Grand Prince Alexander I of Bulgaria, worked through the piles of documents, reports and civil or governmental legislation before him steadily. Much of it was of an entirely routine nature, transcipts of important parlimentary debates, new legal decrees or ammendments to older laws or legislation, administrative or financial memorandum and special concerns raised by various ministers and officials and the like. Much of it required his personal review and/or his active involvement and signature. There were times, when Alexander wondered why the Bulgarian Grand National Assembly had invited and subsequently elected him the First Prince of Bulgaria back in 1878, and equally Alexander wondered what had possessed him - a member of the Princely House of Battenberg, a non-dynastic cadet branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt - to actually accept the nomination.
The work of being the monarch of the reconstitued autonomous nation of Bulgaria, and making the difficult transition from that of subjugated vassal state of the Ottoman Empire which it had been for some four hundred and eighty-one years, had been challenging for both him and his subjects. He and they had made mistakes, often honest ones through a total lack of experience or knowledge in statescraft and the real difficulties of nation building but on the whole Bulgaria was charting a geniunely progressive course forward. There was not always total agreement about either the pace or direction, Alexander ruefully admitted, that Bulgaria was taking. There was however general accord on the essentials that needed to be addresssed and what needed to be done within the nation and it's government and national institutions to achieve the desired results.
Many of his Bulgarian subjects had been bitterly resentful when the nation which had finally been recreated out of the trials and tribulations of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78 and previous unsuccessful Bulgarian revolts against Ottoman authority was cheated of the material gains, the Treaty of San Stefano worked out between the Russians, the Austrians and the Ottomans that had ended the 1877-78 war had given them. These important gains especially in terms of expanded population, resources and territory had been subsequently taken away from them by the political and military interference of the other Great Powers of Europe, principally Great Britain and France which did not wholely desire a greatly diminished Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, except on terms that were ultimately advantageous to them alone, of course. Both countries had also aimed at an expanded territorial position for the Greek Kingdom of the Hellenes at both Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire's expense to further their own interests in the region.
Due to this, Bulgaria had lost the formily Ottoman provinces of Macedonia, Western and Northern Thrace and the island of Thasos which placed it's western and southern borders along the borders of the Ottoman province of Albania and as far south as the River Haliacmon in the Ottoman Hellenes, as well as granting commerically important access to the Aegean Sea and the wider Mediterranean Sea via the Thracian and Macedonian territory, and the great port of Salonika. Bulgaria had at least established workable and stable borders with Roumania and Austria and developed useful economic and political links to both countries as well as Russia due to the San Stefano Treaty. The formerly Ottoman province of the Dobrudja which had been unified with the Kingdom of Roumania (which gave the Roumanian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia important and expanded access to the Black Sea) following the 1877-78 War had been a regretably contentious issue between the two governments as soon as the Russo-Ottoman War had ended as both Roumania and Bulgaria claimed it for what was to both countries important historic and economic reasons.
At Austrian and Russian urging, a viable compromise had been worked out with Bulgaria receiving the Southern half of the province, while Roumania recieved the northern half. Agreements defining the equally contentious Austrian and Bulgarian borders had been relatively amibly worked out, although the union of the Bulgar inhabited Vidin province (which had been part of the Austrian Empire since the remanant of the Tsardom of Vidin had been re-conquered from the Ottomans by the Holy Roman Empire and Prince Eugene Francis of Savoy-Carignano during the Austro-Ottoman Wars) with the Grand principality of Bulgaria was for the immediate future refused by Austria. That being said however, the Austrians had not ruled out a permanent settlement of that issue at a later date if the matter could be settled in such a way as to be advantageous to both Austria and Bulgaria.
Alexander and his government had later managed with Austrian and Russian support to recoup at least some of those lost territorial gains with the unexpected Eastern Rumelian Revolution of September 5th, 1885. The broadly successful revolt resulted in the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia separting from the Ottoman Empire and unifying with Bulgaria much to everyone's surprise and consternation, it had to be said. The Great Powers of Europe had not been at all pleased by this unexpected development and had tried unsuccessfully in various ways to put a stop to it. It's most immediate consequence had been a mercifully short but bitter war with the Ottoman Empire, which Bulgaria had been more then fortunate to narrowly win, again with Austrian, Russian and Roumanian military, economic and diplomatic help.
In broad terms the 1877-78 and 1885 wars had reinforced Bulgarian unity at the national level, and strengthened Bulgarian civil and military institutions although at a staggering cost in blood and treasure, which would take years to mend. Diplomatic and military relations with Austria-Hungary, Russia and Roumania had also been reinforced and even improved to a great extent, and while their were still disagreements over a range of issues affecting the four nations, there was a real willingness to reach or workout compromises and accords on matters of common consern. The chief concern that confronted all four nations, being the Ottoman Empire, which despite considerable territorial losses in the Balkans starting from the begining of the 1800s until the present, was undergoing an astonishing rapid economic and military resurgence with regards the rest of it's considerable territorial empire. This was extremely worrying to Alexander and his cabinet, as much as it was to the governments of Tsar Alexander II, Kaiser Franz Josef I and King Carol I and a conference was planned for later in the year in Bucharest for serious discussions between the four nations to formulate effective plans for the future.
What cause particular apprehension in the cabinets, foreign officies and war ministries of Bulgaria, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania was a developing twofold problem, the possiblility of another major war (which no one had any appetite for) breaking out in the Balkans which offered no immediate or easy solution for any of the four nations. The Ottoman Empire in all probability did not desire another war for some years as they were much too busy, reintrenching and redeveloping their positions, installations and institutions in North and East Africa, Asia Minor, the Orient and Western Asia.
The Ottoman Empire's economy fuelled by the extensive development and export of Petroleum products and tolls collected from Suez Canal was surging forward at a frightening rate, as far as the Four Nations were conerned with heavy investments in their civilian light, medium and heavy industries, reforms to their tax system and it's collection, which was raking in ever increasing revenues. Steady nvestment in a new system of improved road, railways, canals and harbours was also paying handsome economic dividends. This was having increased effect on the Ottoman government's military spending, which was no great surprise to anyone, who looked at the Ottoman Empire's current situation with an analytical eye.
The Kingdom of the Hellenes, had become increasingly expansionistic and belligerent particularly over the last decade. It's economic and military power steadily swelling, resulting in numerous border incidents and wars against the Ottoman Empire. Sometime Greece operated alone as in the 1820s, or alongside Bulgaria, Roumania, Russia and Austria in various Balkan Wars since Greece's liberation from Ottoman rule or in more recent co-ordination with other powers such as Great Britain, Italy and Portugal in the 1882 Anglo-Ottoman War. Hellenic power was being driven by steady programs of internal developments within Greece, fueled by the immense personal wealth of it's Wittelbach kings, sound economic planning and the increasing influx of capital and people from the worldwide Greek Dispora. There were probably many times more Greeks outside continental Greece then were in it, and a great many of them were steadily coming back to their ancestral home (or at least directing their own surplus of funds and resources into the hands of the Hellenic Kingdom, if they were not relocating back to Greece themselves) to swell the Kingdom of Hellenes population, it's workforce and its military formations bringing with them much needed industrial and professionsial skills of all sorts.
Greek war aims had consistently striven for new conquests or advances into the Ottoman Aegean or Eastern Mediterranean islands or into the Ottoman Balkans proper striving to reach the Adriatic Coast in the northwest, the Austrian crownland of Serbia in the north and the great port city of Salonika to the northeast. Salonika would set the stage for Greek conquests of the Thracian provinces and Asia Minor, and the Imperial City of Constantinople. Greek patriots also eyed the historic Greek lands of Pontus and Néa Ionía (located on the Ottoman Anatolian Penisula's Black Sea and Eastern Aegean coasts respectively) as prizes to be seized from the Ottoman Empire's grasp. Greek progress with regards to these ends had been agonizingly slow, counted as often as not in mustard grains, but they still keep trying when the opportunities presented themself, and that was all the more worrying.
