GENERAL SAVOFF.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10684, 3 February 1913, Page 2

GENERAL SAVOFF.

BULGARIA'S VON MOLTKE

HIS CAREER OF DARING

The name of General Michael Savor?, which but a few weeks ngo was hardly known, is now on everybody's lips. Even in Bulgaria, his own country, it had-been half-forgotten, and to rvmyit will be a surprise to hear that until the order for general mobilisation was issued he did not belong to the active army, having resigned his commission in 190y. He minht well now repeat Lord Byron's words that "ho awoke one morning to find himself famous," says the correspondent of the London " Evening News." For onco fortune has not proved blind in her bounties. If ever there was a man who has won'a right to her smiles that man is General Savoff. There is some appropriateness in finding him at the head of the victorious Bulgarian armies, which owe to him more than to anyone else their extraordinary efficiency. Before undertaking tho task of a Moltlte he had done the drudgery of a Koon, and during his two terms as Minister of War bad laid the foundations on which wa« built tho superstructure' of Bulgaria's military organisation. When, in 1891, the omnipotent Stambouloff entrusted to him for tho first time that important office, the Bulgarian army, although it had already ernorged victorious from a bat do ordeal, still lacked most of the elements of a modern military force. For threo years lie concentrated all tho resources of an indomitable will to remodelling the system and making up tile deiiuionTho Mannlicher repeating rifle with which the Bulgarian infantry is armed was first introduced in his time, and the entire material of tho artillery, waa replaced by the then best Krupp guns. In the spring of 1897 General Savoff left the tottering Cabinet of Stamboiiloff, in consequence of a private affair, and spent three years out of public life. He had left behind him the reputation of a first-class organiser, and nobody was astonished when in 1897 h<= was placed at the head of the division of Shomnla. < ' . . By training he belonged to the General Staff, but during the Servo-Bulgar-ian war in 1885 he had, as commander of the left wing of the Bulgarian army at Slivnitza, displayed real powers as active commander and greatly contributed to that notable victory. At Shoumla his qualities as leader of men again shone out and soon his division was pronounced the premier unit in tho whole country. His next appointment, as Chief of the Military Academy at Sofia, offered him fresh opportunities as a trainer of men, and the young officers who received their military education under his immediate supervision are now nearly all commanders of companies, filling perhaps the most responsible positions in the fighting army. Relations between the former teacher and his pupils have always been most intimate, and are marked by an absolute trust, without which some of the recent exploits in the Thracian thea.tre of operations would be almost inexplicable. In ,1902 it became evident to every one in Bulgaria that the army "had been lagging behind the times and by universal consensus General Savoff -was for a second time placed at the head of the War Office.

The Macedonian question had been lately looming on the political horizon, and the conviction was gradually settling in the mind of the nation that before very long its solution would have to bo entrusted to the arbitrament of the sword. Bulgaria was at that time surrounded on all sides by ill will and could only rely on its own efforts. The realisation of this fact formed the keynote of General Savoff's second administration and the' famous military law of 1904, the crowning point of his career as military organiser. This great Act aimed at nothing less than transforming the entire nation into a fighting machine. Many of the principles of his previous organisation were wiped out, the whole system of reserve troops transformed, the effect bring that in case of general mobilisa-ti-ui the normal military forces of the coimiry were increased sevenfold. The believers in traditions looked askance at this revolution and Parliament had to be almost coerced into sanctioning it, but the results of the present mobilisation have entirely justified the daring innovation.

This was, however, only one part of the stupendous work which General Savoff performed during the years 1902-07. The armament of the artillery was entirely renovated; the engineering troops were for the first time placed on a sound footing and a special school was opened for the training of reserve officers, which in the course of some ten years has supplied the army with nearly 8000 officers, most of them men of university and college education.

Having brought to a successful termination this herculean programme, General Savcff once more retired in 1908 into private life. But he did not abandon his keen interest in the army and quite recently has been contributing to various periodicals sensational articles on the necessity of appointing in time of peace a comman-der-in-chief who would lead the armies when the day of reckoning came. Many wero of opinion that he was thus offering his own candidature for that all-important post, and it must be admitted that he was proclaimed by all the younger generations of the Bulgarian officers as the futuro leader of the nation in arms. His whole career has been a long chain of daring conceptions, and every Bulgarian instinctively felt that a resolute will backed by sober calculation could alone enable the younger kingdom to grapple -successfully with the mighty problem which 'European diplomacy had becjileathed to it in 1878. Of all the leaders which the stormy events in Bulgaria during the last twenty-five years have brought to the forefront, no one combines in a more perfect degree these two supreme qualities of leadership than General Savoff and never has a fateful appointment, decreed in an hour of solemn responsibility, been greeted with a more unanimous'chorus of approval. Thus far c-vonts have fully confirmed Ou- wisdom of the choice; v\hnt rovau'iß.* w felis secret «1 fclio £r>ds.