FERDINAND THE FRENCHMAN
One of the lessons that Great Britain has been compelled to learn in
the last two years is that its respected citizen, Mr. Black, purveyor
of meat, is in reality none other than that dangerous alien Herr
Schwartz, the maker of German sausages. Our gallant allies of France
have been apt to wonder at the laggard hesitation of us British in
learning and applying this lesson. Yet when the history of the great
war comes to be written frankly and fully, it may well be revealed that
one of the hardest knocks delivered to the allied cause was due to the
incurably optimistic idea prevailing among Frenchmen in the highest
places that Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg Cohen was really Ferdinand de Bourbon.
It is nothing to their discredit. To the very last most of us clung to
the idea that the Kaiser was really an Englishman, though he did little
to foster that idea, and his upbringing, his speeches and his behaviour
were shining testimony to the contrary. Ferdinand, on the other hand,
had an upbringing that was essentially characteristic of the old
France; not that new France which fills the whole civilized world with
delight and admiration. He has constantly posed as French in culture,
in sympathy and in aim. France early took him to its generous arms, and
there is every excuse for the French trusting in his blandishments; the
generous spirit of France is incapable of crediting that any man of
French extraction could stoop to such perfidy as Ferdinand has
displayed.
If France was open to the accusation of degeneracy half a century ago,
the fact was largely due to the method of educating its boys. The
supreme irony of fate has exacted this compensation for the horrors
inflicted by Germany upon stricken France in 1870, that the full
measure of punishment now impending over the Hunnish race is the result
of these infamies. The new France is the outcome of that disaster, and
the new Frenchman of to-day, steeled to patient endurance, yet fighting
with all the dash of his ancestors, is the result of wiser methods of
education.
But Ferdinand was brought up as one of the degenerate Frenchmen of the
past age. At fifteen he knew more of the dark side of life than any
hardened man of the world ought to know. At twenty he was a loathsome
young beast, whose only admirer was his doting mother. She was a
daughter of France, and everywhere surrounded herself and her son with
the historic objects she had inherited from her great French ancestors.
When Ferdinand crossed his Rubicon and ventured on that hazardous
journey in disguise to Sofia, against the wish of all the European
Powers, his companions on the voyage were gallant and adventurous young
Frenchmen. The elegant Court he formed in Bulgaria was redeemed from
absurdity by the grace, wit and refinement of these companions and
their successors. The first champions of Ferdinand, and his apologists
through good and evil, have been the French.
I have referred many times in this chronicle to the French biographer
of Ferdinand, the enthusiastic M. Hepp. He has written so charmingly
and with such obvious and honest sincerity of this Hun in French
clothing that it is impossible to overlook his work. It represents
current French opinion of the Bulgarian Czar, who, up to the very last
moment, contrived to deceive even such keen-eyed publicists as M.
Reinach.
The amazing confidences Ferdinand has made to M. Hepp are set out in
this surprisingly intimate biography, in which one long chapter is
devoted to proving Ferdinand’s possession by the French sentiment.
The first time that the Prince invited his biographer to dinner was on
a very picturesque occasion. They were travelling together to Roumelia
to take part in the rose harvest and festival at the scent farms of
Kazanlik. The luxury of the train by which they travelled was
extravagant. Blue velvet upholstered the ordinary compartments, the
sleeping carriages were furnished in silk of turquoise tint, the
dining-saloon was a mass of blue flowers in baskets. Rightly was it
called the Blue Train.
Seated opposite Ferdinand in the midst of all this azure pomp, the
writer was suddenly brought face to face with a fresh emotion. On every
fork and spoon, on every piece of the massive silver plate was engraved
the French leur-de-lis. They marked the descent of the Bulgarian royal
couple; the Prince as grandson of Louis Philippe, the Princess Marie
Louise as granddaughter of Charles X.
Even more moving to his biographer was a scene enacted by Ferdinand
when his mother lay awaiting burial and the mock Frenchman was dressing
for the funeral. He was assuming all his decorations—German ones—when
the Duc de Luynes was announced. “Come in,” cried Ferdinand, and as the
Duc entered he unbuttoned his waistcoat and threw it back. There next
his heart blazed the broad red ribbon of the French Legion of Honour,
once worn by Louis Philippe himself.
Later Ferdinand was entitled to wear that ribbon, but this clandestine
assumption of it was a piece of theatrical sentiment, justly calculated
to tickle the sensibilities of the most level-headed Frenchman. As M.
Hepp narrates, he afterwards told the story to three intimates, very
Parisian and sceptical, and the hardest of them all was constrained to
turn away his head and wipe his eyes.
It is interesting to note how Ferdinand played upon this French
sympathy, and how adroitly he made use of it. From Paris he arranged
the reconciliation with Russia which followed the conversion of Prince
Boris to the Orthodox faith, and France was the first country to fête
him in the ceremonious way his heart yearned for.
“At the Élysée,” writes Mr. John Macdonald, “the successor of the
French kings and emperors royally entertained the Orleanist Prince who
was so successfully introducing French culture and manners into a
semi-Oriental land; or almost royally, for the Prince was as yet only
half a king. Semi-royal honours only could be accorded to the Prince of
Bulgaria; half a gala at the Opera, half a military manœuvre, and so
on.”
But to Ferdinand half a loaf was indeed better than no bread. When he
demanded royal honours prior to a visit to England for the funeral of
Queen Victoria he was bluntly told he could not have them. Therefore he
decided to stay away. France, however, did her best for Ferdinand.
He paid his debts in a characteristic manner. For the reorganization of
the Bulgarian Army he went to France, and there borrowed money,
equipment and military advisers. The French artillery enabled the
Bulgarians to score so heavily over the Turks in their first
encounters, and what of generalship the Bulgarian leaders possess is
undoubtedly due to their French tuition. The Bulgarian Black Sea fleet
was of French organization, and its first admiral was a French naval
officer named Pichon.
If further evidence was needed that Ferdinand wore a golden French
heart under his hereditary German and Austrian decorations, as he wore
his illicit ribbon of the Legion of Honour, let me tell you one more
story from the collection of the excellent M. Hepp.
It was July 14, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, and
Ferdinand had asked to his Varna Palace M. Bourgarel, the French
Minister at Sofia, and the faithful Hepp. They dined in the open air at
the foot of Mount Vitosch. Suddenly, from behind a thicket, there rose
the strains of the Marseillaise, while Ferdinand, rising to his feet,
shouted “Vive la France!”
Yes, France felt very sure of Ferdinand, and Bulgaria could always
count upon warm friendship in Paris, and wherever French influence was
felt. His perfidy was not suspected till nearly the end of 1914 when M.
Joseph Reinach, who had maintained a long correspondence with him ever
since their first meeting in 1906, began to form suspicions. He framed
a letter to Ferdinand on February 11, 1915, to the effect that he had
to express the uneasiness he was feeling, and which all the French
friends of Bulgaria and its Czar felt at recent news.
Ferdinand, in a letter signed “The Good European,” his usual signature
in this correspondence, told him not to believe the news, adding, “My
sentiments remain unchanged.” Even then he was bargaining with the
enemies of France to betray the cause of the Entente and of the small
nations!
The Bulgarian treaty with Germany was signed on July 17, but on August
15 Ferdinand’s Minister, M. Dobrovitch, was writing to Paris expressing
false hopes of a future Russian success, and holding out elusive
promises that Bulgaria would intervene on the side of the Allies.
“A more shameful comedy has never been enacted,” writes M. Reinach, in
concluding the story of Ferdinand’s final rupture with the country
which he claimed was dearest of all to him, the country of his mother
and of his own upbringing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FERDINAND THE FAITHLESS
“_Ingratitude is the only unforgivable sin._”—OLD BULGARIAN PROVERB.
“_Ferdinand is a clever man, but not to be trusted._”—KING EDWARD VII.
------------------------------------------------------------------------