The late 1870s saw the status of the Ottoman Empire as to the rights of Christian subjects transformed into a national question for Great Britain; as several uprisings and wars targeted the Ottoman Empire and its administrative reforms. This was the “Eastern Question” (1878): what should happen to the Balkans and the Middle East once the Ottoman Empire disappeared. Benjamin Disraeli used diplomacy in resolving the Eastern crisis, in which he faced public opinion backlash and severe scrutiny from his rival, William Gladstone. Their confrontation reached its momentum over the “Eastern Question”; satirised as the “Eastern Drama” (Voskuil, 141). Disraeli’s and Gladstone’s theatrical performances provided scenes of intense political rivalry across
