channel ports as the Germans hoped. The Germans had fixed the points of attack-and these were the only possible points: southern Flanders and from the Avre to the Scarpe. Germany had already used in the offense 130 divisions out of 204; and of these 50 had been in action twice-while the British had been heavily engaged from the outset, the French have had but few divisions in action. There was, therefore, apparently much greater reserve strength behind the Allies' battle line than Germany could possibly muster. And it is reserve strength which must ultimately decide the issue. Germany has taken the great plunge-the concentration and utilization of her entire resources in man power in a final effort to win. It is Germany's last bid for victory before the peace propaganda is launched. Germany must win or go down to defeat. But Germany cannot stop. She must go on and on regardless of cost. She has expended literally hundreds of thousands of men, not for territorial conquest as the German press has pointed out and emphasized, but to destroy the British army. What figment of pretense is left if the battle remains indecisive? None the less, for the Allies as well the situation is serious though The crisis Great War not critical. The crisis of the Great War is of the truly at hand. None can doubt the outcome is at who has any belief in honor and justice among civilized nations. For many months prior to the end of the war Bulgaria had sought an opportunity to make peace. The people were wearied with fighting and it was plain to them that a German victory was hopeless. Finally a complete collapse occurred, King Ferdinand fled, and Bulgaria surrendered, as is described in the following pages. hand. B BULGARIA QUITS LOTHROP STODDARD ULGARIA'S withdrawal from the Teutonic block and her frank capitulation to the Allies is easily the most dramatic episode of the World War. Almost overnight "Mittel- the massive bridge of "Mitteleuropa" has crumcrumbles. bled at its central span, leaving exhausted europa" Turkey foredoomed to speedy surrender and laying distracted Austria open to the combined assaults of Allied arms and domestic revolution. So stupendous are the possibilities flowing from the Allies' September offensive in Macedonia that we are almost tempted to believe that the age of miracles is come again. Yet in such hours we should clarify our vision by insistent remembrance of Clausewitz's famous saying that war is but the extension of politics. For brilliant as was the Franco-Serbian escalade of mid-September, storming successive mountain walls as though they were mere trench lines and shearing through war-hardened Bulgarian divisions like a knife through rotten cheese, there was more than fighting involved. For the last year and even longer a combination of circumstances had been weaning Bulgaria from her former solidarity with the Central powers, and this disruptive process, proceeding with special rapidity during the last few months, had been steadily sapping the morale of the Bulgarian spirit of people and the war-spirit of the Bulgarian Bulgaria soldiery. From the broader point of view, therefore, the Allies' Macedonian offensive must The war weakens. Copyright, Century, December, 1918. be deemed not merely a skilful military oper ation, but even more a well-timed garnering of fruits ripe for the plucking. In such masterly combinations of strategy and politics lies the secret of decisive victory. evolution. The accurate gaging by Allied statesmanship Bulgaria's of Bulgaria's political evolution is specially political noteworthy because that evolution was both complicated and obscure. In fact, its roots reach down to the fundamental aspirations of the Bulgarian people. Bulgaria's present volteface is no chance product of panic, but a logical step in her national policy. Its consequences thus promise to be not ephemeral, but lasting. An understanding of the factors that brought about the existing situation is therefore worth careful study. Prussians Balkans. The Bulgarians have often been called the The Prussians of the Balkans, and in this charac- of the terization there is a large measure of truth. A hard-working, tenacious folk, capable of great patience, docile to iron discipline, and appreciative of governmental efficiency, the material progress made by the Bulgarians during their forty years of independence is as striking in its way as the similar progress of the German people. Unfortunately, the Bulgarians resemble the Prussians not only in their virtues, but in their most unlovely qualities as well. There are the same tactlessness, brutality, overweening ambition, and cynical indifference to the means by which those ambitions are to be attained. This has shown itself clearly throughout Bulgarian history. When Bulgaria gained her independence of Turkey in 1878 she started with a perfectly legitimate ambition, the attainment of Bulgarian race-unity through the Desire annexation of those Bulgar-inhabited portions race unity. of Macedonia that remained under Turkish rule. For this the Bulgarian people toiled and taxed themselves without stint. For this they to attain Projects of the leaders. built up a military machine relatively the most formidable on earth. But that was by no means the whole story. Race-unity may have been the goal for which the simple Bulgarian peasant drilled and delved. His leaders had more grandiose projects in view. This was specially true of the Bulgarian monarch, Ferdinand of Saxe-CoburgGotha, a man of great political sagacity, but of a cynical unscrupulousness rivaling Machiavelli's "Prince." Ferdinand's dream was a great Bulgarian empire embracing the entire Balkan Peninsula, with its seat at Constantinople and his exalted self occupying the imperial throne. This implied both the expulsion of the Turks from Europe and the subjugation of the other Christian Balkan peoples. In the Balkan War of 1912 Bulgaria's hour seemed to have struck, but Ferdinand for once overplayed his hand, and Bulgaria's Balkan rivals beat her on the battle-field and forced her to the Bukharest humiliating Peace of Bukharest in 1913. The Peace of The opportunity The Peace of Bukharest was not a constructive settlement. It was an attempt on the part of embittered enemies to punish Bulgaria's ambitions and keep her permanently down. The result was most unfortunate. Playing upon their balked desire for race-unity, Ferdinand bound his subjects to his wider imperialistic designs. Raging under their humiliations and their failure to redeem their Macedonian brethren, the Bulgarians declared themselves ready to league with the devil if they might thereby tear up the Bukharest parchment and revenge themselves upon their enemies. The opportunity was not long in coming. for The Pan-German devil was already preparing revenge. his stroke for world dominion, and when the blow fell in 1914, Bulgaria's alinement was almost a foregone conclusion. The military losses in the recent Balkan Wars had of course so weakened her that cautious diplomatic jockeying was a preliminary necessity, but when Russia had succumbed to Hindenburg's hammerstrokes in the summer of 1915 and the Germanic hosts menaced Serbia in the autumn, Bulgaria threw off the mask, struck Serbia from the rear, and joined the Teutonic powers. Thus did the "Berlin-Bagdad" dream grow into solid fact, and Mitteleuropa became a hard reality. give assent. There can be no question that when Bulgaria entered the war on the Teutonic side in the autumn of 1915 she did so with the hearty as- The sent of the vast majority of her people. The people Germans had promised Bulgaria those things hearty which Bulgarians most desired. A Teutonic alliance offered Bulgaria immediate possession of Serbian Macedonia, where lived the bulk of the Bulgarian element still outside Bulgaria's political frontiers, together with the practical destruction of the Serbian arch-enemy. The Teutonic alliance likewise offered prospects of reclaiming the Bulgarian populations of Greek Macedonia and of the southern Dobrudja, annexed by Rumania, in 1913, should Greece and Rumania, both notoriously pro-Ally, strike in on the Entente side. Lastly, the German Government agreed to use its good offices with its ally, Turkey, to obtain for Bulgaria a Turkish Germany cession of the Demotika district of Thrace west cessions of the Maritza River, thereby giving Bulgaria from direct railroad communication with Dedeagatch, her one practicable outlet on the Ægean Sea. All these things presently came to pass. Serbia lay crushed, and Serbian Macedonia was under Bulgarian control before the close of 1915. Turkey soon yielded Demotika. In the spring of 1916 the quarrel between the Greek King Constantine and the Entente powers permitted Bulgaria to occupy the coveted DramaSerres-Kavala districts of Greek Macedonia, promises Turkey. |