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Updated: June 24, 2025
The Supreme Council, which sanctioned the military occupation of a part of Germany as a guaranty for the fulfilment of the peace conditions, dispenses Bulgaria from any such irksome conditions. Bulgaria's good faith appeared sufficient to the politicians who drafted the instrument.
As it was, nothing occurred in August or September to weaken Bulgaria's fidelity to the secret compact.
Similar ultimatums were presented by representatives of France and Great Britain. Bulgaria's reply to these ultimatums was described as bold to the verge of insolence. In substance she denied that German officers were on the staffs of Bulgarian armies, but said that if they were present that fact concerned only Bulgaria, which reserved the right to invite whomsoever she liked.
But she viewed with great jealousy any increase of Italian power on the Mediterranean, and began therefore to build up Greece as a naval counterpoise. When Bulgaria approached Paris for a loan, Greece protested: "Do not finance our most hated rivals." France refused the loan. Bulgaria turned to England, who looked very favourably on the plan, recognizing Bulgaria's industry and capability.
The Bulgarian Government then issued a manifesto to the nation, announcing its decision to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers. The manifesto reads as follows: The Central Powers have promised us parts of Serbia, creating an Austro-Hungarian border line, which is absolutely necessary for Bulgaria's independence of the Serbians.
Throughout the year the negotiations continued whereby the Allies attempted to persuade Greece and Serbia to agree to Bulgaria's terms, but Greece continued obdurate in her determination to hold all she had, and Serbia yielded only in part, and very reluctantly. In August, 1915, beginning the second year of the war, these negotiations were still in progress.
If the Balkan states are left to themselves, if they are permitted to settle their own affairs without the intervention of the Great Powers, there is no reason why the existing relations between Greece, Servia, Montenegro, and Roumania, founded as they are on mutual interest, should not continue; and if they continue, peace will be assured in spite of Bulgaria's cry for revenge and readjustment.
But perhaps the most decisive factor in Bulgaria's attitude towards the Central Powers has been that of Russia towards Bulgaria. The Tsardom cherishes tender feelings towards the political entity which it called into being.
All at once, however, it was bruited abroad that President Wilson had become Bulgaria's intercessor and favored certain of her exorbitant claims. One of these was for the annexation of part of the coast of western Thrace, together with a seaport at the expense of the Greeks, the race which had resided on the seaboard for twenty-five hundred consecutive years.
Serbia maintained that the veto imposed by Austria upon her expansion to the Adriatic, in coincidence with Bulgaria's unexpected gains on the Maritsa to which Serbian arms had contributed, invalidated the secret treaty of the previous summer, and she announced her intention of retaining the Monastir district and the line of the Salonika railway as far as the future frontier of Greece.
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