austria-hungary as counterweight to the russian influence in the balkans abdulhamid empire lost more than two hundred thousand square kilometers in europe. the real story of the whole epoch it's not only the story of the loss of ottoman territory but is therefore the story of the loss of homes of autumn and muslims and it's the story of the displacement of millions of people and often very very violent displacement and when to people start thinking about refugees as an international problem and what we can see is that the crisis of eight hundred seventy six to seventy eight maybe together with the early expansion of the russian empire around the black sea which it also created hundreds of thousands of muslim refugees this is the beginning of the modern age of the refugee.