BULGARIA. 



83 



Servian War; and when Alexander was finally 

 driven to abdicate, the event caused much more 

 , excitement abroad than in Bulgaria. The Rus- 

 sian Government since the revolution of Philip- 

 popolis has treated the de facto Government at 

 Sofia as illegal, and waited for the people to 

 upset it and throw themselves into the arms 

 of their deliverers. Unofficially all possible aid 

 and encouragement has been given to revolution- 

 aries and conspirators. The regents carried arbi- 

 trary government to a pitch unknown under 

 Alexander, and Stambuloff, as Prince Ferdi- 

 nand's Prime Minister, went still further, sup- 

 pressing the liberty of the press, violating the 

 mails, overawing the courts, driving into exile 

 the leaders of hostile factions, and removing 

 from the army or from civil office every man 

 whose loyalty was suspected. These high-handed 

 measures silenced for a time all open opposition, 

 but they created more discontent than ever ex- 

 isted before among politicians and military men, 

 because the most distinguished men were passed 

 by and all the high civil posts were given to 

 tools of Stambuloff and the chief commands in 

 the army to young friends of Mutkftroff, his 

 brother-in-law, whom he made Minister of War. 

 In the country at large Ferdinand held a stronger 

 position than his predecessor, because the ex- 

 penditures of the Government began to bear 

 fruit, improved communications brought greater 

 prosperity, and there came good harvests, for 

 which the Government got the credit. Still the 

 pro-Russian sentiment was not extinguished. It 

 was strong among the country-folk on the plains, 

 and predominated in some populous districts, 

 such as Peshtera, Tchirpan, Haskovo, aiid the 

 Stara Zagora. Among the older generation of 

 peasants it is ineradicable, for they were taught 

 from childhood to look for deliverance and hap- 

 piness to their Orthodox Russian brothers. And 

 many of the educated classes have believed it 

 impossible for Bulgaria to live and prosper under 

 the ban of Russian ill-will. The vindictive and 

 tyrannical course of Stambuloff, " the Bulgarian 

 Czar," has raised a multitude of enemies who 

 would like to see his iron rule violently ended. 

 The disaffection in the army reached a point 

 where it became unsafe to use strong measures to 

 check it. 



Among the most distinguished officers of the 

 army was Major Panitza, one of Prince Alexan- 

 der's favorites, who had been known to be hostile 

 to Prince Ferdinand from the beginning, but 

 still was not generally suspected of intriguing 

 with Russian agents, because he had entered the 

 cell of ex-Regent Karveloff and flogged him on 

 his bare back in revenge for his share in the 

 deposition of Prince Alexander, and had shown 

 great zeal in suppressing the Bourgas insurrec- 

 tion and in urging the execution of the death 

 penalty on the Russian Captain Nabokoff. 

 Stambuloff in 1887, by intercepting his letters, 

 discovered that he was carrying on a treasonable 

 correspondence with Russian officials. As chief 

 of artillery he did good service, yet when his 

 turn for promotion came he was passed by for 

 an officer who was his junior. From that time 

 he became the leader of the dissatisfied officers, 

 and was unreserved in his criticisms on the Gov- 

 ernment and the military administrations. 

 When Maj. Popoff tried to supplant Col. Mut- 



kuroff, and was crushed by means of a trumped- 

 up charge of embezzlement that the public has 

 always believed to be false, Panitza openly de- 

 nounced the Premier and Minister of War. 

 More recently he railed against them for choos- 

 ing the Austrian Mannlicher rifle instead of pro- 

 curing Berdan rifles from the Russian Govern- 

 ment. Apart from the reputation and position 

 he enjoyed in the army and his popularity with 

 many of the officers, Maj. Panitza possessed po- 

 litical influence from the fact that he had min- 

 gled among the Macedonians and won their con- 

 fidence and admiration to such a degree that 

 they called him their Grand Voyvode, and when 

 the Servian War began he raised a legion of vol- 

 unteers, with which he dashed into the fight at 

 Slivnitza at a critical moment. 



Among Panitza's intimates was Capt. Kalob- 

 koff, an officer in the Russian reserves, who, in 

 the guise of a wine merchant, at Rustchuk car- 

 ried on political conspiracies. By him he was 

 introduced in 1887 to Villiamoff, secretary of 

 the Russian legation at Bucharest. A band of 

 conspirators, comprising civilians in various sta- 

 tions and officers of the army, was organized to 

 overthrow Prince Ferdinand, upon which Gen. 

 Damontovich was expected to enter Bulgaria as 

 Russian High Commissioner, and Panitza would 

 go to St. Petersburg to pray the Czar to nomi- 

 nate two candidates to the throne, one of whom 

 should be Prince Alexander, who would be 

 elected by the Sobranje. The correspondence, 

 which was tarried on in cipher with Panitza and 

 Kalobkoff, implicates as the abettors of this de- 

 sign Hitrovo, the Russian Minister at Bucharest, 

 and Zinovieff, Chief of the Asiatic Department 

 of the Russian Foreign Office. Zankoff, the ex- 

 iled political leader and many of his partisans 

 were engaged in the plot. Panitza was supplied 

 with money, which he spent freely. He found 

 no difficulty in getting a number of officers to 

 promise that they would join in any revolution- 

 ary attempt. Some who were reluctant were se- 

 duced by money that was distributed by Jacob- 

 son, the interpreter of the Russian legation at 

 Bucharest, accompanied with assurances that 

 they would merit the particular favor of the 

 Czar by joining in the overthrow of Prince Fer- 

 dinand. Even those who refused the traitorous 

 proposals kept the secret, such was the state of 

 political uncertainty and so rare the feeling of 

 personal devotion to the Prince. The plot was 

 not considered ripe for execution till the autumn 

 of 1889 on the return of Ferdinand from Philip- 

 popolis. The plan was to have the guard of 

 honor arrest the Prince and his ministers at the 

 Sofia railroad station and carry them off on a 

 special train that was actually provided by the 

 railroad authorities, while cavalry should scour 

 the streets. Prince Ferdinand escaped arrest, 

 and probably assassination, by returning to 

 Sofia before he was expected. Panitza grew 

 more reckless after this disappointment, and re- 

 vealed to his accomplices for the first time that 

 the plan was to kill Prince Ferdinand, Stambu- 

 loff, Mutkuroff, and Col. Petroff, Chief of the 

 Staff. On the night of Jan. 11, 1890, he tried to 

 induce Dr. Mirkoff, Surgeon-in-Chief, and Col. 

 Kissoff, commander of the garrison at Sofia, to 

 join in instigating a mutiny of the troops. 



On Feb. 1, Stambuloff, after dismissing the 



