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36 RUSSIAN-BULGARIAN RELATIONS [chap. iv.
the Bulgarian authorities and the principal townspeople
of Varna; a reception given by Queen Eleanor in the
beautiful park at Euxinograd; Her Majesty’s visit to
the Squadron, when all the ships returned the royal
salute; finally the "curfew-bell," followed by a dance
on board the flagship, to which the townspeople of
Varna were invited.
Vice-Admiral Bostroem, who commandedithe
Squadron and the whole of the Black Sea Fleet, was an
acquaintance of mine. We had often met in Paris
during the winter of 1904-5, while the International
Commission of Inquiry on the Dogger-Bank incident
was sitting. Holding at that time the post of Counsellor
to our Embassy in Paris, I was appointed delegate of
the Russian Government to the Commission; and
Captain Bostroem, then our naval-attache in London,
often came to Paris to report to Admiral Dubassoff,
Baron Taube, our legal adviser, and to me the result of
the investigations he made in Hull and other English
seaports. Captain Bostroem was very zealous in his
investigations, but rather too credulous concerning the
information he gathered; this finally placed him in a
very false position, as two English witnesses, found
and presented by him, were convicted of perjury.
Alas! The command of the Black Sea Squadron
ended even more disastrously for poor Bostroem than
his zeal in the Hull incident. A few days after our
leave-taking at Varna, when the Russian Squadron,
after a series of festivities, was leaving the harbour at
Constanza, the Admiral had the bad luck to run his ship
aground on a sandbank. This incident put an end to
Bostroem’s brilliant but brief career.
Thus I spent my first summer in Sofia. The summer
of 1911 will remain memorable in history through an
event which caused more surprise than emotion in
Europe, but which was the starting-point of fateful
events. I allude to the commencement of the
Italo-Turkish War.
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