BULGARIA'S SHODDY TSAR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 9, 5 October 1918, Page 3

BULGARIA'S SHODDY TSAR

STORY OF THE SHIFTY FERDINAND

EVIL GENIUS OF THE BALKANS

Tsar, Ferdinand and his two daughters have, according to cabled reports, fled to Vienna with immense luggage, crown jewels, and important papers. Of his manners and bis cowardice the following sketch was written by Mr. A, G. Gardiner for the "Daily Nows." It should interest the reader. The sketch was written before Ferdinand sold himself to the Central Powers to stab and ruin Serbia in this war :—

In a house in Sofia, I have been told (writes A. G. Gardiner in the "Daily News"), there is a dead hand, preserved not as a relic, but as a reminder. The houso is the old home of the murdered Stanibuloff, the hand is the hand of that rough-hewn patriot himself. One day the hand is to be buried. The day will be that on which Stambuloff's murder is avenged. It is an uncomfortable reflection for King Ferdinand.

And yet to live under the shadow of a dead hand seems the perfectly fitting destiny of Ferdinand, for he is the king of melodrama. Those people who suppose that melodrama is not true to life have not studied his storv or his character. Both are transpontine. He is the very stuff of which the dreams of the playwright and the romancist are compact. There are times, indeed, when you-almost doubt whether lie was not invented by Dumas or Stovenson or Anthony Hone. You seem to see the movement of the wires and the face of the author between the wings enjoying the success of his! triumphant creation. When the curtain goes down the author will surely appear and thank you for your kind reception- of the child of his invention. Destined For a Throne. As a matter of fact, King Ferdinand was invented by his mother. It used to be said that Princess' Clementine was the cleverest woman in Europe. This only meant_ that she was a very skilful and ambitious intriguer. The daughter of King Louis Philippe and the widow of Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, she felt that, her youngest and favourite child had a special claim upon -Providence. She resolved that he should be a f king byt hook or by crook. Moreover/'she had the assurance of a gipsy that he was destined, like Macbeth, for a throne, and Princess (Clementine was not a person to bandy words with a gipsy. She took the practical course, and prepared her son from the cradle for the career marked out for him. He was whisked from capital to capital, habituated to the company of princes, indoctrinated with the diplomatic subtleties of "The Prince," taught the facile graces of the charmeur, made to cultivate entomology as one of those hobbies that fiit so prettily on potentates, coached in half a dozen languages—even in Hungarian, for one never knew from whence tho call to kingship would come. Thrones might spring up or fall vacant anywhere. One must be ready to pounce. It is a beautiful idyll of maternal, love—a modern inversion of the jlegend of the Roman matron who sacrificed her children to the State.

The Choice ,The moment came. One day some 27 years ago .there sat in a Viennese beer garden a croup of Bulgarian statesmen. They were returning empty-han-ded from the quest for a prince. Thoy had a throne.to offer, hut had found no one hungry enough to take it. Nor was tho reluctance of the European prince,lings. surprising. Ten years had passed since Bulgaria had won its freedom afterfive centuries of Turkish misrule. But it had only escaped from the tyranny of the Turk to fall under thr shadow of Russia. The Tsar meant it 'to be the pawn in his own Balkan game. Poor Prince Alexander of Battenburg —brave, courageous, and be : loved by the sample Bulgarian peasantry—had been dothroned, and anyone to follow him had to face the menace of Russia. And without Russia none of the Powers would give him countenance. In this emergency one man stood like a rock between Bulgaria and the Russian. It was Stanibuloff, the innkeeper's son. Rude and violent, a man. who combined a sincere patriotism with uncouth manners and a genius for statesmanship, he has been largely responsible for throwing off the yoke of Turkey, and now fought with equal passion to resist Russian aggression. It was he who had sent out tho commission to find a prince—the commission that now sat forlorn and unsuccessful in the Viennese beer garden. Enter Major Laabe. He learned their businessknew their business, indeed, for wns he not the advance agent ol ihe Prince-search-of-a-throne? "Wliy, gentlemen, there is just the man you want," i said he, pointing to a young officer in the. white tunic and gold-laced kepi of Austrian Hussars who was sfctang near by—how accidentally one can only guess. "He is, Ferdinand of ' Saxe-Coburg-Go'tha, grandson of Louis Philippe, a* cousin, of every ..crowned head in Europe, a favourite of the Emperor of Austria and tho Tsar, and a man of wealth,"

It is a delightful story, and it may be truo. In any case,, the boat that a year before had brought the dethroned Alexander up tho Danube took Ferdinand down. No prince ever entered upon a more precarious enterprise than ho. Unrecognised by the Powers without, faced by a masterful Minister within, he seemed the princeling of ah hour-na momentary incident in Bulgnria's troubled story. Arid yet at tho end'of 25 years his. throne was secure, his country stnblo and prosperous, he was smiled on by the Powers, his priuccship-had .become a kingship, lie stood at the head of a triumphant army with the Turk under foot, and it seemed that ho might emerge from the war the Emperor of the Balkans, as the King of Prussia emerged from the war of 1870 the Emperor of tho Germans. It was the triumph, of a subtle diplomacy, motived by one dominating passion—personal ambition. There wore some who, iir their enthusiasm for Bulgaria, found in Ferdinand tho chivalrous hero who 'had wrought the miracle. The success of'his policy prejudiced tlioir judgment of tlio man. But if we are to understand Ferdinand wo must distinguish between public resulte and private motives. • It may be that no other instrument could have accomplished what this purely artificial monarch had accomplished for Bulgaria. The determination to "arrive" himself had enabled Bulgaria, to arrive also. Behim and his people there is an immeasurable gulf fixed. A solid, somewhat dour, but very virile race, the Bulgarians have no point of contact in temperament or .sympathies with their Sovereign. He has had to conquer them, as he-had to conquer tho Powers and SfcambulofE. They, a simple, undemonstrative people, wero revolted by the vanity of their Prince. While his neighbour, Nicholas of Montenegro, sat at his door and was accessible to any peasant, Ferdinand assumed the pose and habits of ' the grand monarque. Within a few days of his arrival he had refused to see the representatives of England, Austria, and Italy hecauso they did not appear in his presence in uniform. No King in Europe is hedged round with more pomp and ceremony than Ferdinand, travels in more regal style, assumes a more Olympian air, cultivates so extravagant an etiquette. Even his little Bon cannot ride abroad without a cavi aloade and an eeclosiastical dignity in

attendance. His relative the Conntesso de Paris, once said of him that he cared for nothing except titles ana orders, and the industry with which for years, he canvassed the Courts of Europe for a crown gives colour to tho saying.

BartorerJ His Faitn. But vain though he is, his anihition soars beyond titles. Liko Charles the First, he will bo "a king indeed," an<! not a mockery of a king. 5e will stoop low to conquer, if. is true. Neither his faith nor his dignity nor loyalty to those who have- served him will stand in tho way of his march to power. _ Wheij ho found that Russia remained obdurate, even though Stanibuloff had been removed, he bartered his_ faith and his word to win her smiles. Ho himself is a Roman Catholic, and when ho _ married his first wife, Princess Louise of Parma, he agreed that their children should bo brought up in the faith of Rome. But when all nlse had failed to placate Russia, he had his son Boris "converted" to the Orthodox Church, in spite of the scorn of tho world and the flight of his wife with her younger son to escape the outrage to her faith. "The West has pronounced its anathema against me," he said, hut he had won his prize. Russia smiled on Wrz, recognised him, and with that recognition came the countenance of nil tho great Powers. The path to glory was at last clear. • Death of Btambirtoff. But it was in the Stambuloff episode that his character was most startlingly revealed. It is a dark story. History could not show a more dramatic contrast of personalities than that provided by Ferdinand and the Minister who made him Prince—the one all artifice, the other all primitive nature. Stambuloff was a ruthless man sot in ruthless circumstances- Hβ had one passion—love of his country. To that passion he sacrificed everything and everybody—most of all he sacrificed himself. But while Stambuloff lived the shadow of that terrible man hung our his path. It was said that he was to ,be brought to trial. It would have been well if he had been. There were plenty of'crimes against him, for he had dipped his hands deep in the blood of those enemies whom he believod to be the enemies of his country. But he was not tried. Instead, his house was surrounded by spies; his steps were dogged wherever he went. Hβ appealed to be allowed to go to Karlabad for hie health, but the request was refused by the Government. He then declared publicly that he was being kept in Sofia to be murdered.. On July 15, 1895, in the streets of Sofia, with the police looking on, he was brutally butchered—not merely murdered, but mutilated. Prince Ferdinand, who had gone to Karlsbad, telegraphed his grief to the widow, and ordered his highest court official to tender his condolences to her personally. The telegram .was unanswered; the official wan refused admission. Europe rang with the murder. Petkoff, who narrowly escaped death with his friend, denounced the Prince; the "Svoboda" openly accused him and hie Ministers ' of instigating the murder; the "Vossiche Zeitung" said that ''if any ordinary citizen of any State had been so incriminated as Prince Ferdinand had been the man would have been arrested." No one was arrested; no one was punished.

No Popinjay. It will be seen that those who diemiss King Ferdinand as a mere seent--ed popinjay aro mistaken. To have come a stranger into a land seething with rebellion—a land where he was to have been a prince in name and a mere instniment of policy in fact —to have matched himself against the Bulgarian Bismarck and overthrown him, to have won his crown and raadeiiimself "a king indeed," as despotic as any king in Europo, to stand at tho end of 25 years at the head of an army that had astonished the world and at the head of a league thaU confronted Europe with a new political fact; of tho first magnitude—all this implies more than ,tho vanity and the febrile futility with which his enemies credit him. But if many shoulders share the responsibility for the detachment of Bulgaria from its natural alliance with tho Allies to-day, the main personal responsibility rests on King Ferdinand. He had risen from a wandering princeling to a monarch. He had in 1912 emerged from one of tho most successful wars in history, and his drenm of a Balkan Empire, with himself as the Tsar of the Empire, seemed within reach. The genius of Venizelos had given reality and statesmanship to the Balkanic federation; Ferdinand would convert that federation into a dominion under his own sway. In pursuing this entirely personal aim he appealed wiortunatefv for the sentiment of his people. They aro in many respects ono of the most reputable peoples in Europe—honest, industrious, capable. But their success since they had thrown off tho yoke of the Turk had filled them with ambitions. They believed themselves to bo the master peoplo of the Balkans, and their leaders had cultivated the dream of a four-seas hegemony, a Bulgarian dominion extending to the shores of the Black Sea, tho Sea of Marmora, the Aegean, and tho Adriatic.

Disaster A wails. Disaster would have been avoided if King Ferdinand 'had worked loyally with Venizelos. He, however, seized the opportunity Serbia had given him to launch out on the conquest of the Balkans. That he authorised tho attack which led to tho final dissolution of the leaguo and the second Balkan "War is a fact which is well known in diplomatic circles. It is proved collaterally by tho strango episode of the prosecution after the war of General Savoff for corruption. That prosecution was suddenly dropped, and the only reason that exists for that tmoiplained fact is tho allegation thai Savoff threatened, unloi.3 tne proceedings were stopped, to publish the order from King Ferdinand authorising, the attack on Serbia.

Ambition jievor suffered a more disastrous fall. Tho Bulgarian armies, instead of marching triumphantly to Salonika, and Nish, were overwhelmingly defeated by tlie Greeks and the Serbians, and in the subsequent conforence at Bucharest Bulgaria .saw ttor trophies from the war with Turkey-re-duced to tho barest minimum.