Ferdinand of Bulgaria: The Amazing Career of a Shoddy Czar

I have laid some stress upon the primitive boorishness of the Bulgarians as a race, and upon the essential effeminacy of the Prince who, for lack of a better, was called to the...

The outstanding instance of Ferdinand’s intimacy with the grosser forms of assassination is the murder of Stepan Stambuloff, “the Bismarck of the Balkans.” This gross little bei...

In a little house in Sofia lives the widow of Stambuloff, once the most brilliant and beautiful woman in Sofia, now a withered crone who continues to live on for a cherished pur...

The murder of Franz Ferdinand and the ranging of all the Great Powers of Europe in a struggle for life or death opened up to Ferdinand a new vista of opportunity. He could see a...

M. Joseph Reinach, the French publicist, whose articles signed Polybe in the _Paris Figaro_ have been rightly estimated as among the most informative contributions to the public...

When Ferdinand first rode through the streets of Sofia in a carriage, wearing the uniform of a Bulgarian general, there was an ominous murmur in the Bulgarian crowd that rose an...

The tradition that great monarchs are many-sided men has no warmer adherent than Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who is ever ready to exemplify it in his own person. To those who are fam...

Once, in the days when Ferdinand was a sub-lieutenant of Austrian hussars, the Emperor Franz Joseph stood talking to Kossuth, the Hungarian statesman, at the window of the palac...

Less than a hundred years ago a small Russian army, campaigning against the Turks between the Balkans and the Danube, discovered a race of people who spoke a language almost ide...

One day in December, 1886, there slouched into Ronacher’s Circus, a well-known Vienna beer garden, three weary Bulgarian politicians. Some weeks before they had left Sofia full...

The world has recently been treated to the sublime spectacle of a meeting of the Shoddy Czar and the Bloodstained Kaiser at Nish, the ancient capital of down-trodden Serbia, whe...

One of the lessons that Great Britain has been compelled to learn in the last two years is that its respected citizen, Mr. Black, purveyor of meat, is in reality none other than...

In the summer of 1892 there was a notable sight in the Bavarian city of Munich. The richest goldsmith of the city of breweries displayed in his window a crown, sceptre, orb and...

When Ferdinand found it was his “sacred duty” to occupy the vacant Principality without loss of time, he disguised himself and fled from Vienna. His initial disguise was that of...

Ferdinand owed his principality to his mother, Princess Clementine of Orleans, the youngest and cleverest daughter of the French King Louis Philippe. He owed also his capacity f...

The entry of the Bulgarians into the Great War was sudden, fierce and effective. They threw themselves with characteristic ardour upon the Serbians, who, attacked from three qua...

The Treaty of Bucarest was followed in Bulgaria by what Ferdinand, in an interview with a British newspaper correspondent, pathetically described as a “schemozzle.” You may reme...

The young Prince Ferdinand had received almost daily lessons from his mother on the part that women were apt to play in his life. She, the Princess Clementine, his own mother, s...

Just as the Bulgarians say they are going into Europe when they leave Bulgaria, Ferdinand decided that he was quitting Europe and civilization when he entered his new kingdom. H...

The Young Turk revolution could only have been viewed by Ferdinand, and by his master, Franz Ferdinand, as a serious blow to their schemes of aggrandisement in the Balkans. Thei...

The independent kingdom of Bulgaria occupied a very different position in the eyes of the Powers to that of the vassal Principality. Soon Ferdinand began to feel some of the dis...

In the chief square of Sofia, near the Newski Cathedral, stands a great statue, the work of the Bulgarian sculptor Zocchi. It is erected to the Russian Czar, Alexander the Secon...

The tragedy of the second Balkan war had bitten deep into the hearts of most Bulgarians. As I have already related, the terrible disaster which that war brought upon Bulgaria pr...

We have seen Ferdinand waiting for a Crown to turn up. We have seen him striving vainly for a friendly lead to recognition as a Sovereign Prince by the Powers of Europe. Now thi...

When Ferdinand was elected Prince of Bulgaria by the Sobranje, and signed the Constitution, no one of the Powers of Europe recognized his sovereignty. On the other hand, the Sul...

Boris Tirnovski, heir to the throne of Bulgaria, was christened in the Roman Catholic faith, according to the terms of the wedding contract, which had necessitated an amendment...

Before finally and openly declaring himself on the side of the Huns, Ferdinand was forced to receive a deputation consisting of five of the most powerful men in Bulgaria. They w...