THE LIBERATION OF BULGARIA
Significantly enough, the first sign of a renaissance of Bulgarian
national feeling was an agitation not against the Turks but the Greeks.
Patriotic Bulgarians, under the Sublime Porte, sought to re-establish
their old National Church and shake it free from its subjection to the
Greek Patriarch at Constantinople. The Sublime Porte was induced to look
upon this demand with favour. A step which promised to emphasise the
divisions between the Christians evidently should be of advantage to the
Turks. The Greek Patriarch was urged to consent to the appointment of a
Bulgarian bishop. He refused. In the face of that refusal Turkey acted
as the creator of a new Christian Church, and in 1870 a firman of the
Sultan created the Bulgarian Exarchate, and Bulgaria had again a
national ecclesiastical organisation. Two years later the first Exarch
was elected by the Bulgarian clergy. But gratitude for this religious
concession did not extinguish the longings for political independence of
the Bulgarian people. When a Christian insurrection broke out in
Herzegovina against Turkey in 1875, the Bulgarian patriots rose in arms
in different parts of their country. The massacres of Batak were the
Turkish response, those "Bulgarian atrocities" which sent a shudder
through all Europe and set a term to Turkish rule over the Christian
populations in her European provinces.
I have been recently in the Balkans with the veteran war artist, Mr.
Frederick Villiers, who has personal recollections of those times of
massacre and atrocity. Speaking with him, an eye-witness of the
devastation then wrought, it was possible to understand the fierce
indignation with which the English-speaking world was stirred as the
details of the horrors in the Balkans were unveiled. In all about 12,000
Bulgarian people perished, mostly butchered in cold blood. Turkish
anger, it seems, was inflamed against the Bulgarians, because, in spite
of the recent church concession, some of them had dared to strike for
freedom; and this display of Turkish anger made the full freedom of
Bulgaria certain.
[Illustration: "MYSTERY"--A STUDY IN THE ROUSTCHOUK DISTRICT]
At first an attempt had been made by the Powers to exert peaceful
pressure upon Turkey, so that her Christian provinces should be granted
local autonomy. The project of the Powers for Bulgaria proposed that the
districts inhabited by Bulgarians should be divided into two provinces;
the Eastern Province, with Tirnovo as capital, was to include the
Sandjaks of Roustchouk, Tirnovo, Toultcha, Varna, Sliven, Philippopolis
(not including Sultan-Eri and Ahi-Tchelebi), the kazas of Kirk Kilisse,
Mustapha Pasha and Kasilagatch; and the Western Province, with Sofia as
capital, the Sandjaks of Sofia, Vidin, Nisch, Uskub, Monastir, the three
kazas of the north of Seres, and the kazas of Stroumitza, Tikvesch,
Veles, and Kastoria. Districts of from five to ten thousand inhabitants
were to stand as the administrative unit. Christian and Mohammedans were
to be settled homogeneously in these districts. Each district was to
have at its head a mayor and a district council, elected by universal
suffrage, and was to enjoy entire autonomy as regards local affairs.
Several districts would form a Sandjak with a prefect at its head who
was to be Christian or Mohammedan, according to the majority of the
population of the Sandjak. He would be proposed by the Governor-General,
and nominated by the Porte for four years.
Finally, every two Sandjaks were to be administered by a Christian
Governor-General nominated by the Porte for five years, with consent of
the Powers. He would govern the province with the help of a provincial
assembly, composed of representatives chosen by the district councils
for a term of four years, at the rate of one deputy to thirty or forty
thousand inhabitants. This assembly would nominate an administrative
council of ten members. The provincial assembly would be summoned every
year to decide the budget and the taxes. The armed force was to be
concentrated in the towns and there would be local militia beside. The
language of the predominant nationality was to be employed, as well as
Turkish. Finally, a Commission of International Control was to supervise
the working of these proposals.
The Porte promised reforms on these lines, but did not go beyond
promising. The task of forcing her to end a cruel tyranny was one for
the battlefield.
The Russo-Turkish War broke out on April 12, 1877, and what Turkey had
refused to yield of her own accord was wrested from her by force of
arms, in the preliminary treaty of San Stefano. By this treaty, Bulgaria
was made an autonomous principality subject to Turkey, with a Christian
government and national militia. The Prince of Bulgaria was to be freely
chosen by the Bulgarian people and accepted by the Sublime Porte, with
the consent of the Powers. It was agreed that an assembly of notables,
presided over by a Russian Commissioner and attended by a Turkish
Commissioner, should meet at Philippopolis or Tirnovo before the
election of the Prince to draw up a constitutional statute similar to
those of the other Danubian principalities agreed to after the Treaty of
Adrianople in 1830.
The Treaty of San Stefano brought into being on paper a Bulgaria greater
in area than the Bulgaria of 1912, and greater even than the Bulgaria of
1914. But the Treaty was not ratified. Other European Powers, alarmed at
the prospect of Russia becoming supreme in the Balkans through the aid
of a Bulgarian vassal state, interfered, and the Congress of Berlin
substituted for the Treaty of San Stefano the Treaty of Berlin.
The Treaty of Berlin provided:
Bulgaria is to be an independent Principality, subject to the
Sultan, with a Christian government and a national militia; the
Prince of Bulgaria will be freely chosen by the Bulgarian nation
and accepted by the Sublime Porte, with the approval of the
Great Powers; no member of a reigning European family can be
elected Prince of Bulgaria; in case of a vacancy of the throne
the election will be repeated under the same conditions and with
the same forms; before the election of the Prince, an assembly
of notables will decide on the constitutional statute of the
Principality at Tirnovo. The laws will be based on principles of
civil and religious liberty.
By the Treaty of Berlin the boundaries of Bulgaria were very greatly
curtailed as compared with those of the Treaty of San Stefano, shrinking
from an area as great almost as the Bulgarian Empire of Simeon down to a
broad band of territory running between Eastern Roumelia and Roumania.
[Illustration: A BLIND BEGGAR WOMAN]
But the Bulgars kept the Treaty of San Stefano rather than the Treaty of
Berlin before their eyes as their national charter. Almost from the
first there were encroachments upon the provisions of the Treaty of
Berlin. Its limitations of Bulgarian sovereignty were ignored little by
little. Eastern Roumelia was united to Bulgaria proper by a bold and
well-timed stroke. Another occasion was sought to get rid of the tribute
to Turkey, and from a Prince, subject to a suzerain, the ruler of
Bulgaria became a Czar, responsible to none but his subjects. Finally,
when the war of 1912 against Turkey was entered upon to liberate further
Christian provinces from the rule of the Turk, the Bulgarian people, if
not the Bulgarian rulers, had clearly before their eyes the vision of
the Bulgaria of the San Stefano Treaty. At one time it seemed as if that
fond hope would be realised. But misfortunes and mistakes intervened,
and as a final result of that and succeeding wars Bulgaria has been left
with a comparatively small accession of territory, and is not much
better off than she was in 1912.
It is not my purpose to attempt any detailed history of Bulgaria. I have
designed, rather, an indication in broad outline of her national growth
as a basis for, and an introduction to, an intimate picture of the
country as it is to-day. All that is needed, then, to add to this
chapter regarding the Liberation of Bulgaria, is that after the Treaty
of Berlin had been ratified, the first task that faced the principality
of Bulgaria was to make it clear to Russia that, whilst she was grateful
for the aid which had enabled her to become independent, she aspired to
a real independence, and did not wish to exchange one master for
another. The task was difficult, and caused some early trouble for the
revived nation.
[Illustration: A YOUNG MARRIED SHOP WOMAN]
The first Prince chosen to be monarch of Bulgaria was Prince Alexander
of Battenberg, a brave soldier but an indifferent statesman. He offended
in turn both the Bulgarian patriots who wished him to lead their country
to a complete freedom, and the Russians who would have her kept under a
kind of tutelage to the "Little Father." Still Bulgaria, in his reign,
made notable advances towards her national ideals. In 1885, obedient to
the earnest wish of its inhabitants, Eastern Roumelia was incorporated
with Bulgaria as a united principality, and that much of the Treaty of
Berlin torn up. Turkey, whose rights were chiefly affected, decided not
to make war upon this issue. The Great Powers, other than Russia, which
had insisted, in the first instance, on the separation of Bulgaria into
Bulgaria Proper and Eastern Roumelia because they feared that
Bulgaria would be a mere appanage of Russia and would in actual effect
bring the Russian frontier so much nearer to Constantinople, were now
fairly reassured on that point. They not only made no protest, but they
prevented Greece from doing so. There remained to be reckoned with only
Russia and Servia. Russia showed her displeasure by recalling every
Russian officer then serving with the Bulgarian army; but she did not
make war. Servia, fearful that this Bulgarian aggrandisement jeopardised
her own future in the Balkans, made war. Prince Alexander took the field
with his troops--made up of Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Turks living in
Bulgaria--and in the battle of Slivnitza Bulgaria won a decisive
victory. She was not allowed to reap any direct fruits from it, as
Austria interfered on behalf of Servia. The Treaty of Bucharest made
peace without penalty to Servia, and Bulgaria was left with a greatly
enhanced prestige as her sole reward.
It was a sad sequel to Prince Alexander's courage and address in this
campaign that the next year he was deposed by a conspiracy in which the
moving figures were the chiefs of the pro-Russian party in Bulgaria. The
majority of the Bulgarians were not friendly to this revolution, and
after the kidnapping of the Prince by the rebels a counter-revolution
under Stambuloff would have restored him to the throne had it not been
for the fact that he was irresolute in council though brave in the
field. He could have won back his Crown, but chose rather to surrender
it to Russia.
For some time after it was difficult to find a Prince for Bulgaria. The
Crown was offered in turn to Prince Waldemar of Denmark and King Carol
of Roumania. Finally, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha consented to
embark on the great adventure of ruling Bulgaria. Wealthy, descended
from the old French royal house on his mother's side, and connected with
the Austrian and German royal houses on his father's, handsome and
youthful, Prince Ferdinand had splendid qualifications for his new
responsibility. He showed, too, from the outset, a fine diplomatic skill
and successfully steered his country through the perilous days which
followed his accession. Russia at first refused to sanction the choice
of him as Prince, and that involved the other Powers in a policy of
refusing him "recognition." He was thus, in a sense, a boycotted
monarch.
With steady and patient skill Prince Ferdinand worked to overcome the
obstacles which stood in the way of Bulgarian national aspirations,
aided much by the masterful statesmanship of Stambuloff. A good
understanding was come to with Turkey, still Bulgaria's suzerain power,
and in 1890 Turkey made the important concession to Bulgaria of
appointing Bulgarian bishops in Macedonia. In 1893 Prince Ferdinand
married Princess Marie Louise of Parma, and the next year an heir was
born to them, Prince Boris. A reconciliation with Russia followed.
[Illustration: A BULGARIAN MARKET TOWN]
Bulgaria now made steady and peaceful progress, the only cloud on her
sky the sorrows of her co-religionists in Macedonia. In 1908 advantage
was taken of the "Young Turk" revolution in Turkey for the Bulgarian
Prince to denounce all allegiance to Turkey, and Bulgaria was declared
fully independent and Ferdinand was crowned at Tirnovo as Czar of the
Bulgarians. Turkey was not able to protest, and her confessed weakness
nourished to powerful strength the general desire of the Christian
peoples in the Balkans to free their co-religionists in Thrace and
Macedonia from the rule of the Moslem. "The Balkan League" was formed,
and Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Servia prepared to force from
Turkey by war what the Great Powers had so far failed to secure by
diplomacy--the relief of Macedonia from oppression and misrule. It was
during the war of 1912-1913 that I had an opportunity of studying the
Bulgarian people at close hand, as I accompanied the Bulgarian forces as
war correspondent.