Defending India and the empire thus also meant a strong diplomatic and naval British presence in the Near East where Russia or France, together or separately, might try to break up the Ottoman Empire and share out its provinces. Russia’s claim to protect the Ottomans’ Christian subjects, their forward base in the Caucasus, where they maintained a large army, and the tsars’ longstanding ambition to rule Constantinople (Tsargrad) and master the Straits, were a source of constant unease. Neither did the British forget Napoleon’s Egyptian invasion: all French interest in Egypt was viewed with suspicion.
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