states out of Russia's sphere of influence, and had nullified the Moldo-Wallachian Regulamentul Organic regime. Officially, the two assemblies were provisional replacements for the traditional assemblies, the Sfaturi (or Divanuri). The term "divan", is derived from the Ottoman rule, being the name of a high governmental body in a number of Islamic states.

The elections for the two Divans confronted two local movements: the National Party, which supported the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, as "Romania"; the anti-unionists, which sought to maintain the status quo. The National Party emerged as the victor in 1859, when its candidate Alexandru Ioan Cuza was crowned Domnitor over both countries. The resulting United Principalities were the political embryo of modern Romania.