FERDINAND AS WAR LORD
The world has recently been treated to the sublime spectacle of a
meeting of the Shoddy Czar and the Bloodstained Kaiser at Nish, the
ancient capital of down-trodden Serbia, where the two monarchs, united
only by the nefarious nature of the enterprise in which they are
engaged, exchanged compliments of a dangerous irony. It was
characteristic of Ferdinand that he should veil his impudent jibe under
the screen of a dead language, and refer to his partner in crime as
“Victor et gloriosus,” which, if it means anything, signifies,
“Conqueror and braggart.”
The Kaiser, for his part, stooped to no such refinement of sarcasm. He
made Ferdinand a field-marshal of the German Army, referring to the
“glorious triumphal march of his nation, under its illustrious War
Lord.” In conferring his new rank upon Ferdinand he said, “I am, with
my army, happy that you, by accepting it, have become ‘One of us.’”
The brutal irony of Wilhelm II was probably accepted by crafty
Ferdinand as one more added to the long list of insults he has received
at the Kaiser’s hands. The Czar of Bulgaria has had all sorts of good
qualities claimed for him by his admirers, but the most servile of his
flatterers has never ventured to claim that he has anything of the
soldier in him. That he neglected the common employment of the youth of
his time and his class for the fascination of the study of nature, and
that military matters roused in him the deepest aversion, is conceded
by friend and foe alike.
He has never been able to understand the elements of military theory or
practice, and as Stambuloff pointed out in the Press interview which
gave him so much offence, he was incapable of understanding his
Minister for War. Add to that the fact that he is a timorous man, and
the whole force of irony contained in the apparent fulsomeness of the
Kaiser’s words can be grasped.
His own Commander-in-Chief, the great General Savoff, summed up his
military qualifications in an interview shortly after the conclusion of
the Treaty of Bucarest, that is a standing testimonial to the Bulgarian
Czar’s soldier-like qualities.
“What can you do,” groaned the Bulgarian soldier, “with a man who
always lives in bodily fear—fear of assassination, fear of disease,
fear of accident? You cannot think what a job it was to keep up our
troops’ enthusiasm for a king who dare not look upon a wounded soldier,
who can never be persuaded to go within a mile of a hospital, who
trembles at the sound of the guns, and hides himself in a railway
carriage, in which he flits from place to place, always keeping as far
as possible from the front.”
This short and forcible summary of Ferdinand’s behaviour in time of war
is only at fault since it falls short of the actual details of his
supreme cowardice. No greater physical coward has existed in modern
times. Fear lives with him always; it is a disease rather than a frame
of mind which stern resolution might overcome. He is sick at the sight
of shed blood, he can no more help trembling at the sound of the cannon
than a timid young girl.
One of my most vivid recollections of him is of a struggle with this
craven fear which took place in the sight of a very considerable crowd.
It happened curiously enough at Brussels, where I saw him in 1910. He
was then, as always, most interested in aviation, and in a weak moment
had engaged to make a flight with the Belgian pilot Delamines. Up to
that time no king had ever ascended in an aeroplane, and Ferdinand was
probably impelled to make his rash engagement by his desire to be the
first monarch to fly.
But when the time came for him to enter the machine, he was possessed
by nothing but fear. One could only sympathize with him, so pitiable a
spectacle was he in his terror. His face was livid, and his thin lips
were ashen grey. His jaunty walk had completely gone, and he tottered
to his seat as though he were going to the gallows.
With a supreme effort he gasped, “I am too fat to fly, but let us fly
nevertheless.” It did not sound jocular, but pathetic. But he was in
for it, and was strapped to his seat. There was a cheer when the
aeroplane rose, and the Czar of Bulgaria, with eyes tightly shut,
soared off. Two circuits of the aerodrome he made and then descended to
earth more dead than alive. A flask was offered him as he dismounted,
and with unaffected joy he drained it, and the colour came back to his
cheeks. The reaction set in, and he was sprightly in his satisfaction
at the feat he had accomplished.
Nothing could have been more evident of his will to do bold things, and
of the craven fear that held him back from his wish. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that he placed himself at the head of
his army on the outbreak of the Balkan war, and sallied forth against
the Turks determined to do or die. The very first sight of a wounded
Bulgarian soldier killed all the martial fervour in him, and
thenceforward, like the Duke of Plaza Toro,
He led his regiments from behind,
He found it less exciting.
[Illustration: The first King to fly. Ferdinand with Delamines, at
Brussels, in 1910. _By courtesy of “The Daily Mirror.”_]
The stories of his prowess as Commander-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Army
reveal him as a pitiful mixture of craven cowardice and arrogant
self-sufficiency. He hovered continually on the fringe of the field of
action in his luxurious train, and exercised a restraining influence on
the enterprise of his generals and on the courage of his troops. His
tongue was forever dripping cant phrases about humanity, he was all
composed of compunction as timorous as it was base. But he never lost
sight of his one object in waging war; everything was subordinated to
his overwhelming desire to enter Constantinople at the head of a
victorious army.
The first Balkan war was begun as a war of liberation. In a few months
Ferdinand had converted it into a war of conquest. His punishment was
reaped in the result, for those operations that might reasonably be
ascribed to a desire to rescue the Balkan Christians from the Turkish
yoke were crowned with success; while his attempts at conquest ended in
a humiliating reverse.
The climax of his unworthy terrors came when the Bulgarians were
encamped opposite the Turks at Chatalja, and the uncleanliness and
neglect of both armies resulted in a visitation of cholera. Before that
scourge Ferdinand fled, still insisting on maintaining control of the
operations. But he would receive no message from the infected camp, and
adopted precautions that made the lips of his very toadies curl with
scorn. His timorous precautions prevented his generals from capturing
Adrianople months before that stronghold really fell, while his
explanation that he wished to avoid unnecessary bloodshed deceived no
one. During all this fighting he had to bear the contrast afforded by
his heir, who, to do him justice, bore his part in the war as became a
prince and the heir to a throne.
His experience at the siege of Adrianople afforded him the luxury of a
new terror. At that siege, as the history of warfare will tell, bombs
were for the first time dropped from aeroplanes upon troops and
buildings beneath. The practice appealed to Ferdinand’s lively
imagination, and struck a new terror into his cowardly soul. He lived
in daily dread of an attack from the sky, for the elaborate precautions
he took to avoid any contact with King Death did not cover the risk of
death from above.
The sequel was witnessed when Ferdinand and his Bulgars arrayed
themselves in the Great War on the side of the Teuton Powers and on
that of Bulgaria’s hereditary enemy, Turkey. The haunting dread of an
aeroplane raid upon Sofia was with him night and day. He lost no time
in appealing to the Germans for a Zeppelin to aid the Bulgarian
operations, and his request was granted.
In due course the great airship arrived at Sofia, and its commander
requested from the Czar that he should be given instructions as to what
part of the battle front he should visit. The reply was that for the
present he should remain where he was for the protection of Sofia, that
is, Czar Ferdinand, from the dangers of an air raid. It is pleasant to
reflect that the French aeroplanes came, nevertheless, and did no
little damage to Ferdinand’s capital. Some day, perhaps, we shall know
how the Czar comported himself during their visit.
Such, then, is the military prowess of the man whom the Kaiser
jeeringly termed “an illustrious War Lord.” Not even Ferdinand himself,
with all his marvellous self-sufficiency, could miss the point of that
arrogant sneer. And Ferdinand is a Bourbon, who “remembers nothing and
forgets nothing.” It will be strange if the mighty War Lord does not
one day repent him of jesting so open and ill-timed.
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FERDINAND IN EXTREMIS
“_I am, with my army, happy that you have become ONE of US_.”—THE
KAISER.
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