KING OF THE BULGARS.
"A-ROYAL ADVENTURER." HIS- VICES -OUTLINED. The-King of the Bulgars, as I know mm, is more of an adventurer than a sphinx, and loves money more than honor and friendship (writes Henry W. Fischer in the London Daily Express). Loyalty and gentlemanly traits and sentiments in general he looks upon as convenient stepping-stones to ambition. Stambuloff, the "Bulgarian Bismarck," who gave him the princely crown in ISB7, he caused to be butchered in his carriage less than eight years later, but a former courtier of his who accused him of abominable vices he pensioned off, allowing him his salary for life. It may be "that the cove'toueness and unsteadiness of purpose notable in Ferdinand's diplomacy are inheritances from an ancestor whose very name has been carefully erased from the "Almanach de Gotha" since the present King doffed 'his Austrian hussar jacket. The "Statesmen's Year Book" and similar publications style Ferdinand "Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha," hut, as a matter of fact, he is a Coburg-Kohary, on his grandparent's side. BUYING A PRINCE. Kohary or Cohen was a notorious Austrian army contractor in the wars of Napoleon, but because he was careful to pay a percentage of his stealings to the Prime Minister, Metternich, the latter conferred on him the princely dignity. As at that period there existed somewhere a Prince Ferdinand of SaxeCoburg—very noble, of course, but also very poor—Kohary allowed himself the luxury of buying this princelet for his daughter Tony, and in due course Tony became Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary. As Metternich put it, Tony would have been good enough for a Coburger even if Kohary had stolen a few millions less than he did get away with. Doubtless Ferdinand's grandfather enjoyed the army contractor's money which made him one of the richest among the small fry princes in the Central Empires; the only drawback was that "Kohary" had to be added to his other titles. Kohary, as a matter of fact, was generally accepted in Germany as the name of some far-away duchy or other; but royalty itself could not be deceived, and the Kohary appellation which he was made to bear rendered Ferdinand's grandfather odious in the eyes of his compeers. Tony became a Catholic before her marriage, and died some 50 years ago. As both her father and husbandjjiad gone before her, there was no one to insist on the retention of the Kohary encumbrance, and Prince Augustus, Ferdinand's father, dropped it immediately after the death of his mother. After this he was ereated a highness by the Austrian Government, and Louis Philippe of France, whose commercial instincts were extraordinarily well developed, gave him his daughter Clementine for wife. 1. GREED AND MEANNESS. Clementine was a very wise and ambitious woman, and her counsel and family connections proved a great help to Ferdinand in the shaping of his career. But, at the same time, the more disreputable characteristics of the unscrupulous army contractor prevailed in the young price; greed, hankering for bargains, underhandedness, and mean tactics.
Above all, it must be remembered that Ferdinand is German on his paternal ancestors' side—German with an admixture of Hungarian, Semitic and Orleans blood.
The miles on miles of farm lands he owns in Austria-Hungary are his Kohary inheritance, and it is, of course, ridiculous to say that he feared their confiscation in ease he did not side with the Central Empires, for he owns them not as King Ferdinand, but as a private individual.
Ferdinand merely essayed to get something tor nothing/a pastime he has followed all his life, and his inclinations being wholly German, the Kaiser is a demi-god in his eyes, though Wilhelm has treated him badly whenever they have met.
The first time I saw the Kaiser and Ferdinand together was at the opening of the Berlin Salon in 1595. He drove np with the Empress when the Kaiser was about to leave, and the latter deliberately turned his back on his guest, .jumped into his coach, and was whisked off in obedience to an impatient gesture. The Empress, a timid woman, looked perplexed and crestfallen, but Ferdinand elected not to notice the insult, smiled broadly, and remarked that his Majesty seemed to be in a hurrv. "Business of State, I suppose," lie add.ed. BOYCOTTED. As to Ferdinand's greediness and sybarite habits, they were brilliantly displayed in Russia w-fien lie was a "guest at the Czar's coronation. ■ At that" period Russian railways did not boast dining cars, passengers taking their meals at stated intervals at successive stations, an hour being allowed for dinner, half an hour for breakfast, lunch or tea. T happened to travel in the train that followed the Bulgarski special—and the Buljrarski regularly took two hours, or a whole hcur, respectively, to eat and drink, thereby absorbing' the time allotted to the people coming after him. Our train usually drew up at the. station a minute after he had left, hut there was always the same report: ''Only time for a sandwich, ladies and I gentlemen; his Highness has stolen your time."
After living on bread, butter and cold meat for two days to please the Bulgarski, I rather rejoiced when T observthe scant courtesy meted out to Prince Ferdinand in Moscow. None of the other royalties present at the coronation seemed to care a rap whether Ferdinand was aliye or not; in fact, he was left severely alone, even bv the small-fry princes. This general boycott—declared, it seemed, by common accord— against the Bulgarski was especially apparent at; the great Court ball when the Russian Emperor and bis guests filed the lines of invested visitors many times, on each occasion conducting another royal ladv . Tt was "changez les dames" for all but Ferdinand. This Moscow incident, taken in con'junction with the Berlin affront, only emphasised the fact that Ferdinand was looked on a.s a pariah among bis 'kind, and in Vienna and Budapest I (found the prejudice against Ferdinand as strong as in Berlin and Moscow.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19160210.2.15
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1916, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
997KING OF THE BULGARS. Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1916, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.