114 



BULGARIA. 



francs was discovered in the regimental ac- 

 counts. For this his subordinates were charge- 

 able, and no suspicion of dishonesty could rest 

 on the patriotic soldier who had refused Gen. 

 Kaulbars's offered bribe of 200,000 rubles to 

 deliver Sofia over to the revolutionists in No- 

 vember, 1886. But he had offended Stam- 

 bulotf, who was jealous of his influence with 

 the prince, and therefore a court-martial cash- 

 iered him and condemned him to four years' 

 imprisonment. Col. Nicolaieff, president of 

 the court-martial, publicly declared that the 

 trial was unfairly conducted, and on the 

 strength of this opinion Natchevich and Stoil- 

 off, the Conservative members of the Cabinet, 

 urged the prince to quash the sentence or 

 order a re-trial. Stambuloff threatened to 

 resign if this advice were followed. On June 

 12, Stoiloff and Natchevich tendered their 

 resignations. When apprised of their action, 

 Stambuloff sent to the prince the resignations 

 of himself and his Liberal colleagues. A com- 

 promise was effected, in accordance with which 

 Prince Ferdinand, on June 28, remitted the 

 penalty of imprisonment. The majority of 

 the officers of the army were incensed at the 

 result of the trial, and some of them entered 

 into a plot to rescue him from prison, and 

 seize Stambuloff and the other Liberal minis- 

 ters. Five officers were arrested as ringleaders. 

 Another dispute occurred between the Con- 

 servative members of the Cabinet and Stam- 

 buloff on account of attacks on the former in 

 the Liberal press, and they again handed in 

 their resignations, but the prince brought 

 about an accommodation. 



The Servian Frontier Rectification. The dispute 

 in regard to the possession of a tract of past- 

 ure lands in the Bregovo district, which was 

 one of the causes of the Servo-Bulgarian war, 

 was finally settled in July, 1888, in accord- 

 ance with the agreement arrived at between 

 the two governments, by a mixed commission 

 sitting at Negotina. The difference between 

 the t\vo countries arose from the fact of the 

 frontier line having become changed through 

 the deviation from its former course of the 

 Timok river. The question was settled by a 

 mutual exchange of land. The Porte raised 

 an objection to the direct negotiations with 

 Servia in the first place, and now protested 

 against the cession of Bulgarian territory 

 without the previous consent of the suzerain 

 power. This protest was simply intended as 

 a formal assertion of reserved rights, and after 

 explanations had been offered by the Bulga- 

 rian Government it was withdrawn. In Sep- 

 tember, when negotiations were opened for 

 the conclusion of a commercial treaty between 

 Bulgaria and Servia, Turkey pr.t forth more 

 emphatically a claim to participation in the 

 treaty, requesting that the Servian Govern- 

 ment should recognize the Turkish minister 

 resident at Belgrade as the first Turco-Bulga- 

 rian plenipotentiary. But Servia consented to 

 treat with Bulgaria alone. 



The Eastern Railways. From the time when 

 rail connection between Europe and the Bos- 

 porus was first contemplated, the project has 

 passed through many vicissitudes. The states- 

 men who governed Turkey in the reigns of 

 Abdul Medjid and Abdul Aziz planned a 

 junction with the Austrian reseau, while Gen. 

 IgnatiefF, through palace influences and diplo- 

 matic chicanery, sought to shape a scheme 

 to join the projected railways of European 

 Turkey with those of Enssia. For ten years 

 or more the political troubles of the Porte 

 prevented any step being taken. At length, 

 in 1868, contracts were awarded to the Bel- 

 gian Van der Elst, and when he failed, the 

 Vienna banker Hirsch obtained a new conces- 

 sion, contracting to build a line from Constan- 

 tinople to the Austrian frontier near Agram, 

 with four branches running to the ^Egean Sea 

 from Adrianople, to Salonica from Pristina, to 

 the Black Sea, and into Servia, the total net 

 being 2,500 kilometres. On the security of a 

 subvention of 14,000 francs per kilometre per 

 annum for ninety-nine years, Hirsch obtained 

 snbscriptions for 1,980,000 bonds of 400 francs 

 each, which were rendered attractive by the 

 feature of lottery drawings. When the South 

 Austrian Railroad Company declined to as- 

 sume the contract for working the lines at a 

 stipulated rental of 8,000 francs per kilometre 

 per annum, Hirsch, with the aid of Parisian 

 financiers, founded a French company for the 

 purpose, called the Soci6t6 d'Exploitation des 

 Chemins de Fer Orientanx, which has since 

 changed its domicile to Austria. IgnatiefF, in 

 1872, after Mahmoud Pasha had become for- 

 eign minister, succeeded in having the whole 

 plan changed. The Austrian and Servian 

 junctions were abandoned, and the length of 

 the line was reduced to 1,280 kilometres, run- 

 ning to Bellova, to connect with the Rouma- 

 nian and Russian lines by means of the Varna- 

 Rustchuk line. A part of the money that was 

 subscribed for the abandoned portions was 

 paid to Hirsch as compensation for the change 

 of contract, none of it being returned to the 

 bondholders. Austrian and English diplomacy 

 was set in motion to induce tlie Porte to ex- 

 tend the Bellova line to Nish in order to join 

 it with a projected line through Servia, and in 

 1875 Turkey and Austria entered into a mu- 

 tual engagement to construct railroads to Nish 

 on the one part, and to Belgrade on the other, 

 before the end of 1879. Then came the bank- 

 ruptcy of the Turkish treasury, the Servian 

 war, the Bulgarian rebellion, and the Russo- 

 Turkish War, all of which events had their 

 origin in the conflict. The Treaty of Berlin 

 settled the question in the Austrian sense, 

 and restored the main features of the orig- 

 inal Hirsch project. Servia and Bulgaria 

 were bound to build the sections of the lines 

 lying within their respective territories. Rus- 

 sian diplomacy endeavored still to defeat the 

 arrangement by bringing pressure on Prince 

 Alexander to grant a concession to Russian 



