When you think of the word Tsar, you think of Russia, but during the First World War
Russia was not the only country with a Tsar, and the other one is the one I’m talking
about today, Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War bio special of “Who did what in WWI”,
and my star today is Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria.
Ferdinand was born February 26, 1861 in Vienna, capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He
was born into the noble and wealthy family Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and he had royal connections
pretty much all over the world. His father was a prince, brother to King Ferdinand II
of Portugal and cousin to Queen Victoria and Leopold II of Belgium. His mother was the
daughter of the French King Louis Philippe. His godparents were Emperor Maximilian of
Mexico and Empress Carlota and so on and so on; clearly, from a very young age, Ferdinand
was bred for royalty.
Now, from 1879 Alexander of Battenberg had been Prince of Bulgaria, though it was technically
still a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, and- long story short- though he had been
recommended for the job by the Russian tsar, by the mid 1880s there was a new tsar, the
Plovdiv Revolution had united Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, which most of the Great Powers
were against, and which basically prompted the Serbo-Bulgarian war because people were
worried about Bulgaria gaining more influence in the Balkans, and Alexander was forced to
abdicate in 1886. You can look up the details yourself, but Bulgaria needed a new monarch
and when their first candidate for the job, Waldemar of Denmark, turned down the offer,
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha became Prince Ferdinand I of Bulgaria.
Russia had cut diplomatic ties with Bulgaria, since their candidate for prince hadn’t
been approved, and many royals in Europe were stunned by the choice of Ferdinand, Queen
Victoria even calling him “totally unfit” and saying he “should be stopped at once”,
however Ferdinand was generally successful the first two decades of his rule. Initially,
his Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov handled most domestic issues, but he fell from power
in 1894 and was assassinated in 1895, which ironically caused things to finally warm up
between Russia and Bulgaria.
Ferdinand married his first wife, Princess Marie-Louise, daughter of the Duke of Parma
in 1893. They had two sons and two daughters before she died in childbirth. He re-married
in 1908, this time to a Prussian Princess Eleonore Reuss, who he would later refer to
as “that foreign woman I had to marry.”
On October 5th, 1908, just a couple of weeks after he received news about the Young Turks
coup in the Ottoman Empire, Ferdinand declared Bulgaria’s independence and assumed the
title of Tsar. Independence was quickly recognized by both the Ottoman Empire and other European
nations. Here’s a small piece of trivia I’ll just throw in here as well: in 1910
in Belgium Ferdinand became the first head of state to fly in an airplane. - Many people
think that honor went to Teddy Roosevelt, but it’s not true. Roosevelt flew in October,
months after Ferdinand, and Teddy wasn’t president any longer anyhow.
We’ve talked about the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 a bunch before, so I’m not going
to go into details here, but you could see Ferdinand’s ambition growing. For example,
he wanted to take Constantinople, though the European powers made it clear that wasn’t
going to happen, and he wanted to place a white cross on the top of Hagia Sofia, ride
into the city on a royal carriage pulled by white horses and demand buffer territory in
Asia Minor. And after the first Balkan War ended it was Ferdinand who kicked off the
second war by surprise invading his former allies Greece and Serbia, but then had his
own country overrun by Romania with no resistance since his army was all fighting Greece and
Serbia. After that war, Bulgaria was humiliated and
Ferdinand laid blame for the disaster on his former allies, as we spoke about in our special
on Bulgaria and also the path that eventually took Bulgaria into the First World War in
the fall of 1915.
Once Bulgaria did enter the war Ferdinand seemed to have learned his lesson from the
Balkan Wars and didn’t assume direct military command and instead let his senior officers
handle military operations, while he handled diplomacy. Just as another side note here,
Ferdinand was not a fan of his allies Kaiser Wilhelm and especially Austrian Emperor Franz
Josef who he referred to as “that idiot”, but wars make for strange bedfellows.
Now here’s a spoiler alert- if you don’t want to know what happened later in the war,
stop watching now, or skip ahead a bit.
In September 1918, a Bulgarian army was defeated at the battle of Dobro Pole and the retreating
soldiers decided to march towards Sofia, force Bulgaria to leave the war, and punish those
responsible for getting Bulgaria into the war in the first place. To cool things down,
two prominent socialists – Daskalov and Stamboliyski – who had been imprisoned,
were released to talk sense to the largely socialist soldiers. Instead, they became the
leaders of the uprising and declared Bulgaria a republic. Ferdinand fought back, but the
damage was done, especially since the rebels had taken the army HQ in Kyustendil, which
was the communications center for the entire army.
Ferdinand was forced to abdicate, and leave the country never to return. His eldest son
became Tsar Boris III on October 3, 1918 and soon withdrew Bulgaria from the war.
Ferdinand wanted to settle on family land in Austria, but was not allowed to by the
Emperor so he settled in Coburg, Germany, still retaining most of his fortune. He devoted
himself to his hobbies of botany and travel, seeing much of the world in the 1920s. He
did make several attempts to return to Bulgaria, but was never successful. His son, though,
was a successful ruler and survived several assassination attempts and a coup, and after
a counter coup ushered in a brief golden age of prosperity for Bulgaria until World War
II began.
Ferdinand outlived both of his sons. Boris died in 1943 mysteriously, and it has been
speculated that he was poisoned by German agents for refusing to send troops to the
Eastern Front, and also that he was poisoned by Soviet agents for trying to negotiate with
the US and Britain. Ferdinand’s other son Kiril became Tsar regent after Boris’ death-
Boris’ son Simeon being too young to actively rule- but with Soviet occupation in 1944 Kiril
was arrested and then executed in 1945.
Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria died September 10, 1948 in Coburg. His dying wish was to
be buried in Bulgaria, but the now communist rule wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he remains
in the family crypt in Coburg. His grandson Simeon would actually return to Bulgaria in
the 1990s and go on to be Prime Minister. As of this writing, Simeon is one of only
three heads of state from WWII that are still living, the other being King Michael of Romania
and the Dalai Lama.
So there you have it, a brief look at Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, whose rule was successful
the first two decades until wars, greed, and military failure ultimately contributed to
his undoing. As always, I encourage you to look up Ferdinand’s life yourself to learn
more about him.
Thanks a lot Plamen Ganev who helped us with the research for this episode and the Bulgaria
special.
If you’d like to see more about Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars and how Bulgaria joined
the Central Powers in World War One, you can click here for our Bulgaria special. Like
us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter; see you next time.