章 252: Chapter 330 Balkan Situation (4)
European monarchs inherit their thrones not only from their parents, grandparents, siblings but also through selection from other countries. Germans are particularly favored, and royal families in the former Russian Empire, British royalty, Romanian royalty, Bulgarian royalty, Greek royalty, Finnish royalty, Swedish royalty (the future Swedish Bernadotte dynasty has French ancestry), and even outside Europe, like the Mexican Second Empire (Maximilian I, brother of Franz Joseph I of Austria), Luxembourg Grand Duke, Liechtenstein Prince, and Danish royalty—all have Germanic ancestry.
In 1886, a coup occurred in the Principality of Bulgaria, leading to the overthrow of Prince Alexander I. The Bulgarian National Assembly sought a suitable candidate for their prince from all over Europe, including Danish princes and the King of Romania. Ultimately, they selected the German Prince Ferdinand.
Ferdinand was originally a prince of the Saxe-Coburg family in Germany, with his mother being the daughter of King Louis Philippe I of France. His father's family produced one Belgian king, four Portuguese kings, and three Bulgarian kings. His godfather was Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico and brother of Joseph I of Austria. The family had close ties with the British, French, Russian, and Austrian royal families.
When Ferdinand was chosen as the Prince of Bulgaria, Queen Victoria of England and Tsar Alexander III of Russia expressed astonishment, considering it a huge joke. Victoria even tried to prevent the event from happening due to Ferdinand's perceived weakness and lack of political talent.
However, King Ferdinand I achieved great success in ruling Bulgaria in the first 20 years. In October 1908, at the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Veliko Tarnovo, he declared Bulgaria's complete independence from the Ottoman Empire, proclaiming himself "Tsar." Turkey and other European countries soon recognized Bulgaria's independence.
During World War I, Bulgaria joined the Allies. Before the war's end, the Entente powers, along with internal forces in Bulgaria, forced Ferdinand I to abdicate, passing the throne to his son Boris III. Unlike other abdicated kings or emperors, Ferdinand I was pleased to pass the throne to his son and did not experience the usual melancholy and suffering of being dethroned or exiled.
After abdication, Ferdinand went to Vienna and then returned to the ancestral home of his family in Coburg, Germany. Since he took his personal wealth with him when leaving Bulgaria, he could enjoy a leisurely and comfortable life. He became a writer, botanist, entomologist, and philatelist, traveling around and collecting stamps, artworks, and specimens in botany and entomology.
Today, this Ferdinand came to the Berlin Palace to meet Wilhelm.
The nearly eighty-year-old man was still quite robust, walking with vigor, and his spirits were quite good. "Thank you, Lord Wilhelm, for taking the time to meet an old man like me amid your busy schedule."
Wilhelm smiled and said, "Grandpa Ferdinand, you're too polite. Just call me by my name."
It is well known that members of European royal families are often related. Taking this Ferdinand as an example, his mother, Princess Clémentine, was the daughter of King Louis Philippe I of France. His father, Prince August, was the brother of King Ferdinand II of Portugal and also a cousin of Prince Albert, Empress Carlota of Mexico, Princess Charlotte of Belgium, and King Leopold II of Belgium. Among them, Charlotte and Leopold II's mother, Princess Louise, was the sister of Ferdinand's mother.
The relationships were so complicated that Wilhelm thought Ferdinand and Wilhelm II should be cousins.
Moreover, there were many interesting incidents between them.
Perhaps due to congenital deficiencies or brain damage, perhaps as a result of the nightmare-like childhood trauma, or maybe due to psychological imbalance caused by the disability of his left arm, Wilhelm II had some mental problems.
Shortly after Wilhelm II ascended the throne, the British Embassy in Berlin reported to London, "Strange rumors about the emperor's mental illness are spreading throughout Berlin." Bismarck also told his followers at that time that he knew about Wilhelm's "mental condition" and hoped to save the nation from a great disaster, which, of course, he did not achieve.
Fundamentally, Wilhelm II never emerged from the profound childhood trauma, and one of his close aides once described him during his thirty-year imperial reign as a "childish little emperor." Consequently, Wilhelm logically inflicted the childhood abuse of "doing unto others what he did not want for himself" throughout his imperial career.
On one occasion at a banquet hosted by Wilhelm II for Ferdinand, he suddenly lost control and, without warning, vigorously patted Ferdinand's back in front of everyone. Ferdinand felt greatly humiliated and immediately left Berlin, triggering a diplomatic disaster.
In another instance in 1909, Ferdinand visited Wilhelm II. In the New Palace in Potsdam, Ferdinand leaned out of the window to look around when Wilhelm II, as a show of affection, playfully slapped him on the buttocks.
Ferdinand I considered this a great shame. Fights were not allowed among kings, and since Wilhelm refused to apologize (another account claims that Wilhelm II did apologize but failed to placate Ferdinand), in anger, Ferdinand canceled a large order for weapons prepared for the German arms giant Krupp, redirecting the production of this substantial arsenal to the French Schneider company.
This was just one of many instances. Many years later, this king still "complained about the Germans" but ended up joining the German side in World War I and eventually abdicating under coercion.
Of course, Wilhelm II's pranks were not targeted at Ferdinand alone.
He once used a marshal's baton to strike the back of a Russian grand duke; he violently beat the other grandson of Queen Victoria, a Russian grand duke, in a public library and even rode on the stomach of this royal grandchild; during a cruise in the North Sea, Wilhelm summoned senior generals for a "collective gymnastics session" and, while doing exercises, used sticks to strike their ribs. These renowned generals who had commanded on the battlefield had to pretend to enjoy the emperor's "game" with smiling faces; the most absurd incident was when he secretly cut the belt of a general's pants in the gym, causing the general to publicly embarrass himself...
It's a stroke of luck that he was the supreme emperor; otherwise, he would probably have been beaten to death.
Fortunately, Wilhelm II was mostly normal most of the time. The problem is that for an emperor, especially for the emperor of a military powerhouse like the German Empire, Wilhelm II's mental issues were undoubtedly fatal. In this regard, there is no more apt description than that of Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary. He likened Wilhelm II to "a warship with the steam engine running, the propeller turning, but no helmsman," and warned that one day the emperor would cause an unprecedented disaster.
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