Bulgaria was the last state in the Balkans to gain autonomy from the Ottoman Empire
(which dominated south-eastern Europe for some 400 years) but they didn’t get to do it all at once.
After briefly being promised an expansive state, in 1878 the Bulgarian nation
was split between Bulgaria proper and an Ottoman province.
But that situation lasted for less than a decade, and ended in a crisis that concerned every
European Great Power. So then why was Bulgaria permitted to fully unite, and how did they do it?
Well, after a failed revolt in 1876 Bulgarians and other
Slavic Christians turned to the Russian Empire,
which had long sought to destroy the Ottomans, for aid.
The Russo-Turkish War saw Russia, Romania, and the Slavic rebels crush the Ottoman army and in March
1878 the Russians and Turks signed the Treaty of San Stefano. Among other things, that created a
“greater Bulgaria,” but it also completely upended the region’s balance of power in Russia’s favour.
Which was of great issue to Europe’s other empires, as well as nearby Greece and Serbia.
And also the Turks, I suppose, but no one really cared about their opinion.
In particular, a large Bulgaria harmed Austro-Hungarian interests in Bosnia and Serbia,
and a Russian friendly port in the Mediterranean threatened Britain’s global preeminence at sea,
so Russia was forced to revise San Stefano at a summit of the Great Powers.
To the outrage of Bulgarian political leaders, the new Treaty of Berlin split up greater Bulgaria.
In the north, the Principality of Bulgaria was allowed to remain a (nearly) independent state.
Technically it did submit to the Sublime Porte, but Bulgaria mostly functioned as
its own country. To the south, a new autonomous Ottoman province was created in Eastern Rumelia.
It was majority ethnic Bulgarian but had significant Greek and Turkish minorities.
Ethnically diverse Macedonia went back under full Ottoman sovereignty.
So, the province of Eastern Rumelia was a semi-liberal, quasi-state.
A committee of the Great Powers wrote its fundamental law and
they guaranteed over-representation for Greek and Turkish Rumelians,
while ensuring that most powerful positions were held by foreigners, all to surpess the influence
of Bulgarian nationalists. The Governor-General was to be an Orthodox Bulgarian, but he was still
appointed by the Ottoman Sultan. In contrast, the new Bulgarian principality, despite being
set up by autocratic Russia alone, had a fairly liberal constitution with an elected assembly.
The Russian goal being to incite Rumelian Bulgarians to agitate
for union with the better-governed principality.
The catch was that the Tsar’s nephew, Alexander of Hesse, was made Bulgaria’s prince,
and Russian officers were sent to command the quickly growing Bulgarian army.
For the moment that Russian influence was tolerated by Bulgarians. Unification was also what
they wanted, but particularly after the accession of the reactionary Tsar Alexander III in 1881,
many began to feel that they had merely swapped Ottoman domination for rule from St. Petersburg.
The impetus for unification wouldn’t primarily come from Sofia or the Russian capital though.
Against the efforts of almost everyone,
Ottoman Eastern Rumelian politics came to be dominated by the ethnic Bulgarians.
Two big factors made that possible;
one being the mass-emigration of, and seizure of property from,
Turks in the region following the end of the 1878 war, and the other being an exodus of
liberal nationalists from the principality after Prince Alexander suspended the constitution there.
Around the same time the two Alexanders, who were cousins, fell out;
the Prince saw himself as head of a sovereign state,
while the Tsar saw him as a de facto subject.
That Russian threat rallied domestic politics around Prince Alexander
(who would eventually restore constitutional rule), and it was without Russian backing that
the Bulgarian East Rumelian milita, coordinated by the Bulgarian Secret
Central Revolutionary Committee, overthrew the nominal Ottoman government there in 1885.
Prince Alexander accepted their demand to unite with his principality,
and frankly his own people would’ve overthrown him if he hadn’t.
With an angry Alexander III at the helm Russia and Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany,
condemned what was a blatant violation of the Berlin Treaty
as illegal and called for a return to separation.
Greece and Serbia too expressed their disapproval and made it clear that they
expected to be given territorial concessions as compensation for Bulgaria’s unilateralism.
No Great Power, not even the Russians, was willing to back military action to oppose it though.
In fact Britain, always happy to poke the Russian bear, even tacitly backed Bulgaria
and made the Greeks back down. Serbia, on the other hand, decided to launch an invasion,
which went very poorly for them. The Serbian King began his campaign with
almost no preparation and without the backing of his people: the war was over within two weeks.
Still it would take until the death of the absolutely livid Tsar Alexander III for
Russia to accept Bulgarian unity. The Bulgaria Crisis, then, mostly went in Bulgaria’s favour,
though ironically it did not go so well for the man who led them to victory.
Prince Alexander was forced into exile in 1886 (despite him having
become genuinely popular) in an effort to appease the Russians.
Under the regent Stefan Stambolov, Bulgaria headed into an uncertain future.
Before eventually selecting an Austro-Hungarian nobleman to be their new prince, Bulgaria tried
to create a personal union under Carol I of Romania. That didn’t end up working out but
you can find out more about Romania’s conflicts with Russia and the Turks
in the video to the left. And as always, I’ve been James and I’ll see you there.