THE ROYAL RING

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 801, 5 November 1915, Page 8

THE ROYAL RING

Pro=German ism In the Neutral States

J T would be interesting t-o learn at i what rates the life of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria could to-day be underwritten. He is a very subtle very wily, very crafty specimen of royalty is Ferdinand, but if we only knew the actual truth as to the position of affairs at Sofia, we should. probably learn that the King prefers his armoured motor car —presented to him by William the Hun—to his royal palace. For monarchs have been as quickly unmade in Bulgaria as in Serbia, and, just as Ferdinand found assassins to p:et rid of that awkward _ patriot, Stambouloff, it is always possible that his turn may come to be. as was Stambouloff, butchered—and mutilated—in the streets of Sofia. Probably, too, if the searchlight of truth could' be turned upon the mys-tery-laden ' atmosphere of Bucharest, its Hohenzollern monarch might be found to be in just as uncomfortable a position as the Coburg-Oi-leanist prince is at Sofia.

Relationship with the German royaj house may, in the long run, prove fata] fco more than one European monarch. Russia will duly "remember" Sweden's almost shamelessly open sympathy with the Huns, a sympathy encouraged by a monarch who is connected with Potsdam by marriage. King Constantine, of Greece, may also live to regret the fact of his being the Kaiser's "dear Tino," for Athens, like Sofia and Belgrade, has before now witnessed the deposition of a monarch who dared to defy th<"! will of his people., and history has an awkward knack of repetition. Altogether, the "royal ring"—of which William the War Lord is the PotentateParamount—cannot to-day be a very happy quartette.