File No. 763.72/2296
The Special Agent in Bulgaria (Einstein) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 7.]
Sir: While the delay in transmission renders stale all news sent by post there are yet rapidly evolving currents here still at their inception, but which must become more accentuated as time goes on. For purposes of record as well as of information, these deserve to be fixed.
The Department is well aware that the lodestar of the Bulgarian horizon had formerly been Russia to whom this country owed its independence; in addition, there was a feeling of gratitude toward England because of the generous sympathy extended since the days of Gladstone and the recognized disinterestedness of her policy here. But since the disastrous second Balkan war the feeling of resentment which set in against her former ally, Servia, caused this country to gravitate toward Austria and Germany.
The Macedonian element has for years been the dominating one in Bulgaria. By its vast influence in the Government bureaus, the army and the press, it has been able to shape the national aspirations toward the lost province and the one direction of Bulgarian policy has therefore frankly and avowedly been to join the side most likely to gratify this wish. The German loan here, which bore a political complexion, was a warning that the influence of Russia was less great than supposed. Other signs have not been missing to those who cared to read. But the prestige of a long-established position, the presumption of a debt of gratitude, the recognized Russophile feelings of the people, the bond of Slavism, all persuaded Russia, and indeed Entente diplomacy here, that whatever happened Bulgarians would never move against the nation which had liberated her.
To Great Britain as well, after the untiring efforts of the Balkan committee in the Bulgarian interest, the course of the new policy came as a surprise. If Bulgaria had once been the pivot of Russian Panslavism in the Balkans, for England this country possesses an importance likely to be increasingly recognized. The road to India and Egypt leads through Constantinople, but the road to Constantinople passes through Sofia. After the first misadventure of British diplomacy permitting the entry of Turkey into the war and the errors attending the Dardanelles enterprise, the prestige of the Entente powers suffered here considerably, while the importance of Bulgaria to them became all the more accentuated. The Entente realized this without being able to correct it. A series of earnest but spasmodic attempts was made to induce the Servian Government [Page 81] to relinquish Macedonia, in return for which it was hoped Bulgaria would declare war on Turkey to recover her lost territory in Thrace. Under the program of the Entente which aimed to reconstitute the Balkan Alliance, Roumania and Greece were likewise to return the strips of Bulgarian territory acquired in the second Balkan war in return for Bulgarian support against Turkey. The bait, however, was only half tempting for it meant the aggrandizement of neighbors and the unwelcome presence of Russia at Constantinople. It contained still further objections.
So long as the Russian Army was on the Carpathians it is likely that a more decided pressure and swifter action might have accomplished the result aimed at by the Entente. The Russians then threatened Budapest; the English, whose action at the Dardanelles had just begun, threatened Constantinople. If the immediate realization of the Macedonian ambitions had then been assured, Bulgaria might have cast in her lot with the Entente. But the Russian reverses in Galicia and the stalemate of the Dardanelles radically altered this situation, while the Servians evinced an obstinate reluctance to make concession; when they later partially consented, they did so in such a way as to leave doubt in the Bulgarian mind of the genuineness of their intention. The result has been that after the Quadruple Entente succeeded in indisposing Greece by its readiness to placate Bulgaria, and expressed its willingness to force the concessions by Servia, Bulgaria after receiving offer on offer, has ended by throwing in her fortunes with the Central powers.
Bulgaria has done so without prejudice or feeling. Her great consideration has been Macedonia, but her second line of policy was the fear lest the anticipated aggrandizement of Servia would curtail her own importance. One is constantly reminded here that there are some fifteen million Serbs but only seven million Bulgars. A greater Servia was therefore not to the Bulgarian interest. To prevent this she has deliberately thrown in her lot with the Central powers and Turkey, when she believed that theirs was the winning side, and discarded all idea of reconciliation with the Entente. The Bulgarian Government, however, in spite of its feelings of animosity toward Servia, had always expressed great friendliness to the Entente powers. They have entered the war against these professedly without hatred. Whether they hoped in this way to leave a door open for the future is uncertain. But the bombardment of their ports by the Allied fleets and the landing of French and English troops at Saloniki have been reminders that the war would not be merely a paper one. Since then a feeling of resentment has been encouraged by the Government, ostensibly provoked by these acts of war, and also by the reported internment of Bulgarians in England and France, a measure at once copied here to the extent of forbidding their leaving the country. The Bulgarians who had desired to enter the war, exclusively for a national purpose in order to free Macedonia, now find themselves for better or for worse harnessed to the Central powers and to Turkey, while the rift which they had hoped to avoid separates them more and more from the Entente.
I have [etc.]