defeated Russia, but in the long run, Austria lost the most from the war despite having barely taken part in it. Having abandoned its alliance with Russia, Austria remained diplomatically isolated following the war, which contributed to its disastrous defeats in the 1859 Franco-Austrian War that resulted in the cession of Lombardy to the Kingdom of Sardinia and later in the loss of the Habsburg rule of Tuscany and Modena, which meant the end of Austrian influence in peninsular Italy. Furthermore, Russia did not do anything to assist its former ally, Austria, in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, when Austria lost Venetia and, more importantly, its influence in most German-speaking lands. The status of Austria as a great power, with the unifications of Germany and Italy, now became very precarious. It had to compromise with Hungary; the two countries shared the Danubian Empire. With France now hostile to Germany and gravitating towards Russia, and with Russia competing with the newly renamed Austro-Hungarian Empire for an increased role in the Balkans at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, the foundations were in place for building the diplomatic alliances that would shape the First World War of 1914. The Treaty's guarantees to preserve Ottoman territories were broken 21 years later when Russia, exploiting nationalist unrest in the Balkans and seeking to regain lost prestige, once again declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 24 April 1877. In this later Russo-Turkish War the states of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro gained international recognition of their independence and Bulgaria achieved its autonomy from direct Ottoman rule. Russia took over Southern Bessarabia, lost in 1856. The regions of Batum and Kars, as well as those inhabited by Adjarians (Muslim Georgians) and Armenians, were also annexed to Russia in the Caucasus. At the same time, "protectors" of the Ottoman Empire Britain received Cyprus as a colonial possession, while Austria-Hungary occupied and annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Finally, Ottoman rule in the Balkans ended after the First Balkan War of 1912, when the combined forces of the Balkan States defeated it. The Crimean War marked the re-ascendancy of France to the position of pre-eminent power on the Continent, the continued decline of the Ottoman Empire and a period of crisis for Imperial Russia. As Fuller notes, "Russia had been beaten on the Crimean Peninsula, and the military feared that it would inevitably be beaten again unless steps were