Great Britain were beginning to infuse the Turkish ruling class with liberal ideas, and it appeared that the Armenian, Turk, and Kurd societies would find their relation to one another, whose mutual interest was to co-operate for a mutual conclusion. However, history soon took a sinister turn of events, which ultimately culminated in the official massacres of the Armenian population. The Empire had been brought on the verge of ruin by the revolt of the Bosniak Serbs, a Christian population, and by a momentary breakdown in the diplomatic mechanism of the European balance of power, which enabled Russia to throw her military force into the scales on the Balkan rebels' behalf (Dadrian 12). The ruin was partially repaired by a reassertion of the balance of power, which deprived Russia of most of her gains and the Balkan Christians of their new-won liberties. A Christian nationality had tried to break away violently from the Ottoman Empire; Abd-ul-Hamid identified this as the source of the nation's difficulties, and believed that the primary object of his policy must be to prevent such a thing from happening again. The subject nationalities of the Empire were for him potential destroyers of the nation,
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