76 



CABLES. 



erning under the Constitution with a National 

 Assembly not constitutionally elected as their 

 ground, the Soboleff-Kaulbars ministry, con- 

 sisting of the two generals, Burmoff, Agura, 

 Prince Hilkoff, and K. Zankoff, handed in their 

 resignation, Sept. 19th. Stoianoff, whom the 

 Prince had insisted on placing in charge of the 

 Ministry of Justice, in opposition to the Rus- 

 sians, did not sign the paper. A Bulgarian 

 ministry was formed, with Drogan Zankoff at 

 the head, the man who had passed the last two 

 years in prison and in banishment, and had 

 visited Bulgaria only by stealth to agitate for 

 the deposition of the Prince. Stoiloff received 

 the portfolio of Justice. 



Over the nomination of a Minister of War, 

 Prince Alexander was again involved in strife 

 with the Russian diplomatic representative. 

 With both the political parties at his back, 

 their fierce rivalries reconciled by the national 

 danger of sinking into a Russian dependency, 

 he was emboldened to refuse both the officers 

 given to him to choose from, and select Gen. 

 Lessovoy for the position. But the admoni- 

 tions of M. Jonin caused him to yield the point, 

 and accept Lieut.-Col. Redigher. A spirited 

 contest over the control of the army ensued. 

 Soboleff and Kaulbars had succeeded in gather- 

 ing a party with Panslavistic tendencies, a part 

 of whose programme was the confederation of 

 the Balkan states. This party was now strong- 

 er, and carried on an active opposition to the 

 Prince under the encouragement of Jonin and 

 the leadership of Karaveloff, a more extreme 

 and consistent Radical than Zankoff and his 

 associates. 



Alexander, in his disputes with the Russian 

 agents, had several times received the hint that 

 he might lose his throne. Suggestions had 



been thrown out to the people that Prince 

 Waldemar of Denmark, brother of the Empress 

 of Russia, would make a popular ruler. The 

 Russian agents succeeded in throwing Prince 

 Alexander into a dangerous passion by the re- 

 call to Russia, without warning, of Adjutant- 

 Gen. Lessovoy, and another officer. The 

 Prince discharged every Russian officer on his 

 staff, and, when Col. Redigher refused to carry 

 out the order, he took away his commission 

 and demanded the resignation of his portfolio, 

 threatening, in case he refused, to have him 

 conducted across the frontier. The Russian 

 Government did not resent it, but secured a 

 more definite control over the Bulgarian army. 

 The Bulgarian Government arrived at an un- 

 derstanding with Baron Kaulbars, the Emper- 

 or's aide-de-camp, and accepted a convention, 

 signed for three years, whereby the Bulgarian 

 Minister of War is to be appointed by the 

 Prince, subject to confirmation by the Emper- 

 or. Russian officers are not allowed to accept 

 civil appointments, nor to take part in political 

 affairs, and are subject to the Minister of War, 

 who is answerable to the Russian diplomatic 

 representative. 



Legislation. The Sobranje, after receiving 

 legislative authority, immediately applied itself 

 to the settlement of the debt to the Russian 

 Government for the cost of the occupation, 

 and to the railroad convention with Austria. 

 This convention (see AUSTRIA), though opposed 

 by the Russian representatives, could not well 

 be avoided, as it was an affair of the European 

 concert. The terms for the payment of the 

 indemnity for the Russian occupation in the 

 Turkish War, amounting to 10,618,250 paper 

 rubles, were settled by a treaty entered into 

 with Russia. 



c 



CABLES, INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF 

 SUBMARINE. When the first attempt to lay 

 an Atlantic cable was made in 1864, France, 

 Brazil, Hayti, Italy, and Portugal entered 

 into an agreement recognizing the neutrality 

 of the cable, and accepting the obligation not 

 to injure or destroy it, even for military pur- 

 poses, in the event of war. This treaty fell 

 through with the cable project. In 1869 the 

 United States Government called a conference 

 at Washington, to consider the international 

 relations of the ocean telegraphs and their 

 regulation in war and peace. The American 

 Government prepared a project which pro- 

 Tided for the protection of the cables and their 

 neutrality in war-time; but the outbreak of 

 the Franco-German war prevented the meet- 

 ing of the conference. In 1871 Cyrus W. 

 Field submitted a similar proposal to the 

 conference in Rome, and the Italian ministry 

 undertook to lay it before the European gov- 

 ernments. Only one answer was received, a 

 favorable one from the Austrian Government. 



Confidential inquiries proved it to be out of 

 the question to expect the majority of the 

 powers to agree to the inviolability of the 

 cables in time of war. The Institute of Inter- 

 national Law accepted the situation, in dis- 

 cussing the matter at their meeting at Brus- 

 sels, in 1879, and proposed a treaty to pro- 

 vide for the arrest and punishment of persons 

 who injure cables on the high seas, and the 

 neutralization of cables running between neu- 

 tral countries. They proposed that persons 

 suspected of injuring a cable should be subject 

 to arrest by naval vessels of any of the pow- 

 ers, but that they should be brought to trial 

 in the country of the vessel on which they are 

 taken. They also suggested that measures 

 taken to interrupt cable communication in 

 war-time should not extend, unless it should 

 be unavoidable, to the injury of the cable; 

 and if it does, that the same government 

 should repair the damage when peace is re- 

 stored. 

 In 1881 several cables were badly injured 



