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.
If, however, we examine the inner cause of the success of the diplomacy of Hudson and White we must assign it in part to the mistakes of the liberating Powers, France and Russia. Napoleon III., by requiring the cession of Savoy and Nice, and by revealing his design to Gallicise the Italian Peninsula, speedily succeeded in alienating the Italians. The action of Russia, in compelling Bulgaria to give up the Dobrudscha as an equivalent to the part of Bessarabia which she took from Roumania, also strained the sense of gratitude of those peoples; and the conduct of Muscovite agents in Bulgaria provoked in that Principality feelings bitterer than those which the Italians felt at the loss of Savoy and Nice. So true is it that in public as in private life the manner in which a wrong is inflicted counts for more than the wrong itself. It was on this sense of resentment (misnamed "ingratitude" by the "liberators") that British diplomacy worked with telling effect in both cases. It conferred on the "liberated" substantial benefits; but their worth was doubled by the contrast which they offered to the losses or the irritation consequent on the actions of Napoleon III. and of Alexander III.
To the present writer it seems that the great achievements of Sir William White were, first, that he kept the Sultan quiet (a course, be it remarked, from which that nervous recluse was never averse) when Nelidoff sought to hound him on against Bulgaria; and, still more, that he helped to bring about a good understanding between Constantinople and Sofia. In view of the hatred which Abdul Hamid bore to England after her intervention in Egypt in 1882, this was certainly a great diplomatic achievement; but possibly Abdul Hamid hoped to reap advantages on the Nile from his complaisance to British policy in the Balkans.
The outcome of it all was the framing of a Turco-Bulgarian Convention (February 1, 1886) whereby the Porte recognised Prince Alexander as Governor of Eastern Roumelia for a term of five years; a few border districts in Rhodope, inhabited by Moslems, were ceded to the Sultan, and (wonder of wonders!) Turkey and Bulgaria concluded an offensive and defensive alliance. In case of foreign aggression on Bulgaria, Turkish troops would be sent thither to be commanded by the Prince; if Turkey were invaded, Bulgarian troops would form part of the Sultan's army repelling the invader. In other respects the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin remained in force for Southern Bulgaria[210].
On that same day, as it chanced, the Salisbury Cabinet resigned office, and Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery taking the portfolio for Foreign Affairs. This event produced little variation in Britain's Eastern policy, and that statement will serve to emphasise the importance of the change of attitude of the Conservative party towards those affairs in the years 1878-85--a change undoubtedly due in the main to the Marquis of Salisbury.
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.
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.