1883); this procedure discomfited the representatives of Russia,
discredited him with the Emperor, and threw him back into the vortex of
party warfare, from which he never extricated himself.

Meanwhile the question of eastern Rumelia, or rather southern Bulgaria,
still a Turkish province, began to loom. A vigorous agitation for the
reunion of the two parts of the country had been going on for some time,
and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis suddenly
proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly announced his
approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city on September 21.
Russia frowned on this independence of spirit. Serbia, under King Milan,
and instigated by Austria, inaugurated the policy which has so often been
followed since, and claimed territorial compensation for Bulgaria's
aggrandisement; it must be remembered that it was Bismarck who, by the
Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined Serbia to its inadequate limits
of those day.

On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia, which
is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. Prince Alexander, the bulk
of whose army was on the Turkish frontier, boldly took up the challenge.
On November 18 took place the battle of Slivnitsa, a small town about
twenty miles north-west of Sofia, in which the Bulgarians were completely
victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took Pirot in Serbia on
November 27, having refused King Milan's request for an armistice, and was
marching on Nish, when Austria intervened, and threatened to send troops
into Serbia unless fighting ceased. Bulgaria had to obey, and on March 3,
1886, a barren treaty of peace was imposed on the belligerents at
Bucarest. Prince Alexander's position did not improve after this, indeed
it would have needed a much more skilful navigator to steer through the
many currents which eddied round him. A strong Russophile party formed