I've recently been reading a lot about Eastern European history (from Tomek Jankowski's book) and am currently learning about the creation of Balkan nations in the later years of the Ottoman Empire. It mentions several new nations (from memory - Bulgaria, Romania & Albania) that called upon German princes as leaders at the beginning of their independence. I think I remember reading that during the (much much earlier) establishment of Bohemia (i.e. the precursor of the Czech nation), a German leader was invited, and certainly the Rus invited Nordic rulers, but why at this much later stage was there such a reliance on their leadership?
The Germans obviously had a well-established state system already, but I find it strange that there was an apparent lack of potential leadership from within the respective nations. Also, failing that, why were princes from no other Western European nations involved (especially the Hapsburg empire/Austro-Hungary, which stood in the way of the two regions, and Russia, which was involved so much militarily in the region and shared a closer religious bond, to Bulgaria at least)?
What exactly was the relationship between the early Balkan nations and (what is now) Germany? Thanks.
For Bulgaria at least there were no known descendants of the old Bulgarian nobility from the Middle ages. And in order to be recognized as a ruler one would have to come from a noble family - of which there were plenty in Europe and Russia. Alexander Batenberg was a pretty good choice - he had close ties with the Russian tsar, was not very important, and most importantly - was not Russian. This eased the concerns of the Great Powers that Russia might gain too much influence in the area, and at the same time ensured that the tsar had a relative on the throne of the fledgling nation... of course things rarely go as you plan them, and Alexander decided to do his own thing - most notably he united the independent Bulgarian Principality with the autonomous East Rumelia, beat some serbs along the way, managed to piss of the russians and the pro-russian party and so on... On a semi-related note - the "pro-russian vs. anti-russian" thing continues to shape politics in the area even now
A similar question was asked recently about Greece, and I think a lot of the same explanations [apply] (http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ysc8k/why_did_the_kingdom_of_greece_18321924_chose/)