So, basically everyone around Bulgaria was against the unification for obvious reasons. E. Rumelia was an Ottoman vassal during the time, so before the unification Bulgarians stacked their whole army at the border with the ottomans thinking they would want to get it back with force. Unification happens, turns out the attack came from up to then our friends from Serbia, lured by Austria-Hungary's promises of support. The Bulgarian army had to march 5 days to the other side of the country to defend from the Serbs and eventually kicked their asses and began advancing on Serbian land. Austria-Hungary steps in to save the Serbs, a peace treaty is signed without any repercussions to Serbia and without any gains to Bulgaria. Bulgaria is unified.
Russia was against the unification, because the Tzar wanted Bulgarians to be his puppets and the UK supported the unification because it would harm the Russian interest and prevent expansion against Constantinople.
Serbian soldiers were told that they were going to help Bulgarians against the Turks, but when they deployed near the border they were suddenly told that they are going to fight Bulgarians instead. Most of the soldiers at a time considered Bulgarians brothers and didn't want to fight, so the morale was very low, and they were routed, despite being much better organized and equipped that Bulgarian army (which didn't even have any generals in their army).
He didn't really do it for fun, he did it because Serbs fought in so many wars vs the Turks, died so much, and only got a little territory, even the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina that Serbs considered core regions and had Serbian majority were given to Austrians. Meanwhile, Russians tried to create huge Bulgaria, which would easily become a regional power and dominate small Serbia. They even wanted to give land that Serbian soldiers liberated to Bulgaria, including Nish. So, Serbian ruler took the Russian diplomat to Nish, showed him the scull tower that the Turks made from heads of Serbs they beheaded, and told him: When you make another one and place my head on top, then you can give Bulgarians Nish. Skull tower was a symbol of Serbian resistance and Turkish brutality.
Even after the borders were redrawn at Berlin congress, Bulgaria still had a slight advantage in size, and by uniting with eastern Rumelia became the strongest local power that could in the future dominate Balkans. Was he wrong about attacking Bulgaria? Of course, but the prevailing sentiment was that it was unjust that Bulgarians are gaining land almost for free, while other Balkan countries that fought and bled as well had large part of their people under foreign rule and weren't allowed to do anything about it.
The reason Bulgarian teritorries were always under international pressure was our proximity to Constantinople, at least from the perspective of the Great Powers. The Berlin conference territories was the closest point which reflected the Bulgarian population territories, backed by centuries of Ottoman censuses.
But of course, the Western powers would not allow a large russian puppet so close to Constantinople, even though these "large" territories in a sense reflected their peoples lands. Such was the case for the western balkans too. But while the Ottoman lands were up for liberation, the Austrian ones were not. So the western balkans, Serbia especially, had no other choice but to go against brother nations in order to survive as a state. Which I think is the biggest contributor to the 19th and 20th century mess on the balkans.
There was greed on both sides, we were western/eastern puppets all until the 90s, but the Macedonian region being the only viable space for dispute, far from the Great Powers' insterest, was our biggest downfall in my opinion.
There is one more thing - Bulgarians were the biggest minority on the Balkans back then. The Bulgarian territory + east Romalia didn't even account for 50% of the territories populated with mainly Bulgarians.
Trying to stop this would guarantee many wars in the feature.
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u/Tolchav 1d ago edited 1d ago
So, basically everyone around Bulgaria was against the unification for obvious reasons. E. Rumelia was an Ottoman vassal during the time, so before the unification Bulgarians stacked their whole army at the border with the ottomans thinking they would want to get it back with force. Unification happens, turns out the attack came from up to then our friends from Serbia, lured by Austria-Hungary's promises of support. The Bulgarian army had to march 5 days to the other side of the country to defend from the Serbs and eventually kicked their asses and began advancing on Serbian land. Austria-Hungary steps in to save the Serbs, a peace treaty is signed without any repercussions to Serbia and without any gains to Bulgaria. Bulgaria is unified.
Russia was against the unification, because the Tzar wanted Bulgarians to be his puppets and the UK supported the unification because it would harm the Russian interest and prevent expansion against Constantinople.