Empire of Rumelia

Although the Congress of Berlin had ceded the entirety of European Turkey to the Kingdom of Rumelia, the status of the Romanian principalities was still uncertain. The Hohenzollern Prince of Romania was legally a vassal of the Ottoman Emperor, but Turkey had no real way of enforcing any dominance in Europe at all.

Carol I, Prince of Romania, had no desire to remain a Turkish vassal. He wanted to be King of Romania, and finally break off the shackles of centuries of Ottoman dominance. To this end, he asked his relatives in Germany to support his country's independence, and Germany agreed. This went against the designs of Russia, who were attempting to court Romania to their favour in order to have an unbroken line between them and Rumelia.

When Romania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire, Russian diplomats began influencing Romanian parliaments to shift to a pro-Russian perspective. They cited a common Orthodox brotherhood and a common enemy in the Turks. When Carol I unexpectedly died without issue in 1891, the Romanian parliament begrudingly elected Russia's preferred candidate as their new king: a minor member of the House of Glücksburg, the ruling house of Rumelia.

Germany was upset at the loss their royal house in Romania, and offered weak protest at the election of a new King instead of automatically appointing another member of the Hohenzollern family, but ultimately considered the whole situation a non-issue as tensions with France and Britain on unrelated issues arose.

Russia had successfully completed a corrider from Moscow to Constantinople of friendly vassal states. Their continued control over Eastern Europe and the Balkans seemed all but certain until one fateful day in 1899.

The banned Socialist Party of Turkey performed a coup of the country on the 5th of October, 1899. They cited the failure of the Sultan to maintain Turkish prestige and prosperity, and the Sultan living luxuriously while the citizentry went hungry as their grievances, stormed the palace on the Asian side of Constantinople, and killed the Sultan and his family. The end of the six-hundred year Ottoman Dynasty sent shockwaves that resonated all throughout Europe, and Russia and Rumelia responded by seizing key disputed territories in Anatolia.

Russia conquered what could be called Turkish Armenia, while Rumelia fought a bitter campaign to circle the Sea of Mamara and retake the Asian half of Constantinople. With the Turkish Socialists dealing with their own Arab revolt, the leadership moved their capital to Ankara and quickly signed a peace deal with Russia, ceding the occupied territories to their respective occupiers and giving the Greek-majority region of Ionia on the western coast of Anatolia to Rumelia.

The emboldened Rumelians had successfully completed the most important task they could think of--not only kicking the Turks out of Europe, but to move back into Asia Minor and reclaim pieces of what was invaded by the Ottomans centuries ago. When King George I of Rumelia died in 1903, his son Constantine did not style himself Constantine I, as was expected, but instead called himself Constantine XII, saying he was the successor of the final Roman Emperor, Constantine XI, who died in the Ottoman siege of Constantinople.

In the city bearing his own name, Constantine XII declared that Rumelia would no longer be a puppet of Russia. It was Rumelians, he argued, that fought and died in the war against Turkey to reclaim their rightful territory, not the Russians. He pledged to one day restore the Eastern Roman Empire's borders, "from Dalmatia to Armenia," he said. He assured Russia this was all meaningless posturing, and that he had no intentions of altering their arrangement until Russia entered into war with Japan in 1904.

The Russian Navy was dispatched from Crimea to meet with Russia's Pacific fleet in the early stages of the war. As they approached the Bosphorus, however, the Rumelian authorities refused to let the Russian Navy have access. This infuriated Russia, who made plans to immediately invade Rumelia and replace the King with someone far more obident. As the tide in the Russo-Japanese war turned for the worse, however, the Russian diplomatic tone shifted to one of appeasement. They were desperate to get their ships out of the Black Sea, and Constantine knew it. He told Russia that if they were to recognise Rumelia as an independent state and Constantine as Roman Emperor, he would let the ships move through. Russia, in no mood to spoil their own self-declared legacy as the "third Rome" instead offered to recognise Constantine as Rumelian Emperor, a compromise he was willing to accept.

In late 1904, a hasty treaty was signed in Sebastopol, Crimea, officially ending Russian overlordship of the Rumelian state. The ships were let through the Bosphorus at long last, but it was too late. The Pacific fleet had been totally outdone by the Japanese Navy, and Russia had lost the war. With it, their prestige.

Rumelia, however, presented itself as a blossoming European power in its own right, and only time will tell what it intends to do next.