FERDINAND AND HIS CREATURES
Just as the Bulgarians say they are going into Europe when they leave
Bulgaria, Ferdinand decided that he was quitting Europe and
civilization when he entered his new kingdom. He went with his mind
fixed on thoughts of assassination; and turning to account the course
of Machiavelli on which he had been reared, he decided that the
assassins could be made the servant of the Prince. He has himself
confessed that his initial resolve was to have the assassins on his
side.
Between the resignation of Prince Alexander and the election of Prince
Ferdinand, Stambuloff had ruled as dictator, and with the arrival of
Ferdinand the situation was only nominally altered. Ferdinand was
Prince, but Stambuloff ruled the country. To remedying this state of
affairs Ferdinand exercised all his craft, and his mother, the Princess
Clementine, all her wealth.
The secret police of the country, like all its other services, were
controlled by Stambuloff, and it became necessary for Ferdinand to
organize a secret service of his own, paid out of his own pocket. The
purpose to which this service was applied was not to detect crime and
conspiracy, but to gain for Ferdinand information to the detriment of
the principal men around him.
While he was so employed the energies of Stambuloff were concentrated
in crushing a widespread conspiracy against Ferdinand, which had been
conceived even before he arrived in Sofia. The ringleader in this was
Major Panitza, an old friend and fellow-conspirator with Stambuloff in
the days when Bulgaria was not yet a country with a separate existence.
Panitza was a bluff, jolly fellow, afflicted with the complaint known
to our American cousins as “slack jaw.” Consequently he was able to
boast about the cafés of Sofia that the new Prince would soon be
overthrown or killed, without much attention being paid to his talk.
But Stambuloff was alert, and found that Panitza had really organized a
plot which was backed by quite half the officers in the Bulgarian Army,
and that risings were arranged in several important centres at the same
time. The method to be employed with Ferdinand was to seize him, and
offer him the choice between instant resignation or sudden death.
Nobody doubted which choice the new Prince would make.
Stambuloff had Panitza arrested by two of the other ringleaders of the
plot, who had to perform this task in the presence of a band of men
loyal to Stambuloff. A list of officers implicated was obtained, and
precautions were taken that completely foiled the conspiracy.
That night a dramatic scene was enacted at a ball given at the Palace,
possibly one of the most surprising entertainments ever offered, even
by a Balkan ruler. Two hundred officers were bidden, and of these
seventy were implicated in the plot. The Prince knew of their guilt,
and they knew that he knew.
He stood to receive them in his glittering uniform. On one side of him
stood his mother, a picture of aristocratic, frigid scorn. On the other
stood Stambuloff, his face set in a cynical, mocking smile. As each of
the culprits advanced, the furious Prince rolled his eyes to his
mother, who gazed at the trembling man with cold, inscrutable rage,
while the “Tapster” made no attempt to hide his derisive triumph.
It was a trying evening for the plotters. Whenever two or three
gathered together to discuss the situation, they became aware of the
presence of mysterious guests at the ball. They were shadowed and
harassed, and knew not what might be the end of that evening. To their
great relief they were allowed to depart unhindered.
Panitza was tried and sentenced to death. None thought the sentence
would be carried out, Panitza least of all. He relied on his ancient
comradeship with Stambuloff; and besides, it was recognized on all
sides that he was a mere figurehead in the conspiracy. But Ferdinand
insisted, and after his usual fashion rushed off to Carlsbad before the
sentence was carried out. “He had Panitza shot in order to leave for
Carlsbad the same day,” said Stambuloff to the _Cologne Gazette_.
Of course, the whole of the odium of this execution attached itself to
Stambuloff. This enabled Ferdinand to gather round him many of the men
who were spared, and who hated Stambuloff, both for the death of
Panitza, and for the derision with which he treated them as
unsuccessful plotters. With true Machiavellian craft, Ferdinand
represented to these men that the whole blame for the severe repressive
measures taken lay with Stambuloff.
Among the dishonest plotting toadies he attached to his person was the
man Natchevitch, who goes down in Bulgarian history under the
well-earned designation of Beelzebub. A bankrupt merchant, he attached
himself to Ferdinand by reason of his lack of scruple and his capacity
for eating dirt. He was soon installed at the Court as one of the chief
among the useful toadies the Prince maintained around him.
Among his intimates were three brothers named Tufektschieff, all of
whom were implicated in that attempt to murder Stambuloff, which ended
in the death of his friend Beltcheff. One of them was arrested, but the
other two escaped. The arrested man was handled by Stambuloff’s agents
in such a manner that he died in prison—in plain English he died under
torture rather than betray his associates. I have said, I think, that
the customs of Bulgaria were those of the Middle Ages.
Another brother was concerned in the murder of Dr. Vulkovitch at
Constantinople, where he was sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labour
for the crime. He fled back to Sofia and remained in hiding till the
fall of Stambuloff, when he moved openly about the city under the
protection of Natchevitch, who had now become Minister of Foreign
Affairs. In equal security lived a number of other men, whose
complicity in both these murders was a matter of notoriety.
Stambuloff, after his quarrel with Ferdinand and his imprisonment in
his own house, gave an interview to the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, in which
the character of Ferdinand was delineated with scathing accuracy. When
Ferdinand read it the story of Henry II and Thomas à Becket rose to his
mind. The ready tool Natchevitch was present, and throwing down the
paper he cried, “Will no one rid me of this gutter-snipe?”
Henry, when his sinister order was carried out, confessed his sin in
the sight of the English people by a penance more remarkable than any
made by a monarch in the pages of history. His barefoot pilgrimage to
the tomb of the murdered Archbishop was probably made in genuine sorrow
for a petulant wish, repented before its suggestion had been carried
into effect. It is like Ferdinand to repeat the crime and to omit the
atonement.
The creatures he employed to perpetrate his crimes remain unpunished to
this day. They were permitted to organize bands to desecrate the grave
of Stambuloff, while yet it was lying open to receive the mangled body
of the statesman. And Ferdinand, from the safety of Carlsbad, dared to
send expressions of sympathy and a wreath to the bereaved woman, who
had lived for months in the shadow of the impending crime.
His creatures lived to murder Stambuloff’s friend Petkoff. They lived
to wax fat in idleness in the cafés of Sofia; some of them are alive at
this day. Their deeds are known and they make no concealment of them.
For Ferdinand is on their side. Well has he kept his wise vow to be on
the side of the assassins.
Not that he would stoop to assassination himself. He is always absent
in Carlsbad when any of this vile work is in train. He himself has a
sensitive disposition that revolts at all deeds of violence and
bloodshed. As we shall see, he cannot even bear to see a dumb animal
suffer.
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FERDINAND THE FEMININE
“_If ever I feel tired or depressed, I have only to look at a bunch of
violets to become myself again._”—FERDINAND OF BULGARIA.
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