Reprint of the original, first published in 1860.

At the London Congress in 1883 Sir Charles Dilke said that there were many people who knew a little about the Danube, but that there was not a single one who knew the subject thoroughly. This remark, and the fact that the Allied and Associated Powers have declared, in the various Treaties signed in Paris in 1919 and 1920, that they are to draw up a "General Conven tion" for the Regulation of traffic on the Donube and all other rivers declared international by those Trea ties, have encouraged me to write this work. As the subject is a very comprehensive one I have divided it into two parts. The first part deals very mi nutely with the :history of navigation on the Danube down to the year 1856. The second part contains fewer details, and is more in the nature of an outline, and covers the period from 1856 to the present day, and will form the subject of a later work. I have been very much indebted to Mr. Thomas W. Mc Callum, M.A., Lecturer at the University of Vien na, and Professor at the University of International Trade, not only for the great help he has given me in correcting this work, but also for his valuable informa tion and advice on numerous scientific questions. I also wish to express my sincere thanks to Sektions rat Dr. Bittner and to Dr. Fritz Antonius of the Court Archives in Vienna for all their kind help.

The Routledge Handbook of the Crimean War is an edited collection of articles on the various aspects of the Crimean War written by distinguished historians from various countries. Part I focuses on diplomatic, military and regional perspectives. Part II includes contributions on social, cultural and international issues around the war. All contributions are based upon findings of the latest research. While not pretending to be an exhaustive encyclopaedia of this first modern war, the present volume captures the most important topics and the least researched areas in the historiography of the war. The book incorporates new approaches in national historiographies to the war and is intended to be the most up-to-date reference book on the subject. Chapters are devoted to each of the belligerent powers and to other peripheral states that were involved in one way or another in the war. The volume also gives more attention to the Ottoman Empire, which is generally neglected in European books on the war. Both the general public and students of history will find the book useful, balanced and up-to-date.

The Lower Danube—the stretch of Europe’s second longest river between the Romanian-Serbian border and the confluence to the Black Sea—was effectively transformed during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In describing this lengthy undertaking, Luminita Gatejel proposes that remaking two key stretches—the Iron Gates and the delta—not only physically altered the river but also redefined it in a legal and political sense. Since the late eighteenth century, military conflicts and peace treaties changed the nature of sovereignty over the area, as the expansionist tendencies of the Habsburg and British Empires encountered rival Ottoman and Russian imperial plans. The inconvenience that the river’s physical shape obstructed free navigation and the growth of commercial traffic, was an increasing concern to all parties. This book shows that alongside imperial aspirations, transnational actors like engineers, commissioners and entrepreneurs were the driving force behind the river regulation. In this highly original, deeply researched, and carefully crafted study, Gatejel explores the formation of international cooperation, the emergence of technical expertise and the emergence of engineering as a profession. This constellation turned the Lower Danube into a laboratory for experimenting with new forms of international cooperation, economic integration, and nature transformation.