THE BUTCHERED “BISMARCK”
The outstanding instance of Ferdinand’s intimacy with the grosser forms
of assassination is the murder of Stepan Stambuloff, “the Bismarck of
the Balkans.” This gross little being was a forceful, sturdy, fat man,
who sprung from an innkeeper of Tirnovo; whence Ferdinand’s favourite
name for him—the Tapster. He had been trained to the Bar, and was the
foremost advocate of his day in Sofia.
He was almost the foremost conspirator as well, and played a prominent
part in the series of rebellions against the Turkish rule which
eventually resulted in the creation by Russia of the Principality of
Bulgaria, and in the election of Alexander of Battenberg to the throne.
His imagination was caught by the dream of the Greater Bulgaria created
by the Treaty of San Stefano, and abrogated by the Berlin Conference
before it had been actually called into being.
Stambuloff was a typical Bulgarian, coarse, vulgar, violent, and
crafty. But he was a patriotic Bulgarian as well; and in his alert mind
the danger arising from a benevolent Russia was more acute than that
arising from a hostile Turkey. He it was who called Ferdinand to the
throne to hold at bay the Russian influence; and to his Bulgarian mind
the disfavour in which Ferdinand’s acceptance of the throne had landed
him was one of his chief qualifications.
The first meeting of the pair took place upon a little steamer on which
Ferdinand was stealing into his new principality by way of the river
Danube. They discovered differences at their very first encounter, but
the differences were then more important to the Prince than to the
statesman. Ferdinand was loth to take Stambuloff into his counsels, and
endeavoured to place Stoiloff, who was a member of the deputation which
had selected him for Bulgaria, in the position of Prime Minister. But
all attempts to form a Ministry were unavailing, and Ferdinand was
forced to send for Stambuloff, and for the next six years the Tapster
reigned supreme in Bulgaria.
The relations between the two, strained on their first meeting, went
steadily from bad to worse as time wore on. Stambuloff was far from
impressed by the statecraft which his Prince had imbibed at his
mother’s knee, and treated him from the first as a silly schoolboy.
Ferdinand’s love of ceremony and state was marked out by him for the
most contemptuous treatment; he loved to make the state with which the
Prince surrounded himself appear ridiculous and mean.
Ferdinand’s concern about recognition by the Powers was a mere nothing
to Stambuloff; it provided a means for playing Russian intrigue off
against Turkish hostility, and therefore Stambuloff welcomed it. In a
word, he was for Bulgaria, while Ferdinand was only concerned with the
interests and the prestige of the Prince of the Bulgarians.
While Ferdinand was settling down in Sofia, and learning the language
and corrupting the politicians through his band of spies, he endured
the arrogance and authority of Stambuloff patiently enough. But after
four years of this he began to strive for some way of ridding himself
of his too-powerful Minister. Then began a series of attempts upon the
life of Stambuloff, which he evaded by coincidences that were
remarkable in their effectiveness.
For instance, in 1891, he was walking home from his club with his
friend and colleague, M. Beltcheff, and passed three men at a well-lit
corner. Shortly afterwards he changed to the other side of his friend,
and they had not walked a score of yards in this order when Beltcheff
fell pierced by the bullets of assassins. As Stambuloff ran for the
nearest guardhouse, a cry of “Stambuloff is dead” fell on his ears,
convincing him that the bullets were intended for him. The murderers
remain unpunished to this day. In the next year, the Bulgarian agent,
Dr. Vulkovich, was stabbed in the street, in circumstances which point
to another mistake by the assassins of the Prince. Once more the
murderers, who were well known, contrived to escape punishment.
But men who offended Ferdinand at this time had a way of falling into
trouble with mysterious assassins. The case of Dr. Takeff is much in
point. Takeff was a journalist who had commented in offensive terms,
even for Sofia, upon the extravagance of the Court. Shortly afterwards
he was riding near Sofia with the poet Aleko Constantinoff, and the
pair changed seats. Again the assassins found the wrong man by reason
of this accident, and poor Constantinoff suffered for the writings of
his friend. But, as the official Press of Sofia remarked, his death was
due to his keeping bad company, and his murderers were never punished.
The double attempt to kill Stambuloff aroused popular sympathy with the
Minister, who had become detested because of the rigour with which he
suppressed conspiracies, and because of the severity of the taxes in
which the progressive policy he instituted involved Bulgaria, and to
which are due the great improvements for which Ferdinand gets the
credit. Experience had also warned Stambuloff, who instituted
precautions which made attempts on his life difficult of execution.
Ferdinand then began to scheme in order to force his resignation. In
this he was abetted by the pro-Russian group of politicians in Sofia,
but their schemes fell down before the imperturbability of the Prime
Minister. But a severe blow was dealt at Stambuloff’s influence when he
revised the Constitution to permit the wedding with Princess Marie
Louise to take place.
He encountered strong opposition, not only in the Sobranje, where the
clerical party was very strong, but also with his own Ministerial
colleagues. It was the sternest struggle of his career; and after
winning the fight he declared to one of his friends that he felt like
Jacob felt after wrestling with God. Thereafter a powerful political
group plotted with the Prince to force the resignation of Stambuloff.
The head of the most outrageous of the plots was Major Petroff, against
whom the Premier obtained incriminating evidence of the most
sensational description. He also obtained proof that his Prince was
implicated deeply in this plot. The scheme was for the Major, with a
band of firebrands, to rush into the Council Chamber where the Premier
and the Prince were conferring, and to offer Stambuloff the choice
between instant resignation or instant death. The discovery of this
plot caused Stambuloff to write to Ferdinand in the following terms:
“Your Highness has not learnt in seven years to know me if you think I
can be forced into signing anything. You might cut off my hands and
feet, but you could never compel me to do what I now do voluntarily and
of my own free will. Here is my resignation... and I warn you, Sire,
that if you treat our new Minister as you have treated me, your throne
is not worth a louis.”
But Ferdinand refused to accept the resignation proffered in these
terms, and waited until a domestic quarrel in which Major Savoff
(afterwards Bulgaria’s most celebrated General) was involved, and
caused Stambuloff to publish a private letter, a line of conduct which
the Prince characterized as “base.” This adjective again drew a
resignation from Stambuloff.
Mr. Herbert Vivian, who was in Sofia at the time, vividly describes the
closing scenes between Premier and Prince. The latter’s fête day was
the occasion of a party at the palace: “Stambuloff sat in an outer
room, glittering with decorations like a Christmas tree and smoking a
big, bad cigar. After some sulky small-talk he slouched away out of the
palace—a gross breach of etiquette. Some courtier mentioned this to the
Prince; he shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘I did not know he had been
asked.’”
Two days later, on May 30, 1894, Stambuloff was summoned to the
presence of Ferdinand, who coldly accepted his resignation. An attempt
to patch up the quarrel ended in a riot outside the palace gates, in
which the rival factions cried “Down with Stambuloff,” and “Down with
Ferdinand.” The fallen Minister walked through the crowd, and was
struck and spat upon as he passed to his home. Arrests were made, but
they were entirely supporters of Stambuloff, many of whom were not
concerned in the disgraceful scene.
From that day forward Stambuloff was kept a prisoner in his own house.
His property was sequestrated, and only by the kind offices of friends
was he able to save his furniture from an execution for debt. The
assassins of his friends were allowed to walk the streets of Sofia
unmolested, but the ex-Premier was refused permission to leave the city.
Time and time again Stambuloff said openly that Ferdinand meant to have
him murdered, and nobody was so rash as to dispute the truth of the
prophecy. The police agents who were posted at his house, nominally to
protect him, were in reality his gaolers. In bitter enmity to Ferdinand
Stambuloff gave an interview to the _Frankfort Zeitung_, which resulted
in his prosecution for criminal libel against Ferdinand. The trial
dragged on, and efforts were once more made to get Stambuloff out of
Bulgaria. Medical evidence was forthcoming that his health demanded the
change, and all Bulgarians wished him to go. But Ferdinand would not
permit it.
In July, 1895, the _Mir_, an official newspaper, published an article
stating that it would be a patriotic deed to tear Stambuloff’s flesh
from his bones. Within two days the ex-Premier was driving home from
his club with his friend Petkoff, when he was attacked by three
ruffians with knives. Petkoff fell to the ground and could render no
assistance; and the wretches had Stambuloff at their mercy. With their
knives they hacked his prostrate body until it lost almost all human
semblance.
That night Ferdinand was at the theatre at Carlsbad, laughing with an
unusual gaiety. He found time to send a hypocritical message of
sympathy to the widow of the dead statesman, and directed that floral
offerings should be sent to the funeral; message and flowers were alike
refused. A few days later the _Svoboda_ (_Liberty_) openly accused
Ferdinand of direct and full responsibility for the murder of
Stambuloff, an accusation which is supported by such a mass of evidence
as would hang any man, prince or commoner, in a community such as our
own. But it must be remembered that Ferdinand loves flowers, is kind to
animals, and wept when he saw the first Bulgarian wounded in the Balkan
War.
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THE DEAD HAND
“_Wherever you are, in your goings out and your comings in, the blood
of Stambuloff will be with you; in your home, among your family, in
church and in office, the shadow of Stambuloff will follow you, and
will leave you in the world never more._” —“SVOBODA.”
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