Bulgaria
Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
1861–1948 Tsar of Bulgaria, 1908–1918
Born in Vienna on 26 February 1861 into the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, Ferdinand was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army when Bulgaria's Grand National Assembly elected him prince on 7 July 1887. In 1908 he proclaimed Bulgaria's independence from the Ottoman Empire and took the title tsar. After Bulgaria's defeat in the Second Balkan War in 1913, he hoped to win Macedonia at Serbia's expense and joined the Central Powers; in October 1915 Bulgaria attacked Serbia under a treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Bulgarian troops took part in the conquest of Romania in 1916. After the Allied breakthrough on the Macedonian front in September 1918, he abdicated on 3 October in favor of his son Boris III and lived in exile in Coburg, where he died in 1948.