In the official notes of the Earl of Rosebery there is manifest somewhat more complaisance to Russia, as when on February 12 he instructed Sir William White to advise the Porte to modify its convention with Bulgaria by abandoning the stipulation as to mutual military aid.  Doubtless this advice was sound.  It coincided with the known opinions of the Court of Vienna; and at the same time Russia formally declared that she could never accept that condition[211].  As Germany took the same view the Porte agreed to expunge the obnoxious clause.  The Government of the Czar also objected to the naming of Prince Alexander in the Convention.  This unlooked-for slight naturally aroused the indignation of the Prince; but as the British Government deferred to Russian views on this matter, the Convention was finally signed at Constantinople on April 5, 1886.  The Powers, including Turkey, thereby recognised “the Prince of Bulgaria” (not named) as Governor of Eastern Roumelia for a term of five years, and referred the “Organic Statute” of that province to revision by a joint Conference.

[Footnote 211:  Ibid. pp. 96-98.]

The Prince submitted to this arrangement, provisional and humiliating though it was.  But the insults inflicted by Russia bound him the more closely to his people; and at the united Parliament, where 182 members out of the total 300 supported his Ministers, he advocated measures that would cement the union.  Bulgarian soon became the official language throughout South Bulgaria, to the annoyance of the Greek and Turkish minorities.  But the chief cause of unrest continued to be the intrigues of Russian agents.

The anger of the Czar at the success of his hated kinsman showed itself in various ways.  Not content with inflicting every possible slight and disturbing the peace of Bulgaria through his agents, he even menaced Europe with war over that question.  At Sevastopol on May 19, he declared that circumstances might compel him “to defend by force of arms the dignity of the Empire”—­a threat probably aimed at Bulgaria and Turkey.  On his return to Moscow he received an enthusiastic welcome from the fervid Slavophils of the old Russian capital, the Mayor expressing in his address the hope that “the cross of Christ will soon shine on St. Sofia” at Constantinople.  At the end of June the Russian Government repudiated the clause of the Treaty of Berlin constituting Batoum a free port[212].  Despite a vigorous protest by Lord Rosebery against this infraction of treaty engagements, the Czar and M. de Giers held to their resolve, evidently by way of retort to the help given from London to the union of the two Bulgarias.

[Footnote 212:  Parl.  Papers, Russia (1886), p. 828.]

The Dual Monarchy, especially Hungary, also felt the weight of Russia’s displeasure in return for the sympathy manifested for the Prince at Pesth and Vienna; and but for the strength which the friendship of Germany afforded, that Power would almost certainly have encountered war from the irate potentate of the North.