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Studies on the Eastern Question* Part III. (Continuation from January and April Numbers.) (Chapter I—Bulgarian Independence.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

G. Scelle
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Extract

1. The Chief Executive. — The Christian government of which Article 1 of the Treaty of Berlin speaks was to have as its first element a prince freely elected by the people.

This liberty of election was not, however, absolute. A restriction was placed, but only one, we believe: no member of the reigning European dynasties could be elected Prince of Bulgaria. It is easy to discover the reason for this provision, which under a general and impersonal form, was aimed directly at Russia. It was not desired that a grand duke, installed in Bulgaria, should make of the Principality an autonomous province of the Muscovite Empire. Nothing in the protocols of the Congress of Berlin permits the belief that there was any desire to push the precautionary measures further than that. If this condition was fulfilled, that the prince elected by the people should not belong to a reigning dynasty of the Powers, the choice of the Bulgarians would not be contested. Article III states, however, that this choice must be confirmed by the Sultan with the assent of the great Powers. Apart from the single case referred to in the text, could this confirmation and assent have been refused? On this point even the language of the Treaty of Berlin and the protocols of the Congress are not at all clear. It seems that very little concern was shown over the accumulation on this point of the germs of a thousand difficulties. Neither was it foreseen what would be the effect of Article III in case, for instance, only certain Powers should have refused their assent. Would a majority have sufficed or would unanimity have been necessary? And what if the confirmation of the Sultan should have been given while the assent of the Powers had been refused, or inversely ? All are questions difficult of solution. Many constructions have been proposed. The simplest, we believe, is this one. If the election was to be free — and that was the intention of the Congress — the confirmation of the Sultan and the approbation of the Powers should properly have followed an election regularly conducted, that is to say, one in which the person elected did not belong to a reigning family. The opposition of the Sultan or of the Powers, if based upon personal considerations, would have conflicted with the principle of free election. The right of the Sultan was purely honorary. It calls to mind what happens in Egypt where the case is seen of an hereditary Khedive who receives the investiture. In saying “ hereditary ” we imply that the investiture could not be. refused. It is given, however, because nominally the Sultan is the suzerain of the Khedive, as he was, nominally the suzerain of the Prince of Bulgaria.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , July 1911 , pp. 680 - 704
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1911

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Footnotes

*

Translated from the French by Chas. G. Fenwick, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

References

19 The Treaty of Berlin only fixes the conditions, it is silent as to the forms. The Organic Law does not provide for a second election, but regulates the succession to the throne. Chap. VII.

20 See the Yellow Book, Protocol No. 17, sitting of July 10, 1878, p. 248.

21 This was the period of the struggle for influence between the diplomacy of the Triple Alliance and French diplomacy, which was to end in the triumph of the latter and the Franco-Russian alliance.

22 Affair of the Danube Commission; circumstances connected with the death of Alexander II.

23 Bousquet, op. cit. For more details on the subject just discussed, see this work.

24 See the article of M. Réné Pinon, La Force bulgare, op. cit.

25 Art. I.

26 Protocol No. 15, Session of July 8, 1878. We will not lay stress upon the long and tiring discussions which this point raised.

27 Arts. II and XI.

28 See notably Organic Law, Chap. XII, sec. 5, of military service.

29 See Sariivanoff, , La Bulgarie est-elle un Etat mi-souverin? Paris, 1907 Google Scholar.

30 See Part II of this article, April Journal, p. 406.

31 Protocol No. 6, Session of June 25, 1878, for example.

32 Protocol, loc. cit., p. 115.

33 At present the two posto of Paria and London have the same incumbent, M. Standoff, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Principality.

34 See on this point Despagnet, Essai sur les protectorats, p. 138. We must observe, however, that thus far the question concerns consular agents and not consuls properly so called.

35 See Guerchitch, Le conflit douanier entre la Serbie et l’Autriche au point de vue. du droit international, in the Revue gen. de droit intern, public, t. XIV (1907), p. 349.

36 The curious kavass institution is peculiar to the East; its origin is found in the capitulations which gave to the consuls of Franco and a few other nations the right to have at their service an armed force to assure their authority and guarantee their prerogatives. The armed kavasæs recruited in Montenegro or Albania ordinarily wear a picturesque costume and embossed arms. They engage themselves to foreign ministers through personal bonds revived from the days of feudalism, show a steadfast fidelity, and form among themselves a sort of close corporation. This institution, more ornamental than efficacious, has been spreading. It is in Syria and in the seaports of the Levant, as well as in Constantinople, that it has its greatest importance. It is maintained at Sofia, but the kavasses have been more and more reduced to the part of mere servants of the legations. Their presence however irritates the Bulgarian people, who are ticklish on the subject of their honor and impatient of the least trace of their ancient servitude. England has done away with hers, Italy and France have replaced the Montenegran costume by a livery. The Turkish kavasses wear a military costume. But is it not significant to see the Bulgaria representative at Constantinople keep kavasses also, after the fashion of not only the ministers of the Balkans, who have them also, but of European ambassadors?

37 Nevertheless certain incidents are to be noted: a dragoman of the Uskub commercial agency, a Turkish subject, was seized by the police for having taken part in a brawl; an American business man of Seres who replaced the absent consular agent, having unduly hoisted the Bulgarian flag was forced to take it down on the demand of local authorities.

38 On the other hand certain nations detached from the Ottoman Empire enjoy the capitulations in Turkey. This abuse, to which the Turks were rightly opposed, could not support a claim on the part of Bulgaria following the negotiations relative to independence, when at that very time the Young Turk party was negotiating a general abrogation of the capitulations.