BULGARIA

4

_The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,_ 600–700

The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed

all their movements until their final establishment there in the

seventh century, are involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by

name in classical and Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes

to the north of the Black Sea amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has

been assumed by some that at the end of the fifth and throughout the

sixth century they were associated first with the Huns and later with

the Avars and Slavs in the various incursions into and invasions of the

eastern empire which have already been enumerated. It is the tendency

of Bulgarian historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the

history of Russia only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the

antiquity of their own and to claim as early a date as possible for the

authentic appearance of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of

the Balkan theatre. They are also unwilling to admit that they were

anticipated by the Slavs; they prefer to think that the Slavs only

insinuated themselves there thanks to the energy of the Bulgars’

offensive against the Greeks, and that as soon as the Bulgars had

leisure to look about them they found all the best places already

occupied by the anarchic Slavs.

Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were

or were not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept

westwards into Europe with little intermission throughout the fifth and

sixth centuries, but even if they were, they do not seem to have

settled down as early as that anywhere south of the Danube; it seems

certain that they did not do so until the seventh century, and

therefore that the Slavs were definitely installed in the Balkan

peninsula a whole century before the Bulgars crossed the Danube for

good.

The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like

the Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from eastern

Asia, of the stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of all these

peoples was to move westwards from Asia into Europe, and this they did

at considerable and irregular intervals, though in alarming and

apparently inexhaustible numbers, roughly from the fourth till the

fourteenth centuries. The distance was great, but the journey, thanks

to the flat, grassy, treeless, and well-watered character of the

steppes of southern Russia which they had to cross, was easy. They

often halted for considerable periods by the way, and some never moved

further westwards than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in

large numbers on the Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it

is presumed that they were well established there in the fifth century.

They formed a community of considerable strength and importance, known

as Great or White Bulgaria. These Bulgars fused with later Tartar

immigrants from Asia and eventually were consolidated into the powerful

kingdom of Kazan, which was only crushed by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552.

According to Bulgarian historians, the basins of the rivers Volga and

Don and the steppes of eastern Russia proved too confined a space for

the legitimate development of Bulgarian energy, and expansion to the

west was decided on. A large number of Bulgars therefore detached

themselves and began to move south-westwards. During the sixth century

they seem to have been settled in the country to the north of the Black

Sea, forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria. It is very doubtful

whether the Bulgars did take part, as they are supposed to have done,

in the ambitious but unsuccessful attack on Constantinople in 559 under

Zabergan, chief of another Tartar tribe; but it is fairly certain that

they did in the equally formidable but equally unsuccessful attacks by

the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609 and Constantinople in 626.

During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh

century the various branches of the Bulgar nation, stretching from the

Volga to the Danube, were consolidated and kept in control by their

prince Kubrat, who eventually fought on behalf of the Greeks against

the Avars, and was actually baptized in Constantinople. The power of

the Bulgars grew as that of the Avars declined, but at the death of

Kubrat, in 638, his realm was divided amongst his sons. One of these

established himself in Pannonia, where he joined forces with what was

left of the Avars, and there the Bulgars maintained themselves till

they were obliterated by the irruption of the Magyars in 893. Another

son, Asparukh, or Isperikh, settled in Bessarabia, between the rivers

Prut and Dniester, in 640, and some years later passed southwards.

After desultory warfare with Constantinople, from 660 onwards, his

successor finally overcame the Greeks, who were at that time at war

with the Arabs, captured Varna, and definitely established himself

between the Danube and the Balkan range in the year 679. From that year

the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.

The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not

known, but what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process,

by which the Franks in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous

indigenous population which they had conquered, was repeated, and the

Bulgars became fused with the Slavs. So complete was the fusion, and so

preponderating the influence of the subject nationality, that beyond a

few personal names no traces of the language of the Bulgars have

survived. Modern Bulgarian, except for the Turkish words introduced

into it later during the Ottoman rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so the

Bulgarian nationality; as is so often the case with mongrel products,

this race, compared with the Serbs, who are purely Slav, has shown

considerably greater virility, cohesion, and driving-power, though it

must be conceded that its problems have been infinitely simpler.

5

_The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity_,

700–893

From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have

given their name the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks,

and ever since both peoples have looked on one another as natural and

hereditary enemies. The Bulgars, like all the barbarians who had

preceded them, were fascinated by the honey-pot of Constantinople, and,

though they never succeeded in taking it, they never grew tired of

making the attempt.

For two hundred years after the death of Asparukh, in 661, the Bulgars

were perpetually fighting either against the Greeks or else amongst

themselves. At times a diversion was caused by the Bulgars taking the

part of the Greeks, as in 718, when they ‘delivered’ Constantinople, at

the invocation of the Emperor Leo, from the Arabs, who were besieging

it. From about this time the Bulgarian monarchy, which had been

hereditary, became elective, and the anarchy of the many, which the

Bulgars found when they arrived, and which their first few autocratic

rulers had been able to control, was replaced by an anarchy of the few.

Prince succeeded prince, war followed war, at the will of the feudal

nobles. This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks,

who lavishly subsidized the rival factions.

At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined

forces with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the

Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards

towards the Danube. In this the Bulgars were completely successful

under the leadership of one Krum, whom, in the elation of victory, they

promptly elected to the throne. Krum was a far more capable ruler than

they had bargained for, and he not only united all the Bulgars north

and south of the Danube into one dominion, but also forcibly repressed

the whims of the nobles and re-established the autocracy and the

hereditary monarchy. Having finished with his enemies in the north, he

turned his attention to the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he

captured from them the important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica,

known to the Slavs as Sredets), which is to-day the capital of

Bulgaria. The loss of this city was a blow to the Greeks, because it

was a great centre of commerce and also the point at which the

commercial and strategic highways of the peninsula met and crossed. The

Emperor Nikiphóros, who wished to take his revenge and recover his lost

property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars and lost his life in the

Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at Mesembria (the modern

Misivria) in 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum appeared before the

capital, where he nearly lost his life in an ambush while negotiating

for peace. During preparations for a final assault on Constantinople he

died suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to have introduced

civilisation into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power and gave

it some of the more essential organs of government. He framed a code of

laws remarkable for their rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary in

such a community and beneficial in its effect. He repressed civil

strife, and by this means made possible the reawakening of commerce and

agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity, founded in 822 the

city of Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav), situated in

eastern Bulgaria, between Varna and Silistria, which was the capital

until 972.

The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed

the definitive conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It

is within this period also that fell the activities of the two great

‘Slavonic’ missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and Methodius,

who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders

of their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into

Bulgaria (or Moesia, as it was then) long before the arrival of the

Slavs and Bulgars, but the influx of one horde of barbarians after

another was naturally not propitious to its growth. The conversion of

Boris in 865, which was brought about largely by the influence of his

sister, who had spent many years in Constantinople as a captive, was a

triumph for Greek influence and for Byzantium. Though the Church was at

this time still nominally one, yet the rivalry between Rome and

Constantinople had already become acute, and the struggle for spheres

of spiritual influence had begun. It was in the year 863 that the

Prince of Moravia, anxious to introduce Christianity into his country

in a form intelligible to his subjects, addressed himself to the

Emperor Michael III for help. Rome could not provide any suitable

missionaries with knowledge of Slavonic languages, and the German, or

more exactly the Bavarian, hierarchy with which Rome entrusted the

spiritual welfare of the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia used its greater

local knowledge for political and not religious ends. The Germans

exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order completely to

dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter were only

allowed to see the Church through Teutonic glasses.

In answer to this appeal the emperor sent the two brothers Cyril and

Methodius, who were Greeks of Salonika and had considerable knowledge

of Slavonic languages. They composed the Slavonic alphabet which is

to-day used throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and in

many parts of Austria-Hungary and translated the gospels into Slavonic;

it is for this reason that they are regarded with such veneration by

all members of the Eastern Church. Their mission proved the greatest

success (it must be remembered that at this time the various Slavonic

tongues were probably less dissimilar than they are now), and the two

brothers were warmly welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, who formally

consented to the use, for the benefit of the Slavs, of the Slavonic

liturgy (a remarkable concession, confirmed by Pope John VIII). This

triumph, however, was short-lived; St. Cyril died in 869 and St.

Methodius in 885; subsequent Popes, notably Stephen V, were not so

benevolent to the Slavonic cause; the machinations of the German

hierarchy (which included, even in those days, the falsification of

documents) were irresistible, and finally the invasion of the Magyars,

in 893, destroyed what was left of the Slavonic Church in Moravia. The

missionary brothers had probably passed through Bulgaria on their way

north in 863, but without halting. Many of their disciples, driven from

the Moravian kingdom by the Germans, came south and took refuge in

Bulgaria in 886, and there carried on in more favourable circumstances

the teachings of their masters. Prince Boris had found it easier to

adopt Christianity himself than to induce all his subjects to do the

same. Even when he had enforced his will on them at the price of

numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at

the beginning of his difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to

welcome Bulgaria into the fold, but they had no wish to set up an

independent Church and hierarchy to rival their own. Boris, on the

other hand, though no doubt full of genuine spiritual ardour, was above

all impressed with the authority and prestige which the basileus

derived from the Church of Constantinople; he also admired the pomp of

ecclesiastical ceremony, and wished to have a patriarch of his own to

crown him and a hierarchy of his own to serve him. Finding the Greeks

unresponsive, he turned to Rome, and Pope Nicholas I sent him two

bishops to superintend the ecclesiastical affairs of Bulgaria till the

investiture of Boris at the hands of the Holy See could be arranged.

These bishops set to work with a will, substituted the Latin for the

Greek rite, and brought Bulgaria completely under Roman influence. But

when it was discovered that Boris was aiming at the erection of an

independent Church their enthusiasm abated and they were recalled to

Rome in 867.

Adrian II proved no more sympathetic, and in 870, during the reign of

the Emperor Basil I, it was decided without more ado that the Bulgarian

Church should be directly under the Bishop of Constantinople, on the

ground that the kingdom of Boris was a vassal-state of the basileus,

and that from the Byzantine point of view, as opposed to that of Rome,

the State came first and the Church next. The Moravian Gorazd, a

disciple of Methodius, was appointed Metropolitan, and at his death he

was succeeded by his fellow countryman and co-disciple Clement, who by

means of the construction of numerous churches and monasteries did a

great deal for the propagation of light and learning in Bulgaria. The

definite subjection of the Bulgarian Church to that of Byzantium was an

important and far-reaching event. Boris has been reproached with

submitting himself and his country to Greek influence, but in those

days it was either Constantinople or Rome (there was no third way); and

in view of the proximity of Constantinople and the glamour which its

civilization cast all over the Balkans, it is not surprising that the

Greeks carried the day.

6

_The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire_, 893–972

During the reign of Simeon, second son of Boris, which lasted from 893

to 927, Bulgaria reached a very high level of power and prosperity.

Simeon, called the Great, is looked on by Bulgarians as their most

capable monarch and his reign as the most brilliant period of their

history. He had spent his childhood at Constantinople and been educated

there, and he became such an admirer of Greek civilization that he was

nicknamed _Hèmiargos_. His instructors had done their work so well that

Simeon remained spellbound by the glamour of Constantinople throughout

his life, and, although he might have laid the foundations of a solid

empire in the Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and to

be recognized as basileus—an ambition which was not to be fulfilled.

His first campaign against the Greeks was not very fruitful, because

the latter summoned the Magyars, already settled in Hungary, to their

aid and they attacked Simeon from the north. Simeon in return called

the Pechenegs, another fierce Tartar tribe, to his aid, but this merely

resulted in their definite establishment in Rumania. During the twenty

years of peace, which strange to say filled the middle of his reign

(894-913), the internal development of Bulgaria made great strides. The

administration was properly organized, commerce was encouraged, and

agriculture flourished. In the wars against the Greeks which occupied

his last years he was more successful, and inflicted a severe defeat on

them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917; but he was still unable to

get from them what he wanted, and at last, in 921, he was obliged to

proclaim himself _basileus_ and _autocratōr_ of all Bulgars and Greeks,

a title which nobody else recognized. He reappeared before

Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more than the

customary devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a solemn

reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were clever

enough to prevent the Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their return

journey, and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was anxious

to see them and enter into direct relations with Rome. In the same year

Simeon tried to make an alliance with the Arabs, but the ambassadors of

the latter were intercepted by the Greeks, who made it worth their

while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.

In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort against Constantinople and

as a preliminary he ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. When, however, he

arrived before the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate,

and he entered into negotiations, which, as usual, petered out and

brought him no adequate reward for all his hopes and preparations. In

the west his arms were more successful, and he subjected most of the

eastern part of Serbia to his rule. From all this it can be seen that

he was no diplomat, though not lacking in enterprise and ambition. The

fact was that while he made his kingdom too powerful for the Greeks to

subdue (indeed they were compelled to pay him tribute), yet

Constantinople with its impregnable walls, well-organized army,

powerful fleet, and cunning and experienced statesmen, was too hard a

nut for him to crack.

Simeon extended the boundaries of his country considerably, and his

dominion included most of the interior of the Balkan peninsula south of

the Danube and east of the rivers Morava and Ibar in Serbia and of the

Drin in Albania. The Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence

in Bulgaria during his reign, and works of theology grew like

mushrooms. This was the only kind of literature that was ever popular

in Bulgaria, and although it is usual to throw contempt on the literary

achievements of Constantinople, we should know but little of Bulgaria

were it not for the Greek historians.

Simeon died in 927, and his son Peter, who succeeded him, was a lover

of peace and comfort; he married a Byzantine princess, and during his

reign (927-69) Greek influence grew ever stronger, in spite of several

revolts on the part of the Bulgar nobles, while the capital Preslav

became a miniature Constantinople. In 927 Rome recognized the kingdom

and patriarchate of Bulgaria, and Peter was duly crowned by the Papal

legate. This was viewed with disfavour by the Greeks, and they still

called Peter only _archōn_ or prince (_knyaz_ in Bulgarian), which was

the utmost title allowed to any foreign sovereign. It was not until 945

that they recognized Peter as _basileus_, the unique title possessed by

their own emperors and till then never granted to any one else. Peter’s

reign was one of misfortune for his country both at home and abroad. In

931 the Serbs broke loose under their leader Časlav, whom Simeon had

captured but who effected his escape, and asserted their independence.

In 963 a formidable revolt under one Shishman undermined the whole

state fabric. He managed to subtract Macedonia and all western

Bulgaria, including Sofia and Vidin, from Peter’s rule, and proclaimed

himself independent _tsar (tsar_ or _caesar_ was a title often accorded

by Byzantium to relatives of the emperor or to distinguished men of

Greek or other nationality, and though it was originally the equivalent

of the highest title, it had long since ceased to be so: the emperor’s

designations were _basileus_ and _autocratōr_). From this time there

were two Bulgarias—eastern and western. The eastern half was now little

more than a Byzantine province, and the western became the centre of

national life and the focus of national aspirations.

Another factor which militated against the internal progress of

Bulgaria was the spread of the Bogomil heresy in the tenth century.

This remarkable doctrine, founded on the dualism of the Paulicians, who

had become an important political force in the eastern empire, was

preached in the Balkan peninsula by one Jeremiah Bogomil, for the rest

a man of uncertain identity, who made Philippopolis the centre of his

activity. Its principal features were of a negative character, and

consequently it was very difficult successfully to apply force against

them. The Bogomils recognized the authority neither of Church nor of

State; the validity neither of oaths nor of human laws. They refused to

pay taxes, to fight, or to obey; they sanctioned theft, but looked upon

any kind of punishment as unjustifiable; they discountenanced marriage

and were strict vegetarians. Naturally a heresy so alarming in its

individualism shook to its foundations the not very firmly established

Bulgarian society. Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in spite of all

persecutions, and its popularity amongst the Bulgarians, and indeed

amongst all the Slavs of the peninsula, is without doubt partly

explained by political reasons. The hierarchy of the Greek Church,

which supported the ruling classes of the country and lent them

authority at the same time that it increased its own, was antipathetic

to the Slavs, and the Bogomil heresy drew much strength from its

nationalistic colouring and from the appeal which it made to the

character of the Balkan Slavs, who have always been intolerant of

government by the Church. But neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical

authorities were able to cope with the problem; indeed they were apt to

minimize its importance, and the heresy was never eradicated till the

arrival on the scene of Islam, which proved as attractive to the

schismatics as the well-regulated Orthodox Church had been the reverse.

The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a great recrudescence

of the power of Constantinople under the Emperor Nikiphóros Phokas, who

wrested Cyprus and Crete from the Arabs and inaugurated an era of

prosperity for the eastern empire, giving it a new lease of vigorous

and combative life. Wishing to reassert the Greek supremacy in the

Balkan peninsula his first act was to refuse any further payment of

tribute to the Bulgarians as from 966; his next was to initiate a

campaign against them, but in order to make his own success in this

enterprise less costly and more assured he secured the co-operation of

the Russians under Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev; this potentate’s mother

Olga had visited Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (though her

son and the bulk of the population were still ardent heathens), and

commercial intercourse between Russia and Constantinople by means of

the Dnieper and the Black Sea was at that time lively. Svyatoslav did

not want pressing, and arriving with an army of 10,000 men in boats,

overcame northern Bulgaria in a few days (967); they were helped by

Shishman and the western Bulgars, who did not mind at what price Peter

and the eastern Bulgars were crushed. Svyatoslav was recalled to Russia

in 968 to defend his home from attacks by the Tartar Pechenegs, but

that done, he made up his mind to return to Bulgaria, lured by its

riches and by the hope of the eventual possession of Constantinople.

The Emperor Nikiphóros was by now aware of the danger he had

imprudently conjured up, and made a futile alliance with eastern

Bulgaria; but in January 969 Peter of Bulgaria died, and in December of

the same year Nikiphóros was murdered by the ambitious Armenian John

Tzimisces,[1] who thereupon became emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the

field clear of his enemies, returned in 970, and in March of that year

sacked and occupied Philippopolis. The Emperor John Tzimisces, who was

even abler both as general and as diplomat than his predecessor,

quietly pushed forward his warlike preparations, and did not meet the

Russians till the autumn, when he completely defeated them at

Arcadiopolis (the modern Lule-Burgas). The Russians retired north of

the Balkan range, but the Greeks followed them. John Tzimisces besieged

them in the capital Preslav, which he stormed, massacring many of the

garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and his remaining troops escaped to

Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the Danube, where again,

however, they were besieged and defeated by the indefatigable emperor.

At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians being allowed to go

free on condition of the complete evacuation of Bulgaria and a gift of

corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at the hands of the

Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev. The triumph of the Greeks

was complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much left of

the earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two

mighty iron vessels on the top of it. Eastern Bulgaria (i.e. Moesia and

Thrace) ceased to exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John

Tzimisces made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, followed by the

two sons of Peter of Bulgaria on foot; the elder was deprived of his

regal attributes and created _magistros_, the younger was made a

eunuch.

[Footnote 1: John the Little.]

7

_The Rise and Fall of ‘Western Bulgaria’ and the Greek Supremacy_,

963–1186

Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither

that the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the

victory of the Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in

Macedonia, where the apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital.

Western Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania,

southern and eastern Serbia, and the westernmost parts of modern

Bulgaria. It was from this district that numerous anti-Hellenic revolts

were directed after the death of the Emperor John Tzimisces in 976.

These culminated during the reign of Samuel (977-1014), one of the sons

of Shishman. He was as capable and energetic, as unscrupulous and

inhuman, as the situation he was called upon to fill demanded. He began

by assassinating all his relations and nobles who resented his desire

to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was recognized as _tsar_ by the

Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to fight the Greeks, the only

possible occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler. The

emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was brave and

patriotic but young and inexperienced. In his early campaigns Samuel

carried all before him; he reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985,

Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II near Sofia the same year. Later

he conquered Albania and the southern parts of Serbia and what is now

Montenegro and Hercegovina. In 996 he threatened Salonika, but first of

all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese; here he was

followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and completely

overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.

From that year (996) his fortune changed; the Greeks reoccupied

northern Bulgaria, in 999, and also recovered Thessaly and parts of

Macedonia. The Bulgars were subjected to almost annual attacks on the

part of Basil II; the country was ruined and could not long hold out.

The final disaster occurred in 1014, when Basil II utterly defeated his

inveterate foe in a pass near Seres in Macedonia. Samuel escaped to

Prilip, but when he beheld the return of 15,000 of his troops who had

been captured and blinded by the Greeks he died of syncope. Basil II,

known as Bulgaroctonus, or Bulgar-killer, went from victory to victory,

and finally occupied the Bulgarian capital of Okhrida in 1016. Western

Bulgaria came to an end, as had eastern Bulgaria in 972, the remaining

members of the royal family followed the emperor to the Bosphorus to

enjoy comfortable captivity, and the triumph of Constantinople was

complete.

From 1018 to 1186 Bulgaria had no existence as an independent state;

Basil II, although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general

treatment of the Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a

protectorate than as a possession. But after his death Greek rule

became much more oppressive. The Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972

established at Okhrida) was reduced to an archbishopric, and in 1025

the see was given to a Greek, who lost no time in eliminating the

Bulgarian element from positions of importance throughout his diocese.

Many of the nobles were transplanted to Constantinople, where their

opposition was numbed by the bestowal of honours. During the eleventh

century the peninsula was invaded frequently by the Tartar Pechenegs

and Kumans, whose aid was invoked both by Greeks and Bulgars; the

result of these incursions was not always favourable to those who had

promoted them; the barbarians invariably stayed longer and did more

damage than had been bargained for, and usually left some of their

number behind as unwelcome settlers.

In this way the ethnological map of the Balkan peninsula became ever

more variegated. To the Tartar settlers were added colonies of

Armenians and Vlakhs by various emperors. The last touch was given by

the arrival of the Normans in 1081 and the passage of the crusaders in

1096. The wholesale depredations of the latter naturally made the

inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula anything but sympathetically

disposed towards their cause. One of the results of all this turmoil

and of the heavy hand of the Greeks was a great increase in the

vitality of the Bogomil heresy already referred to; it became a refuge

for patriotism and an outlet for its expression. The Emperor Alexis

Comnenus instituted a bitter persecution of it, which only led to its

growth and rapid propagation westwards into Serbia from its centre

Philippopolis.

The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian monarchy by the

Greeks was of course that the nation itself was totally lacking in

cohesion and organization, and could only achieve any lasting success

when an exceptionally gifted ruler managed to discount the centrifugal

tendencies of the feudal nobles, as Simeon and Samuel had done. Other

discouraging factors wore the permeation of the Church and State by

Byzantine influence, the lack of a large standing army, the spread of

the anarchic Bogomil heresy, and the fact that the bulk of the Slav

population had no desire for foreign adventure or national

aggrandizement.

8

_The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire,_ 1186–1258

From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the

brevity of which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature

of the events that crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the

Greeks culminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars, which had its

centre in Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northern Bulgaria—a position

of great natural strength and strategic importance, commanding the

outlets of several of the most important passes over the Balkan range.

This revolt coincided with the growing weakness of the eastern empire,

which, surrounded on all sides by aggressive enemies—Kumans, Saracens,

Turks, and Normans—was sickening for one of the severe illnesses which

preceded its dissolution. The revolt was headed by two brothers who

were Vlakh or Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the archbishop

Basil, who crowned one of them, called John Asen, as _tsar_ in Tirnovo

in 1186. Their first efforts against the Greeks were not successful,

but securing the support of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and

of the Crusaders in 1189 they became more so; but there was life in the

Greeks yet, and victory alternated with defeat. John Asen I was

assassinated in 1196 and was succeeded after many internal discords and

murders by his relative Kaloian or Pretty John. This cruel and

unscrupulous though determined ruler soon made an end of all his

enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such success abroad that

Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions. Moreover, he

re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture of the

Greeks, and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized

Kaloian as _tsar_ of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de

Bougrie, in the words of Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and

they were both duly consecrated and crowned by the papal legate at

Tirnovo in 1204. The French, who had just established themselves in

Constantinople during the fourth crusade, imprudently made an enemy of

Kaloian instead of a friend, and with the aid of the Tartar Kumans he

defeated them several times, capturing and brutally murdering Baldwin

I. But in 1207 his career was cut short; he was murdered while

besieging Salonika by one of his generals who was a friend of his wife.

After eleven years of further anarchy he was succeeded by John Asen II.

During the reign of this monarch, which lasted from 1218 till 1241,

Bulgaria reached the zenith of its power. He was the most enlightened

ruler the country had had, and he not only waged war successfully

abroad but also put an end to the internal confusion, restored the

possibility of carrying on agriculture and commerce, and encouraged the

foundation of numerous schools and monasteries. He maintained the

tradition of his family by making his capital at Tirnovo, which city he

considerably embellished and enlarged.

Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one

French. The first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them,

named Theodore, who had proclaimed himself _basileus_ at Okhrida in

1223. Thereupon he annexed the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly,

and Epirus to his dominions, and made Theodore’s brother Manuel, who

had married one of his daughters, viceroy, established at Salonika.

Another of his daughters had married Stephen Vladislav, who was King of

Serbia from 1233-43, and a third married Theodore, son of the Emperor

John III, who reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter, after being

sought in marriage by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife for

the Emperor Baldwin II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour

of the daughter of the King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the

mind of John Asen II and threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with

whom he concluded an alliance in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the

Emperor John III, were, however, utterly defeated by the French under

the walls of Constantinople in 1236, and the Bulgarian ruler, who had

no wish to see the Greeks re-established there, began to doubt the

wisdom of his alliance. Other Bulgarian tsars had been unscrupulous,

but the whole foreign policy of this one pivoted on treachery. He

deserted the Greeks and made an alliance with the French in 1237, the

Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him with

excommunication; he went so far as to force his daughter to relinquish

her Greek husband. The following year, however, he again changed over

to the Greeks; then again fear of the Pope and of his brother-in-law

the King of Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin II, to

whose help against the Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace in

1239. While besieging the Greeks with indifferent success, he learned

of the death of his wife and his eldest son from plague, and

incontinently returned to Tirnovo, giving up the war and restoring his

daughter to her lonely husband. This adaptable monarch died a natural

death in 1241, and the three rulers of his family who succeeded him,

whose reigns filled the period 1241-58, managed to undo all the

constructive work of their immediate predecessors. Province after

province was lost and internal anarchy increased. This remarkable

dynasty came to an inglorious end in 1258, when its last representative

was murdered by his own nobles, and from this time onwards Bulgaria was

only a shadow of its former self.

9

_The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse,_ 1258–1393

From 1258 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have continued flickering

until its final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period

it never had any voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan

peninsula. Owing to the fact that no ruler emerged capable of keeping

the distracted country in order, there was a regular _chassé-croisé_ of

rival princelets, an unceasing tale of political marriages and murders,

conspiracies and revolts of feudal nobles all over the country, and

perpetual ebb and flow of the boundaries of the warring principalities

which tore the fabric of Bulgaria to pieces amongst them. From the

point of view of foreign politics this period is characterized

generally by the virtual disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the

profit of the surrounding states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist

supremacy. It is especially remarkable for the complete ascendancy

which Serbia gained in the Balkan peninsula.

A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the

Bulgarian throne from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of

John Asen II. After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in

1261, the Hungarians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with

the Greeks against Constantine; the latter called the Tartars of

southern Russia, at this time at the height of their power, to his help

and was victorious, but as a result of his diplomacy the Tartars

henceforward played an important part in the Bulgarian welter. Then

Constantine married, as his second wife, the daughter of the Greek

emperor, and thus again gave Constantinople a voice in his country’s

affairs. Constantine was followed by a series of upstart rulers, whose

activities were cut short by the victories of King Uroš II of Serbia

(1282-1321), who conquered all Macedonia and wrested it from the

Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the Golden Horde swept over Hungary and

Bulgaria, but it was from the south that the clouds were rolling up

which not much later were to burst over the peninsula. In 1308 the

Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in 1326 established

themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was presided over by a

nobleman of Vidin, Svetoslav, who, unmolested by the Greeks, grown

thoughtful in view of the approach of the Turks, was able to maintain

rather more order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his death

in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married the

daughter of Uroš II of Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with the

Greeks against his brother-in-law Stephen Uroš III and dispatched his

wife to her home. During the war which ensued the unwonted allies were

utterly routed by the Serbs at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.

From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of

Tartar origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia’s greatest ruler,

Stephen Dušan; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his

suzerain, and from thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia.

Meanwhile the Turkish storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the

Hellespont in 1356, and Murad I made Adrianople his capital in 1366.

After the death of John Alexander in 1365 the Hungarians invaded

northern Bulgaria, and his successor invoked the help of the Turks

against them and also against the Greeks. This was the beginning of the

end. The Serbs, during an absence of the Sultan in Asia, undertook an

offensive, but were defeated by the Turks near Adrianople in 1371, who

captured Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs formed a huge southern

Slav alliance, in which the Bulgarians refused to join, but, after a

temporary success against the Turks in 1387, they were vanquished by

them as the result of treachery at the famous battle of Kosovo in 1389.

Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on the Danube in 1388 and

destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling the Patriarch

Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into the hands

of the Turks, and its church into those of the Greeks. Many Bulgars

adopted Islam, and their descendants are the Pomaks or Bulgarian

Mohammedans of the present day. With the subjection of Rumania in 1394

and the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western

Europe under Sigismund, King of Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the

Turkish conquest was complete, though the battle of Varna was not

fought till 1444, nor Constantinople entered till 1453.

10

_The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation,_ 1393–1878

From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no

history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy.

National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days

for national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and

most people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have

many excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst

others; it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too

much cannot be said in praise of Mohammedan civilization. Who does not

prefer the minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the architecture of

Budapest, notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern Europe? On

the other hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought

prosperity or happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed

they submerged their identity in the religion of their conquerors), or

that its Influence was either vivifying or generally popular.

[Footnote 1: The Turkish names for Constantinople and Adrianople.]

To the races they conquered the Turks offered two alternatives—serfdom

or Turkdom; those who could not bring themselves to accept either of

these had either to emigrate or take to brigandage and outlawry in the

mountains. The Turks literally overlaid the European nationalities of

the Balkan peninsula for five hundred years, and from their own point

of view and from that of military history this was undoubtedly a very

splendid achievement; it was more than the Greeks or Romans had ever

done. From the point of view of humanitarianism also it is beyond a

doubt that much less human blood was spilt in the Balkan peninsula

during the five hundred years of Turkish rule than during the five

hundred years of Christian rule which preceded them; indeed it would

have been difficult to spill more. It is also a pure illusion to think

of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or cruel; they are just as

good-natured and good-humoured as anybody else; it is only when their

military or religious passions are aroused that they become more

reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks who

taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan peninsula; the latter

had nothing to learn in this respect.

In spite of all this, however, from the point of view of the Slavs of

Bulgaria and Serbia, Turkish rule was synonymous with suffocation. If

the Turks were all that their greatest admirers think them the history

of the Balkan peninsula in the nineteenth century would have been very

different from what it has been, namely, one perpetual series of

anti-Turkish revolts.

Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the most completely

crushed and effaced. The Greeks by their ubiquity, their brains, and

their money were soon able to make the Turkish storm drive their own

windmill; the Rumanians were somewhat sheltered by the Danube and also

by their distance from Constantinople; the Serbs also were not so

exposed to the full blast of the Turkish wrath, and the inaccessibility

of much of their country afforded them some protection. Bulgaria was

simply annihilated, and its population, already far from homogeneous,

was still further varied by numerous Turkish and other Tartar colonies.

For the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the last Balkan

state to emancipate itself; for these reasons also it is the least

trammelled by prejudices and by what are considered national

predilections and racial affinities, while its heterogeneous

composition makes it vigorous and enterprising. The treatment of the

Christians by the Turks was by no means always the same; generally

speaking, it grew worse as the power of the Sultan grew less. During

the fifteenth century they were allowed to practise their religion and

all their vocations in comparative liberty and peace. But from the

sixteenth century onwards the control of the Sultan declined, power

became decentralized, the Ottoman Empire grew ever more anarchic and

the rule of the provincial governors more despotic.

But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the only enemies and oppressors

of the Bulgars. The rôle played by the Greeks in Bulgaria during the

Turkish dominion was almost as important as that of the Turks

themselves. The contempt of the Turks for the Christians, and

especially for their religion, was so great that they prudently left

the management of it to them, knowing that it would keep them occupied

in mutual altercation. From 1393 till 1767 the Bulgarians were under

the Greco-Bulgarian Patriarchate of Okhrida, an organization in which

all posts, from the highest to the lowest, had to be bought from the

Turkish administration at exorbitant and ever-rising prices; the

Phanariote Greeks (so called because they originated in the Phanar

quarter at Constantinople) were the only ones who could afford those of

the higher posts, with the result that the Church was controlled from

Constantinople. In 1767 the independent patriarchates were abolished,

and from that date the religious control of the Greeks was as complete

as the political control of the Turks. The Greeks did all they could to

obliterate the last traces of Bulgarian nationality which had survived

in the Church, and this explains a fact which must never be forgotten,

which had its origin in the remote past, but grew more pronounced at

this period, that the individual hatred of Greeks and Bulgars of each

other has always been far more intense than their collective hatred of

the Turks.

Ever since the marriage of the Tsar Ivan III with the niece of the last

Greek Emperor, in 1472, Russia had considered itself the trustee of the

eastern Christians, the defender of the Orthodox Church, and the direct

heir of the glory and prestige of Constantinople; it was not until the

eighteenth century, however, after the consolidation of the Russian

state, that the Balkan Christians were championed and the eventual

possession of Constantinople was seriously considered. Russian

influence was first asserted in Rumania after the Treaty of

Kuchuk-Kainardji, in 1774. It was only the Napoleonic war in 1812 that

prevented the Russians from extending their territory south of the

Danube, whither it already stretched. Serbia was partially free by

1826, and Greece achieved complete independence in 1830, when the

Russian troops, in order to coerce the Turks, occupied part of Bulgaria

and advanced as far as Adrianople. Bulgaria, being nearer to and more

easily repressed by Constantinople, had to wait, and tentative revolts

made about this time were put down with much bloodshed and were

followed by wholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia and

importations of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts. The

Crimean War and the short-sighted championship of Turkey by the western

European powers checked considerably the development at which Russia

aimed. Moldavia and Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the

semi-protectorate which Russia had long exercised over them, and in

1861 formed themselves into the united state of Rumania. In 1866 a

German prince, Charles of Hohenzollern, came to rule over the country,

the first sign of German influence in the Near East; at this time

Rumania still acknowledged the supremacy of the Sultan.

During the first half of the nineteenth century there took place a

considerable intellectual renascence in Bulgaria, a movement fostered

by wealthy Bulgarian merchants of Bucarest and Odessa. In 1829 a

history of Bulgaria was published by a native of that country in

Moscow; in 1835 the first school was established in Bulgaria, and many

others soon followed. It must be remembered that not only was nothing

known at that time about Bulgaria and its inhabitants in other

countries, but the Bulgars had themselves to be taught who they were.

The Bulgarian people in Bulgaria consisted entirely of peasants; there

was no Bulgarian upper or middle or ‘intelligent’ or professional

class; those enlightened Bulgars who existed were domiciled in other

countries; the Church was in the hands of the Greeks, who vied with the

Turks in suppressing Bulgarian nationality.

The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the

enlightenment and emancipation of Bulgaria were dissimilar in

composition and in aim; the members of the former were more intent on

educational and religious reform, and aimed at the gradual and peaceful

regeneration of their country by these means; the latter wished to

effect the immediate political emancipation of Bulgaria by violent and,

if necessary, warlike means.

It was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first. In 1856 the

Porte had promised religious reforms tending to the appointment of

Bulgarian bishops and the recognition of the Bulgarian language in

Church and school. But these not being carried through, the Bulgarians

took the matter into their own hands, and in 1860 refused any longer to

recognize the Patriarch of Constantinople. The same year an attempt was

made to bring the Church of Bulgaria under that of Rome, but, owing to

Russian opposition, proved abortive. In 1870, the growing agitation

having at last alarmed the Turks, the Bulgarian Exarchate was

established. The Bulgarian Church was made free and national and was to

be under an Exarch who should reside at Constantinople (Bulgaria being

still a Turkish province). The Greeks, conscious what a blow this would

be to their supremacy, managed for a short while to stave off the evil

day, but in 1872 the Exarch was triumphantly installed in

Constantinople, where he resided till 1908.

Meanwhile revolutionary outbreaks began to increase, but were always

put down with great rigour. The most notable was that of 1875,

instigated by Stambulóv, the future dictator, in sympathy with the

outbreak in Montenegro, Hercegovina, and Bosnia of that year; the

result of this and of similar movements in 1876 was the series of

notorious Bulgarian massacres in that year. The indignation of Europe

was aroused and concerted representations were urgently made at

Constantinople. Midhat Pasha disarmed his opponents by summarily

introducing the British constitution into Turkey, but, needless to say,

Bulgaria’s lot was not improved by this specious device. Russia had,

however, steadily been making her preparations, and, Turkey having

refused to discontinue hostilities against Montenegro, on April 24,

1877, war was declared by the Emperor Alexander II, whose patience had

become exhausted; he was joined by Prince Charles of Rumania, who saw

that by doing so he would be rewarded by the complete emancipation of

his country, then still a vassal-state of Turkey, and its erection into

a kingdom. At the beginning of the war all went well for the Russians

and Rumanians, who were soon joined by large numbers of Bulgarian

insurgents; the Turkish forces were scattered all over the peninsula.

The committee of Bucarest transformed itself into a provisional

government, but the Russians, who had undertaken to liberate the

country, naturally had to keep its administration temporarily in their

own hands, and refused their recognition. The Turks, alarmed at the

early victories of the Russians, brought up better generals and troops,

and defeated the Russians at Plevna in July. They failed, however, to

dislodge them from the important and famous Shipka Pass in August, and

after this they became demoralized and their resistance rapidly

weakened. The Russians, helped by the Bulgarians and Rumanians, fought

throughout the summer with the greatest gallantry; they took Plevna,

after a three months’ siege, in December, occupied Sofia and

Philippopolis in January 1878, and pushed forward to the walls of

Constantinople.

The Turks were at their last gasp, and at Adrianople, in March 1878,

Ignatiyev dictated the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, by which a

principality of Bulgaria, under the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan,

was created, stretching from the Danube to the Aegean, and from the

Black Sea to Albania, including all Macedonia and leaving to the Turks

only the district between Constantinople and Adrianople, Chalcidice,

and the town of Salonika; Bulgaria would thus have regained the

dimensions it possessed under Tsar Simeon nine hundred and fifty years

previously.

This treaty, which on ethnological grounds was tolerably just, alarmed

the other powers, especially Great Britain and Germany, who thought

they perceived in it the foundations of Russian hegemony in the

Balkans, while it would, if put into execution, have blighted the

aspirations of Greece and Serbia. The Treaty of Berlin, inspired by

Bismarck and Lord Salisbury, anxious to defend, the former, the

interests of (ostensibly) Austria-Hungary, the latter (shortsightedly)

those of Turkey, replaced it in July 1878. By its terms Bulgaria was

cut into three parts; northern Bulgaria, between the Danube and the

Balkans, was made an autonomous province, tributary to Turkey; southern

Bulgaria, fancifully termed Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the name always

given by the Turks to the whole Balkan peninsula), was to have

autonomous administration under a Christian governor appointed by the

Porte; Macedonia was left to Turkey; and the Dobrudja, between the

Danube and the Black Sea, was adjudged to Rumania.

11

_The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878–86_

The relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians were better

before the liberation of the latter by the former than after; this may

seem unjust, because Bulgaria could never have freed herself so

decisively and rapidly alone, and Russia was the only power in whose

interest it was to free her from the Turks, and who could translate

that interest so promptly into action; nevertheless, the laws

controlling the relationships of states and nationalities being much

the same as those which control the relationships of individuals, it

was only to be expected.

What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in

those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected

Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and

treasure which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected

its gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence

in all the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria

was no doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of

expressing its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most

people who have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action

or been put under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its

right to an independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe

writers that Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of

Bulgaria, but this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of

the Balkan peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the

Russian Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and

vigorous national block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an

independent state, was an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is

quite possible for Russia to obtain possession or control of

Constantinople without owning all the intervening littoral.

That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of

Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was

just as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The

eventual result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered

the sphere of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather

calculation, a contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at

the time, and whose full meaning, even if it had, would not have been

grasped by them.

The Bulgarians, whatever the origin and the ingredients of their

nationality, are by language a purely Slavonic people; their ancestors

were the pioneers of Slavonic civilization as expressed in its

monuments of theological literature. Nevertheless, they have never been

enthusiastic Pan-Slavists, any more than the Dutch have ever been

ardent Pan-Germans; it is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the

one people as it is of the other. The Bulgarians indeed think

themselves superior to the Slavs by reason of the warlike and glorious

traditions of the Tartar tribe that gave them their name and infused

the Asiatic element into their race, thus endowing them with greater

stability, energy, and consistency than is possessed by purely Slav

peoples. These latter, on the other hand, and notably the Serbians, for

the same reason affect contempt for the mixture of blood and for what

they consider the Mongol characteristics of the Bulgarians. What is

certain is that between Bulgarians and Germans (including German

Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed that elemental,

ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between German

(and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from the

Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in

which the Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in

Austria-Hungary and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment

of the purely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared. The

reason is that with the growth of the Serb national movement, from 1903

onwards, Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly

well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to neutralize the

possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.

It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which

had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been

steadily on the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced

Bulgaria to half the size that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the

Treaty of San Stefano, reaped the benefit, especially the commercial

benefit, of the war which Russia had waged. Intellectually, and

especially as regards the replenishment and renovation of the Bulgarian

language, which, in spite of numerous Turkish words introduced during

the Ottoman rule, is essentially Slavonic both in substance and form,

Russian influence was especially powerful, and has to a certain extent

maintained itself. Economically, owing partly to geographical

conditions, both the Danube and the main oriental railway linking

Bulgaria directly with Budapest and Vienna, partly to the fact that

Bulgaria’s best customers for its cereals are in central and western

Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is infinitesimal.

Politically, both Russia and Bulgaria aiming at the same thing, the

possession of Constantinople and the hegemony of the Balkan peninsula,

their relations were bound to be difficult.

The first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions.

Both Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of

Berlin. Russian influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy

controlled the organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic

constitution was arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the

successful government of their country by the quite inexperienced

Bulgarians. For a ruler recourse had inevitably to be had to the

rabbit-warren of Germanic princes, who were still ingenuously

considered neutral both in religion and in politics. The choice fell on

Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew of the Empress of Russia, who

had taken part in the campaign of the Russian army. Prince Alexander

was conscientious, energetic, and enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat,

and from the outset his honesty precluded his success. From the very

first he failed to keep on good terms with Russia or its

representatives, who at that time were still numerous in Bulgaria,

while he was helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary government.

The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father Alexander II in

1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which he

successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of

Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September

1883); this procedure discomfited the representatives of Russia,

discredited him with the Emperor, and threw him back into the vortex of

party warfare, from which he never extricated himself.

Meanwhile the question of eastern Rumelia, or rather southern Bulgaria,

still a Turkish province, began to loom. A vigorous agitation for the

reunion of the two parts of the country had been going on for some

time, and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis

suddenly proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly

announced his approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city

on September 21. Russia frowned on this independence of spirit. Serbia,

under King Milan, and instigated by Austria, inaugurated the policy

which has so often been followed since, and claimed territorial

compensation for Bulgaria’s aggrandisement; it must be remembered that

it was Bismarck who, by the Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined

Serbia to its inadequate limits of those day.

On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia,

which is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. Prince Alexander,

the bulk of whose army was on the Turkish frontier, boldly took up the

challenge. On November 18 took place the battle of Slivnitsa, a small

town about twenty miles north-west of Sofia, in which the Bulgarians

were completely victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took

Pirot in Serbia on November 27, having refused King Milan’s request for

an armistice, and was marching on Nish, when Austria intervened, and

threatened to send troops into Serbia unless fighting ceased. Bulgaria

had to obey, and on March 3, 1886, a barren treaty of peace was imposed

on the belligerents at Bucarest. Prince Alexander’s position did not

improve after this, indeed it would have needed a much more skilful

navigator to steer through the many currents which eddied round him. A

strong Russophile party formed itself in the army; on the night of

August 21, 1886, some officers of this party, who were the most capable

in the Bulgarian army, appeared at Sofia, forced Alexander to resign,

and abducted him; they put him on board his yacht on the Danube and

escorted him to the Russian town of Reni, in Bessarabia; telegraphic

orders came from St. Petersburg, in answer to inquiries, that he could

proceed with haste to western Europe, and on August 26 he found himself

at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this _coup d’état_ found that

it was not at all popular in the country. A counter-revolution, headed

by the statesman Stambulóv, was immediately initiated, and on September

3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst tumultuous applause.

Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor Alexander III

forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for

good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in Austria,

in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was

constituted, at the head of which was Stambulóv.

12

_The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,_ 1886–1908

Stambulóv was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was of humble origin. He took

part in the insurrection of 1876 and in the war of liberation, and in

1884 became president of the Sóbraniye (Parliament). From 1886 till

1894 he was virtually dictator of Bulgaria. He was intensely patriotic

and also personally ambitious, determined, energetic, ruthlessly cruel

and unscrupulous, but incapable of deceit; these qualities were

apparent in his powerful and grim expression of face, while his manner

inspired the weak with terror and the strongest with respect. His

policy in general was directed against Russia. At the general election

held in October 1886 he had all his important opponents imprisoned

beforehand, while armed sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters from

approaching the ballot-boxes. Out of 522 elected deputies, there were

470 supporters of Stambulóv. This implied the complete suppression of

the Russophile party and led to a rupture with St. Petersburg.

Whatever were Stambulóv’s methods, and few would deny that they were

harsh, there is no doubt that something of the sort was necessary to

restore order in the country. But once having started on this path he

found it difficult to stop, and his tyrannical bearing, combined with

the delay in finding a prince, soon made him unpopular. There were

several revolutionary outbreaks directed against him, but these were

all crushed. At length the, at that time not particularly alluring,

throne of Bulgaria was filled by Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who

was born in 1861 and was the son of the gifted Princess Clémentine of

Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined

great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extreme prudence,

astuteness, and patience; he was a consummate diplomat. The election of

this prince was viewed with great disfavour by Russia, and for fear of

offending the Emperor Alexander III none of the European powers

recognized him.

Ferdinand, unabashed, cheerfully installed himself in Sofia with his

mother in July 1886, and took care to make the peace with his suzerain,

the Sultan Abdul Hamid. He wisely left all power in the hands of the

unattractive and to him, unsympathetic prime minister, Stambulóv, till

he himself felt secure in his position, and till the dictator should

have made himself thoroughly hated. Ferdinand’s clever and wealthy

mother cast a beneficent and civilizing glow around him, smoothing away

many difficulties by her womanly tact and philanthropic activity, and,

thanks to his influential connexions in the courts of Europe and his

attitude of calm expectancy, his prestige in his own country rapidly

increased. In 1893 he married Princess Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma.

In May 1894, as a result of a social misadventure in which he became

involved, Stambulóv sent in his resignation, confidently expecting a

refusal. To his mortification it was accepted; thereupon he initiated a

violent press campaign, but his halo had faded, and on July 15 he was

savagely attacked in the street by unknown men, who afterwards escaped,

and he died three days later. So intense were the emotions of the

people that his grave had to be guarded by the military for two months.

In November 1894 followed the death of the Emperor Alexander III, and

as a result of this double event the road to a reconciliation with

Russia was opened. Meanwhile the German Emperor, who was on good terms

with Princess Clémentine, had paved the way for Ferdinand at Vienna,

and when, in March 1896, the Sultan recognized him as Prince of

Bulgaria and Governor-General of eastern Rumelia, his international

position was assured. Relations with Russia were still further improved

by the rebaptism of the infant Crown Prince Boris according to the

rites of the eastern Church, in February 1896, and a couple of years

later Ferdinand and his wife and child paid a highly successful state

visit to Peterhof. In September 1902 a memorial church was erected by

the Emperor Nicholas II at the Shipka Pass, and later an equestrian

statue of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II was placed opposite the House

of Parliament in Sofia.

Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishing material

progress. Railways were built, exports increased, and the general

condition of the country greatly improved. It is the fashion to compare

the wonderful advance made by Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of

its new existence with the very much slower progress made by Serbia

during a much longer period. This is insisted on especially by

publicists in Austria-Hungary and Germany, but it is forgotten that

even before the last Balkan war the geographical position of Bulgaria

with its seaboard was much more favourable to its economic development

than that of Serbia, which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by

Turkish and Austro-Hungarian territory; moreover, Bulgaria being double

the size of the Serbia of those days, had far greater resources upon

which to draw.

From 1894 onwards Ferdinand’s power in his own country and his

influence abroad had been steadily growing. He always appreciated the

value of railways, and became almost as great a traveller as the German

Emperor. His estates in the south of Hungary constantly required his

attention, and he was a frequent visitor in Vienna. The German Emperor,

though he could not help admiring Ferdinand’s success, was always a

little afraid of him; he felt that Ferdinand’s gifts were so similar to

his own that he would be unable to count on him in an emergency.

Moreover, it was difficult to reconcile Ferdinand’s ambitions in

extreme south-eastern Europe with his own. Ferdinand’s relations with

Vienna, on the other hand, and especially with the late Archduke

Francis Ferdinand, were both cordial and intimate.

The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably

in Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of

1902-3 anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of

terror, and, also the unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia

since the accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused

uneasiness in Sofia, no less than in Vienna and Budapest. The Young

Turkish revolution of July 1908, and the triumph of the Committee of

Union and Progress, disarmed the critics of Turkey who wished to make

the forcible introduction of reforms a pretext for their interference;

but the potential rejuvenation of the Ottoman Empire which it

foreshadowed indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action.

In September, after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in

eastern Roumelia (which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia

Cabinet seized the line with a military force on the plea of political

necessity. At the same time Ferdinand, with his second wife, the

Protestant Princess Eleonora of Reuss, whom he had married in March of

that year, was received with regal honours by the Emperor of Austria at

Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at Tirnovo, the ancient capital,

Ferdinand proclaimed the complete independence of Bulgaria and eastern

Rumelia under himself as King (_Tsar_ in Bulgarian), and on October 7

Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the

two Turkish provinces administered by it since 1879, nominally under

Turkish suzerainty.

13

_The Kingdom_, 1908–13

(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)

The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the

Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The

Macedonian question was extremely complicated; it started on the

assumption that the disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding

throughout the nineteenth century, would eventually be completed, and

the question was how in this eventuality to satisfy the territorial

claims of the three neighbouring countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and

Greece, claims both historical and ethnological, based on the numbers

and distribution of their ‘unredeemed’ compatriots in Macedonia, and at

the same time avoid causing the armed interference of Europe.

The beginnings of the Macedonian question in its modern form do not go

farther back than 1885, when the ease with which eastern Rumelia (i.e.

southern Bulgaria) threw off the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously

united with the semi-independent principality of northern Bulgaria

affected the imagination of the Balkan statesmen. From that time Sofia

began to cast longing eyes on Macedonia, the whole of which was claimed

as ‘unredeemed Bulgaria’, and Stambulóv’s last success in 1894 was to

obtain from Turkey the consent to the establishment of two bishops of

the Bulgarian (Exarchist) Church in Macedonia, which was a heavy blow

for the Greek Patriarchate at Constantinople.

Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin, article 23 of

which stipulated for reforms in that province; but in those days the

Balkan States were too young and weak to worry themselves or the

European powers over the troubles of their co-religionists in Turkey;

their hands were more than full setting their own houses in some sort

of order, and it was in nobody’s interest to reform Macedonia, so

article 23 remained the expression of a philanthropic sentiment. This

indifference on the part of Europe left the door open for the Balkan

States, as soon as they had energy to spare, to initiate their campaign

for extending their spheres of influence in Macedonia.

From 1894 onwards Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia increased, and the

Bulgarians were soon followed by Greeks and Serbians. The reason for

this passionate pegging out of claims and the bitter rivalry of the

three nations which it engendered was the following: The population of

Macedonia was nowhere, except in the immediate vicinity of the borders

of these three countries, either purely Bulgar or purely Greek or

purely Serb; most of the towns contained a percentage of at least two

of these nationalities, not to mention the Turks (who after all were

still the owners of the country by right of conquest), Albanians,

Tartars, Rumanians (Vlakhs), and others; the city of Salonika was and

is almost purely Jewish, while in the country districts Turkish,

Albanian, Greek, Bulgar, and Serb villages were inextricably confused.

Generally speaking, the coastal strip was mainly Greek (the coast

itself purely so), the interior mainly Slav. The problem was for each

country to peg out as large a claim as possible, and so effectively, by

any means in their power, to make the majority of the population

contained in that claim acknowledge itself to be Bulgar, or Serb, or

Greek, that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire was over, each part of

Macedonia would automatically fall into the arms of its respective

deliverers. The game was played through the appropriate media of

churches and schools, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had first

of all to be enlightened as to who they were, or rather as to who they

were told they had got to consider themselves, while the Church, as

always, conveniently covered a multitude of political aims; when those

methods flagged, a bomb would be thrown at, let us say, a Turkish

official by an _agent provocateur_ of one of the three players,

inevitably resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent Christians

by the ostensibly brutal but really equally innocent Turks, and an

outcry in the European press.

Bulgaria was first in the field and had a considerable start of the

other two rivals. The Bulgars claimed the whole of Macedonia, including

Salonika and all the Aegean coast (except Chalcidice), Okhrida, and

Monastir; Greece claimed all southern Macedonia, and Serbia parts of

northern and central Macedonia known as Old Serbia. The crux of the

whole problem was, and is, that the claims of Serbia and Greece do not

clash, while that of Bulgaria, driving a thick wedge between Greece and

Serbia, and thus giving Bulgaria the undoubted hegemony of the

peninsula, came into irreconcilable conflict with those of its rivals.

The importance of this point was greatly emphasized by the existence of

the Nish-Salonika railway, which is Serbia’s only direct outlet to the

sea, and runs through Macedonia from north to south, following the

right or western bank of the river Vardar. Should Bulgaria straddle

that, Serbia would be economically at its mercy, just as in the north

it was already, to its bitter cost, at the mercy of Austria-Hungary.

Nevertheless, Bulgarian propaganda had been so effectual that Serbia

and Greece never expected they would eventually be able to join hands

so easily and successfully as they afterwards did.

The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a factor. This people,

though small in numbers, was formidable in character, and had never

been effectually subdued by the Turks. They would have been glad to

have a boundary contiguous with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had no

quarrel) as a support against their hereditary enemies, Serbs in the

north and Greeks in the south, who were more than inclined to encroach

on their territory. The population of Macedonia, being still under

Turkish rule, was uneducated and ignorant; needless to say it had no

national consciousness, though this was less true of the Greeks than of

the Slavs. It is the Slav population of Macedonia that has engendered

so much heat and caused so much blood to be spilt. The dispute as to

whether it is rather Serb or Bulgar has caused interminable and most

bitter controversy. The truth is that it _was_ neither the one nor the

other, but that, the ethnological and linguistic missionaries of

Bulgaria having been first in the field, a majority of the Macedonian

Slavs had been so long and so persistently told that they were Bulgars,

that after a few years Bulgaria could, with some truth, claim that this

fact was so.

Macedonia had been successively under Greek, Bulgar, and Serb, before

Turkish, rule, but the Macedonian Slavs had, under the last, been so

cut off both from Bulgars and Serbs, that ethnologically and

linguistically they did not develop the characteristics of either of

these two races, which originally belonged to the same southern Slav

stock, but remained a primitive neutral Slav type. If the Serbs had

been first in the field instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian Slavs

could just as easily have been made into Serbs, sufficiently plausibly

to convince the most knowing expert. The well-known recipe for making a

Macedonian Slav village Bulgar is to add _-ov_ or _-ev_ (pronounced

_-off, -yeff_) on to the names of all the male inhabitants, and to make

it Serb it is only necessary to add further the syllable _-ich, -ov_

and _-ovich_ being respectively the equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian

of our termination _-son,_ e. g. _Ivanov_ in Bulgarian, and _Jovanovit_

in Serbian = _Johnson_.

In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists,

suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh

shepherds, who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia

with their herds since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not

possibly ever be annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in

order to justify Rumania in claiming eventual territorial compensation

elsewhere at the final day of reckoning. Meanwhile, their existence as

a separate and authentic nationality in Turkey was officially

recognized by the Porte in 1906.

The stages of the Macedonian question up to 1908 must at this point be

quite briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two ‘most

interested powers’, who as far back as the eighteenth century had

divided the Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and

west, came to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of

affairs in Turkey; but it never reached a conclusive stage and

consequently was never applied. The Macedonian chaos meanwhile grew

steadily worse, and the serious insurrections of 1902-3, followed by

the customary reprisals, thoroughly alarmed the powers. Hilmi Pasha had

been appointed Inspector-General of Macedonia in December 1902, but was

not successful in restoring order. In October 1903 the Emperor Nicholas

II and the Emperor of Austria, with their foreign ministers, met at

Mürzsteg, in Styria, and elaborated a more definite plan of reform

known as the Mürzsteg programme, the drastic terms of which had been

largely inspired by Lord Lansdowne, then British Secretary of State for

Foreign Affairs; the principal feature was the institution of an

international gendarmerie, the whole of Macedonia being divided up into

five districts to be apportioned among the several great powers. Owing

to the procrastination of the Porte and to the extreme complexity of

the financial measures which had to be elaborated in connexion with

this scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations was not completed,

nor the whole series ratified, until April 1907, though the gendarmerie

officers had arrived in Macedonia in February 1904.

At this point again it is necessary to recall the position in regard to

this question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and

France had no territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost

to secure reform not only in the _vilayets_ of Macedonia, but also in

the realm of Ottoman finance. Italy’s interest centred in Albania,

whose eventual fate, for geographical and strategic reasons, could not

leave it indifferent. Austria-Hungary’s only care was by any means to

prevent the aggrandizement of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and

Montenegro, so as to secure the control, if not the possession, of the

routes to Salonika, if necessary over the prostrate bodies of those two

countries which defiantly barred Germanic progress towards the East.

Russia was already fatally absorbed in the Far Eastern adventure, and,

moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878, been losing influence at

Constantinople, where before its word had been law; the Treaty of

Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia had ever since

that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors to the Porte,

who were always either too old or too easy-going. Germany, on the other

hand, had been exceptionally fortunate or prudent in the choice of its

representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in Turkey was

not grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the credit

of the German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the triumphal

journey of William II to the Bosphorus in 1889, German influence, under

the able guidance of Baron von Radowitz, steadily increased. This

culminated in the régime of the late Baron Marschall von Bieberstein,

who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It was German policy to flatter,

support, and encourage Turkey in every possible way, to refrain from

taking part with the other powers in the invidious and perennial

occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to give

as much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked

for. Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a

district assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in

the naval demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany

naturally encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge,

and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere,

and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of

chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really

braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into

practice, Germany alone was responsible.

The blow which King Ferdinand had inflicted on the prestige of the

Young Turks in October 1908, by proclaiming his independence, naturally

lent lustre to the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. Serbia, baffled by the

simultaneous Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and

maddened by the elevation of Bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom (its

material progress had hitherto been discounted in Serbian eyes by the

fact that it was a mere vassal principality), seemed about to be

crushed by the two iron pots jostling it on either side. Its

international position was at that time such that it could expect no

help or encouragement from western Europe, while the events of 1909

(cf. p. 144) showed that Russia was not then in a position to render

active assistance. Greece, also screaming aloud for compensation, was

told by its friends amongst the great powers that if it made a noise it

would get nothing, but that if it behaved like a good child it might

some day be given Krete. Meanwhile Russia, rudely awakened by the

events of 1908 to the real state of affairs in the Near East, beginning

to realize the growth of German influence at Constantinople, and seeing

the unmistakable resuscitation of Austria-Hungary as a great power,

made manifest by the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, temporarily

reasserted its influence in Bulgaria. From the moment when Baron

Aehrenthal announced his chimerical scheme of an Austrian railway

through the _Sandjak_ of Novi Pazar in January 1908— everybody knows

that the railway already built through Serbia along the Morava valley

is the only commercially remunerative and strategically practicable

road from Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest to Salonika and

Constantinople—Russia realized that the days of the Mürzsteg programme

were over, that henceforward it was to be a struggle between Slav and

Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople and the dominion of the Near

East, and that something must be done to retrieve the position in the

Balkans which it was losing. After Baron Aehrenthal, in January 1909,

had mollified the Young Turks by an indemnity, and thus put an end to

the boycott, Russia in February of the same year liquidated the remains

of the old Turkish war indemnity of 1878 still due to itself by

skilfully arranging that Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized

tribute, owed to its ex-suzerain the Sultan, by very easy instalments

to Russia instead.

The immediate effects of the Young Turk revolution amongst the Balkan

States, and the events, watched benevolently by Russia, which led to

the formation of the Balkan League, when it was joyfully realized that

neither the setting-up of parliamentary government, nor even the

overthrow of Abdul Hamid, implied the commencement of the millennium in

Macedonia and Thrace, have been described elsewhere (pp. 141, 148).

King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos are generally credited with the

inception and realisation of the League, though it was so secretly and

skilfully concerted that it is not yet possible correctly to apportion

praise for the remarkable achievement. Bulgaria is a very democratic

country, but King Ferdinand, owing to his sagacity, patience, and

experience, and also thanks to his influential dynastic connexions and

propensity for travel, has always been virtually his own foreign

minister; in spite of the fact that he is a large feudal Hungarian

landlord, and has temperamental leanings towards the Central European

Empires, it is quite credible that King Ferdinand devoted all his

undeniable talents and great energy to the formation of the League when

he saw that the moment had come for Bulgaria to realize its destiny at

Turkey’s expense, and that, if the other three Balkan States could be

induced to come to the same wise decision, it would be so much the

better for all of them. That Russia could do anything else than

whole-heartedly welcome the formation of the Balkan League was

absolutely impossible. Pan-Slavism had long since ceased to be the

force it was, and nobody in Russia dreamed of or desired the

incorporation of any Balkan territory in the Russian Empire. It is

possible to control Constantinople without possessing the Balkans, and

Russia could only rejoice if a Greco-Slavonic league should destroy the

power of the Turks and thereby make impossible the further advance of

the Germanic powers eastward.

That Russia was ever in the least jealous of the military successes of

the league, which caused such gnashing of teeth in Berlin, Vienna, and

Budapest, is a mischievous fiction, the emptiness of which was evident

to any one who happened to be in Russia during the winter of 1912-13.

The years 1908 to 1912 were outwardly uneventful in Bulgaria, though a

great deal of quiet work was done in increasing the efficiency of the

army, and the material prosperity of the country showed no falling off.

Relations with the other Balkan States, especially with Serbia and

Montenegro, improved considerably, and there was ample room for such

improvement. This was outwardly marked by frequent visits paid to each

other by members of the several royal families of the three Slavonic

kingdoms of the Balkans. In May 1912 agreements for the eventual

delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in the event

of war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bulgaria and

Greece. The most controversial district was, of course, Macedonia.

Bulgaria claimed central Macedonia, with Monastir and Okhrida, which

was the lion’s share, on ethnical grounds which have been already

discussed, and it was expected that Greece and Serbia, by obtaining

other acquisitions elsewhere, would consent to have their territories

separated by the large Bulgarian wedge which was to be driven between

them. The exact future line of demarcation between Serbian and

Bulgarian territory was to be left to arbitration. The possible

creation of an independent Albania was not contemplated.

In August 1912 the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Ferdinand’s arrival

in Bulgaria was celebrated with much rejoicing at the ancient capital

of Tirnovo, and was marred only by the news of the terrible massacre of

Bulgars by Turks at Kochana in Macedonia; this event, however,

opportune though mournful, tended considerably to increase the volume

of the wave of patriotism which swept through the country. Later in the

same month Count Berchtold startled Europe with his ‘progressive

decentralization’ scheme of reform for Macedonia. The manner in which

this event led to the final arrangements for the declaration of war on

Turkey by the four Balkan States is given in full elsewhere (cf. p.

151).

The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray, and the autumn

manoeuvres had permitted the concentration unobserved of a considerable

portion of it, ready to strike when the time came. Mobilisation was

ordered on September 30, 1912. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on

Turkey. On October 13 Bulgaria, with the other Balkan States, replied

to the remonstrances of Russia and Austria by declaring that its

patience was at length exhausted, and that the sword alone was able to

enforce proper treatment of the Christian populations in European

Turkey. On October 17 Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and unexpected

conclusion of peace with Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on

Bulgaria and Serbia, and on October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a

sentimental exhortation to his people to liberate their

fellow-countrymen, who were still groaning under the Crescent.

The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was

about 180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to

oppose the Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was

considered by the Turks to be the most important theatre of war, yet

the proximity of the Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople made it

necessary to retain a large number of troops in Thrace. On October 19

the Bulgarians took the frontier town of Mustafa Pasha. On October 24

they defeated the Turks at Kirk-Kilissé (or Lozengrad), further east.

From October 28 to November 2 raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas,

which resulted in a complete and brilliant victory of the Bulgarians

over the Turks. The defeat and humiliation of the Turks was as rapid

and thorough in Thrace as it had been in Macedonia, and by the middle

of November the remains of the Turkish army were entrenched behind the

impregnable lines of Chataldja, while a large garrison was shut up in

Adrianople, which had been invested by the end of October. The

Bulgarian army, somewhat exhausted by this brilliant and lightning

campaign, refrained from storming the lines of Chataldja, an operation

which could not fail to involve losses such as the Bulgarian nation was

scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the armistice was

signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months led,

however, to no result, and on February 3, 1913, hostilities were

resumed. These, for the Bulgarians, resolved themselves into the more

energetic prosecution of the siege of Adrianople, which had not been

raised during the armistice. To their assistance Serbia, being able to

spare troops from Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy

siege artillery, an arm which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913,

the fortress surrendered to the allied armies.

The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that

year, fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous

Enos-Midia line, running between these two places situated on the

shores respectively of the Aegean and the Black Sea. This delimitation

would have given Bulgaria possession of Adrianople. But meanwhile

Greece and especially Serbia, which latter country had been compelled

to withdraw from the Adriatic coast by Austria, and was further

precluded from ever returning there by the creation of the independent

state of Albania, determined to retain possession of all that part of

Macedonia, including the whole valley of the Vardar with its important

railway, which they had conquered, and thus secure their common

frontier. In May 1913 a military convention was concluded between them,

and the Balkan League, the relations between the members of which had

been becoming more strained ever since January, finally dissolved.

Bulgaria, outraged by this callous disregard of the agreements as to

the partition of Macedonia signed a year previously by itself and its

ex-allies, did not wait for the result of the arbitration which was

actually proceeding in Russia, but in an access of indignation rushed

to arms.

This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the night of June 30,

1913, by a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in

its undoing. In order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern

and northern frontiers were denuded of troops. But the totally

unforeseen happened. The Serbs were victorious, defeating the Bulgars

in Macedonia, the Turks, seeing Thrace empty of Bulgarian troops,

re-occupied Adrianople, and the Rumanian army, determined to see fair

play before it was too late, invaded Bulgaria from the north and

marched on Sofia. By the end of July the campaign was over and Bulgaria

had to submit to fate.

By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest, which was concluded on August

10, 1913, Bulgaria obtained a considerable part of Thrace and eastern

Macedonia, including a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of

Dedeagach, but it was forced to ‘compensate’ Rumania with a slice of

its richest province (the districts of Dobrich and Silistria in

north-eastern Bulgaria), and it lost central Macedonia, a great part of

which it would certainly have been awarded by Russia’s arbitration. On

September 22, 1913, the Treaty of Constantinople was signed by Bulgaria

and Turkey; by its terms Turkey retained possession of Adrianople and

of a far larger part of Thrace than its series of ignominious defeats

in the autumn of 1912 entitled it to.

In the fatal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia which caused the

disruption of the Balkan League, led to the tragic second Balkan war of

July 1913, and naturally left behind the bitterest feelings, it is

difficult to apportion the blame. Both Serbia and Bulgaria were

undoubtedly at fault in the choice of the methods by which they sought

to adjust their difference, but the real guilt is to be found neither

in Sofia nor in Belgrade, but in Vicuna and Budapest. The Balkan League

barred the way of the Germanic Powers to the East; its disruption

weakened Bulgaria and again placed Serbia at the mercy of the Dual

Monarchy. After these trying and unremunerative experiences it is not

astonishing that the Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler should

have retired to the remote interior of their shell.

_Explanation of Serbian orthography_

c = ts

č = ch (as in _church_)

ć = ” ” ” but softer

š = sh

ž = zh (as z in _azure_)

gj = g (as in _George_)

j = y

[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA]