[Footnote 194:  For Bismarck’s action and that of the Emperor William I. in 1885, see Bismarck:  Some Secret Pages of his History, by M. Busch, vol. iii. pp. 171, 180, 292, also p. 335.  Russian agents came to Stambuloff in the summer of 1885 to say that “Prince Alexander must be got rid of before he can ally himself with the German family regnant.”  Stambuloff informed the Prince of this.  See Stambuloff, by A.H.  Beaman, p. 52.]

Meanwhile, if we may credit the despatches above referred to, the Russian Government was seeking to drag Bulgaria into fratricidal strife with Roumania over some trifling disputes about the new border near Silistria.  That quarrel, if well managed, promised to be materially advantageous to Russia and mentally soothing to her ruler.  It would weaken the Danubian States and help to bring them back to the heel of their former protector.  Further, seeing that the behaviour of King Charles to his Russian benefactors was no less “ungrateful” than that of Prince Alexander, it would be a fit Nemesis for these ingrats to be set by the ears.  Accordingly, in the month of August 1885, orders were issued to Russian agents to fan the border dispute; and on August 12/30 the Director of the Asiatic Department at St. Petersburg wrote the following instructions to the Russian Consul-General at Rustchuk:—­

You remember that the union [of the two Bulgarias] must not take place until after the abdication of Prince Alexander.  However, the ill-advised and hostile attitude of King Charles of Roumania [to Russia] obliges the imperial government to postpone for some time the projected union of Eastern Roumelia to the Principality, as well as the abdication and expulsion of the Prince of Bulgaria.  In the session of the Council of [Russian] Ministers held yesterday it was decided to beg the Emperor to call Prince Alexander to Copenhagen or to St. Petersburg in order to inform him that, according to the will of His Majesty, Bulgaria must defend by armed force her rights over the points hereinbefore mentioned[195].

[Footnote 195:  R. Leonoff, op. cit. pp. 81-84.]

The despatch then states that Russia will keep Turkey quiet and will eventually make war on Roumania; also, that if Bulgaria triumphs over Roumania, the latter will pay her in territory or money, or in both.  Possibly, however, the whole scheme may have been devised to serve as a decoy to bring Prince Alexander within the power of his imperial patrons, who, in that case, would probably have detained and dethroned him.

Further light was thrown on the tortuous course of Russian diplomacy by a speech of Count Eugen Zichy to the Hungarian Delegations about a year later.  He made the startling declaration that in the summer of 1885 Russia concluded a treaty with Montenegro with the aim of dethroning King Milan and Prince Alexander, and the division of the Balkan States between Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and the Karageorgevich Pretender who has since made his way to the throne at Belgrade.  The details of these schemes are not known, but the searchlight thrown upon them from Buda-Pesth revealed the shifts of the policy of those “friends of peace,” the Czar Alexander III. and his Chancellor, de Giers.