Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/305

 ALEXANDER

O F. BATTENBERG

manifesto announcing his accession to the throne he let it be very clearly understood, that he had no intention of limiting or weakening the autocratic power which he had inherited from his ancestors. Nor did he afterwards show any inclination to change his mind. All the internal reforms which he initiated were intended to correct what he considered as the too liberal tendencies of the previous reign, so that he left behind him the reputation of a sovereign of the retrograde type. In his opinion Russia was to be saved from anarchical disorders and revolutionary agitation, not by the parliamentary institutions and so-called liberalism of Western Europe, but by the three principles which the elder generation of the Slavophils systematically recommended—nationality, Eastern Orthodoxy, and autocracy. His political ideal was a nation containing only one nationality, one language, one religion, and one form of administration; and he did his utmost to prepare for the realization of this ideal by imposing the Russian language and Russian schools on his German, Polish, and Finnish subjects, by fostering Eastern Orthodoxy at the expense of other confessions, by persecuting the Jews, and by destroying the remnants of German, Polish, and Swedish institutions in the outlying provinces. . In the other provinces he sought to counteract what he considered the excessive liberalism of his father’s reign. For this purpose he clipped the feeble wings of the Zemstvo, an elective local administration resembling the county and parish councils in England, and placed the autonomous administration of the peasant communes under the supervision of landed proprietors appointed by the Government. At the same time he sought to strengthen and centralize the imperial administration, and to bring it more under his personal control. In foreign affairs he was emphatically a man of peace, but not at all a partisan of the doctrine of peace at any price, and he followed the principle that the best means of averting war is to be well prepared for it. Though indignant at the conduct of Prince Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided an open rupture with Germany, and even revived for a time the Three Emperors’ Alliance. It was only in the last years of his reign, when M. Katkoff had acquired a certain influence over him, that he adopted towards the Cabinet of Berlin a more hostile attitude, and even then he confined himself to keeping a large quantity of troops near the German frontier, and establishing cordial relations with France. With regard to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of Prince Alexander and afterwards of M. Stamboloff to destroy Russian influence in the principality excited his indignation, but he persistently vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of arms. In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional policy of gradually extending Russian domination without provoking a conflict with Great Britain, and he never allowed the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of hand. As a whole his reign cannot be regarded as one of the eventful periods of Russian history; but it must be admitted that, under his hard, unsympathetic rule, the country made considerable progress. He died at Livadia on 1st November 1894, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nicholas II. (d. m. w.) Alexander OF Battenberg (1857-1893), first Prince of Bulgaria, was the second son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and the Rhine by his morganatic marriage with Julia, Countess von Hauke. The title of Battenberg, derived from an ancient residence of the grand - ducal family of Hesse, was conferred, with the prefix Durchlaucht or “ Serene Highness,” on the countess and her descendants in 1858. Prince Alexander, who was born 5th April 1857, was nephew of the Tsar Alex-

261

ander II., who had married a sister of Prince Alexander of Hesse; his mother, a daughter of Count Moritz von Hauke, had been lady-in-waiting to the Tsaritsa. In his boyhood and early youth he was frequently at St Petersburg, and he accompanied his uncle, who was much attached to him, during the Bulgarian campaign of 1877. When Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty was constituted an autonomous principality under the suzerainty of Turkey, the Tsar recommended his nephew to the Bulgarians as a candidate for the newly-created throne, and Prince Alexander was elected prince of Bulgaria by unanimous vote of the Grand Sobranye, 29th April 1879. He was at that time serving as a lieutenant in the Prussian lifeguards at Potsdam. Before proceeding to Bulgaria, Prince Alexander paid visits to the Tsar at Livadia, to the courts of the Great Powers, and to the Sultan; he was then conveyed on a Russian warship to Varna, and after taking the oath to the new constitution at Tirnova (8th July 1879) he repaired to Sofia, being everywhere greeted with immense enthusiasm by the people. (For the political history of Prince Alexander’s reign, see Bulgaria.) Without any previous training in the art of government, the young prince from the outset found himself confronted with difficulties which would have tried the sagacity of an experienced ruler. On the one hand he was exposed to numberless humiliations on the part of the representatives of official Russia, who made it clear to him that he was expected to play the part of a roi faineant; on the other he was compelled to make terms with the Bulgarian politicians, who, intoxicated with newly-won liberty, prosecuted their quarrels with a crude violence which threatened to subvert his authority and to plunge the nation in anarchy. After attempting to govern under these conditions for nearly two years, the prince, with the consent of the Tsar Alexander III., assumed absolute power (9th May 1881), and a suspension of the ultra-democratic constitution for a period of seven years was voted by a specially convened assembly (13th July). The experiment, however, proved unsuccessful; the Bulgarian Liberal and Radical politicians were infuriated, and the real power fell into the hands of two Russian generals, Soboleff and Kaulbars, who had been specially despatched from St Petersburg. The prince, after vainly endeavouring to obtain the recall of the generals, restored the constitution with the concurrence of all the Bulgarian political parties (18th September 1883). A serious breach with Russia followed, which was widened by the part which the prince subsequently played in encouraging the national aspirations of the Bulgarians. The revolution of Philippopolis (18th September 1885), which brought about the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, was carried out with his consent, and he at once assumed the government of the revolted province. In the anxious year which followed, the prince gave evidence of considerable military and diplomatic ability. He rallied the Bulgarian army, now deprived of its Russian officers, to resist the Servian invasion, and after a brilliant victory at Slivnitza (19th November) pursued King Milan into Servian territory as far as Pirot, which he captured (27th November). Although Servia was protected from the consequences of defeat by the intervention of Austria, Prince Alexander’s success sealed the union with Eastern Rumelia, and after long negotiations he was nominated governor-general of that province for five years by the Sultan (5th April 1886). This arrangement, however, cost him much of his popularity in Bulgaria, while discontent prevailed among a certain number of his officers, who considered themselves slighted in the distribution of rewards at the close of the campaign. A military conspiracy was formed, and on the night of the 20th August the prince was seized in the palace at Sofia, and com-