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states and nationalities being much the same as those which control the

relationships of individuals, it was only to be expected.



What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in

those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected

Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and treasure

which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected its

gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence in all

the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria was no

doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of expressing

its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most people who

have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action or been put

under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its right to an

independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe writers that

Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of Bulgaria, but

this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of the Balkan

peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the Russian

Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and vigorous national

block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an independent state, was

an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is quite possible for Russia

to obtain possession or control of Constantinople without owning all the

intervening littoral.



That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of

Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was just

as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The eventual

result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered the sphere

of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather calculation, a

contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at the time, and whose

full meaning, even if it had, would not have been grasped by them.



The Bulgarians, whatever the origin and the ingredients of their

nationality, are by language a purely Slavonic people; their ancestors

were the pioneers of Slavonic civilization as expressed in its monuments

of theological literature. Nevertheless, they have never been enthusiastic

Pan-Slavists, any more than the Dutch have ever been ardent Pan-Germans;

it is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the one people as it is of

the other. The Bulgarians indeed think themselves superior to the Slavs by

reason of the warlike and glorious traditions of the Tartar tribe that

gave them their name and infused the Asiatic element into their race, thus

endowing them with greater stability, energy, and consistency than is

possessed by purely Slav peoples. These latter, on the other hand, and

notably the Serbians, for the same reason affect contempt for the mixture

of blood and for what they consider the Mongol characteristics of the

Bulgarians. What is certain is that between Bulgarians and Germans

(including German Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed that

elemental, ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between

German (and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from

the Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in

which the Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in

Austria-Hungary and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment of

the purely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared. The reason is

that with the growth of the Serb national movement, from 1903 onwards,

Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly

well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to neutralize the

possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.



It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which

had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been

steadily on the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced Bulgaria

to half the size that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the Treaty of San

Stefano, reaped the benefit, especially the commercial benefit, of the war

which Russia had waged. Intellectually, and especially as regards the

replenishment and renovation of the Bulgarian language, which, in spite of

numerous Turkish words introduced during the Ottoman rule, is essentially

Slavonic both in substance and form, Russian influence was especially

powerful, and has to a certain extent maintained itself. Economically,

owing partly to geographical conditions, both the Danube and the main

oriental railway linking Bulgaria directly with Budapest and Vienna,

partly to the fact that Bulgaria's best customers for its cereals are in

central and western Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is

infinitesimal. Politically, both Russia and Bulgaria aiming at the same

thing, the possession of Constantinople and the hegemony of the Balkan

peninsula, their relations were bound to be difficult.



The first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions. Both

Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of Berlin.

Russian influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy controlled

the organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic constitution

was arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the successful

government of their country by the quite inexperienced Bulgarians. For a

ruler recourse had inevitably to be had to the rabbit-warren of Germanic

princes, who were still ingenuously considered neutral both in religion

and in politics. The choice fell on Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew

of the Empress of Russia, who had taken part in the campaign of the

Russian army. Prince Alexander was conscientious, energetic, and

enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat, and from the outset his honesty

precluded his success. From the very first he failed to keep on good terms

with Russia or its representatives, who at that time were still numerous

in Bulgaria, while he was helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary

government. The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father Alexander

II in 1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which he

successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of

Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September

1883); this procedure discomfited the representatives of Russia,

discredited him with the Emperor, and threw him back into the vortex of

party warfare, from which he never extricated himself.



Meanwhile the question of eastern Rumelia, or rather southern Bulgaria,

still a Turkish province, began to loom. A vigorous agitation for the

reunion of the two parts of the country had been going on for some time,

and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis suddenly

proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly announced his

approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city on September 21.

Russia frowned on this independence of spirit. Serbia, under King Milan,

and instigated by Austria, inaugurated the policy which has so often been

followed since, and claimed territorial compensation for Bulgaria's

aggrandisement; it must be remembered that it was Bismarck who, by the

Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined Serbia to its inadequate limits

of those day.



On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia, which

is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. Prince Alexander, the bulk

of whose army was on the Turkish frontier, boldly took up the challenge.

On November 18 took place the battle of Slivnitsa, a small town about

twenty miles north-west of Sofia, in which the Bulgarians were completely

victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took Pirot in Serbia on

November 27, having refused King Milan's request for an armistice, and was

marching on Nish, when Austria intervened, and threatened to send troops

into Serbia unless fighting ceased. Bulgaria had to obey, and on March 3,

1886, a barren treaty of peace was imposed on the belligerents at

Bucarest. Prince Alexander's position did not improve after this, indeed

it would have needed a much more skilful navigator to steer through the

many currents which eddied round him. A strong Russophile party formed

itself in the army; on the night of August 21, 1886, some officers of this

party, who were the most capable in the Bulgarian army, appeared at Sofia,

forced Alexander to resign, and abducted him; they put him on board his

yacht on the Danube and escorted him to the Russian town of Reni, in

Bessarabia; telegraphic orders came from St. Petersburg, in answer to

inquiries, that he could proceed with haste to western Europe, and on

August 26 he found himself at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this

coup d'etat found that it was not at all popular in the country. A

counter-revolution, headed by the statesman Stambulov, was immediately

initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst

tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor

Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left

Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in

Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency

was constituted, at the head of which was Stambulov.