indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action. In September,
after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in eastern Roumelia
(which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia Cabinet seized the line
with a military force on the plea of political necessity. At the same time
Ferdinand, with his second wife, the Protestant Princess Eleonora of
Reuss, whom he had married in March of that year, was received with regal
honours by the Emperor of Austria at Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at
Tirnovo, the ancient capital, Ferdinand proclaimed the complete
independence of Bulgaria and eastern Rumelia under himself as King (_Tsar_
in Bulgarian), and on October 7 Austria-Hungary announced the annexation
of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the two Turkish provinces administered by it
since 1879, nominally under Turkish suzerainty.



13

_The Kingdom_, 1908-13

(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)


The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the
Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The Macedonian
question was extremely complicated; it started on the assumption that the
disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding throughout the
nineteenth century, would eventually be completed, and the question was
how in this eventuality to satisfy the territorial claims of the three
neighbouring countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, claims both
historical and ethnological, based on the numbers and distribution of