A Concise History of Bulgaria Read online

  The stambolovist government made the best of this dismal situation by the traditional stambolovist means of controlling the Macedonians at home and seeking concessions from the Porte abroad. In a treaty signed in March 1904 the Bulgarians promised to take further steps to control the Macedonian organisations, and the Ottoman government granted an amnesty to most of those arrested after the uprising; the Bulgarians were also to be allowed to appoint commercial agents in important Macedonian towns.

  In the same month Petrov’s cabinet also concluded an agreement with Serbia. It was basically a military convention aimed at combatting any external interference in Macedonia. It was not of lasting importance because the basic problem was not external interference but clashes between Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek supporters inside Macedonia. This was in part because the Austro-Russian reform scheme called for the redrawing of Macedonian administrative boundaries to produce units of greater ethnic homogeneity. The Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian factions interpreted this as an invitation to use ethnic cleansing to create zones of influence.

  It was anger at the activity of Greek bands which did much to fuel the anti-Greek outbursts of 1906 in Bulgaria but in other respects the importance of the Macedonian question in Bulgarian politics subsided. Many people were tired of an issue for which they could see no solution. The Macedonian organisations did not help. Within Macedonia they continued to levy taxes on the remaining and impoverished exarchist communities, whilst in exile their leaders fell to unseemly and frequently violent feuding; a series of spectacular assassinations in Sofia in 1906 and 1907 did little to enhance the image of the Macedonian organisations. Meanwhile the stambolovist government argued that the Macedonian issue would be settled either by international diplomacy or, failing that, by armed action. But it would be the armed action of modern states and armies, not of feuding guerilla units, and this being the case, the most appropriate tactic was to wait patiently and prepare assiduously a modern and effective army.

  The stambolovists were allowed to wait only until January 1908. The student riots of 1907 had angered Ferdinand and he replaced General Petrov with the stambolovist party leader Petkov, but the latter was assassinated in March. His successor, Petûr Gudev, did little more than fill his own pockets from the public purse. He was replaced in January 1908 in an operation typical of Ferdinand’s personal rule. The stambolovist cabinet was destabilised and then replaced by one headed by Aleksandûr Malinov who had become leader of the Democratic Party when Karavelov died in 1903. After the formation of the new government an election was held to manufacture a comfortable sûbranie majority, the Democratic Party having had only two deputies in the outgoing assembly.

  Malinov’s Democratic Party had no more taste for this way of proceeding than any other of the parties, and one of his government’s most notable legislative achievements was to introduce a graduated shift towards proportional representation under which it would be much more difficult to fix electoral returns. For most of its time in office, however, the Malinov government was preoccupied with external affairs, and in particular with the declaration of full independence in October 1908 and its consequences.

  The declaration of independence arose from unexpected causes. In July the Young Turks had seized power in Constantinople and announced that they intended to modernise and unify all Ottoman territories; that included, by their book, the provinces of Eastern Rumelia, or southern Bulgaria, and Bosnia-Hercegovina, the latter having been administered by Austria-Hungary since 1878. The first sign of trouble had been when the Bulgarian minister in Constantinople had been treated not as the representative of a foreign government but as the governor of an Ottoman province. More serious was a strike by ORC workers in Constantinople which spread to the company’s lines in southern Bulgaria. The Bulgarians were enraged that at a time of international tension the railways in half the country could be paralysed by a strike in a foreign state. On 19 September, the anniversary of the Union of 1885,* the Bulgarians nationalised ORC property in their country. On 5 October Ferdinand declared full independence. The restrictions of vassaldom had not in recent years been great but they had been much resented. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Hercegovina on 6 October.

  The declaration of independence was not universally popular. The Macedonian lobby resented the fact that it had been issued before union with the lost territory had been secured, whilst some thought there were dangers in Ferdinand’s being so closely associated with this measure. The most striking expression of such feelings was seen in 1911 when a Grand National Assembly met in Tûrnovo to register the constitutional changes the declaration had made necessary. When Ferdinand opened the GNA Stamboliiski led fifty-odd agrarians out of the hall in protest. It was a symbolic gesture and did not frustrate the GNA’s real tasks which were to declare Ferdinand ‘King of the Bulgarians’, and to enact a constitutional amendment stating that the king and the cabinet should have the right to conclude foreign treaties.

  Ferdinand’s personal power had been strengthened and secret diplomacy had become possible. It was soon to produce dramatic results.

  Balkan Diplomacy and the Balkan Wars, 1908–1913

  Shortly before the GNA met in Tûrnovo a new government had been formed under Ivan Geshov who had succeeded Stoilov as leader of the Nationalist Party. Ferdinand was known to loathe Geshov deeply primarily because the Nationalists were amongst the fiercest critics of the prince’s personal rule. If the king so mistrusted the Nationalists on internal affairs their elevation to office must mean that the king approved of their views on foreign policy. Geshov’s first priority in this area was better relations with Russia, and as Russia had been calling for some time for a Bulgarian–Serbian alliance it was widely believed that Geshov had been appointed to bring that about.

  There was reason enough for the two Balkan states to move closer together. Young Turk rule had not brought peace to the peninsula and in particular had angered the Albanians; these former loyal servants of the sultan were now subjected to more central government in the form of taxation, conscription and an attempt to disarm them. They rebelled every summer from 1909 to 1912. This increasing disorder raised two great dangers for the surrounding Balkan states. The first was that the powers might intervene to impose reforms which would work and which they would supervise. The second was that one or more powers might itself occupy part of the peninsula, and when Italy declared war on Turkey in 1911 over territorial disputes in North Africa this danger became more ominous. In either case the door would be closed on expansion by the Balkan states. But if two or more of those states could form an alliance they would make intervention by any external power more difficult. Russia meanwhile feared Austro-Hungarian rather than Italian encroachment and saw in a Balkan alliance the best barrier against it.

  When negotiations between Belgrade and Sofia began Russian diplomacy was under the illusion that the two states were aiming for a defensive alliance. The Bulgarians and Serbs knew full well that the alliance could only have an offensive purpose. They wanted to seize the Ottoman empire in Europe before there was time for reform or intervention by the powers. The negotiations were not easy. The Bulgarians, obviously hoping for a second Eastern Rumelia, pressed that Macedonia should be given autonomy; the Serbs insisted on partition. To this the Bulgarians eventually agreed but it proved impossible to draw final lines of division and the central area around Skopje was declared the ‘contested zone’ whose fate would, if necessary, be submitted to the tsar for arbitration.

  A treaty on these lines was signed in February 1912. In the spring the situation in Macedonia deteriorated yet further and the Greeks hastily concluded a treaty with the Bulgarians, so hastily in fact that there were no clauses regulating the division of any conquered territory. The Greeks also concluded an alliance with the Serbs. Montenegro was not to be left out and concluded verbal agreements with the other three states.

  By the summer of 1912 Macedonia was in chaos. The annual Albanian revolt spilled over into the Vardar valley an
d reached as far as Skopje, forcing the Young Turk government to resign. The Bulgarians faced mounting pressure at home for action to defend the exarchists in Macedonia, pressure which culminated in a huge, pro-war rally in Sofia on 5 September. Two days later the king and cabinet decided upon war and set about making the final arrangements at home and with their allies. Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman empire on 8 October; the other allies followed suit ten days later.

  For the Bulgarian army the main task was to drive back the enemy on the plains of eastern Thrace, although other small forces were sent to join the Serbs in Macedonia, and to race down the Struma valley in the hope of reaching Salonika before the Greeks. In their main campaign the Bulgarians were stunningly successful. By the first week of November the Ottoman forces had been driven back to the Tchataldja lines around their capital.

  The king and most politicians wanted to push forward and attempt to take Constantinople; Ferdinand was even said to have ordered a sumptuous uniform for the occasion. The general staff was less enthusiastic; the troops were exhausted and there had been an outbreak of cholera in some units. The civilians prevailed but the soldiers’ caution proved justified, and on 17 November the attack was abandoned. Within days an armistice had been signed and all the belligerents had agreed to meet in St James’s Palace, London, to determine the terms of a peace settlement. The great powers had in the meantime let it be known that an independent Albania must emerge from the wreckage of the Ottoman empire in Europe.

  Whilst the discussions in London were in progress fighting broke out again on 3 February 1913 in Thrace when the Bulgarians launched an attack on Adrianople, one of the few fortresses left in Ottoman control. The fighting lasted until the surrender of the garrison on 26 March; during the siege Bulgarian aeroplanes carried out the first aerial bombardment in European history. Despite their success in Adrianople the Bulgarians were faced with a diplomatic problem for which no satisfactory conclusion could be found. The Romanian government had demanded territorial compensation for the gains of its neighbours and, it said, as a reward for its good behaviour during the war. Such compensation could only come from Bulgaria and after an ambassadorial conference in St Petersburg the Bulgarians were forced to concede the southern Dobrudja to a line from Silistra to Balchik.

  The general settlement of the war came later with the signature of the treaty of London on 30 May 1913. The treaty stated that an Albanian state should be created and its borders defined by an international commission; the rest of the former Ottoman possessions, north of a line from Enos to Midia, were to be divided amongst the allies as they saw fit. This was not going to be easy. The loss of the southern Dobrudja intensified Bulgarian determination to secure its full share of the Macedonian spoils. Sofia pressed for ‘proportionality’, arguing that as Bulgaria had contributed the major share of the fighting it should receive the largest gains. The Greeks and Serbs invoked the notion of ‘balance’, stressing that the future peace of the Balkans could only be secured if the victors emerged from the war more or less equal in strength. The core of the problem was the contested zone. When the Bulgarians suggested that the question be submitted to Russia for arbitration the Serbs refused, insisting instead on direct negotiations in which the Greeks must take part. The talks were as futile as the Bulgarians had feared. When they collapsed Geshov gave up and was succeeded as prime minister by Danev.

  Plate 6.2 Bulgarian and Ottoman representatives meet to discuss the signing of the armistice after an unsuccessful Bulgarian assault on the defensive lines around Constantinople, November 1912. Note the ORC carriage in the background.

  Geshov was much discouraged by the powerful war lobby then forming in Sofia, a lobby greatly bolstered by the knowledge that a Greek–Serbian alliance had been signed. In the war party were to be found most Macedonian groups, the non-socialist and non-agrarian opposition parties, the general staff, the king and finally Danev who was at last persuaded that nothing acceptable could be expected from Russian arbitration. On 29 June the Bulgarian army attacked its former Serbian and Greek allies.

  At first all went well for the Bulgarians but after two weeks of fighting news came that the Romanians were mobilising, shortly after which the Ottoman army crossed the southern frontier and took Adrianople. The northern borders were undefended which meant there was nothing to stop the Romanians entering Sofia and the Bulgarians therefore sued for peace. In the treaties of Bucharest (10 August) and Constantinople (13 October) they lost much of the territory recently acquired. They retained only Pirin Macedonia to a point half way down the Struma valley and a strip of Thrace which included the Aegean port of Dedeagach.

  The second Balkan war had caused more casualties than the first; it had witnessed horrific crimes against civilians; and it had produced a second partition of San Stefano Bulgaria. It was in every respect a disaster for Bulgaria. The loss of the southern Dobrudja, confirmed in the treaty of Bucharest, deprived Bulgaria of its most advanced agricultural areas and the chief source of its grain exports; the territories acquired were by contrast backward and expensive – even Dedeagach was useless because the railway to it wound in and out of Ottoman territory. If full advantage were to be taken of this new territory on the Aegean coast a new line to and harbour facilities at Porto Lagos would have to be constructed. Furthermore, the new masters of Macedonia were not the Ottomans whose millet system allowed the exarchists cultural autonomy, but aggressive, assertive nationalist states which would impose their own culture on all Macedonians.

  Map 6.1 Territorial changes after the Balkan wars.

  During the disastrous second war Danev had resigned on 17 July to be succeeded by a coalition of liberal factions under the premiership of Vasil Radoslavov. In November Radoslavov went to the polls but, in a legacy left by the Malinov administration, was forced to conduct the elections under proportional representation. He did not secure a dependable majority and therefore called another election in April 1914. This time he allowed the new territories to vote, but he did not permit the opposition parties to campaign there. The new territories had little political experience and fell easy prey to Radoslavov’s electoral managers. He secured his desired majority.

  Bulgaria and the First World War

  The most pressing task facing the Radoslavov government after the elections of April 1914 was to find money to pay for the recent wars and to develop the newly acquired territory. In July 1914 a loan of 500 million gold leva was granted by a consortium of German banks. As war clouds gathered in Europe a loan of this size inevitably had international significance, and many believed that it was Radoslavov’s pro-Austrian and pro-German attitudes that had led to the German loan. There was some substance to these allegations. The French had also been approached but they had insisted that if they lent the money Bulgaria must follow a policy favourable to the western powers. Ferdinand and Radoslavov refused such conditions and when war broke out in Europe declared ‘strict and loyal neutrality’ and introduced a state of emergency.

  In a Bulgaria exhausted by the recent wars neutrality was popular but the loan was not. This was in part because its conditions, many believed, amounted to a virtual contradiction of neutrality. The Bulgarians were required to earmark a series of state revenues to service the debt; they were obliged to grant the contract for the construction of a railway to Porto Lagos to a German consortium; and the Germans were to take over the running of the state mines in Pernik and Bobov Dol. There were rowdy scenes in the sûbranie when the issue was debated, at one point Radoslavov waving a revolver above his head, and few of the neutral witnesses present believed the government when it claimed the loan had been approved by a show of hands.

  The loan did not, however, commit Ferdinand to the German cause, and both sides to the European conflict courted him. Bulgaria, despite its war-weariness, still had a large and well-equipped army, and it commanded a strategic position in the Balkans; through it the allies could reach Serbia, whilst it was also the vital link between the central powers and t
he Ottoman empire which had joined them in October; and from Bulgaria Constantinople and the Straits could be controlled. Ferdinand and Radoslavov listened to suitors from both sides but made no commitment until the late summer of 1915, mobilising and declaring ‘armed neutrality’ on 21 September and joining in the central powers’ renewed offensive against Serbia on 11 October.

  Two factors determined this fateful decision. The central powers could offer more, and by the summer of 1915 it seemed they would win. What the Germans could offer was all of Macedonia and much of Thrace; they even persuaded the Porte to allow Bulgaria full control of the railway line to Dedeagach. The allies, on the other hand, would talk only of Thrace up to the Enos-Midia line, whilst for them what Bulgaria could be allowed in Macedonia would depend on how much the Serbs were prepared to relinquish. And the Serbian leader, Nikola Pai, said he would not concede one square inch. The Russians backed the Serbs. In early 1915 Russian and allied intransigence on Macedonia was increased by military success; the Russians took the vital fortress of Przemyl, the allies established themselves in Gallipoli whence they could reach Constantinople, and in May the Italians joined the war on their side. Two months later the position had been reversed. The Italian intervention had had little impact, other than to make the Serbs, who feared Italian designs on Dalmatia, more determined to hold on to Macedonia, allied troops were pinned on the murderous beaches of Gallipoli, and the Russians had lost Przemyl and huge swathes of territory in Russian Poland together with its important industries. Furthermore, allied diplomacy in Bulgaria had been less adept than that of the central powers. The allies tended to court opposition politicians whereas the Germans paid much more attention to Ferdinand and his immediate advisors. Given the nature of Ferdinand’s personal rule, his control over foreign affairs, and the state of emergency which limited the opposition’s freedom of manoeuvre, the central powers were backing the stronger horse.