During the Crimean War, French forces were stationed here and built one of the three historic lighthouses of Istanbul still in use. San Stefano was where in 1878 the Russian forces halted their advance towards Constantinople at the end of the Russo-Turkish War and was the location where the Treaty of San Stefano was signed between the Russian and Ottoman Empires. In 1909, the decision to send Sultan Abdülhamid II into exile to Thessaloniki was taken by the members of the Committee of Union and Progress at the yacht club of San Stefano.