After the 1770-74 war, the Porte, which was Poland’s ally, lost Bukovina and Lesser Tatary, whose independence was recognised by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji on July 21, 1774, but which became a Russian province in 1783. The treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ceded Kinburn and Yenikale to Russia, left to the Christians the principalities lying to the north of the Danube, and guaranteed the Orthodox Greeks’ liberty under the patronage of the Russian ambassador at Constantinople. Catherine II also compelled the Turks by the same treaty not to defend the independence of Poland, threatened by Russia with the complicity of the Great Powers, and to give her a right of intervention in their home affairs. The Tatars of the Crimea and Kuban, detached from Turkey, soon after fell under the Russian sway, in 1783. The Sultan even had to sign a treaty granting a right of free navigation in the Black Sea and in the rivers of his empire. About the same time the European Powers began to interfere in Turkey: that was the beginning of the “Eastern question.” In opposition to the Austro-Russian alliance of Catherine and Joseph II, England, dissatisfied with Russia’s attitude in the American War of Independence, and wishing to find allies in Germany to counterbalance Russian influence in Europe, concluded an alliance with Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. The death of Frederic II soon put an end to this coalition, and Russia’s unfriendly attitude, her encroachments in Caucasus, and her territorial claims in Bessarabia, compelled Turkey on August 16, 1787, to declare war on Catherine, and Joseph II entered into the war in 1788. The Austrians took Khotin; the Turkish fleet was destroyed at Otchakov; Belgrade fell on October 8, 1789. Then Leopold, Joseph II’s brother, left the Turks and made peace with Turkey at Sistova on August 4, 1791. The Russians, who had defeated the Turks at Machin, were about to invade the Empire when, as a result of the intervention of England and Prussia, a treaty of peace was signed at Jassy, by which the Dniester became the new frontier between the two States. Thus Russia, who owing to the perturbed state of Europe was preparing to dismember Poland, was compelled to give up her dream of restoring the Byzantine Empire. After the 1809-12 war, Turkey lost the provinces lying between the Dnieper and the Danube which were ceded to Russia by the treaty of Bukharest.