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Updated: June 24, 2025
Economically, owing partly to geographical conditions, both the Danube and the main oriental railway linking Bulgaria directly with Budapest and Vienna, partly to the fact that Bulgaria's best customers for its cereals are in central and western Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is infinitesimal.
If, for instance, it could have been conclusively shown that Bulgaria's help was indispensable, adequate and purchasable, the plain course would have been to pay handsomely for that. However high the price, it would have been more than compensated by the positive and negative gains.
By far the thorniest problem is provided by the future ownership of Kavala, which the Treaty of Bucarest assigned to Greece in August 1913, but which from an economic point of view is Bulgaria's port on the Aegean, and as vital a necessity for her future development as it is a superfluous luxury to Greece.
When the war between the Balkan States and the Turkish Empire was brought to a close for the time being by an armistice signed on the battlefield of Chatalja, to which Bulgaria, Servia, and Turkey were parties, and by the summoning of the Conference of London, to which Greece also was a party, the prospects for Bulgaria's future were singularly bright.
Yet it was Bulgaria's intransigent assertion of her claim to Central Macedonia which led to the war between the Allies. It will be instructive to consider the attitude of each of the governments concerned on the eve of the conflict. I hope I am in a position correctly to report it. Certainly I had unusual opportunities to learn it.
That any nation should put her honor before her comfort and profit, had never occurred to the war leaders of Germany. Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition Turkey throws in her lot with the central empires. The demands of Italy. She joins the Triple Entente. The retreat of the Russians. The Balkans again. Bulgaria's bargaining. German princes on Balkan thrones.
J. B. Bourchier, whose honesty was beyond all doubt, and who was trusted where a Balkan envoy would not have been. He too, unfortunately, was unaware that Bulgaria's fate was already sealed by Russia, and that England was too deeply tangled in Russian intrigue to be able to stand for justice. The Serbo-Bulgar alliance was signed on February 29, 1912, and was to be in force till December 1920.
Bulgaria, who was not affected by this phase of the war, and had kept up diplomatic relations with America, was differently situated, being able to stand aside without paralysing the German plans. Apart from this, I was already persuaded then that Bulgaria's not joining in would make a bad impression on the outside world, and would not help her in any way.
A general uprising of Jugo-Slavs in favour of union under the Serbian crown more than doubled the size of that kingdom which Austria had begun the war to crush. Nor did this exhaust the effects of Bulgaria's capitulation.
The means would be the assistance Bulgaria might render to the victor, and who that might be was a matter of indifference if he possessed the essential qualifications of victory and insensibility to the feelings of Bulgaria's neighbours and to the sanctity of scraps of paper. This was a defect in the Entente from Ferdinand's point of view.
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