Ferdinand I of Bulgaria

Bulgaria state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1861–1948 → Died in exile

Bulgarian tsar who led his country into the Balkan League and then ordered the attack on his allies that began the Second Balkan War

Born in Vienna a German prince of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, he was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army when the Grand National Assembly elected him Prince of Bulgaria in 1887; in 1908 he proclaimed independence and took the title of tsar. In 1912 he declared the war on the Ottoman Empire "a just, great and sacred struggle of the Cross against the Crescent", and in June 1913 General Savov, under his direct orders and without consulting the government, launched the attack on Serbia and Greece. The Treaty of Bucharest cost Bulgaria most of Macedonia. He took Bulgaria into the First World War on the side of the Central Powers, abdicated in favour of his son Boris III in October 1918 and died in exile in Coburg in 1948.

Also known as: Tsar Ferdinand · Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha