FERDINAND IN RETIREMENT
Once, in the days when Ferdinand was a sub-lieutenant of Austrian
hussars, the Emperor Franz Joseph stood talking to Kossuth, the
Hungarian statesman, at the window of the palace. As they talked
Ferdinand chanced to pass through the courtyard below, and the Emperor
asked the Hungarian his opinion of the young prince.
“That boy, sire,” said Kossuth, “has a long nose, but it will not be
you who will pull it.”
The prophecy may or may not prove an accurate one, but the personal
observation was inevitable. No one can possibly look at Ferdinand
without being struck by the size and prominence of his nose. “Too
copious for one man,” it has been pronounced, and in the modern gallery
of kings there is certainly no nose like it.
For the rest, the Prince Ferdinand who first affronted the eyes of the
rough Bulgarians was an exquisite, with artificially waved and golden
locks, white hands with long slim fingers, a small waist confined by
obvious corsets, and cold blue eyes that sparkled with self-esteem.
A quarter of a century has not served to modify the dominance of his
all-pervading nose, though it has altered the rest of the man in no
small degree. The long fair moustache and the delicately tended
imperial have given way to a thick crop of grey hair, and a carefully
trimmed and pointed beard. His pinched figure has expanded into a burly
stoutness, his fine hands have gone plump and coarse; he is no longer
the “Prince Charming” of the adventure of 1887; although he still
preserves his personal vanity—for not long ago he had a journalist sent
to gaol for nothing more than making some rude remarks about the length
of his nose. The Ferdinand we are now to see surrounded by his home
influences is a man who affects the manner of a bluff country gentleman.
[Illustration: Ferdinand allows the peasants to kiss his hand.]
Of course it is not possible to speak with any confidence of the manner
of a man so entirely artificial as Ferdinand. He has a separate manner
for every occasion and for every person with whom he comes into
contact. As we have seen, his manner to the Sofiotes is ever one of
aloof and portentous gravity. This pose of the monarch absorbed in the
affairs of State is not an original one. It is copied from the Kaiser,
who has for many years taken the utmost pains to avoid smiling in
public. Not long ago a photographer, to whom the Kaiser was posing,
startled him into a smile by the imperious manner of his instructions.
All the prints made and the negative itself had to be destroyed.
The same pose of a man immersed in matters of superhuman importance has
suited Ferdinand very well in Sofia, and I have shown that it has
served very well to impress the people of that city. But when he was
under a cloud, and forced to remain entirely at his country palaces,
one found him doing the heavy benevolent father of his people, with the
unfortunate Bulgarian peasants as his victims.
The two palaces between which he divided his time were that of Vrana, a
suburb of Sofia where he has an estate at the foot of Mount Vitosch,
and Euxinograd, the “Sandringham” he maintains on the border of the
Black Sea, which was recently shelled with good effect by the Russian
fleet.
Here you might have seen Ferdinand, gotten up in a shooting suit, with
gaiters, thick leather gloves and a heavy stick, walking about the
farms of the peasants and prodding the cattle in the ribs with a
knowing air. Nice clean old peasant women were kept always at hand, to
kiss his finger graciously extended to them, and to impress any foreign
visitor with the urbanity of this monarch, and the good terms on which
he existed with the simple country folk.
Let me quote his English biographer:—
“For the country people the King was a gentleman farmer, knowing
everything about agriculture, tobacco-growing, wine-growing, the state
of the markets, and most pleasant to gossip with. Every village on the
railway line or country road along which the King was coming would turn
out its crowd of people to salute him. In an automobile journey he
would stop to watch or chat with labourers at work in the fields, or at
some hamlet where the teacher took care to have his young folk lined up
in front of their seniors. A pathetic love for childhood is one of the
distinctive traits of Czar Ferdinand’s character.”
One of Ferdinand’s own stories is of a village teacher whom he met
under such circumstances, and whom he graciously invited to come and
see him if ever he visited Sofia. There was a grand levee at the
palace, the story goes, and everybody was attired for the most formal
of Ferdinand’s formal evenings. When the revelry was at its height, a
rough man in baggy brown trousers and a country coat came to the door
and asked to see the King. He was promptly told to go away. But he
refused, and said he had been invited. Then a squabble took place, the
rustic insisting on being allowed an entry.
In the midst of the trouble the King put in an appearance and cordially
greeted his visitor. Shaking him heartily by the hand he led him
through the brilliant throng to his study where he gave him
refreshment. Then he conducted him about the palace, introducing him to
this one and that.
That is a story that Sofia scoffs at, and that is believed by bucolic
Bulgaria. And ninety per cent. of the Bulgarians are essentially
bucolic.
Ferdinand takes the interest in his family that might have been
expected of such a man. He has insisted that each of his four children
shall have a hobby, and is more than a little proud of the electric
bells which Prince Cyril has installed in the Vrana Palace. He alleges
that this feat proves that the younger of his sons has a great
mechanical genius, in which he takes after his father, who can drive a
locomotive to perfection. It is an established theory, therefore, that
eventually Prince Cyril shall succeed his father as Lord High Admiral
of the handful of torpedo craft which constitute the Bulgarian fleet.
The Princesses have been taken in hand by the Czarina, and have
effectually seconded her in the works of mercy that have so occupied
her leisure of recent years. Both are pretty girls resembling their
gentle mother rather than Ferdinand; indeed, there is little
resemblance shown to the Balkan Czar by any of his family.
Ferdinand also goes in for sport in a mild sort of way. One cannot
expect many such remarkable feats as the “valorous” shot that brought
down the eagle which he has had stuffed and mounted in his den. But he
does considerable execution among the little birds along the seashore,
when the dare-devil fit comes upon him. He has also a rooted antipathy
to owls, and will go to the utmost trouble to put one of these birds
out of action.
The reason is a superstitious one. He declares that when any misfortune
is about to overtake him, warning is given by the circumstance of an
owl settling on the flagstaff of his Euxinograd Palace. The fewer owls,
of course, the less opportunity of giving warnings, and so the less
likelihood of misfortune overtaking the Balkan Czar. It is a fine piece
of reasoning, which involves its originator in conduct which in a man
less kind-hearted might almost be accounted as cruelty.
But he makes up for his harshness to owls by a great tenderness to
birds that have bright plumage or sing sweetly. To all such the
Euxinograd estate is a sanctuary, and is consequently the resort of
feathered visitors from the whole country around. They, and the
beautiful collection of caged birds which he maintains, form another
interest to his life at this retreat.
And so, amid his tame peasants and tame birds in the seclusion of his
beautiful gardens, Ferdinand waited for the home storm to blow over,
and for the storm to rise without his kingdom. We understand now that
he knew as well as anyone what was preparing, for he was deep in the
councils of his friend Franz Ferdinand, and not without an inkling of
what was in the mind of his friend’s friend, the Kaiser. The scheme of
these two dark-minded men to attack Russia through Serbia was now in
course of execution.
Ferdinand was still leading the simple life when the world was startled
and horrified by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Who
can say where the guilt of that bloody act really lies? Its effect can
be discerned by the most superficial observer. While Franz Ferdinand
lived there was in Austria a rival to the Kaiser in intellect, in force
of character, in the art of concentrating national effort to the
furtherance of his ambitious schemes.
The murder of the heir to the Austrian throne not only afforded a
pretext for the attempt to inflict German predominance upon the face of
Europe; it also removed from the path of Germany the one man who could
have prevented Austria from sinking to the position of Germany’s vassal.
When the murder was done, Ferdinand, as if by a preconceived signal,
returned from his retirement to actual life. He was now prepared to
embark upon his last and greatest treachery, to put into execution
schemes so devious and so dishonourable that all the perfidy of his
early career sinks into insignificance. His part in the drama of 1914
was set and rehearsed; he now appeared on the stage, taking his cue
with a promptitude that speaks volumes for the thoroughness with which
he had been rehearsed.
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FERDINAND THE FALSE
“_Bulgaria is the final link in the chain of German Kultur and German
greatness._”—THE KAISER.
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