Ferdinand I of Bulgaria

“ There can be no other inducement than the strong constraint imposed by the German forces who have taken possession of the Balkans. It is dangerous to prophesy with a man so elusive as Ferdinand, but he appears now to be on the threshold of the most difficult stage in his career. He has strong enemies within his own State, and will have to encounter the most bitter opposition from the open enemies arrayed in arms against him.
Some, at least, of his friends are palpably lukewarm. No genuine tie could possibly link Turkey with Bulgaria. ”

“ One effect of Ferdinand’s intervention was to unite Constantinople with Berlin, and to make the British evacuation of the peninsula of Gallipoli a necessity. Thus the Czar of Bulgaria was instrumental in striking the hardest blow at the prestige of the British arms that has been inflicted in the memory of living man. He effected it, not by prowess in the field, but by an act of base and shameless treachery, which involved his turning his back upon all the nations which he had extolled as liberating influences, to which Bulgaria owed its very existence. ”

“ Ferdinand was aided in his scheme of governing Bulgaria by the very mixed state of the political parties in that country. Of these parties there are no less than ten, a circumstance which in itself is most favourable to the underhand methods which are a second nature to the man who calls himself the Czar of the Bulgarians. But the foreign policy of this parvenu principality involved the exercise of an immensity of tact and discretion, and Ferdinand found the experience, the ability and the connexions of his mother more than invaluable; they were indispensable. ”

“ The Powers of Europe saw fit to revise the terms of that treaty, and Britain’s sympathy for small and oppressed people ensured that the nation so revived by Russia should not be blotted out of existence.
The Bulgaria created by the treaty of Berlin was a small and unimportant Principality. Its aggrandisement has been effected by innumerable breaches of that compact, one of which was the very assumption by Ferdinand of the throne. For that reason the new Prince, as I have already told, was not recognized by the Powers, and his vanity made their recognition all important to him. ”

“ He had given over his adopted people to the German yoke, and Bulgaria had become as much part of Germany as Bavaria or Saxony. That, and nothing less, was the outcome of a willing treachery that was prompted by wild dreams of self-aggrandisement that are doomed never to see fulfilment.
And there, for the present, Ferdinand of Bulgaria must be left.
It is difficult to harmonize his present position with the ambitions that have principally made his life and career remarkable. Those ambitions could only be realized by the extinction of the Ottoman Power in Europe. ”

“ Now to be King in one’s own country, even if outsiders do not recognize the kingship, is at least a position of importance. And, more common still, to be recognized as king by the whole world when the kingship is bounded by the mere title is at least honorific. But Ferdinand, having accepted a position as reigning Prince, was not recognized as Prince outside his own realm, and had only those attributes of Royalty in Bulgaria which he chose to assume for himself. ”

“ In the meantime Bulgaria’s lip service to Russia is worth considering.
“We find Russian graves scattered all over our country,” wrote the Mir at the time of Stambuloff’s fall. “The men who rest in them shed their blood for us. But where are the English, Italian, Austrian, German graves?”
When Ferdinand entered Bulgaria and was received in Sofia, the Metropolitan Bishop reminded him of the national debt, after a few words of personal welcome, saying, “This people is grateful to Russia, who made immense sacrifices for our deliverance, and to whom we owe our liberty and independence. ”

“ Bulgaria now plainly let it be understood under what conditions she would join a union of the Balkan neutrals against the Teutonic Powers. Her premier, Radoslavov, head of the Bulgarian (p. 373) Liberal Party, whose policy has always been anti-Russian, is one of the most astute politicians in the Balkans, and this description is equally true of King Ferdinand as a monarch. These two stated definitely Bulgaria's price; that part of Macedonia which was to have been allowed to her by the agreement which bound her to Serbia and Greece during the first Balkan War ”

“ But they soon rallied, and at the same time Bulgaria had to submit to an invasion from the fresh troops of Rumania. Turkey again moved forward, and the Bulgarians found themselves unable to resist the combination of enemies against them. Ferdinand was forced to sign the disadvantageous Treaty of Bucarest.
Thus Ferdinand’s treachery met its due reward. What it cost Bulgaria at the time will now be related. What it will eventually cost Bulgaria cannot yet be detailed, but it is certain that the peasant State has not yet paid a tithe of the price of ranging itself on the side of the Huns. ”

“ He and Germany were all that mattered in Europe. These influences go far to explain Ferdinand’s policy during the Balkan war and afterwards. A man who can be led by his vanity is unfit for any position of importance, and still less to rule with an absolute sway such as he exercised in Bulgaria. His Parliament, which should have exercised a restraining influence, was rendered useless, as the leading members could be “bought” at any time. Ready money is rare in the Balkans, and the Austrian diplomatist knew full well the price of every politician at Sofia. ”

“ The Bulgarians have always disliked him, and his policy in involving them in a war with Russia is not likely to stimulate their loyalty. We cannot wonder that he feels safer in a neutral country, such as Switzerland. Bulgaria is a classic land of political assassination; every year several unpopular politicians are “removed,” and no one thinks much about it. Ferdinand’s chances of dying in his bed are not favorable, unless he decides to say good-bye to his “beloved people.” ”

“ At the present time the Bulgarian is emerging from the peasant stage. The leading men of the country are the educated sons of peasants, with the habits of peasants. The traditional simplicity of their class is a convenience to such men, and they have made a fetish of it. Among them has rapidly grown up a military caste, and a bureaucratic caste as well. Both have thriven in the hot-house atmosphere created by Ferdinand, with his ostentatious Court and his extensive secret service.
But the soul of Bulgaria is a peasant soul, brutalized by 500 years of repression and stagnation. ”

“ And there is the secret of the long reign of a Prince over whom the shadow of assassination and the dread of deposition have floated ever since his first appearance in Sofia. The Bulgarians despise what they understand, they have a contempt for those who stoop to please them. They keep a regard for Ferdinand because he treats them as an inferior race; in their heart of hearts they are proud to be ruled by this fine product of two races who, in the words of one of their own writers, “combines German steadiness with French dash.” ”

“ Occasionally rumors have come through of wholesale military executions, following (p. 251) attempts at mutiny on the part of the troops. Thus Bulgaria's position as an uncertain quantity in the Teutonic alliance is not due to any disloyalty on the part of the king, Ferdinand, but to the disposition of the people, who are interested only in a Macedonia free from Serbia or Greece, and not in the German plans for empire. Though successfully suppressed so far, these subterranean movements do limit the policy of the Bulgarian ruling clique, however loyal to German rule it may be in itself. ”

“ With consummate skill Tsar Ferdinand kept his plans secret while the Balkan League was forming to overthrow the last of Ottoman power in Europe. For many years all Bulgaria had been preparing for this great stroke, arming, organizing, making sacrifices as a nation must do when in pursuit of a high ideal, so when the moment came it found a strong people, trained to arms, determined to snatch success from before the cannon’s mouth and crown its standards with laurel victory. ”

“ The Bulgarians are a race apart, even among the Balkan peoples. They have a significant phrase when they talk of a journey beyond their own confines; they say they are going “into Europe.”
FERDINAND AND HIS CREATURES “When I went to Bulgaria, I decided that if there were to be assassinations, I should be on the side of the assassins.”—Ferdinand of Bulgaria.
CHAPTER XI
FERDINAND AND HIS CREATURES Just as the Bulgarians say they are going into Europe when they leave Bulgaria, Ferdinand decided that he was quitting Europe and civilization when he entered his new kingdom. ”

“ His people may hope, by a timely repentance, to escape the consequence of their cowardly transgressions; but not so Ferdinand. He is the supreme offender, and must pay the maximum penalty.
It was not to end in such an impasse that his mother instructed him in the mysteries of kingcraft, and advised him throughout his early years of insecurity in Bulgaria. Had she lived, he might have chosen differently, for Clementine, daughter of France as she was, could never have endured the supremacy of German influence which Ferdinand’s policy has brought about. ”

“ On October 5, 1908, Ferdinand rode into the ancient Bulgarian capital of Tirnovo, incidentally falling off his horse in the process, and was crowned Czar of Bulgaria, the regalia to which allusion has been made in the course of this narrative having been taken out of pawn and furbished up for the occasion. The happy peasantry danced the national dances once more, and the streets of the city afforded a spectacle seldom seen off the stage of the luxurious musical comedy theatres of the pre-war era. ”

“ In the year 1913 Bulgaria liberated, at great sacrifices also, 3,000,000 of her population in Macedonia and Thrace, which Russia took and distributed among her new protégés, Rumania, Serbia and Greece. And to-day Bulgaria and Russia are quits. We have paid all our debt to Russia. To-day we can say: We have secured our own liberty by our own arms. ”

“ Ferdinand was not yet Prince of Bulgaria. He was only known as a charming lieutenant in the Austrian Chasseurs, who had exchanged from the hussars because he was not in sympathy with the animal from which it is possible to fall, and which is generally supposed to be the most noble conquest of man. I wish to say plainly that Ferdinand of Coburg was a wretched horseman. Who would have thought that this officer of noble descent who had exchanged into an infantry regiment would later possess a throne, and would dream of becoming Emperor of Byzantium? ”

“ For twenty years the Lesser Czar has walked under the shadow of that dead hand; has walked so warily that the horrid death for which his enemies destine him has not yet overtaken him.
For Ferdinand had taken his precautions long ere he had his enemy done to death by hired braves. He knew he was going to a land where the knife played an important part in affairs of State. “In our future dominions,” wrote the Count de Grenoud, who accompanied him on this journey in disguise to Bulgaria to assume the purple, “people are assassinating each other. ”

“ FERDINAND THE HUN When Ferdinand first rode through the streets of Sofia in a carriage, wearing the uniform of a Bulgarian general, there was an ominous murmur in the Bulgarian crowd that rose and swelled to a hoarse cry of “Schwaba.” It was as if a French crowd had cried “Boche” or an English mob had roared “Hun.” Austrian rank and French pretence did not blind the Bulgarians at the very outset; they knew they had to do with one of the detested Schwaba, a Hun of the Huns. ”

“ The full nature of the plot was revealed when Germany, which was bound like all the other Powers signing the treaty to insist on its observance, backed the position of Austria and Bulgaria. In the words of the Kaiser, Germany stood by “in shining armour.” The prospect of a world struggle, since realized, was afforded to a startled civilization. But it was averted, and the schemers carried out their plan successfully.
The poorest of royal horsemen, Ferdinand enters Sofia as Czar for the first time, with two men at the head of his horse for the purpose of controlling it. ”

“ Europe would be profound. These effects were not slow in revealing themselves. On the 5th of October Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria proclaimed himself king (tsar) of the Bulgarians; and two days later the emperor Francis Joseph issued a rescript announcing the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Habsburg monarchy (see Bulgaria: History and Bosnia and Herzegovina: History) . ”

“ He was just as confidential and communicative to a foreign journalist as he was reticent and baffling to a Bulgarian notable.
Yet Ferdinand, among other qualifications, is the easiest monarch to interview in all Europe, and is almost as accessible as some of the dusky princes of Afric’s sunny interior. The scene is usually mon fumoir, and begins with the exhibition of a sketch of the Czar’s predecessor, Prince Alexander of Battenberg—“Bulgaria’s hero,” says Ferdinand with becoming emotion.
Then there is the stuffed eagle which Ferdinand shot himself “with a valorous gunshot,” as M. Hepp says. ”

“ It was a great stroke for Ferdinand. A little while afterwards Stancioff, his Foreign Minister, was able to boast with truth in the Sobranje that—
“Honours generally reserved for independent sovereigns are now rendered to the Prince of Bulgaria. The Great Powers are represented here by their ministers plenipotentiary. While our army is esteemed abroad, its Commander-in-Chief (the Prince) holds honorary rank in the armies of foreign States. Our Government is faithful to its international engagements, and is desirous of developing intercourse with other peoples.” ”