Part 132

All the subsequent emperors, without exception, connected themselves by marriage with German families. The wife and successor of Peter III., Catherine II., daughter of the Prince of Anhalt Zerbst, general in the Prussian army, left the crown to her only son Paul, who became the father of two emperors, Alexander I. and Nicholas, and the grandfather of a third, Alexander II. All these sovereigns married German princesses, creating intimate family alliances, among others, with the reigning houses of Württemberg, Baden, and Prussia.

=1762.=--Peter III., son of Anne and of Charles Frederick, duke of Holstein-Gottorp; deposed, and died soon after; supposed to have been murdered. Son of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein.

=1762-1796.=--Catherine II.; a great sovereign; extended the Russian territories on all sides; died 1796; wife of Peter III.

=1796-1801.=--Paul, her son; murdered, 1801; son of Peter III.

=1801-1825.=--Alexander I., died 1825; son of Paul.

=1825-1855.=--Nicholas I.; died 1855; third son of Paul.

=1855-1881.=--Alexander II., assassinated at St. Petersburg, March, 1881; son of Nicholas I.

=1881-1894.=--Alexander III.; died 1894; married Mary (formerly Dagmar), princess of Denmark; son of Alexander II.

=1894.=--Nicholas II., married princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt; son of Alexander III.

SECONDARY POWERS OF EUROPE

=BELGIUM= (Fr. _Belgique_), one of the smaller European states, consists of the southern portion of the former kingdom of the Netherlands (as created by the Congress of Vienna), lying between France and Holland, the North Sea and Rhenish Prussia. Its greatest length from northwest to southeast is one hundred and seventy-three miles; and its greatest breadth from north to south one hundred and five miles.

=Surface.=--Belgium is, on the whole, a level, and even low lying, country; diversified, however, by hilly districts. The north and west of the country is low and level plain, like Holland, but the undulating forest plateaus of the Ardennes cover all the south and east, rising near the frontier in that direction to a height of two thousand feet above the sea. The Campine, composed of marshes, coal-bearing heaths, and irrigated lands, extends along the Dutch frontier. In Flanders dykes have been raised to check the encroachments of the sea.

=Rivers.=--The land slopes generally northward, and this is the direction of the numerous rivers and streams which water it. The great river of the country is the Meuse, which enters from France and passes out into Holland, being navigable all through Belgium. Its tributary, the Sambre, from France, which joins it on the left near the center of the country, is also a navigable stream; and the Ourthe, from the frontier of Luxemburg, which joins it lower down on the right, is navigable for half its course. The Escaut or Scheldt is the main river of the lowland in the west, and with its chief tributaries, the Lys on the left and the Rupel on the right, forms the waterway of the plain. These rivers and important tributaries, with canals make up one thousand four hundred miles of waterways.

=Climate and Landscape.=--Belgium has a climate which resembles that of England, opposite to it in the same latitude, but which is more excessive. The lowland of the north is foggy and damp, like Holland; the higher country south and east has clearer skies.

=People.=--Belgium is one of the most densely peopled countries of the world, only equaled in this respect by some parts of the plain of China, or of the valley of the Ganges in India, a result which is no doubt due to the combination of natural facilities for agriculture, manufactures, and trade, within its limits. The Flemings (of Teutonic stock) and Walloons (Celtic in origin) speak each their own dialects of Dutch and French; there are also numbers of Germans, Dutch, and French. East and West Flanders, Antwerp, and Limburg are almost wholly Flemish, and Brabant mainly so. The line between the Flemish and Walloon districts is sharply defined, the Flemish part being the richest and most cultivated. The French language has gained the ascendancy in educated society and in the offices of government, but the Flemish dialect prevails numerically in the proportion of nine to eight.

=Religion and Education.=--Almost all the inhabitants of Belgium are Roman Catholics, though complete liberty and social equality is allowed to all religious confessions. Education is not yet generally diffused through the population, and was, until recently, almost entirely in the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy. There are state universities at Ghent and Liège, an independent liberal university at Brussels, and a Catholic university at Louvain.

=Products and Industries.=--About a fourth of all the inhabitants of Belgium are occupied in agriculture. Besides wheat, rye, and oats, hops are cultivated on a large scale, for export chiefly to France and England. Beetroot for the sugar factories, of which there are over a hundred in the country, is also a large crop, and flax is largely grown in the Flemish lowlands.

Two great coalfields extend across the central part of the country from west to east, along the valleys of the Meuse, but Belgium is essentially a manufacturing country, and it is largely dependent upon foreign supplies for its food. The mineral kingdom yields, beside coal, iron, zinc, lead and copper. The leading industries are collieries, quarries, and metal, glass, textiles, lace, flour and starch mills, sugar, distilleries, breweries, etc.

=Government.=--On the re-arrangement of European affairs, after the fall of Napoleon, Holland and Belgium were formed into the ill-assorted kingdom of the Netherlands under the family of Orange. The differences between the northern and southern divisions in race and language, in history, religion, and customs, proved too great.

In 1830 Belgium separated from Holland, and her neutrality was guaranteed by a conference of the European Powers, and by a further treaty, in 1839, signed by Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, the Netherlands, and Russia.

The Belgium constitution of 1831 jointly vests the legislative power in the king, the Senate, and the Chamber of Representatives. The one hundred and ten senators (with the exception of twenty-seven elected by the provincial councils) and one hundred and sixty-six representatives are elected by the people, the former for eight, the latter for four years. Universal male suffrage, with plural voting up to three votes by property and educational qualifications, was introduced by the electoral law of 1894, proportional representation being secured by an act of 1900. There are in addition representative Provincial and Communal Councils.

=Cities.=--Brussels, population, 1910, with suburbs, 720,347 inhabitants, is the capital. Other towns with over 100,000 inhabitants are Antwerp, the chief port (320,650 exclusive of suburbs); Ghent (165,149), the center of the iron industry, which has also large cotton and flax spinning mills, and is the second port of importance after Antwerp, while its flower shows are famous; and Liège (174,768).

Its great harbor and commercial city is Antwerp, a strongly fortified city on the Scheldt. The other harbors are Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, Nieuport, Blankenberg, and Zeebrugge.

Antwerp, the principal fortress, and Liège and Namur, also fortified, were designed to afford military protection on the line of the Meuse against a violation of neutrality by either France or Germany.

=Brussels= (Fr. _Bruxelles_), the capital of Belgium, is situated in a fertile plain on the ditch-like Senne, twenty-seven miles south of Antwerp, and one hundred and ninety-three miles northeast of Paris. It has a circumference of about five miles, and is built partly on the side of a hill. Though some of the streets are so steep that they can be ascended only by means of stairs, Brussels may on the whole be pronounced one of the finest cities in Europe.

The fashionable Upper Town, in which are the royal palace, public offices, and chief hotels, is much more healthy than the older Lower Town, which is greatly subject to fogs, owing to its intersection by canals and the Senne, although the stream now passes under an arched covering, which supports a boulevard. But the closely built old streets, with their numerous handsome buildings, formerly belonging to the Brabant nobility, and now occupied by successful merchants and traders, have a fine picturesque appearance, while some of the public edifices are unrivaled as specimens of Gothic architecture.

French is spoken in the upper division; but in the lower Flemish is the current language prevalent, and by many the Walloon dialect is spoken.

The walls which formerly surrounded Brussels have been removed, and their place is now occupied by pleasant boulevards extending all around the old town, and shaded by alleys of limes. The _Allée Verte_--a double avenue along the Scheldt Canal--forms a splendid promenade, and leads toward the country palace of Laeken, three miles north of the city.

Besides the fine park of thirty-two acres, in the Upper Town, ornamented with fountains and statues, and surrounded by the palace and other state buildings, Brussels has several other squares or places, among which are: the _Place Royale_, with its colossal monument of Godfrey of Bouillon; the _Grande Place_, in which is the hôtel-de-ville, a splendid Gothic structure of the fifteenth century, with a spire of open stonework three hundred and sixty-four feet high; and the _Place des Martyrs_, where a memorial has been erected to those who fell here in the revolution of 1830. The statue group of the Counts Egmont and Horn is notable. The cathedral of St. Gudule, dating from the thirteenth century, has many richly painted windows, and a pulpit considered to be the masterpiece of Verbruggen. The _Palais des Beaux Arts_ contains the finest specimens of the Flemish school of painting and a sculpture gallery. The Royal Library adjoining has half a million volumes.

The _Palais de Justice_, built in 1866-1883 at a cost of more than ten million dollars, is one of the most magnificent buildings in Europe, dominating the lower town from the terraced slope of the upper town. The Royal Palace and the National Palace (for the chambers) are important buildings. Besides the University, there are schools of painting and sculpture, and a conservatory of music.

Brussels lace is particularly famous. Of the so-called Brussels carpets only a few are manufactured here, most of those of Belgian make being produced at Tournai. There are also manufactures of damask, linen, ribbons, embroidery, paper, jewelry, hats, soap, porcelain, carriages, etc.

=History.=--The history of Belgium as a kingdom can be said to date only from the time of the Congress of Vienna, in 1830, but its history as part of the Netherlands goes back to the time of the Romans.

The province of Belgica under the Romans passed under the sway of the Franks, and fell later to the Burgundian princes. On the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 it passed by marriage to the House of Hapsburg. The Spanish Netherlands remained (unlike the northern provinces which rebelled against Spain and became a Protestant republic) under the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs, till in 1713 they were transferred to Austria. From 1794 Belgium was under French sway, but on the fall of Napoleon was united with the kingdom of the Netherlands. It rebelled in 1830, and since then, as above stated, has had a separate career as a limited constitutional monarchy. Again, in 1838, Holland and Belgium seemed on the brink of war, the cause being that Belgium had treated Lembourg and Luxembourg, which by the convention had been given to Holland, as if they were in reality a part of its territory. The crisis was terminated by the action of the Great Powers, who reduced Belgium’s share of the national debt of the Netherlands, and partitioned the territories again in dispute. The tranquillity of the country was again disturbed by the revolutionary spirit of 1848, but after 1850 the constitutional party began that series of reforms which gained for Belgium the position of one of the freest countries in Europe.

The question of Luxembourg threatened in 1861 the peace of Europe, and Belgium took part in the congress which prevented war breaking out. In 1870, on the outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany, Belgium, fearing invasion, mobilized her troops, but her neutrality was recognized and left inviolate by both parties. In 1885 the Congo Free State was acknowledged to be under the presidency of the king of Belgium, Leopold II., who had succeeded his father in 1865. The management of the colony gave cause for much bitterness, and led to a number of scandals. Leopold II. died in 1910, and was succeeded by his nephew, King Albert.

On August 2, 1914, the neutrality of Belgium was violated by the invasion of the German army at Visé, on the ground of _military necessity_. The German forces met with the most stubborn resistance from the valiant though numerically inferior Belgians at Liège and Namur. The country was subsequently completely overrun by German armies and subjected to military control. The Germans are at present (1917) in occupation of practically the whole country, where they are exercising civil government. The Belgian government has withdrawn temporarily to Havre, in France.

=BULGARIA=, a monarchy in the northeast part of the Balkan Peninsula between the Danube and the Balkans, was created a principality by the treaty of Berlin in 1878, greatly extended by the incorporation of East Rumelia in 1885, and declared an independent kingdom in 1908.

The net result of the wars of 1912-1913 was the increase of Bulgarian territory from 33,600 square miles to about 45,000. The population increased by about 500,000, was in 1910 4,337,513--over three-fourths Bulgarians, 465,000 Turks, 121,000 Gypsies, 80,000 Roumanians, 43,000 Greeks, and 40,000 Jews. The Bulgarians now extend into Macedonia, Bessarabia, etc., their total number being about 8,000,000.

=Surface.=--The north of Bulgaria is fertile plain and hilly country; the south is wooded and mountainous. The country has a fine waterway on the northern boundary, a Black Sea and Ægean seaboard, a mild climate, an agricultural country capable of much, an abundance of iron and some coal, free institutions, a peasantry possessing the solid qualities and persevering industry of northern races, and an assured economic development.

=Productions.=--The chief occupation of the people is agriculture, which engages about seventy per cent of the population. Cereals (wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats) are the principal crops, and rank first among the exports. Wine is produced everywhere, especially near the Black Sea. Roses are cultivated to a large extent, especially round Kazanlik and Karlavo and on the north side of the Rhodope Mountains for attar of roses, which is largely exported. Silkworms are bred in Philippopolis and Haskaro. Tobacco is carefully cultivated. There is little industry apart from domestic branches such as native cloth, carpets, trimmings and ribbons; but there is some brewing and distilling, leather work at Sumen, copper work, and pottery-making. The chief exports are grain, live stock, butter, eggs, hides, and attar of roses, sent chiefly to Turkey, France, Great Britain, and Austria-Hungary.

=People.=--Education has been very zealously and steadily promoted. Elementary education is compulsory. There are few technical schools. Sofia has a university.

The old Bulgarian Slavonic tongue is closely allied to the great Russian, but some Servian, Greek, Romanic, Albanian, and Turkish elements have found their way into the language.

The Orthodox Greek Church counts seventy-seven per cent as its adherents, Islam twenty-one and one-half per cent, and the others are Jews.

=Government.=--Bulgaria possesses one of the freest and most democratic constitutions in Europe, largely modeled on the lines of the Belgian constitution, except that there is no second chamber; and election of the _Sobranje_ or National Assembly is by universal manhood suffrage, in the proportion of one member to every twenty thousand of the population. The executive power is vested in eight ministers nominated by the king. The monarchy, independent since 1908, is hereditary.

=Cities.=--The chief towns of Bulgaria are Sofia, Philippopolis, Rustchuk and Varna. Varna and Burgas are ports on the Black Sea, Dedeagatch on the Ægean.

=Sofia= (_sofee´a_), the capital since 1878 of Bulgaria, stands in a broad valley of the Balkans, on the railway from Constantinople to Belgrade and Vienna. It lies two hundred and six miles northwest of Belgrade, while Constantinople lies three hundred miles southeast. The valley at Sofia is an upland plateau, seventeen hundred feet above sea level, and near the heart of the peninsula, between the Vitosha Mountains and the main Balkan chain. At the end of almost every vista in the city are the distant hill masses, and fringing mountains.

The city early became important as a trade center, and probably would have developed into one of the great cities of Europe had not periodical destruction, almost continual dangers of war, and centuries of misrule held it back.

The rebuilding of Sofia began around 1880. It now has many creditable public buildings, electric lighting, an electric street railway and good sewerage and water systems.

It possesses the largest theater in southeastern Europe. The Bulgarian National Theater, with a competent corps of actors and singers, and offering the best in opera and drama, is a revelation of the strides that have been made in the Balkans since the Turks were driven back a brief generation ago. The theater is a handsome modern structure, planned with greater luxury of detail than most buildings in Sofia, and it cost four hundred thousand dollars.

Sofia has a public bathhouse which is one of the finest buildings of its kind in the world. It was built over a hot mineral spring, famed since the days of the Romans. This building, in Byzantine style, including in its interior appointments all of the most modern luxuries, cost the Bulgarians six hundred thousand dollars.

Their capital city is one of the peculiar prides of the hard-working, long-enduring, persistent Bulgarians. It typifies to them the promise of a great Bulgarian future, and they also look upon it as an earnest of their right to a respected place among the civilized nations of the West.

=History.=--The country now known as Bulgaria was originally inhabited by Thracians, and under the Romans formed the province of Mœsia. The Bulgars originally came from the banks of the Volga and crossed the Danube in the sixth century, and occupied the East. They overcame the Slavs, adopted their language and customs, and thus became a great Slav power; but by 1186 they had split up into three principalities, and from 1393 fell under the domination of the Turks. For close upon five hundred years the Bulgars were subject to the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

The first national awakening dates from the year 1762, when the monk Paysios, then at Mt. Athos, wrote the national chronicles, and revived memories of ancient glory. A new national literature began; the first Bulgarian school was opened in 1835, and was followed by others. A newspaper appeared in 1844. The Crimean war stirred up Slavonic sympathies which Russia sedulously and naturally cherished. In 1872 the Bulgarian Church and archbishop became again independent of the supremacy of the Greek patriarch.

In 1877 Russia, as guardian of the Slav races of Turkey, declared war. As a result of the war, Bulgaria was created by the treaty of Berlin. July 13, 1878, and in 1885 Eastern Rumelia was added to the newly created principality. In 1908 the country was declared to be an independent kingdom. In 1912-1913 a successful war of the Balkan League against Turkey increased the size of the kingdom, but in August, 1913, a short campaign against the remaining members of the League reduced the acquired area, and led to the surrender of about two thousand square miles to Roumania. In October, 1915, Bulgaria decided to participate in the European conflict, and sided with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, and attacked Servia.

=DENMARK,= the smallest of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, consists of the peninsula of Jutland and a group of islands in the Baltic, and is bounded by the Skager-Rak, the Cattegat, the Sound, the Baltic, the Little Belt, Sleswick, and the North Sea.

=Surface.=--Except in Bornholm, the surface of Denmark is very similar in every part of the kingdom, and is uniformly low, its highest point (in southeast Jutland) being only five hundred and sixty-four feet above sea-level. The coast is generally flat, skirted by sand-dunes and shallow lagoons, especially along the west side. Both the continental portion and the islands are penetrated deeply; by numerous fiords, the largest being Limfiord, which intersects Jutland, and has isolated the northern extremity of the peninsula since 1825, when it broke through the narrow isthmus which had separated it from the North Sea.

=Rivers.=--Denmark has numerous streams but no large rivers; the principal is the Guden, which flows northeast through Jutland into the Cattegat. It is navigable for part of its course. Less important streams are the Holm, the Lonborg, and the Stor Aa. All the others are insignificant brooks and streamlets.

The lakes are very numerous but not large, none exceeding five and one-half miles in length by about one and one-half miles broad. There are numerous winding inlets of the sea that penetrate far into the land. The largest of these, the Limfiord in Jutland, entering from the Cattegat by a narrow channel, winds its way through to the North Sea, thus making northern Jutland really an island. In this fiord, which widens out greatly in the interior and gives off various minor fiords, there are one large and various small islands.

=Climate.=--The climate is milder, and the air more humid than in the more southern but continental Germany; it is not unhealthy, except in the low lying islands, such as Laaland, where the short and sudden heat of the summer occasions fevers.