Which country was the original sick man of Europe?

On the 12th of May, 1860 the New York Times published an article where the phrase "Sick man of Europe" appeared for the first time. The source of the original idiom is hard to determine: Nicolas I of Russia called Turkey "a sick man - a very sick man" in his speech during the Crimean War, as quoted by John Russel. Anyway, the New York Times the full phrase which later became a cliche to describe a European country having a distress in economy.

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31 Comments

Niko Hilje

Britain is the correct answer

James Webb

Alec Boreham, That was through industrial strikes led by communist controlled unions.. Fortunately Margret Thatcher had the balls to defeat them.

Alec Boreham

In the 70's Britain was dubbed "The sick man of Europe"

Cheryl Perkins

Still is.

John Cogar

Britain is the latest country to be given the dubious title of ‘the sick man of Europe’. In the mid-1800s, the Ottoman Empire was the first to be called ‘the sick man of Europe’. The term is believed to originate from Russian tsar Nicholas I, who referred to the weakening military prowess of the Ottomans.

Ian James

Strictly speaking Turkey is Asian - the sick man of Europe referred to the Austro Hungarian empire circa 1900- 14, its desires to throw off this mantle and re assert itself were largely responsible for the crisis in the Balkans that contributed to the outbreak of war in 1914, where the Austrian Hungarians were emboldened by Germany’s blank cheque !!!!!

Werner Mittelsdorf

Carmine-James Pitaniello, Ankara is the capital, not Istanbul.

Joseph A. Robitaille

A guess.

skullfire

This question should be corrected or removed.

Richard G. Gomsrud

Turkey didn't exist until after World War I. It was a part of the Ottoman Empire to which that epithet was applied. That was almost 70 years before Turkey came into existence. Also the Ottoman Empire encompassed far more than Turkey.

David Roy

No Giselle, there was only one ORIGINAL country so called. The application of the epithet to other countries is later and by definition not original. By the way, you may want to look up the meaning of esoteric.