THE NEWS FROM SOFIA- T HE recent changes in the Cabinet
of Sofia do some- thing to clear up the confused situation in the Balkan Peninsula. Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria is a man in whom most remarkable intellectual powers coincide with a certain timidity, or over-clear perception of coming dangers, and recent developments seem to have thoroughly alarmed him both for his Principality and his throne. The probability of war between Turkey and Bulgaria re- cently became close and pressing. On the one hand, though the Sultan relies rather on his wonderful astute- ness than on his sword, he detests the Bulgarians, who have always given him trouble ; he desires heartily to keep Macedonia, his last great province in Europe ; and he is daily pressed. by soldiers whom he cannot disregard, and Finance Ministers who are exasperated by the cost of keeping a great army in the field, to invade Bulgaria and dictate his own terms at Sofia. One heavy military blow would, he is told, quiet Bulgaria, reduce the Macedonian agitators to despair, and enable him to send back his costly Reservists to Anatolia. On the other hand, the outrages committed on Bulgarians in Macedonia, where at this moment any man of that nationality is regarded as a dangerous rebel, and. may be killed at sight by the armed Mahommedans, are driving the soldiers of the Principality so frantic that they would run the awful risk of declaring war on Constantinople rather than endure them any longer. The Daneff Ministry contrived for a time to keep both them and the populace quiet, but cries of "Treason" began to be beard, and the Ministry was obviously losing its control. The Prince therefore resolved on strong measures. He hurried to Sofia from Paris, and as soon as he arrived rated the Ministers so soundly for disregard. both of him- self and. their duty that they resigned in a body. The Prince then turned to the party of the murdered Premier Stambouloff, who are friends of Turkey and absolutists, and appointed their chief, General Petroff, his Prime Minister. The General will, he believes, govern strongly, while his appointment will greatly conciliate the Sultan, and. perhaps also the Turkish Generals who are clamouring for invasion. The outflow of Bulgarians into Macedonia will be stopped, so far as that is possible on such a road. less frontier, and the insurgent committees will be cut off from. their only asylum when they are defeated. The Sultan, the Prince hopes, will thus be strengthened to take his own way, while he may be induced to spare the Bul- garian "bands," at least from anything worse than bullets in open fighting. St. Petersburg is disgusted, for there, in spite of the entirely pacific disposition of the Czar, a strong party hoped for a Turkish invasion of Bulgaria, which might have brought Russian armies into the field ; while Buda-Pesth is delighted, for there any partition of the Balkans is regarded. with apprehension, as increasing the heavy weight of the Slav element within the com- posite Austrian Empire.
Will it, then, be peace or war The situation is too strained, and the elements of confusion are too many and too conflicting, for any careful thinker to give a confident reply; but we incline to believe that the chances on the whole are still against even an apparent peace. The Czar and the Austrian Kaiser both desire to wait, but neither has an army in the Balkans, and their orders may be disobeyed. The Mahommedans of Mace- donia and the Turkish troops from Asia are both frantic with irritation at what they deem the murderous insolence of the Christians, and may render peace impos- sible by an effort to stamp out resistance, as was done in Armenia. If that happened the Bulgarians would declare war, if they had to depose their Prince in order to do it, and then the Sultan will have no alternative. He dislikes the idea of invasion, which, among other consequence's- may make a successful General too popular; but he can- not resist a unanimous demand from his own people, and some elements in the situation may weaken his reluctance to invade. He is sure of the friendship of Germany, whose rulers want privileges in Asiatic Turkey, and would view even a possibility of collision between Great Britain and Russia with a perfectly natural sense of relief. He can trust his Army, which has been reorganised by German Generals, and he is aware that both St. Petersburg and Vienna would at first regard any " lesson " given to Bul- garia, and to insurgents generally, as highly beneficial dis- cipline, leading them in future to depend more implicitly on the Great Powers for guidance and for encouragement. Their statesmen have been threatening the insurgents and their friends with abandonment for the last six months, and it is possible that they mean it, for Armenia was abandoned. The Sultan, moreover, is fretted by the fact that Macedonia cannot, till Bulgaria is subdued, be held without a great garrison, which must while on active ser- vice be paid and provisioned and supplied at a cost which an overstrained Treasury finds almost intolerably heavy. The Sultan is even said to have lent much of his own accumulations to the military chest, and must be sorely tempted to withdraw his veto on active operations, which will at least arrest the slow wasting of his resources. If he does withdraw it, the pressure in St. Petersburg to take advantage of the opportunity, and in the name of humanity to drive the Turk back into Asia, will be nearly irresistible. Austria would be "squared" by permission to go to Salonica, France cannot attack her ally, Germany will make terms for herself rather than run an extreme danger without Austrian help, and there will be no Power free to defend Turkey except Great Britain.
We cannot for our lives see, now that Egypt is in our own hands, why we should interfere ; but that great argu- ment can wait till events have declared themselves a little more distinctly. To-day we wish rather to point out the bearing of the trouble in the Balkans upon the future of little States. One reason, at least, of their comparative safety has been the general feeling of Europe that they widen the area of permanent tranquillity. They cannot fight with any hope of advantage, and therefore they remain quiet, and make experiments in government which greater States are much afraid to try. There is ancther side to their position, however, which recent events both in Holland and in the Balkans have brought into novel prominence. The want of strength in the petty States increases on certain occasions their liability to internal disorders, the inhabitants feeling that their Governments are not quite irresistible ; and on all occasions they offer inducements to aggression which, now that the Great Powers are so aggrandised by the improvement of their armies, tempt their rulers almost more than they can bear. Civilisation has many bleisings, but it certainly has not weakened the hunger of great States for the expansion of their territories. France is covetous of Belgium, Germany of Holland, Austria of Macedonia, Russia of Servia, Bul- garia, and Constantinople. Switzerland escapes as the buffer, State of Europe, Sweden through her poverty and her climate, and Denmark because she is not in the way, and her reigning family is regarded with peculiar affection by two at least of the great dynasties. It is impossible, how- ever, to deny that six of the ten minor Powers are objects of intense ambition, as much the objects, indeed, as some centuries ago were the petty States of Italy, and therefore in a similar way are, by no fault of their own, permanent causes of disorder. That is a strange fact, when one thinks of it, and worth consideration by those who believe in the perfectibility of the human race ; but it is a fact, and one of which the historian of the future will take cognisance. We have all a kindly feeling for the little States, and a wish that they may prosper ; but only the other day a labour riot in Holland endangered the quiet- of the world, and at this moment the most menacing circumstance in the European situation is that the Balkan Peninsula comprises six States instead of one, and is therefore incompetent to maintain its own independence or decide which destiny it prefers. There is no remedy that men can perceive except an impossible Federation, and the fact may modify many disquisitions upon the benefit the world derives from States which exist without the power to keep up great armies, and therefore without the temptation to succumb to militarism.- The strong man armed is not an ideal citizen, but he keeps off burglars better than philanthropists can.
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