The Ottoman Tanzimat period brought reform: conscription was introduced, a central bank was formed, homosexuality was decriminalised, the law was secularised, and the guilds were replaced with factories. The Christian part of the empire became much more advanced than the Muslim part, and the divide created tension. In the 1850s, the British and the French helped the Ottomans in the Crimean War. The Ottoman debts led to a state of bankruptcy, and the European countries began providing loans and controlling the finances of the empire. Worse yet, the Ottomans began war with Russia over Bulgarian independence. Ar the 1878 Congress of Berlin, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro gained complete independence. Bulgaria remained a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. The British took Cyprus and in 1882 Egypt.