Map of the Treaties of Berlin and San Stefano.

war. The pride of the Roumanian people brooked no thought of accepting the Dobrudscha, a district in great part marshy and thinly populated, as an exchange for a fertile district peopled by their kith and kin. They let the world know that Russia appropriated their Bessarabian district by force, and that they accepted the Dobrudscha as a war indemnity. By dint of pressure exerted at the Congress their envoys secured a southern extension of its borders at the expense of Bulgaria, a proceeding which aroused the resentment of Russia.

The conduct of the Czar's Government in this whole matter was most impolitic. It embittered the relations between the two States and drove the Government of Prince Charles to rely on Austria and the Triple Alliance. That is to say, Russia herself closed the door which had been so readily opened for her into the heart of the Sultan's dominions in 1828, 1854, and 1877[176]. We may here remark that, on the motion of the French plenipotentiaries at the Congress, that body insisted that Jews must be admitted to the franchise in Roumania. This behest of the Powers aroused violent opposition in that State, but was finally, though by no means fully, carried out.

Another Christian State of the Peninsula received scant consideration at the Congress. Greece, as we have seen, had recalled her troops from Thessaly on the understanding that her claims should be duly considered at the general peace. She now pressed those claims; but, apart from initial encouragement given by Lord Salisbury, she received little or no support. On the motion of the French plenipotentiary, M. Waddington, her desire to control the northern shores of the Aegean and the island of Crete was speedily set aside; but he sought to win for her practically the whole of Thessaly and Epirus. This, however, was firmly opposed by Lord Beaconsfield, who objected to the cession to her of the southern and purely Greek districts of Thessaly and Epirus. He protested against the notion that the plenipotentiaries had come to Berlin in order to partition "a worn-out State" (Turkey). They were there to "strengthen an ancient Empire--essential to the maintenance of peace."

"As for Greece," he said, "States, like individuals, which have a future are in a position to be able to wait." True, he ended by expressing "the hope and even the conviction" that the Sultan would accept an equitable solution of the question of the Thessalian frontier; but the Congress acted on the other sage dictum and proceeded to subject the Hellenes to the educative influences of hope deferred. Protocol 13 had recorded the opinion of the Powers that the northern frontier of Greece should follow the courses of the Rivers Salammaria and Kalamas; but they finally decided to offer their mediation to the disputants only in case no agreement could be framed. The Sublime Porte, as we shall see, improved on the procrastinating methods of the Nestors of European diplomacy[177].

As regards matters that directly concerned Turkey and Russia, we may note that the latter finally agreed to forego the acquisition of the Bayazid district and the lands adjoining the caravan route from the Shah's dominions to Erzeroum. The Czar's Government also promised that Batoum should be a free port, and left unchanged the regulations respecting the navigation of the Dardanelles and Bosporus. By a subsequent treaty with Turkey of February 1879 the Porte agreed to pay to Russia a war indemnity of about £32,000,000.

More important from our standpoint are the clauses relating to the good government of the Christians of Turkey. By article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin the Porte bound itself to carry out "the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds." It even added the promise "periodically" to "make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers who will superintend their application." In the next article Turkey promised to "maintain" the principle of religious liberty and to give it the widest application. Differences of religion were to be no bar to employment in any public capacity, and all persons were to "be admitted, without distinction of religion, to give evidence before the tribunals."

Such was the Treaty of Berlin (July 13, 1878). Viewed in its broad outlines, it aimed at piecing together again the Turkish districts which had been severed at San Stefano; the Bulgars and Serbs who there gained the hope of effecting a real union of those races were now sundered once more, the former in three divisions; while the Serbs of Servia, Bosnia, and Montenegro were wedged apart by the intrusion of the Hapsburg Power. Yet, imperfect though it was in several points, that treaty promised substantial gains for the Christians of Turkey. The collapse of the Sultan's power had been so complete, so notorious, that few persons believed he would ever dare to disregard the mandate of the Great Powers and his own solemn promises stated above. But no one could then foresee the exhibition of weakness and cynicism in the policy of those Powers towards Turkey, which disgraced the polity of Europe in the last decades of the century. The causes that brought about that state of mental torpor in the face of hideous massacres, and of moral weakness displayed by sovereigns and statesmen in the midst of their millions of armed men, will be to some extent set forth in the following chapters.

As regards the welfare of the Christians in Asia Minor, the Treaty of Berlin assigned equal responsibilities to all the signatory Powers. But the British Government had already laid itself under a special charge on their behalf by the terms of the Cyprus Convention quoted above. Five days before that treaty was signed the world heard with a gasp of surprise that England had become practically mistress of Cyprus and assumed some measure of responsibility for the good government of the Christians of Asiatic Turkey. No limit of time was assigned for the duration of the Convention, and apparently it still holds good so far as relates to the material advantages accruing from the possession of that island.

It is needless to say that the Cypriotes have benefited greatly by the British administration; the value of the imports and exports nearly doubled between 1878 and 1888. But this fact does not and cannot dispose of the larger questions opened up as to the methods of acquisition and of the moral responsibilities which it entailed. These at once aroused sharp differences of opinion. Admiration at the skill and daring which had gained for Britain a point of vantage in the Levant and set back Russia's prestige in that quarter was chequered by protests against the methods of secrecy, sensationalism, and self-seeking that latterly had characterised British diplomacy.

One more surprise was still forthcoming. Lord Derby, speaking in the House of Lords on July 18, gave point to these protests by divulging a State secret of no small importance, namely, that one of the causes of his retirement at the end of March was a secret proposal of the Ministry to send an expedition from India to seize Cyprus and one of the Syrian ports with a view to operations against Russia, and that, too, with or without the consent of the Sultan. Whether the Cabinet arrived at anything like a decision in this question is very doubtful. Lord Salisbury stoutly denied the correctness of his predecessor's statement. The papers of Sir Stafford Northcote also show that the scheme at that time came up for discussion, but was "laid aside[178]." Lord Derby, however, stated that he had kept private notes of the discussion; and it is improbable that he would have resigned on a question that was merely mooted and entirely dismissed. The mystery in which the deliberations of the Cabinet are involved, and very rightly involved, broods over this as over so many topics in which Lord Beaconsfield was concerned.

On another and far weightier point no difference of opinion is possible. Viewed by the light of the Cyprus Convention, Britain's responsibility for assuring a minimum of good government for the Christians of Asiatic Turkey is undeniable. Unfortunately it admits of no denial that the duties which that responsibility involves have not been discharged. The story of the misgovernment and massacre of the Armenian Christians is one that will ever redound to the disgrace of all the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin; it is doubly disgraceful to the Power which framed the Cyprus Convention.

A praiseworthy effort was made by the Beaconsfield Government to strengthen British influence and the cause of reform by sending a considerable number of well-educated men as Consuls to Asia Minor, under the supervision of the Consul-General, Sir Charles Wilson. In the first two years they effected much good, securing the dismissal of several of the worst Turkish officials, and implanting hope in the oppressed Greeks and Armenians. Had they been well supported from London, they might have wrought a permanent change. Such, at least, is the belief of Professor Ramsay after several years' experience in Asia Minor.

Unfortunately, the Gladstone Government, which came into power in the spring of 1880, desired to limit its responsibilities on all sides, especially in the Levant. The British Consuls ceased to be supported, and after the arrival of Mr. (now Lord) Goschen at Constantinople in May 1880, as Ambassador Extraordinary, British influence began to suffer a decline everywhere through Turkey, partly owing to the events soon to be described. The outbreak of war in Egypt in 1882 was made a pretext by the British Government for the transference of the Consuls to Egypt; and thereafter matters in Asia Minor slid back into the old ruts. The progress of the Greeks and Armenians, the traders of that land, suffered a check; and the remarkable Moslem revival which the Sultan inaugurated in that year (the year 1300 of the Mohammedan calendar) gradually led up to the troubles and massacres which culminated in the years 1896 and 1897. We may finally note that when the Gladstone Ministry left the field open in Asia Minor, the German Government promptly took possession; and since 1883 the influence of Berlin has more and more penetrated into the Sultan's lands in Europe and Asia[179].

The collapse of British influence at Constantinople was hastened on by the efforts made by the Cabinet of London, after Mr. Gladstone's accession to office, on behalf of Greece. It soon appeared that Abdul Hamid and his Ministers would pay no heed to the recommendations of the Great Powers on this head, for on July 20, 1878, they informed Sir Henry Layard of their "final" decision that no Thessalian districts would be given up to Greece. Owing to pressure exerted by the Dufaure-Waddington Ministry in France, the Powers decided that a European Commission should be appointed to consider the whole question. To this the Beaconsfield Government gave a not very willing assent.

The Porte bettered the example. It took care to name as the first place of meeting of the Commissioners a village to the north of the Gulf of Arta which was not discoverable on any map. When at last this mistake was rectified, and the Greek envoys on two occasions sought to steam into the gulf, they were fired on from the Turkish forts. After these amenities, the Commission finally met at Prevesa, only to have its report shelved by the Porte (January-March 1879). Next, in answer to a French demand for European intervention, the Turks opposed various devices taken from the inexhaustible stock of oriental subterfuges. So the time wore on until, in the spring of 1880, the fall of the Beaconsfield Ministry brought about a new political situation.

The new Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, was known as the statesman who had given the Ionian Isles to Greece, and who advocated the expulsion of the Turks, "bag and baggage," from Europe. At once the despatches from Downing Street took on a different complexion, and the substitution of Mr. Goschen for Sir Henry Layard at Constantinople enabled the Porte to hear the voice of the British people, undimmed by official checks. A Conference of the Powers met at Berlin to discuss the carrying out of their recommendations on the Greek Question, and of the terms of the late treaty respecting Montenegro.

On this latter affair the Powers finally found it needful to make a joint naval demonstration against the troops of the Albanian League who sought to prevent the handing over of the seaport of Dulcigno to Montenegro, as prescribed by the Treaty of Berlin. But, as happened during the Concert of the Powers in the spring of 1876, a single discordant note sufficed to impair the effect of the collective voice. Then it was England which refused to employ any coercive measures; now it was Austria and Germany, and finally (after the resignation of the Waddington Ministry) France. When the Sultan heard of this discord in the European Concert, his Moslem scruples resumed their wonted sway, and the Albanians persisted in defying Europe.

The warships of the Powers might have continued to threaten the Albanian coast with unshotted cannon to this day, had not the Gladstone Cabinet proposed drastic means for bringing the Sultan to reason. The plan was that the united fleet should steam straightway to Smyrna and land marines for the sequestration of the customs' dues of that important trading centre. Here again the Powers were not of one mind. The three dissentients again hung back; but they so far concealed their refusal, or reluctance, as to leave on Abdul Hamid's mind the impression that a united Christendom was about to seize Smyrna[180]. This was enough. He could now (October 10, 1880) bow his head resignedly before superior force without sinning against the Moslem's unwritten but inviolable creed of never giving way before Christians save under absolute necessity. At once he ordered his troops to carry out the behests of the Powers; and after some fighting, Dervish Pasha drove the Albanians out of Dulcigno, and surrendered it to the Montenegrins (Nov.-Dec. 1880). Such is the official account; but, seeing that the Porte knows how to turn to account the fanaticism and turbulence of the Albanians[181], it may be that their resistance all along was but a device of that resourceful Government to thwart the will of Europe.

The same threat as to the seizure of the Turkish customs-house at Smyrna sufficed to help on the solution of the Greek Question. The delays and insults of the Turks had driven the Greeks to desperation, and only the urgent remonstrances of the Powers availed to hold back the Cabinet of Athens from a declaration of war. This danger by degrees passed away; but, as usually happens where passions are excited on both sides, every compromise pressed on the litigants by the arbiters presented great difficulty. The Congress of Berlin had recommended the extension of Greek rule over the purely Hellenic districts of Thessaly, assigning as the new boundaries the course of the Rivers Salammaria and Kalamas, the latter of which flows into the sea opposite the Island of Corfu.

Another Conference of the Powers (it was the third) met to decide the details of that proposal; but owing to the change of Government in France, along with other causes, the whole question proved to be very intricate. In the end, the Powers induced the Sultan to sign the Convention of May 24, 1881, whereby the course of the River Arta was substituted for that of the Kalamas.

As a set-off to this proposal, which involved the loss of Jannina and Prevesa for Greece, they awarded to the Hellenes some districts north of the Salammaria which helped partially to screen the town of Larissa from the danger of Turkish inroads[182]. To this arrangement Moslems and Christians sullenly assented. On the whole the Greeks gained 13,200 square kilometres in territory and about 150,000 inhabitants, but their failure to gain several Hellenic districts of Epirus rankled deep in the popular consciousness and prepared the way for the events of 1885 and 1897.

These later developments can receive here only the briefest reference. In the former year, when the two Bulgarias framed their union, the Greeks threatened Turkey with war, but were speedily brought to another frame of mind by a "pacific" blockade by the Powers. Embittered by this treatment, the Hellenes sought to push on their cause in Macedonia and Crete through a powerful Society, the "Ethnike Hetairia." The chronic discontent of the Cretans at Turkish misrule and the outrages of the Moslem troops led to grave complications in 1897. At the beginning of that year the Powers intervened with a proposal for the appointment of a foreign gendarmerie (January 1897). In order to defeat this plan the Sultan stirred up Moslem fanaticism in the island, until the resulting atrocities brought Greece into the field both in Thessaly and Crete. During the ensuing strifes in Crete the Powers demeaned themselves by siding against the Christian insurgents, and some Greek troops sent from Athens to their aid. Few events in our age have caused a more painful sensation than the bombardment of Cretan villages by British and French warships. The Powers also proclaimed a "pacific" blockade of Crete (March-May 1897). The inner reasons that prompted these actions are not fully known. It may safely be said that they will need far fuller justification than that which was given in the explanations of Ministers at Westminster.

Meanwhile the passionate resentment felt by the Greeks had dragged the Government of King George into war with Turkey (April 18, 1897). The little kingdom was speedily overpowered by Turks and Albanians; and despite the recall of their troops from Crete, the Hellenes were unable to hold Phersala and other positions in the middle of Thessaly. The Powers, however, intervened on May 12, and proceeded to pare down the exorbitant terms of the Porte, allowing it to gain only small strips in the north of Thessaly, as a "strategic rectification" of the frontier. The Turkish demand of £T10,000,000 was reduced to T4,000,000 (September 18).

Map of Thessaly.

This successful war against Greece raised the prestige of Turkey and added fuel to the flames of Mohammedan bigotry. These, as we have seen, had been assiduously fanned by Abdul Hamid II. ever since the year 1882, when a Pan-Islam movement began. The results of this revival were far-reaching, being felt even among the hill tribes on the Afghan-Punjab border (see Chapter XIV.). Throughout the Ottoman Empire the Mohammedans began to assert their superiority over Christians; and, as Professor Ramsay has observed, "the means whereby Turkish power is restored is always the same--massacre[183]."

It would be premature to inquire which of the European Powers must be held chiefly responsible for the toleration of the hideous massacres of the Armenians in 1896-97, and the atrocious misgovernment of Macedonia, by the Turks. All the Great Powers who signed the Berlin Treaty are guilty; and, as has been stated above, the State which framed the Cyprus Convention is doubly guilty, so far as concerns the events in Armenia. A grave share of responsibility also rests with those who succeeded in handing back a large part of Macedonia to the Turks. But the writer who in the future undertakes to tell the story of the decline of European morality at the close of the nineteenth century, and the growth of cynicism and selfishness, will probably pass still severer censures on the Emperors of Germany and Russia, who, with the unequalled influence which they wielded over the Porte, might have intervened with effect to screen their co-religionists from unutterable wrongs, and yet, as far as is known, raised not a finger on their behalf. The Treaty of Berlin, which might have inaugurated an era of good government throughout the whole of Turkey if the Powers had been true to their trust, will be cited as damning evidence in the account of the greatest betrayal of a trust which Modern History records.

NOTE.--For the efforts made by the British Government on behalf of the Armenians, the reader should consult the last chapter of Mr. James Bryce's book, Transcaucasia and Mount Ararat (new edition, 1896). Further information may be expected in the Life of Earl Granville, soon to appear, from the pen of Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice.

FOOTNOTES:

[157] For the odd mistake in a telegram, which caused the original order, see Sir Stafford Northcote, Earl of Iddesleigh, by Andrew Lang, vol. ii. pp. 111-112.

[158] Ibid. pp. 105-106. For the telegrams between the First Lord of the Admiralty, W.H. Smith, and Admiral Hornby, see Life and Times of W.H. Smith, by Sir H. Maxwell, vol. i. chap. xi.

[159] See the compromising revelations made by an anonymous Russian writer in the Revue de Paris for July 15, 1897. The authoress, "O.K.," in her book, The Friends and Foes of Russia (pp. 240-241), states that only the autocracy could have stayed the Russian advance on Constantinople. General U.S. Grant told her that if he had had such an order, he would have put it in his pocket and produced it again when in Constantinople.

[160] Hertslet, iv. p. 2670.

[161] L. Sergeant, Greece in the Nineteenth Century (1897), ch. xi.

[162] For the text of the treaty see Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 22 (1878); also The European Concert in the Eastern Question by T.E. Holland, pp. 335-348.

[163] Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 31 (1878), Nos. 6-17, and enclosures; L'Hellénisme et la Macédonie, by N. Kasasis (Paris, 1904); L. Sergeant, op. cit. ch. xii.

[164] Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 30 (1878); also Reminiscences of the King of Roumania, chs. x. xi.

[165] Lord Derby to Sir H. Elliot, March 13, 1878. Turkey, No. xxiv. (1878), No 9, p. 5.

[166] Ibid. No. 15, p. 7.

[167] See p. 243 for Lord Derby's further reason for resigning.

[168] Débidour, Hist. diplomatique de l'Europe, vol. ii. p. 515.

[169] For these outrages, see Parl. Papers, Turkey (1878), Nos. 42 and 45, with numerous enclosures. The larger plans of the Rhodope insurgents and their abettors at Constantinople are not fully known. An Englishman, Sinclair, and some other free-lances were concerned in the affair. The Rhodope district long retained a kind of independence, see Les Événements politiques en Bulgarie, by A.G. Drandar, Appendix.

[170] Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 36 (1878). See, too, ibid. No. 43.

[171] Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 36 (1878); Hertslet, vol. iv. pp. 2722-2725; Holland, op. cit., pp. 354-356.

[172] Mr. Charles Marvin, a clerk in the Foreign Office, was charged with this offence, but the prosecution failed (July 16) owing to lack of sufficient evidence.

[173] Princess Radziwill, My Recollections (Eng. ed. 1900), p. 91.

[174] Ibid. p. 149.

[175] For the Protocols, see Parl. Papers, Turkey (1878), No. 39. For the Treaty see ibid. No. 44; also The European Concert in the Eastern Question, by T. E. Holland, pp. 277-307.

[176] Frederick, Crown Prince of Germany, expressed the general opinion in a letter written to Prince Charles after the Berlin Congress: "Russia's conduct, after the manful service you did for that colossal Empire, meets with censure on all sides." (Reminiscences of the King of Roumania, p. 325).

[177] See Mr. L. Sergeant's Greece in the Nineteenth Century (1897), ch. xii., for the speeches of the Greek envoys at the Congress; also that of Sir Charles Dilke in the House of Commons in the debate of July 29-August 2, 1878, as to England's desertion of the Greek cause after the ninth session (June 29) of the Berlin Congress.

[178] Sir Stafford Northcote, vol. ii. p. 108.

[179] See Impressions of Turkey, by Professor W.M. Ramsay (1897), chap. vi.

[180] Life of Gladstone, by J. Morley, vol. iii. p. 9.

[181] See Turkey in Europe, by "Odysseus," p. 434.

[182] The European Concert in the Eastern Question, by T.E. Holland, pp. 60-69.

[183] Impressions of Turkey, by W.M. Ramsay, p. 139.

CHAPTER X

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.

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]."

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].

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].

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].

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].

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.

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.

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].

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.

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].

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.

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].

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.

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.

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.