The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 18

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.

CHAPTER X

THE MAKING OF BULGARIA

"If you can help to build up these peoples into a bulwark of independent States and thus screen the 'sick man' from the fury of the northern blast, for G.o.d's sake do it."--SIR R.

MORIER to SIR W. WHITE, _December 27, 1885_.

The failure which attended the forward h.e.l.lenic movement during the years 1896-97 stands in sharp relief with the fortunes of the Bulgarians. To the rise of this youngest, and not the least promising, of European States, we must devote a whole chapter; for during a decade the future of the Balkan Peninsula and the policy of the Great Powers turned very largely on the emanc.i.p.ation of this interesting race from the effective control of the Sultan and the Czar.

The rise of this enigmatical people affords a striking example of the power of national feeling to uplift the downtrodden. Until the year 1876, the very name Bulgarian was scarcely known except as a geographical term. Kinglake, in his charming work, _Eothen_, does not mention the Bulgarians, though he travelled on horseback from Belgrade to Sofia and thence to Adrianople. And yet in 1828, the conquering march of the Russians to Adrianople had awakened that people to a pa.s.sing thrill of national consciousness. Other travellers,--for instance, Cyprien Robert in the "thirties,"--noted their st.u.r.dy patience in toil, their slowness to act, but their great perseverance and will-power, when the resolve was formed.

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.

[Footnote 184: _The Peasant State: Bulgaria in 1894_, by E. Dicey, C.B.

(1904), p. 11.]

[Footnote 185: _Turkey in Europe_, by "Odysseus," pp. 28, 356, 367.]

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 ent.i.ty., the Roumanian and Servian Churches having been const.i.tuted 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]."

[Footnote 186: _Turkey in Europe_, by "Odysseus," pp. 280-283, 297; _The Peasant State_, by E. Dicey, pp. 75-77.]

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 ma.s.s, 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].

[Footnote 187: Recius, Kiepert, Ritter, and other geographers and ethnologists, admit that the majority in Macedonia is Bulgarian.]

This unsatisfactory state of things promised to range the Princ.i.p.ality of Bulgaria entirely on the side of Russia, and at the outset the hope of all Bulgarians was for a close friends.h.i.+p with the great Power that had effected their liberation. These sentiments, however, speedily cooled. The officers appointed by the Czar to organise the Princ.i.p.ality carried out their task in a high-handed way that soon irritated the newly enfranchised people. Grat.i.tude 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 th.o.r.n.y 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 overlords.h.i.+p of the Turk to the masterful grip of the Muscovite. The Princ.i.p.ality 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 a.s.sent to the Russian demands or to be accused in Russia of ingrat.i.tude 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sembly, suspended the const.i.tution, 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, pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.serted itself, the greater appeared the danger to the liberties of the Princ.i.p.ality. At last, when the situation became unbearable, the Prince resolved to restore the Bulgarian const.i.tution; and he took this momentous step, on September 18, 1883, without consulting the three Russian Ministers, who thereupon resigned[188].

[Footnote 188: For the scenes which then occurred, see _Le Prince Alexandre de Battenberg en Bulgarie_, by A.G. Drandar, pp. 169 _et seq_.; also A. Koch, _Furst Alexander von Bulgarien_, pp. 144-147.

For the secret aims of Russia, see _Doc.u.ments secrets de la Politique russe en Orient_, by R. Leonoff (Berlin, 1893), pp. 49-65. General Soboleff, _Der erste Furst von Bulgarian_ (Leipzig, 1896), has given a highly coloured Russian account of all these incidents.]

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 const.i.tution of Tirnova. Let us forget what pa.s.sed during the _coup d'etat_ [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].

[Footnote 189: See Laveleye's _The Balkan Peninsula_, pp. 259-262, for an account of Karaveloff.]

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].

[Footnote 190: J.G.C. Minchin, _The Growth of Freedom in the Balkan Peninsula_ (1886) p. 237. The author, Consul-General for Servia in London, had earlier contributed many articles to the _Times_ and _Morning Advertiser_ on Balkan affairs.]

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 Princ.i.p.alities decided to take the kingly t.i.tle (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.

[Footnote 191: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, by Dr. M.

Busch (Note of January 5, 1886), vol. iii. p. 150 (English edition).]

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.

[Footnote 192: The treaty has not been published; for this general description of it I am indebted to the kindness of M. Mijatovich himself.]

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 pa.s.sive and docile race for whose aggrandis.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sembly, 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 pa.s.ses 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 doc.u.ments, 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 Princ.i.p.ality; 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].

[Footnote 193: _Doc.u.ments secrets de la Politique russe en Orient,_ ed.

by R. Leonoff (Berlin, 1893), pp. 8, 48. This work is named by M. Malet in his _Bibliographie_ on the Eastern Question on p. 448, vol. ix., of the _Histoire Generale of _MM. Lavisse and Rambaud. I have been a.s.sured of its genuineness by a gentleman well versed in the politics of the Balkan States.]

The chief obstacles in the way of Russia's aggrandis.e.m.e.nt 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 subst.i.tution 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.

[Footnote 194: For Bismarck's action and that of the Emperor William I.

in 1885, see _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, by M. Busch, vol. iii. pp. 171, 180, 292, also p. 335. Russian agents came to Stambuloff in the summer of 1885 to say that "Prince Alexander must be got rid of before he can ally himself with the German family regnant."

Stambuloff informed the Prince of this. See _Stambuloff_, by A.H.