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Late in the summer of 1919, as a result of the reconstruction of the railway bridges which had been blown up by the Bulgarians early in the war, through service between Salonika and Belgrade was restored. Curiously enough, the only trains running on anything approaching a schedule in the Balkans were those loaded with Swiss goods and belonging to the Swiss Government.

It has been, for some time past, a cardinal principle of German policy to support her ally in the Balkans, and this determination has been increased by German ambitions in the East.

Well, the moment the line of the Balkans was spoken of, he brought under the notice of his Colleagues at the Conference and especially, I may say, of the Plenipotentiaries of England his views on the subject; and, speaking as he did not only with military authority, but also with consummate acquaintance with all these localities, he said nothing could be more erroneous than the idea that Sofia was a strong strategical position, and that those who possessed it would immediately turn the Balkans and march on Constantinople.

He was on his way to St Petersburg with it and eventually disposed of it to the Russian Government. Without it the Russian army would never have been able ta force the passage of the Balkans and I always traced the defeat of the Turks to that poor economy of £12,000. The map was the most extraordinary thing of its kind I have ever seen.

The French participants were Premier Briand, General Gallieni, Admiral Lacaze, Minister of Marine, and General Joffre. At the beginning of November a temporary lull had set in on parts of the western front, and the center of interest was for the time shifted to the Balkans.

He began, then, a stern war with the Greek Emperor, Basil II., known to history as "the Bulgar-slayer," against whom is alleged a cruelty horrible even for the Balkans. Capturing a Bulgarian army of over 10,000 men, Basil II. had all the soldiers blinded, leaving to each of their centurions, however, one eye, so that the mutilated men might be led back to their own country.

The public feeling of the Bulgarians can alter nothing in this, so far as I am concerned. Bulgaria, the tiny little country between the Danube and the Balkans is not an object of sufficient size, I assure you, to attach to it any importance, or to push Europe for its sake into a war, from Moscow to the Pyrenees, from the North Sea to Palermo, when no one can foresee its end.

7 November 1912 Talk at Home of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Parsons 1700 Eighteenth Street, NW, Washington, D. C. Consider events in the Balkans today where a great conflagration of war is furiously raging and so much blood is being shed. Virtually the whole world of humanity is mourning and lamenting because of the revival of these calamitous conditions.

It is said that the Bulgars, in order to ingratiate themselves with their war-allies, pretended that they were not Slav, that they were in reality also Huns, kindred of Hungarians and Finns. But a people with a language so like Russian could hardly cling to that deception. The best way to avoid trouble in the Balkans is to have larger, more comprehensive states.

When men go home on leave from the army, married or single, they are instructed in their duty of doing their part to increase the population so that Germany will have plenty of colonists for the Balkans, Turkey and Asia in the great economic development of those regions. To impress this they argue that Germany and France had nearly the same number of inhabitants in 1870.