Chapter X: The Making of Bulgaria (1)

"If you can help to build up these peoples into a bulwark of
independent States and thus screen the 'sick man' from the
fury of the northern blast, for God's sake do it."--SIR R.
MORIER to SIR W. WHITE, _December 27, 1885_.

The failure which attended the forward Hellenic movement during the years 1896-97 stands in sharp relief with the fortunes of the Bulgarians. To the rise of this youngest, and not the least promising, of European States, we must devote a whole chapter; for during a decade the future of the Balkan Peninsula and the policy of the Great Powers turned very largely on the emancipation of this interesting race from the effective control of the Sultan and the Czar.

The rise of this enigmatical people affords a striking example of the power of national feeling to uplift the downtrodden. Until the year 1876, the very name Bulgarian was scarcely known except as a geographical term. Kinglake, in his charming work, _Eothen_, does not mention the Bulgarians, though he travelled on horseback from Belgrade to Sofia and thence to Adrianople. And yet in 1828, the conquering march of the Russians to Adrianople had awakened that people to a passing thrill of national consciousness. Other travellers,--for instance, Cyprien Robert in the "thirties,"--noted their sturdy patience in toil, their slowness to act, but their great perseverance and will-power, when the resolve was formed.

These qualities may perhaps be ascribed to their Tatar (Tartar) origin. Ethnically, they are closely akin to the Magyars and Turks, but, having been long settled on the banks of the Volga (hence their name, Bulgarian = Volgarian), they adopted the speech and religion of the Slavs. They have lived this new life for about a thousand years[184]; and in this time have been completely changed. Though their flat lips and noses bespeak an Asiatic origin, they are practically Slavs, save that their temperament is less nervous, and their persistence greater than that of their co-religionists[185]. Their determined adhesion to Slav ideals and rejection of Turkish ways should serve as a reminder to anthropologists that peoples are not mainly to be judged and divided off by craniological peculiarities. Measurement of skulls may tell us something concerning the basal characteristics of tribes: it leaves untouched the boundless fund of beliefs, thoughts, aspirations, and customs which mould the lives of nations. The peoples of to-day are what their creeds, customs, and hopes have made them; as regards their political life, they have little more likeness to their tribal forefathers than the average man has to the chimpanzee.

[Footnote 184: _The Peasant State: Bulgaria in 1894_, by E. Dicey, C.B. (1904), p. 11.]

[Footnote 185: _Turkey in Europe_, by "Odysseus," pp. 28, 356, 367.]

The first outstanding event in the recent rise of the Bulgarian race was the acquisition of spiritual independence in 1869-70. Hitherto they, in common with nearly all the Slavs, had belonged to the Greek Church, and had recognised the supremacy of its Patriarch at Constantinople, but, as the national idea progressed, the Bulgarians sought to have their own Church. It was in vain that the Greeks protested against this schismatic attempt. The Western Powers and Russia favoured it; the Porte also was not loth to see the Christians further divided. Early in the year 1870, the Bulgarian Church came into existence, with an Exarch of its own at Constantinople who has survived the numerous attempts of the Greeks to ban him as a schismatic from the "Universal Church." The Bulgarians therefore took rank with the other peoples of the Peninsula as a religious entity., the Roumanian and Servian Churches having been constituted early in the century. In fact, the Porte recognises the Bulgarians, even in Macedonia, as an independent religious community, a right which it does not accord to the Servians; the latter, in Macedonia, are counted only as "Greeks[186]."

[Footnote 186: _Turkey in Europe_, by "Odysseus," pp. 280-283, 297; _The Peasant State_, by E. Dicey, pp. 75-77.]

The Treaty of San Stefano promised to make the Bulgarians the predominant race of the Balkan Peninsula for the benefit of Russia; but, as we have seen, the efforts of Great Britain and Austria, backed by the jealousies of Greeks and Servians, led to a radical change in those arrangements. The Treaty of Berlin divided that people into three unequal parts. The larger mass, dwelling in Bulgaria Proper, gained entire independence of the Sultan, save in the matter of suzerainty; the Bulgarians on the southern slopes of the Balkans acquired autonomy only in local affairs, and remained under the control of the Porte in military affairs and in matters of high policy; while the Bulgarians who dwelt in Macedonia, about 1,120,000 in number, were led to hope something from articles 61 and 62 of the Treaty of Berlin, but remained otherwise at the mercy of the Sultan[187].

[Footnote 187: Récius, Kiepert, Ritter, and other geographers and ethnologists, admit that the majority in Macedonia is Bulgarian.]

This unsatisfactory state of things promised to range the Principality of Bulgaria entirely on the side of Russia, and at the outset the hope of all Bulgarians was for a close friendship with the great Power that had effected their liberation. These sentiments, however, speedily cooled. The officers appointed by the Czar to organise the Principality carried out their task in a high-handed way that soon irritated the newly enfranchised people. Gratitude is a feeling that soon vanishes, especially in political life. There, far more than in private life, it is a great mistake for the party that has conferred a boon to remind the recipient of what he owes, especially if that recipient be young and aspiring. Yet that was the mistake committed everywhere throughout Bulgaria. The army, the public service--everything--was modelled on Russian lines during the time of the occupation, until the overbearing ways of the officials succeeded in dulling the memory of the services rendered in the war. The fact of the liberation was forgotten amidst the irritation aroused by the constant reminders of it.

The Russians succeeded in alienating even the young German prince who came, with the full favour of the Czar Alexander II., to take up the reins of Government. A scion of the House of Hesse Darmstadt by a morganatic marriage, Prince Alexander of Battenberg had been sounded by the Russian authorities, with a view to his acceptance of the Bulgarian crown. By the vote of the Bulgarian Chamber, it was offered to him on April 29, 1879. He accepted it, knowing full well that it would be a thorny honour for a youth of twenty-two years of age. His tall commanding frame, handsome features, ability and prowess as a soldier, and, above all, his winsome address, seemed to mark him out as a natural leader of men; and he received a warm welcome from the Bulgarians in the month of July.

His difficulties began at once. The chief Russian administrator, Dondukoff Korsakoff, had thrust his countrymen into all the important and lucrative posts, thereby leaving out in the cold the many Bulgarians, who, after working hard for the liberation of their land, now saw it transferred from the slovenly overlordship of the Turk to the masterful grip of the Muscovite. The Principality heaved with discontent, and these feelings finally communicated themselves to the sympathetic nature of the Prince. But duty and policy alike forbade him casting off the Russian influence. No position could be more trying for a young man of chivalrous and ambitious nature, endowed with a strain of sensitiveness which he probably derived from his Polish mother. He early set forth his feelings in a private letter to Prince Charles of Roumania:--

Devoted with my whole heart to the Czar Alexander, I am anxious to do nothing that can be called anti-Russian. Unfortunately the Russian officials have acted with the utmost want of tact; confusion prevails in every office, and peculation, thanks to Dondukoff's decrees, is all but sanctioned. I am daily confronted with the painful alternative of having to decide either to assent to the Russian demands or to be accused in Russia of ingratitude and of "injuring the most sacred feelings of the Bulgarians." My position is truly terrible.

The friction with Russia increased with time. Early in the year 1880, Prince Alexander determined to go to St. Petersburg to appeal to the Czar in the hope of allaying the violence of the Panslavonic intriguers. Matters improved for a time, but only because the Prince accepted the guidance of the Czar. Thereafter he retained most of his pro-Russian Ministers, even though the second Legislative Assembly, elected in the spring of that year, was strongly Liberal and anti-Russian. In April 1881 he acted on the advice of one of his Ministers, a Russian general named Ehrenroth, and carried matters with a high hand: he dissolved the Assembly, suspended the constitution, encouraged his officials to browbeat the voters, and thereby gained a docile Chamber, which carried out his behests by decreeing a Septennate, or autocratic rule for seven years. In order to prop up his miniature czardom, he now asked the new Emperor, Alexander III., to send him two Russian Generals. His request was granted in the persons of Generals Soboleff and Kaulbars, who became Ministers of the Interior and for War; a third, General Tioharoff, being also added as Minister of Justice.

The triumph of Muscovite influence now seemed to be complete, until the trio just named usurped the functions of the Bulgarian Ministers and informed the Prince that they took their orders from the Czar, not from him. Chafing at these self-imposed Russian bonds, the Prince now leant more on the moderate Liberals, headed by Karaveloff; and on the Muscovites intriguing in the same quarter, and with the troops, with a view to his deposition, they met with a complete repulse. An able and vigorous young Bulgarian, Stambuloff, was now fast rising in importance among the more resolute nationalists. The son of an innkeeper of Tirnova, he was sent away to be educated at Odessa; there he early became imbued with Nihilist ideas, and on returning to the Danubian lands, framed many plots for the expulsion of the Turks from Bulgaria. His thick-set frame, his force of will, his eloquent, passionate speech, and, above all, his burning patriotism, soon brought him to the front as the leader of the national party; and he now strove with all his might to prevent his land falling to the position of a mere satrapy of the liberators. Better the puny autocracy of Prince Alexander than the very real despotism of the nominees of the Emperor Alexander III.

The character of the new Czar will engage our attention in the following chapter; here we need only say that the more his narrow, hard, and overbearing nature asserted itself, the greater appeared the danger to the liberties of the Principality. At last, when the situation became unbearable, the Prince resolved to restore the Bulgarian constitution; and he took this momentous step, on September 18, 1883, without consulting the three Russian Ministers, who thereupon resigned[188].

[Footnote 188: For the scenes which then occurred, see _Le Prince Alexandre de Battenberg en Bulgarie_, by A.G. Drandar, pp. 169 _et seq_.; also A. Koch, _Fürst Alexander von Bulgarien_, pp. 144-147.

For the secret aims of Russia, see _Documents secrets de la Politique russe en Orient_, by R. Leonoff (Berlin, 1893), pp. 49-65. General Soboleff, _Der erste Fürst von Bulgarian_ (Leipzig, 1896), has given a highly coloured Russian account of all these incidents.]

At once the Prince summoned Karaveloff, and said to him: "My dear Karaveloff--For the second time I swear to thee that I will be entirely submissive to the will of the people, and that I will govern in full accordance with the constitution of Tirnova. Let us forget what passed during the _coup d'état_ [of 1881], and work together for the prosperity of the country." He embraced him; and that embrace was the pledge of a close union of hearts between him and his people[189].

[Footnote 189: See Laveleye's _The Balkan Peninsula_, pp. 259-262, for an account of Karaveloff.]

The Czar forthwith showed his anger at this act of independence, and, counting it a sign of defiance, allowed or encouraged his agents in Bulgaria to undermine the power of the Prince, and procure his deposition. For two years they struggled in vain. An attempt by the Russian Generals Soboleff and Kaulbars to kidnap the Prince by night failed, owing to the loyalty of Lieutenant Martinoff, then on duty at his palace; the two ministerial plotters forthwith left Bulgaria[190].

[Footnote 190: J.G.C. Minchin, _The Growth of Freedom in the Balkan Peninsula_ (1886) p. 237. The author, Consul-General for Servia in London, had earlier contributed many articles to the _Times_ and _Morning Advertiser_ on Balkan affairs.]

Even now the scales did not fall from the eyes of the Emperor Alexander III. Bismarck was once questioned by the faithful Busch as to the character of that potentate. The German Boswell remarked that he had heard Alexander III. described as "stupid, exceedingly stupid"; whereupon the Chancellor replied: "In a general way that is saying too much[191]." Leaving to posterity the task of deciding that question, we may here point out that Muscovite policy in the years 1878-85 achieved a truly remarkable feat in uniting all the liberated races of the Balkan Peninsula against their liberators. By the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, Russia had alienated the Roumanians, Servians, and Greeks; so that when the Princes of those two Slav Principalities decided to take the kingly title (as they did in the spring of 1881 and 1882 respectively), it was after visits to Berlin and Vienna, whereby they tacitly signified their friendliness to the Central Powers.

[Footnote 191: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, by Dr. M. Busch (Note of January 5, 1886), vol. iii. p. 150 (English edition).]

In the case of Servia this went to the length of alliance. On June 25, 1881, the Foreign Minister, M. Mijatovich, concluded with Austria-Hungary a secret convention, whereby Servia agreed to discourage any movement among the Slavs of Bosnia, while the Dual Monarchy promised to refrain from any action detrimental to Servian hopes for what is known as old Servia. The agreement was for eight years; but it was not renewed in 1889[192]. The fact, however, that such a compact could be framed within three years of the Berlin Congress, shows how keen was the resentment of the Servian Government at the neglect of its interests by Russia, both there and at San Stefano.

[Footnote 192: The treaty has not been published; for this general description of it I am indebted to the kindness of M. Mijatovich himself.]

The gulf between Bulgaria and Russia widened more slowly, but with the striking sequel that will be seen. The Dondukoffs, Soboleffs, and Kaulbars first awakened and then estranged the formerly passive and docile race for whose aggrandisement Russia had incurred the resentment of the neighbouring peoples. Under Muscovite tutelage the "ignorant Bulgarian peasants" were developing a strong civic and political instinct. Further, the Czar's attacks, now on the Prince, and then on the popular party, served to bind these formerly discordant elements into an alliance. Stambuloff, the very embodiment of young Bulgaria in tenacity of purpose and love of freedom, was now the President of the Sobranje, or National Assembly, and he warmly supported Prince Alexander so long as he withstood Russian pretensions. At the outset the strifes at Sofia had resembled a triangular duel, and the Russian agents could readily have disposed of the third combatant had they sided either with the Prince or with the Liberals. By browbeating both they simplified the situation to the benefit both of the Prince and of the nascent liberties of Bulgaria.

Alexander III. and his Chancellor, de Giers, had also tied their hands in Balkan affairs by a treaty which they framed with Austria and Germany, and signed and ratified at the meeting of the three Emperors at Skiernewice (September 1884--see Chapter XII.). The most important of its provisions from our present standpoint was that by which, in the event of two of the three Empires disagreeing on Balkan questions, the casting vote rested with the third Power. This gave to Bismarck the same role of arbiter which he had played at the Berlin Congress.

But in the years 1885 and 1886, the Czar and his agents committed a series of blunders, by the side of which their earlier actions seemed statesmanlike. The welfare of the Bulgarian people demanded an early reversal of the policy decided on at the Congress of Berlin (1878), whereby the southern Bulgarians were divided from their northern brethren in order that the Sultan might have the right to hold the Balkan passes in time of war. That is to say, the Powers, especially Great Britain and Austria, set aside the claims of a strong racial instinct for purely military reasons. The breakdown of this artificial arrangement was confidently predicted at the time; and Russian agents at first took the lead in preparing for the future union. Skobeleff, Katkoff, and the Panslavonic societies of Russia encouraged the formation of "gymnastic societies" in Eastern Roumelia, and the youth of that province enrolled themselves with such ardour that by the year 1885 more than 40,000 were trained to the use of arms. As for the protests of the Sultan and those of his delegates at Philippopolis, they were stilled by hints from St. Petersburg, or by demands for the prompt payment of Turkey's war debt to Russia. All the world knew that, thanks to Russian patronage, Eastern Roumelia had slipped entirely from the control of Abdul Hamid.

By the summer of 1885, the unionist movement had acquired great strength. But now, at the critical time, when Russia should have led that movement, she let it drift, or even, we may say, cast off the tow-rope. Probably the Czar and his Ministers looked on the Bulgarians as too weak or too stupid to act for themselves. It was a complete miscalculation; for now Stambuloff and Karaveloff had made that aim their own, and brought to its accomplishment all the skill and zeal which they had learned in a long career of resistance to Turkish and Russian masters. There is reason to think that they and their coadjutors at Philippopolis pressed on events in the month of September 1885, because the Czar was then known to disapprove any immediate action.

In order to understand the reason for this strange reversal of Russia's policy, we must scrutinise events more closely. The secret workings of that policy have been laid bare in a series of State documents, the genuineness of which is not altogether established. They are said to have been betrayed to the Bulgarian patriots by a Russian agent, and they certainly bear signs of authenticity. If we accept them (and up to the present they have been accepted by well-informed men) the truth is as follows:--

Russia would have worked hard for the union of Eastern Roumelia to Bulgaria, provided that the Prince abdicated and his people submitted completely to Russian control. Quite early in his reign Alexander III. discovered in them an independence which his masterful nature ill brooked. He therefore postponed that scheme until the Prince should abdicate or be driven out. As one of the Muscovite agents phrased it in the spring of 1881, the union must not be brought about until a Russian protectorate should be founded in the Principality; for if they made Bulgaria too strong, it would become "a second Roumania," that is, as "ungrateful" to Russia as Roumania had shown herself after the seizure of her Bessarabian lands. In fact, the Bulgarians could gain the wish of their hearts only on one condition--that of proclaiming the Emperor Alexander Grand Duke of the greater State of the future[193].

[Footnote 193: _Documents secrets de la Politique russe en Orient,_ ed. by R. Leonoff (Berlin, 1893), pp. 8, 48. This work is named by M. Malet in his _Bibliographie_ on the Eastern Question on p. 448, vol. ix., of the _Histoire Générale of _MM. Lavisse and Rambaud. I have been assured of its genuineness by a gentleman well versed in the politics of the Balkan States.]

The chief obstacles in the way of Russia's aggrandisement were the susceptibilities of "the Battenberger," as her agents impertinently named him, and the will of Stambuloff. When the Czar, by his malevolent obstinacy, finally brought these two men to accord, it was deemed needful to adopt various devices in order to shatter the forces which Russian diplomacy had succeeded in piling up in its own path. But here again we are reminded of the Horatian precept--

Vis consili expers mole ruit sua.

To the hectorings of Russian agents the "peasant State" offered an ever firmer resistance, and by the summer of 1885 it was clear that bribery and bullying were equally futile.

Of course the Emperor of all the Russias had it in his power to harry the Prince in many ways. Thus in the summer of 1885, when a marriage was being arranged between him and the Princess Victoria, daughter of the Crown Princess of Germany, the Czar's influence at Berlin availed to veto an engagement which is believed to have been the heartfelt wish of both the persons most nearly concerned. In this matter Bismarck, true to his policy of softening the Czar's annoyance at the Austro-German alliance by complaisance in all other matters, made himself Russia's henchman, and urged his press-trumpet, Busch, to write newspaper articles abusing Queen Victoria as having instigated this match solely with a view to the substitution of British for Russian influence in Bulgaria[194]. The more servile part of the German Press improved on these suggestions, and stigmatised the Bulgarian Revolution of the ensuing autumn as an affair trumped up at London. So far is it possible for minds of a certain type to read their own pettiness into events.

[Footnote 194: For Bismarck's action and that of the Emperor William I. in 1885, see _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, by M. Busch, vol. iii. pp. 171, 180, 292, also p. 335. Russian agents came to Stambuloff in the summer of 1885 to say that "Prince Alexander must be got rid of before he can ally himself with the German family regnant." Stambuloff informed the Prince of this. See _Stambuloff_, by A.H. Beaman, p. 52.]

Meanwhile, if we may credit the despatches above referred to, the Russian Government was seeking to drag Bulgaria into fratricidal strife with Roumania over some trifling disputes about the new border near Silistria. That quarrel, if well managed, promised to be materially advantageous to Russia and mentally soothing to her ruler. It would weaken the Danubian States and help to bring them back to the heel of their former protector. Further, seeing that the behaviour of King Charles to his Russian benefactors was no less "ungrateful" than that of Prince Alexander, it would be a fit Nemesis for these _ingrats_ to be set by the ears. Accordingly, in the month of August 1885, orders were issued to Russian agents to fan the border dispute; and on August 12/30 the Director of the Asiatic Department at St. Petersburg wrote the following instructions to the Russian Consul-General at Rustchuk:--

You remember that the union [of the two Bulgarias] must not
take place until after the abdication of Prince Alexander.
However, the ill-advised and hostile attitude of King Charles
of Roumania [to Russia] obliges the imperial government to
postpone for some time the projected union of Eastern
Roumelia to the Principality, as well as the abdication and
expulsion of the Prince of Bulgaria. In the session of the
Council of [Russian] Ministers held yesterday it was decided
to beg the Emperor to call Prince Alexander to Copenhagen or
to St. Petersburg in order to inform him that, according to
the will of His Majesty, Bulgaria must defend by armed force
her rights over the points hereinbefore mentioned[195].

[Footnote 195: R. Leonoff, _op. cit._ pp. 81-84.]

The despatch then states that Russia will keep Turkey quiet and will eventually make war on Roumania; also, that if Bulgaria triumphs over Roumania, the latter will pay her in territory or money, or in both. Possibly, however, the whole scheme may have been devised to serve as a decoy to bring Prince Alexander within the power of his imperial patrons, who, in that case, would probably have detained and dethroned him.

Further light was thrown on the tortuous course of Russian diplomacy by a speech of Count Eugen Zichy to the Hungarian Delegations about a year later. He made the startling declaration that in the summer of 1885 Russia concluded a treaty with Montenegro with the aim of dethroning King Milan and Prince Alexander, and the division of the Balkan States between Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and the Karageorgevich Pretender who has since made his way to the throne at Belgrade. The details of these schemes are not known, but the searchlight thrown upon them from Buda-Pesth revealed the shifts of the policy of those "friends of peace," the Czar Alexander III. and his Chancellor, de Giers.

Prince Alexander may not have been aware of these schemes in their full extent, but he and his friends certainly felt the meshes closing around them. There were only two courses open, either completely to submit to the Czar (which, for the Prince, implied abdication) or to rely on the Bulgarian people. The Prince took the course which would have been taken by every man worthy of the name. It is, however, almost certain that he did not foresee the events at Philippopolis. He gave his word to a German officer, Major von Huhn, that he had not in the least degree expected the unionist movement to take so speedy and decisive a step forward as it did in the middle of September. The Prince, in fact, had been on a tour throughout Europe, and expressed the same opinion to the Russian Chancellor, de Giers, at Franzensbad.

But by this time everything was ready at Philippopolis. As the men of Eastern Roumelia were all of one mind in this matter, it was the easiest of tasks to surprise the Sultan's representative, Gavril Pasha, to surround his office with soldiers, and to request him to leave the province (September 18). A carriage was ready to conduct him towards Sofia. In it sat a gaily dressed peasant girl holding a drawn sword. Gavril turned red with rage at this insult, but he mounted the vehicle, and was driven through the town and thence towards the Balkans.

Such was the departure of the last official of the Sultan from the land which the Turks had often drenched with blood; such was the revenge of the southern Bulgarians for the atrocities of 1876. Not a drop of blood was shed; and Major von Huhn, who soon arrived at Philippopolis, found Greeks and Turks living contentedly under the new government. The word "revolution" is in such cases a misnomer. South Bulgaria merely returned to its natural state[196]. But nothing will convince diplomatists that events can happen without the pulling of wires by themselves or their rivals. In this instance they found that Prince Alexander had made the revolution.

[Footnote 196: _The Struggle of the Bulgarians for National Independence_, by Major A. von Huhn, chap. ii. See, too, Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 1 (1886), p. 83.]

At first, however, the Prince doubted whether he should accept the crown of a Greater Bulgaria which the men of Philippopolis now enthusiastically offered to him. Stambuloff strongly urged him to accept, even if he thereby still further enraged the Czar: "Sire," he said, "two roads lie before you: the one to Philippopolis and as far beyond as God may lead; the other to Sistova and Darmstadt. I counsel you to take the crown the nation offers you." On the 20th the Prince announced his acceptance of the crown of a united Bulgaria. As he said to the British Consul at Philippopolis, he would have been a "sharper" (_filou_) not to side with his people[197].

[Footnote 197: _Stambuloff_, by A.H. Beaman, chap. iii.; Parl. Papers, _ibid_. p. 81.]

Few persons were prepared for the outburst of wrath of the Czar at hearing this news. Early in his reign he had concentrated into a single phrase--"silly Pole"--the spleen of an essentially narrow nature at seeing a kinsman and a dependant dare to think and act for himself[198]. But on this occasion, as we can now see, the Prince had marred Russia's plans in the most serious way. Stambuloff and he had deprived her of her unionist trump card. The Czar found his project of becoming Grand Duke of a Greater Bulgaria blocked by the action of this same hated kinsman. Is it surprising that his usual stolidity gave way to one of those fits of bull-like fury which aroused the fear of all who beheld them? Thenceforth between the Emperor Alexander and Prince Alexander the relations might be characterised by the curt phrase which Palafox hurled at the French from the weak walls of Saragossa--"War to the knife." Like Palafox, the Prince now had no hope but in the bravery of his people.

[Footnote 198: _Bismarck: Reflections and Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 116 (Eng. ed.).]

In the ciphered telegrams of September 19 and 20, which the Director of the Asiatic Department at St. Petersburg sent to the Russian Consul-General at Rustchuk, the note of resentment and revenge was clearly sounded. The events in Eastern Roumelia had changed "all our intentions." The agent was therefore directed to summon the chief Russian officers in Bulgaria and ask them whether the "young" Bulgarian officers could really command brigades and regiments, and organise the artillery; also whether that army could alone meet the army of "a neighbouring State." The replies of the officers being decidedly in the negative, they were ordered to leave Bulgaria[199]. Nelidoff, the Russian ambassador at Constantinople, also worked furiously to spur on the Sultan to revenge the insult inflicted on him by Prince Alexander.

[Footnote 199: R. Leonoff, _op. cit._ Nos. 75, 77.]

Sir William White believed that the _volte face_ in Russian policy was due solely to Nelidoff's desire to thwart the peaceful policy of the Russian Chancellor, de Giers, who at that time chanced to be absent in Tyrol, while the Czar also was away at Copenhagen[200]. But it now appears that the Russian Foreign Office took Nelidoff's view, and bade him press Turkey to restore the "legal order" of things in Eastern Roumelia. Further, the Ministers of the Czar found that Servia, Greece, and perhaps also Roumania, intended to oppose the aggrandisement of Bulgaria; and it therefore seemed easy to chastise "the Battenberger" for his wanton disturbance of the peace of Europe.

[Footnote 200: _Sir William White: Memoirs and Correspondence_, by H. Sutherland Edwards, pp. 231-232.]

Possibly Russia would herself have struck at Bulgaria but for the difficulties of the general situation. How great these were will be realised by a perusal of the following chapters, which deal with the spread of Nihilism in Russia, the formation of the Austro-German alliance, and the favour soon shown to it by Italy, the estrangement of England and the Porte owing to the action taken by the former in Egypt, and the sharp collision of interests between Russia and England at Panjdeh on the Afghan frontier. When it is further remembered that France fretted at the untoward results of M. Ferry's forward policy in Tonquin; that Germany was deeply engaged in colonial efforts; and that the United Kingdom was distracted by those efforts, by the failure of the expedition to Khartum, and by the Parnellite agitation in Ireland--the complexity of the European situation will be sufficiently evident. Assuredly the events of the year 1885 were among the most distracting ever recorded in the history of Europe.

This clash of interests among nations wearied by war, and alarmed at the apparition of the red spectre of revolution in their midst, told by no means unfavourably on the fortunes of the Balkan States. The dominant facts of the situation were, firstly, that Russia no longer had a free hand in the Balkan Peninsula in face of the compact between the three Emperors ratified at Skiernewice in the previous autumn (see Chapter XII.); and, secondly, that the traditional friendship between England and the Porte had been replaced by something like hostility. Seeing that the Sultan had estranged the British Government by his very suspicious action during the revolts of Arabi Pasha and of the Mahdi, even those who had loudly proclaimed the need of propping up his authority as essential to the stability of our Eastern Empire now began to revise their prejudices.

Thus, when Lord Salisbury came to office, if not precisely to power, in June 1885, he found affairs in the East rapidly ripening for a change of British policy--a change which is known to have corresponded with his own convictions. Finally, the marriage of Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg, on July 23, 1885, added that touch of personal interest which enabled Court circles to break with the traditions of the past and to face the new situation with equanimity. Accordingly the power of Britain, which in 1876-78 had been used to thwart the growth of freedom in the Balkan Peninsula, was now put forth to safeguard the union of Bulgaria. During these critical months Sir William White acted as ambassador at Constantinople, and used his great knowledge of the Balkan peoples with telling effect for this salutary purpose.

Lord Salisbury advised the Sultan not to send troops into Southern Bulgaria; and the warning chimed in with the note of timorous cunning which formed the undertone of that monarch's thought and policy. Distracted by the news of the warlike preparations of Servia and Greece, Abdul Hamid looked on Russia's advice in a contrary sense as a piece of Muscovite treachery. About the same time, too, there were rumours of palace plots at Constantinople; and the capricious recluse of Yildiz finally decided to keep his best troops near at hand. It appears, then, that Nihilism in Russia and the spectre of conspiracy always haunting the brain of Abdul Hamid played their part in assuring the liberties of Bulgaria.

Meanwhile the Powers directed their ambassadors at Constantinople to hold a preliminary Conference at which Turkey would be represented. The result was a declaration expressing formal disapproval of the violation of the Treaty of Berlin, and a hope that all parties concerned would keep the peace. This mild protest very inadequately reflected the character of the discussions which had been going on between the several Courts. Russia, it is known, wished to fasten the blame for the revolution on Prince Alexander; but all public censure was vetoed by England.

Probably her action was as effective in still weightier matters. A formal Conference of the ambassadors of the Powers met at Constantinople on November 5; and there again Sir William White, acting on instructions from Lord Salisbury, defended the Bulgarian cause, and sought to bring about a friendly understanding between the Porte and "a people occupying so important a position in the Sultan's dominions." Lord Salisbury also warned the Turkish ambassador in London that if Turkey sought to expel Prince Alexander from Eastern Roumelia, she would "be making herself the instrument of those who desired the fall of the Ottoman Empire[201]."

[Footnote 201: Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 1 (1886), pp. 214-215. See, too, _ibid_. pp. 197 _et seq_. for Lord Salisbury's instructions to Sir William White for the Conference. In view of them it is needless to waste space in refuting the arguments of the Russophil A.G. Drandar, _op. cit._ p. 147, that England sought to make war between the Balkan States.]

This reference to the insidious means used by Russia for bringing the Turks to a state of tutelage, as a preliminary to partition, was an effective reminder of the humiliations which they had undergone at the hands of Russia by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (1833). France also showed no disposition to join the Russian and Austrian demand that the Sultan should at once re-establish the _status quo_; and by degrees the more intelligent Turks came to see that a strong Bulgaria, independent of Russian control, might be an additional safeguard against the Colossus of the North. Russia's insistence on the exact fulfilment of the Treaty of Berlin helped to open their eyes, and lent force to Sir William White's arguments as to the need of strengthening that treaty by "introducing into it a timely improvement[202]."

[Footnote 202: _Ibid_. pp. 273-274, 288, for Russia's policy; p. 284 for Sir W. White's argument.]

Owing to the opposition offered by Great Britain, and to some extent by France, to the proposed restoration of the old order of things in Eastern Roumelia, the Conference came to an end at the close of November, the three Imperial Powers blaming Sir William White for his obstructive tactics. The charges will not bear examination, but they show the irritation of those Governments at England's championship of the Bulgarian cause[203]. The Bulgarians always remember the names of Lord Salisbury and Sir William White as those of friends in need.

[Footnote 203: _Ibid_. pp. 370-372.]

In the main, however, the consolidation of Bulgaria was achieved by her own stalwart sons. While the Imperial Powers were proposing to put back the hands of the clock, an alarum sounded forth, proclaiming the advent of a new era in the history of the Balkan peoples. The action which brought about this change was startling alike in its inception, in the accompanying incidents, and still more in its results.

Where Abdul Hamid forebore to enter, even as the mandatory of the Continental Courts, there Milan of Servia rushed in. As an excuse for his aggression, the Kinglet of Belgrade alleged the harm done to Servian trade by a recent revision of the Bulgarian tariff. But the Powers assessed this complaint and others at their due value, and saw in his action merely the desire to seize a part of Western Bulgaria as a set-off to the recent growth of that Principality. On all sides his action in declaring war against Prince Alexander (November 14) met with reprobation, even on the part of his guide and friend, Austria. A recent report of the Hungarian Committee on Foreign Affairs contained a recommendation which implied that he ought to receive compensation; and this seemed to show the wish of the more active part of the Dual Monarchy peacefully but effectively to champion his cause[204].

[Footnote 204: Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 1 (1886), p. 250.]

Nevertheless, the King decided to carve out his fortunes by his own sword. He had some grounds for confidence. If a Bulgarian _fait accompli_ could win tacit recognition from the Powers, why should not a Servian triumph over Bulgaria force their hands once more? Prince Alexander was unsafe on his throne; thanks to the action of Russia his troops had very few experienced officers; and in view of the Sultan's resentment his southern border could not be denuded of troops. Never did a case seem more desperate than that of the "Peasant State," deserted and flouted by Russia, disliked by the Sultan, on bad terms with Roumania, and publicly lectured by the Continental Powers for her irregular conduct. Servia's triumph seemed assured.

But now there came forth one more proof of the vitalising force of the national principle. In seven years the downtrodden peasants of Bulgaria had become men, and now astonished the world by their prowess. The withdrawal of the Russian officers left half of the captaincies vacant; but they were promptly filled up by enthusiastic young lieutenants. Owing to the blowing up of the line from Philippopolis to Adrianople, only five locomotives were available for carrying back northwards the troops which had hitherto been massed on the southern border; and these five were already overstrained. Yet the engineers now worked them still harder and they did not break down[205]. The hardy peasants tramped impossibly long distances in their longing to meet the Servians. The arrangements were carried through with a success which seems miraculous in an inexperienced race. The explanation was afterwards rightly discerned by an English visitor to Bulgaria. "This is the secret of Bulgarian independence--everybody is in grim earnest. The Bulgarians do not care about amusements[206]." In that remark there is food for thought. Inefficiency has no place among a people that looks to the welfare of the State as all in all. Breakdowns occur when men think more about "sport" and pleasure than about doing their utmost for their country.

[Footnote 205: A. von Huhn, _op. cit._ p. 105.]

[Footnote 206: E.A.B. Hodgetts, _Round about Armenia_, p. 7.]

The results of this grim earnestness were to astonish the world. The Servians at first gained some successes in front of Widdin and Slivnitza; but the defenders of the latter place (an all-important position north-west of Sofia) hurried up all possible forces. Two Bulgarian regiments are said to have marched 123 kilometres in thirty hours in order to defend that military outwork of their capital; while others, worn out with marching, rode forward on horseback, two men to each horse, and then threw themselves into the fight. The Bulgarian artillery was well served, and proved to be very superior to that of the Servians.

Thus, on the first two days of conflict at Slivnitza, the defenders beat back the Servians with some loss. On the third day (November 19), after receiving reinforcements, they took the offensive, with surprising vigour. A talented young officer, Bendereff, led their right wing, with bands playing and colours flying, to storm the hillsides that dominated the Servian position. The hardy peasants scaled the hills and delivered the final bayonet charge so furiously that there and on all sides the invaders fled in wild panic, and scarcely halted until they reached their own frontier.

Thenceforth King Milan had hard work to keep his men together. Many of them were raw troops; their ammunition was nearly exhausted; and their _morale_ had vanished utterly. Prince Alexander had little difficulty in thrusting them forth from Pirot, and seemed to have before him a clear road to Belgrade, when suddenly he was brought to a halt by a menace from the north[207].

[Footnote 207: Drandar, _Événements politiques en Bulgarie_, pp. 89-116; von Huhn, _op. cit._ chaps. x. xi.]

A special envoy sent by the Hapsburgs, Count Khevenhüller, came in haste to the headquarters of the Prince on November 28, and in imperious terms bade him grant an armistice to Servia, otherwise Austrian troops would forthwith cross the frontier to her assistance. Before this threat Alexander gave way, and was blamed by some of his people for this act of complaisance. But assuredly he could not well have acted otherwise. The three Emperors, of late acting in accord in Balkan questions, had it in their power to crush him by launching the Turks against Philippopolis, or their own troops against Sofia. He had satisfied the claims of honour; he had punished Servia for her peevish and unsisterly jealousy. Under his lead the Bulgarians had covered themselves with glory, and had leaped at a bound from political youth to manhood. Why should he risk their new-found unity merely in order to abase Servia? The Prince never acted more prudently than when he decided not to bring into the field the Power which, as he believed, had pushed on Servia to war[208].

[Footnote 208: Drandar, _op. cit._ chap. iii.; Kuhn, _op. cit._ chap. xviii.]

Had he known that the Russian Chancellor, de Giers, on hearing of Austria's threat to Bulgaria, informed the Court of Vienna of the Czar's condign displeasure if that threat were carried into effect, perhaps he would have played a grand game, advancing on Belgrade, dethroning the already unpopular King Milan, and offering to the Czar the headship of a united Servo-Bulgarian State. He might thus have appeased that sovereign, but at the cost of a European war. Whether from lack of information, or from a sense of prudence and humanity, the Prince held back and decided for peace with Servia. Despite many difficulties thrown in the way by King Milan, this was the upshot of the ensuing negotiations. The two States finally came to terms by the Treaty of Bukharest, where, thanks to the good sense of the negotiators and the efforts of Turkey to compose these strifes, peace was assured on the basis of the _status quo ante bellum_ (March 3, 1886).

Already the Porte had manifested its good-will towards Bulgaria in the most signal manner. This complete reversal of policy may be assigned to several causes. Firstly, Prince Alexander, on marching against the Servians, had very tactfully proclaimed that he did so on behalf of the existing order of things, which they were bent on overthrowing. His actions having corresponded to his words, the Porte gradually came to see in him a potent defender against Russia. This change in the attitude of the Sultan was undoubtedly helped on by the arguments of Lord Salisbury to the Turkish ambassador at London. He summarised the whole case for a recognition of the union of the two Bulgarias in the following remarks (December 23, 1885):--

Every week's experience showed that the Porte had little to
dread from the subserviency of Bulgaria to foreign influence,
if only Bulgaria were allowed enjoyment of her unanimous
desires, and the Porte did not gratuitously place itself in
opposition to the general feeling of the people. A Bulgaria,
friendly to the Porte, and jealous of foreign influence,
would be a far surer bulwark against foreign aggression than
two Bulgarias, severed in administration, but united in
considering the Porte as the only obstacle to their national
development[209].

[Footnote 209: Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 1 (1886), p. 424.]

Events served to reveal the soundness of this statesmanlike pronouncement. At the close of the year Prince Alexander returned from the front to Sofia and received an overwhelming ovation as the champion of Bulgarian liberties. Further, he now found no difficulty in coming to an understanding with the Turkish Commissioners sent to investigate the state of opinion in Southern Bulgaria. Most significant of all was the wrath of the Czar at the sight of his popularity, and the utter collapse of the Russian party at Sofia.

Meanwhile the Powers found themselves obliged little by little to abandon their pedantic resolve to restore the Treaty of Berlin. Sir Robert Morier, British ambassador at St. Petersburg, in a letter of December 27, 1885, to Sir William White, thus commented on the causes that assured success to the Bulgarian cause:

The very great prudence shown by Lord Salisbury, and the
consummate ability with which you played your part, have made
it a successful game; but the one crowning good fortune,
which we mainly owe to the incalculable folly of the Servian
attack, has been that Prince Alexander's generalship and the
fighting capacities of his soldiers have placed our rival
action [his own and that of Sir W. White] in perfect harmony
with the crushing logic of fact. The rivalry is thus
completely swamped in the bit of cosmic work so successfully
accomplished. A State has been evolved out of the protoplasm
of Balkan chaos.

Sir Robert Morier finally stated that if Sir William White succeeded in building up an independent Bulgaria friendly to Roumania, he would have achieved the greatest feat of diplomacy since Sir James Hudson's statesmanlike moves at Turin in the critical months of 1859-60 gained for England a more influential position in Italy than France had secured by her aid in the campaign of Solferino. The praise is overstrained, inasmuch as it leaves out of count the statecraft of Bismarck in the years 1863-64 and 1869-70; but certainly among the _peaceful_ triumphs of recent years that of Sir William White must rank very high.

If, however, we examine the inner cause of the success of the diplomacy of Hudson and White we must assign it in part to the mistakes of the liberating Powers, France and Russia. Napoleon III., by requiring the cession of Savoy and Nice, and by revealing his design to Gallicise the Italian Peninsula, speedily succeeded in alienating the Italians. The action of Russia, in compelling Bulgaria to give up the Dobrudscha as an equivalent to the part of Bessarabia which she took from Roumania, also strained the sense of gratitude of those peoples; and the conduct of Muscovite agents in Bulgaria provoked in that Principality feelings bitterer than those which the Italians felt at the loss of Savoy and Nice. So true is it that in public as in private life the manner in which a wrong is inflicted counts for more than the wrong itself. It was on this sense of resentment (misnamed "ingratitude" by the "liberators") that British diplomacy worked with telling effect in both cases. It conferred on the "liberated" substantial benefits; but their worth was doubled by the contrast which they offered to the losses or the irritation consequent on the actions of Napoleon III. and of Alexander III.

To the present writer it seems that the great achievements of Sir William White were, first, that he kept the Sultan quiet (a course, be it remarked, from which that nervous recluse was never averse) when Nelidoff sought to hound him on against Bulgaria; and, still more, that he helped to bring about a good understanding between Constantinople and Sofia. In view of the hatred which Abdul Hamid bore to England after her intervention in Egypt in 1882, this was certainly a great diplomatic achievement; but possibly Abdul Hamid hoped to reap advantages on the Nile from his complaisance to British policy in the Balkans.

The outcome of it all was the framing of a Turco-Bulgarian Convention (February 1, 1886) whereby the Porte recognised Prince Alexander as Governor of Eastern Roumelia for a term of five years; a few border districts in Rhodope, inhabited by Moslems, were ceded to the Sultan, and (wonder of wonders!) Turkey and Bulgaria concluded an offensive and defensive alliance. In case of foreign aggression on Bulgaria, Turkish troops would be sent thither to be commanded by the Prince; if Turkey were invaded, Bulgarian troops would form part of the Sultan's army repelling the invader. In other respects the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin remained in force for Southern Bulgaria[210].

[Footnote 210: Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 2 (1886).]

On that same day, as it chanced, the Salisbury Cabinet resigned office, and Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery taking the portfolio for Foreign Affairs. This event produced little variation in Britain's Eastern policy, and that statement will serve to emphasise the importance of the change of attitude of the Conservative party towards those affairs in the years 1878-85--a change undoubtedly due in the main to the Marquis of Salisbury.

In the official notes of the Earl of Rosebery there is manifest somewhat more complaisance to Russia, as when on February 12 he instructed Sir William White to advise the Porte to modify its convention with Bulgaria by abandoning the stipulation as to mutual military aid. Doubtless this advice was sound. It coincided with the known opinions of the Court of Vienna; and at the same time Russia formally declared that she could never accept that condition[211]. As Germany took the same view the Porte agreed to expunge the obnoxious clause. The Government of the Czar also objected to the naming of Prince Alexander in the Convention. This unlooked-for slight naturally aroused the indignation of the Prince; but as the British Government deferred to Russian views on this matter, the Convention was finally signed at Constantinople on April 5, 1886. The Powers, including Turkey, thereby recognised "the Prince of Bulgaria" (not named) as Governor of Eastern Roumelia for a term of five years, and referred the "Organic Statute" of that province to revision by a joint Conference.

[Footnote 211: _Ibid_. pp. 96-98.]

The Prince submitted to this arrangement, provisional and humiliating though it was. But the insults inflicted by Russia bound him the more closely to his people; and at the united Parliament, where 182 members out of the total 300 supported his Ministers, he advocated measures that would cement the union. Bulgarian soon became the official language throughout South Bulgaria, to the annoyance of the Greek and Turkish minorities. But the chief cause of unrest continued to be the intrigues of Russian agents.

The anger of the Czar at the success of his hated kinsman showed itself in various ways. Not content with inflicting every possible slight and disturbing the peace of Bulgaria through his agents, he even menaced Europe with war over that question. At Sevastopol on May 19, he declared that circumstances might compel him "to defend by force of arms the dignity of the Empire"--a threat probably aimed at Bulgaria and Turkey. On his return to Moscow he received an enthusiastic welcome from the fervid Slavophils of the old Russian capital, the Mayor expressing in his address the hope that "the cross of Christ will soon shine on St. Sofia" at Constantinople. At the end of June the Russian Government repudiated the clause of the Treaty of Berlin constituting Batoum a free port[212]. Despite a vigorous protest by Lord Rosebery against this infraction of treaty engagements, the Czar and M. de Giers held to their resolve, evidently by way of retort to the help given from London to the union of the two Bulgarias.

[Footnote 212: Parl. Papers, Russia (1886), p. 828.]