The world has recently been treated to the sublime spectacle of a meeting of the Shoddy Czar and the Bloodstained Kaiser at Nish, the ancient capital of down-trodden Serbia, where the two monarchs, united only by the nefarious nature of the enterprise in which they are engaged, exchanged compliments of a dangerous irony. It was characteristic of Ferdinand that he should veil his impudent jibe under the screen of a dead language, and refer to his partner in crime as “Victor et gloriosus,” which, if it means anything, signifies, “Conqueror and braggart.”

The Kaiser, for his part, stooped to no such refinement of sarcasm. He made Ferdinand a field-marshal of the German Army, referring to the “glorious triumphal march of his nation, under its illustrious War Lord.” In conferring his new rank upon Ferdinand he said, “I am, with my army, happy that you, by accepting it, have become ‘One of us.’”

The brutal irony of Wilhelm II was probably accepted by crafty Ferdinand as one more added to the long list of insults he has received at the Kaiser’s hands. The Czar of Bulgaria has had all sorts of good qualities claimed for him by his admirers, but the most servile of his flatterers has never ventured to claim that he has anything of the soldier in him. That he neglected the common employment of the youth of his time and his class for the fascination of the study of nature, and that military matters roused in him the deepest aversion, is conceded by friend and foe alike.

He has never been able to understand the elements of military theory or practice, and as Stambuloff pointed out in the Press interview which gave him so much offence, he was incapable of understanding his Minister for War. Add to that the fact that he is a timorous man, and the whole force of irony contained in the apparent fulsomeness of the Kaiser’s words can be grasped.

His own Commander-in-Chief, the great General Savoff, summed up his military qualifications in an interview shortly after the conclusion of the Treaty of Bucarest, that is a standing testimonial to the Bulgarian Czar’s soldier-like qualities.

“What can you do,” groaned the Bulgarian soldier, “with a man who always lives in bodily fear—fear of assassination, fear of disease, fear of accident? You cannot think what a job it was to keep up our troops’ enthusiasm for a king who dare not look upon a wounded soldier, who can never be persuaded to go within a mile of a hospital, who trembles at the sound of the guns, and hides himself in a railway carriage, in which he flits from place to place, always keeping as far as possible from the front.”

This short and forcible summary of Ferdinand’s behaviour in time of war is only at fault since it falls short of the actual details of his supreme cowardice. No greater physical coward has existed in modern times. Fear lives with him always; it is a disease rather than a frame of mind which stern resolution might overcome. He is sick at the sight of shed blood, he can no more help trembling at the sound of the cannon than a timid young girl.

One of my most vivid recollections of him is of a struggle with this craven fear which took place in the sight of a very considerable crowd. It happened curiously enough at Brussels, where I saw him in 1910. He was then, as always, most interested in aviation, and in a weak moment had engaged to make a flight with the Belgian pilot Delamines. Up to that time no king had ever ascended in an aeroplane, and Ferdinand was probably impelled to make his rash engagement by his desire to be the first monarch to fly.

But when the time came for him to enter the machine, he was possessed by nothing but fear. One could only sympathize with him, so pitiable a spectacle was he in his terror. His face was livid, and his thin lips were ashen grey. His jaunty walk had completely gone, and he tottered to his seat as though he were going to the gallows.

With a supreme effort he gasped, “I am too fat to fly, but let us fly nevertheless.” It did not sound jocular, but pathetic. But he was in for it, and was strapped to his seat. There was a cheer when the aeroplane rose, and the Czar of Bulgaria, with eyes tightly shut, soared off. Two circuits of the aerodrome he made and then descended to earth more dead than alive. A flask was offered him as he dismounted, and with unaffected joy he drained it, and the colour came back to his cheeks. The reaction set in, and he was sprightly in his satisfaction at the feat he had accomplished.

Nothing could have been more evident of his will to do bold things, and of the craven fear that held him back from his wish. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that he placed himself at the head of his army on the outbreak of the Balkan war, and sallied forth against the Turks determined to do or die. The very first sight of a wounded Bulgarian soldier killed all the martial fervour in him, and thenceforward, like the Duke of Plaza Toro,

The stories of his prowess as Commander-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Army reveal him as a pitiful mixture of craven cowardice and arrogant self-sufficiency. He hovered continually on the fringe of the field of action in his luxurious train, and exercised a restraining influence on the enterprise of his generals and on the courage of his troops. His tongue was forever dripping cant phrases about humanity, he was all composed of compunction as timorous as it was base. But he never lost sight of his one object in waging war; everything was subordinated to his overwhelming desire to enter Constantinople at the head of a victorious army.

The first Balkan war was begun as a war of liberation. In a few months Ferdinand had converted it into a war of conquest. His punishment was reaped in the result, for those operations that might reasonably be ascribed to a desire to rescue the Balkan Christians from the Turkish yoke were crowned with success; while his attempts at conquest ended in a humiliating reverse.

The climax of his unworthy terrors came when the Bulgarians were encamped opposite the Turks at Chatalja, and the uncleanliness and neglect of both armies resulted in a visitation of cholera. Before that scourge Ferdinand fled, still insisting on maintaining control of the operations. But he would receive no message from the infected camp, and adopted precautions that made the lips of his very toadies curl with scorn. His timorous precautions prevented his generals from capturing Adrianople months before that stronghold really fell, while his explanation that he wished to avoid unnecessary bloodshed deceived no one. During all this fighting he had to bear the contrast afforded by his heir, who, to do him justice, bore his part in the war as became a prince and the heir to a throne.

His experience at the siege of Adrianople afforded him the luxury of a new terror. At that siege, as the history of warfare will tell, bombs were for the first time dropped from aeroplanes upon troops and buildings beneath. The practice appealed to Ferdinand’s lively imagination, and struck a new terror into his cowardly soul. He lived in daily dread of an attack from the sky, for the elaborate precautions he took to avoid any contact with King Death did not cover the risk of death from above.

The sequel was witnessed when Ferdinand and his Bulgars arrayed themselves in the Great War on the side of the Teuton Powers and on that of Bulgaria’s hereditary enemy, Turkey. The haunting dread of an aeroplane raid upon Sofia was with him night and day. He lost no time in appealing to the Germans for a Zeppelin to aid the Bulgarian operations, and his request was granted.

In due course the great airship arrived at Sofia, and its commander requested from the Czar that he should be given instructions as to what part of the battle front he should visit. The reply was that for the present he should remain where he was for the protection of Sofia, that is, Czar Ferdinand, from the dangers of an air raid. It is pleasant to reflect that the French aeroplanes came, nevertheless, and did no little damage to Ferdinand’s capital. Some day, perhaps, we shall know how the Czar comported himself during their visit.

Such, then, is the military prowess of the man whom the Kaiser jeeringly termed “an illustrious War Lord.” Not even Ferdinand himself, with all his marvellous self-sufficiency, could miss the point of that arrogant sneer. And Ferdinand is a Bourbon, who “remembers nothing and forgets nothing.” It will be strange if the mighty War Lord does not one day repent him of jesting so open and ill-timed.