Every week’s experience showed that the Porte had little to dread from the subserviency of Bulgaria to foreign influence, if only Bulgaria were allowed enjoyment of her unanimous desires, and the Porte did not gratuitously place itself in opposition to the general feeling of the people.  A Bulgaria, friendly to the Porte, and jealous of foreign influence, would be a far surer bulwark against foreign aggression than two Bulgarias, severed in administration, but united in considering the Porte as the only obstacle to their national development[209].

[Footnote 209:  Parl.  Papers, Turkey, No. 1 (1886), p. 424.]

Events served to reveal the soundness of this statesmanlike pronouncement.  At the close of the year Prince Alexander returned from the front to Sofia and received an overwhelming ovation as the champion of Bulgarian liberties.  Further, he now found no difficulty in coming to an understanding with the Turkish Commissioners sent to investigate the state of opinion in Southern Bulgaria.  Most significant of all was the wrath of the Czar at the sight of his popularity, and the utter collapse of the Russian party at Sofia.

Meanwhile the Powers found themselves obliged little by little to abandon their pedantic resolve to restore the Treaty of Berlin.  Sir Robert Morier, British ambassador at St. Petersburg, in a letter of December 27, 1885, to Sir William White, thus commented on the causes that assured success to the Bulgarian cause: 

The very great prudence shown by Lord Salisbury, and the consummate ability with which you played your part, have made it a successful game; but the one crowning good fortune, which we mainly owe to the incalculable folly of the Servian attack, has been that Prince Alexander’s generalship and the fighting capacities of his soldiers have placed our rival action [his own and that of Sir W. White] in perfect harmony with the crushing logic of fact.  The rivalry is thus completely swamped in the bit of cosmic work so successfully accomplished.  A State has been evolved out of the protoplasm of Balkan chaos.

Sir Robert Morier finally stated that if Sir William White succeeded in building up an independent Bulgaria friendly to Roumania, he would have achieved the greatest feat of diplomacy since Sir James Hudson’s statesmanlike moves at Turin in the critical months of 1859-60 gained for England a more influential position in Italy than France had secured by her aid in the campaign of Solferino.  The praise is overstrained, inasmuch as it leaves out of count the statecraft of Bismarck in the years 1863-64 and 1869-70; but certainly among the peaceful triumphs of recent years that of Sir William White must rank very high.