FERDINAND OF BULGARIA.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 41, 21 November 1913, Page 3

FERDINAND OF BULGARIA.

J Relative to a cable in a recent issue , stating that Russia demands ihe nbi dicaticm of King Ferdinnnd of Bulgaria ; consequent on His. rapprochements with Atist'm during the Balkan crisis, an interesting account of the King, whose official title since the elevation of Bulgaria status of principality tc: that of kingdom is now "Czar' of "Bulgaria," has been published. To have come u stranger into a land seething with rebellion—-a land where he was to have been a prince in name and a mere instrument of policy in fact—to hav■; matched himself against the Bulgaria:! Bismarck Stambuloff and 'overthrown him, to. have'won his crown and trials himself"-"a king indeed," as defcpcvt'c a' 3 ■anv Jcing in Europe, to stand at the end of 25 years at the head of an army that has astonished tho world and at tlh"; head of a League that confronts Ei -opo with a' new political fact of the fiiv! magnitude—all this implies more than the vanity and the febrile futility w.'th which his enemies credit him. 'He'is ''the artful Augustus" of a later Gibbon, a Napoleon the Third with inoro than Napoleon's calculation and statesmanship. "I am the rock against w 1 : ch the waves beat in vain," he said grandiloquently long ago—and his courtie-s laughed, He-applies the arts of the mediaeval prince to 20th-century conditions, and Machiavelli himself would have little to teach, him. His career is the romance of modern kingship. His success is as vast as his ambition. At first Russia refused to recognise Ferdinand as Prince of Bulgaria. He had married Princess Marie Louise, daughter of the Duke of Parma, and a devout Catholic. He was himself ako a Catholic, being the grandson of King Louis Philippe. But Russia refused recognition of his title unless he caused his little son and heir, Prince Boris, t.i be publicly "converted" from Catholicism to membership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Ferdinand's consort protested and Pope Leo XIII. spoke his mind on the subject, but Ferdinand needed recognition by Russia, and baby Boris was accordingly taken to the Cathedral at Sofia and publicly made a member of the Orthodox Church. Now Princess Marie Louise is dead, and so is Princess Clementine, Ferdinand's mother. Miss Sellers credits Ferdinand with the desire to deliver the Macedonians from Turkey before Turkey gets too strong. Possibly it was recognition of this fact that lately impelled the Turkish Government to conclude a military convention with Roumania aimed specially against Bulgaria. j