Breathing-space meaning

The death of Hadrian and the accession of Antoninus Pius (138), however, gave the dispersed people of Palestine a breathing-space.

To give his enemies a breathing space when they were hard pressed was an insane proceeding unless he meant to make peace.

But Austria and Russia gave him no time for anything but defence, and it was not until the peace of Jassy (1792) that a breathing space was allowed him in Europe, while Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt and Syria soon called for Turkey's strongest efforts and for the time shattered the old-standing French alliance.

into the European system, and gave the exhausted country an inestimably beneficial breathing space 1333-4370.

What it wanted most of all was peace, and by establishing something like a territorial equilibrium the congress did much to win that breathing space which was the cardinal need of all.