Since the Bulgarian Militarists, led by M. Alexander Tsankov, seized the government from the Agrarian majority party by a coup d' état (TIME, June 18, 1923) and began their reign of terror by allegedly causing the assassination of the Agrarian Premier Stambuliski (TIME, June 25, 1923) numerous foreign observers have characterized the regime of Premier Tsankov "the worst and most ruthless Government in Europe."
A stifling censorship has made impartial news despatches from Bulgaria rare to the point of nonexistence. Last week the cables reported that Premier Tsankov and his absolutist Cabinet had been forced to resign when the gradually crumbling Government coalition in the Sobranye (Parliament) failed to obtain a majority. It was declared that ten Macedonian Deputies who bolted from the Tsankov coalition caused the Government's fall. Promptly Tsar Boris of Bulgaria evinced his satisfaction at the fall of Tsankov by calling upon that noted Macedonian jack of all political trades, M. Andre Liaptcheff, to form a new government.
It was recalled that M. Liaptcheff, although not a Militarist, took an active part in the prosecution of the so-called "First Balkan War" (1912-1913), and signed the Treaty of London, which ended that struggle and freed Bulgaria from Turkey. He was also one of the signers of the Armistice at Saloniki in 1918, and has twice served as Minister of Finance, once in the War Cabinet of M. Radoslavov.
Observers were inclined to look upon the events of last week as a victory for "Little Tsar Boris" and his father, that arch plotter, the abdicated Tsar Ferdinand (TIME, Nov. 16). It was felt to be obvious that M. Liaptcheff, a greying political veteran of three score, will prove more easily manageable than the ruthless arch individualist, Tsankov.