740.0011 European War 1939/10405: Telegram
The Minister in Bulgaria (Earle) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 27—10:27 a.m.]
220. To be communicated to the President. For the week ending April 26, the most important events and conditions here are as follows:
(1) The strong belief of all sources hitherto reliable is that following the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece, Turkey will do what Germany wants her to do.
The turning over by Germany of Thrace, and Grecian and Yugoslavian Macedonia to Bulgaria to administer.
While German troops have almost completely overrun Europe she has only occupied countries hating her intensely and half-hearted and unwarlike allies to count on.
[Page 309]The Bulgarians are an intensely practical people. German propaganda has magnified in their eyes the new territory given them until they are now wholeheartedly with Germany. They now think of the Bulgaria of a thousand years ago reborn. I am forming the impression, and every day it is stronger, that Germany will take this hard-bitten and grateful Bulgarian people and use them as a nucleus to build a powerful nation, strongly equipped with the most modern and mechanized weapons whom Germany can depend upon to guard for her southeastern Europe.