melia had changed "all our
intentions." The agent was therefore directed to summon the chief
Russian officers in Bulgaria and ask them whether the "young" Bulgarian
officers could really command brigades and regiments, and organise the
artillery; also whether that army could alone meet the army of "a
neighbouring State." The replies of the officers being decidedly in the
negative, they were ordered to leave Bulgaria[199]. Nelidoff, the
Russian ambassador at Constantinople, also worked furiously to spur on
the Sultan to revenge the insult inflicted on him by Prince Alexander.

[Footnote 199: R. Leonoff, _op. cit._ Nos. 75, 77.]

Sir William White believed that the _volte face_ in Russian policy was
due solely to Nelidoff's desire to thwart the peaceful policy of the
Russian Chancellor, de Giers, who at that time chanced to be absent in
Tyrol, while the Czar also was away at Copenhagen[200]. But it now
appears that the Russian Foreign Office took Nelidoff's view, and bade
him press Turkey to restore the "legal order" of things in Eastern
Roumelia. Further, the Ministers of the Czar found that Servia, Greece,
and perhaps also Roumania, intended to oppose the aggrandisement of
Bulgaria; and it therefore seemed easy to chastise "the Battenberger"
for his wanton disturbance of the peace of Europe.

[Footnote 200: _Sir William White: Memoirs and Correspondence_, by H.
Sutherland Edwards, pp. 231-232.]

Possibly Russia would herself have struck at Bulgaria but for the
difficulties of the general situation. How great these were will be
realised by a perusal of the following chapters, which deal with the
spread of Nihilism in Russia, the formation of the Austro-German
alliance, and the favour soon shown to it by Italy, the estrangement of
England and the Porte owing to the action taken by the former in Egypt,
and the sharp collision of interests between Russia and England at
Panjdeh on the Afghan frontier. When it is further remembered that
France fretted at the untoward results of M. Ferry's forward policy in
Tonquin; that Germany was deeply engaged in colonial efforts; and that
the United Kingdom was distracted by those efforts, by the failure of
the expedition to Khartum, and by the Parnellite agitation in
Ireland--the complexity of the European situation will be sufficiently
evident. Assuredly the events of the year 1885 were among the most
distracting ever recorded in the history of Europe.

This clash of interests amon