A Concise History of Bulgaria Page 15

  The opposition parties did not welcome mobilisation. They all declared themselves ‘resolute partisans of peace’ and all of them, with the exception of the narrows, joined together in a United Bloc to demand that the sûbranie be allowed to debate and decide upon the issue of war or peace. Radoslavov refused such a debate. Ferdinand, however, did agree to receive a delegation consisting of leaders of the opposition. The meeting ended in a furious row between the king and Stamboliiski and when the latter published details of this he was thrust into gaol. No parliamentary debate on the war took place until December. By then the opposition parties had decided to rally to the cause of the nation and all of them, again with the exception of the narrows, voted in favour of war credits.

  Plate 6.3 Bulgarian soldiers on Belassitsa mountain during the first world war, just over a thousand years after their predecessors were defeated by the Byzantine emperor, Basil the Bulgar Slayer.

  For the Bulgarian forces the first world war was for most part not a war of rapid movement. Serbian Macedonia had been occupied in 1915 and in 1916 they advanced into Greek territory as far as Fort Rupel, and later in the year, following a Greek attack, took Drama, Seres and Kavalla; in the same year Bitola was lost after a ferocious battle on mount Kaimakchalan. Also in 1916 Romania had entered the war on the allied side only to suffer huge defeats; the Bulgarians, accompanied by Ottoman units, took the southern Dobrudja and later moved across the Danube into Romania proper. Thereafter the military fronts, especially in the south and south-west, remained more or less stable until the late summer of 1918.

  Despite general rejoicing at the reacquisition of Macedonia problems soon began to appear on the home front. In Macedonia itself the military became more and more concerned at the nature of the civilian administration. Too many free-booters and incompetents had been given office in the new territories. By August 1916 the military were seriously concerned lest maladministration destabilise the area immediately behind the front line, and they attempted to seize control of the Macedonian administration. They failed and the problems intensified.

  These problems were not confined to the new lands. Almost from the beginning of the war there were difficulties with supplies. By 1916 there were shortages even of bread. The deterioration in supplies was reflected in the inflation rate. Taking the cost of living in 1914 as a base of 100, by the end of 1916 it stood at 200, and by July 1918 was 847. And these were official figures which took no cognisance of the black market where prices were even higher and which was often the only source of supply. By the late summer of 1918 these difficulties were so severe that they entirely undermined civilian and military morale, and were a major factor in Bulgaria’s collapse in September.

  Map 6.2 The southern Balkan front during the first world war.

  The roots of the supply problem were varied. In 1915 mobilisation had had some impact on the distribution if not the gathering of the harvest, and far too much of that harvest had been requisitioned for the army. As the war went on future sowing and harvesting were hit by the mobilisation both of men and of draught animals, the latter being needed in huge numbers to transport supplies to the army in Macedonia where the terrain was mountainous, the roads primitive and railways almost non-existent. There was also competition between civilian and military procurement agencies. The evil of corruption was omnipresent; and the requisitioning agencies became increasingly unpopular as their personnel took commodities such as sugar and salt which they had no right to take but which they could sell at high prices on the black market. An aggravating factor was the presence of German and Austrian troops in Bulgaria. They were better paid than the Bulgarians and they bought increasing quantities of food to send home, frequently exceeding the quotas officially allowed them. In this they were much aided by the facts that the Germans controlled both the railway and the telephone systems, and that after December 1915 German and Austrian currency was legal tender in Bulgaria. Official German and Austrian procurement agencies were equally rapacious, often having no consideration for local requirements or for the long-term needs for fodder and seeds; in 1917 three-quarters of the immensely fertile arable area of the Dobrudja was reported to be untilled because so much of the previous year’s harvest had been taken that there was no seed. Nor was the problem of supplying civilian and military markets helped by changes in administrative responsibility. In March 1915 the public welfare act had given the government the right to control the price of deficit goods in time of war. In 1916, as the situation worsened, a central committee for economic and social welfare was established, again under civilian control. It had hardly had time to organise itself when, in April 1917, most of its powers were transferred to the newly established directorate for economic and social welfare which was under military domination. The military body was no more successful than the civilian.

  Inevitably there was reaction, particularly in the occupied areas where deprivations were at their worst. The Morava valley saw a series of outbursts against Bulgarian occupation, even in villages which were purely Bulgarian. Protest was encouraged by events in Russia. In March 1917 Stamboliiski, writing from his prison cell, declared that the fall of tsardom would allow the USA to enter the war on the allied side and that the central powers were therefore doomed. By the summer soldiers on the front opposite the Russians in Romania were forming ‘soviets’ and five hundred troops, many of them agrarian supporters, had been gaoled for political agitation. The Russian revolution also produced the call for a peace ‘without annexations or indemnities’, calls which were echoed in March 1917 by the leader of the Radical Democratic Party in Bulgaria, Tsanov, who publicly questioned the right of Bulgarian troops to occupy parts of Romania which had no Bulgarians amongst their population. By the end of the year public pressure was much stronger, and the narrow socialist leader, Dimitûr Blagoev, could attract over ten thousand to a rally in Sofia to call for an end to the war and to the political system which had made it possible. Early in 1918 there was a mounting tide of social unrest with protests in Gabrovo and riots in Stanimaka and Samokov, whilst in May a woman was killed in Sliven while taking part in one of the many meetings called throughout the country in what came to be known as the ‘women’s revolt’.

  As the internal situation deteriorated Radoslavov was faced with unexpected and unusual difficulties on the diplomatic front. In May 1918 the treaty of Bucharest regulated the northern Dobrudja. The Bulgarians had confidently expected that they would be given responsibility for this area but they were to be disappointed as it was placed under joint German, Austrian and Bulgarian administration. Radoslavov remarked that his country had been treated more like a defeated enemy than a victorious ally, and on 20 June 1918 he resigned.

  Malinov, the leader of the Democratic Party, now formed a government. He had hoped to include Stamboliiski in it but the latter would accept office only if the war were ended, and to this Ferdinand would not consent. Malinov did manage to wrestle sole control of the northern Dobrudja from his allies, but it was a hollow victory. Bulgaria’s capacity to continue fighting was exhausted; to use a figure of speech almost too literal for comfort, the Bulgarians had no more stomach for war.

  The people, particularly those in the towns, were on the verge of starvation, and some in Macedonia had gone beyond it with deaths from malnutrition being reported in Ohrid and other centres. Soldiers, who at the front were already suffering shortages of food, ammunition and clothing, came home on leave or to help in the harvest and found that their loved ones were in no better and perhaps even a worse condition. Their morale collapsed and when the French and British launched an offensive on 15 September resistance broke. Within a week Franco-British troops had entered Bulgaria. The government sued for peace and on 29 September 1918 signed an armistice in Salonika.

  On the day allied troops entered the country Stamboliiski was released from prison. It was hoped that he would contain a military revolt centred on Radomir between Sofia and the advancing allies. There was no need for him to do so. Whe
n the armistice was signed the soldiers gained their principal demand – peace – and the revolt fizzled out. For the second time in half a decade Ferdinand’s personal regime, it was alleged, had led the nation to humiliating defeat. He abdicated and left the country on 3 October 1918. He was succeeded by his son, Boris III.

  * The Union of 1885 had taken place on 6 September according to the Julian calendar then used by most Orthodox Christian states; in the nineteenth century the Julian calendar was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar used in western and central Europe. In the twentieth century the Julian calendar was thirteen days behind the Gregorian, the anniversary of 6 September therefore occurring on the 19th rather than the 18th in the western system. Stoilov’s modernising impulses had led him to try and switch to the Gregorian calendar for state business, but conservative, religious opposition defeated him. The change was eventually made in 1916.

  7 Bulgaria, 1918–1944

  The Peace Settlement of 1919

  The peace treaty with Bulgaria was signed at Neuilly-sur-Seine on 27 November 1919. Bulgaria was required to relinquish all lands it had occupied during the recent conflict and it was also deprived of three small pockets on its western border, despite the fact that the vast majority of the local population was Bulgarian. Bulgaria also lost those parts of Thrace it had gained in the Balkan wars, although this loss was tempered somewhat by article 48 of the treaty which guaranteed Bulgaria ‘economic access’ to the Aegean; however, there was no indication of how that access was to be achieved. In peacetime it never was. The Neuilly settlement ruled that the Bulgarian army was to have a maximum effective strength of twenty thousand men, all of whom were to be volunteers. Reparations were to be paid both in kind and in money. Deliveries of coal, livestock and railway equipment were to be made to the governments of Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania, whilst Bulgaria was required to pay 2,250 million gold francs to the allies over a period of thirty-seven years. It was a preposterous sum and was soon recognised as such. In 1923 it was reduced to 550 million to be paid over sixty years, and in 1932 it was scrapped altogether.

  Compared to Hungary, Germany and Austria the territorial provisions of the peace settlement were not harsh for Bulgaria. It lost just under nine thousand square kilometres of territory and ninety thousand more Bulgarians now found themselves under foreign rule. The total number of Bulgarians living outside the national state was in the region of one million or about 16 per cent of all Bulgarians. Another and indirect effect of the peace settlement did, however, much affect Bulgaria. The reversion of Macedonia to Serbian and Greek rule produced yet another wave of refugees. Many of these lived in appalling conditions on the south-western borders of Bulgaria, their upkeep placing a substantial burden on the Bulgarian exchequer.

  Agrarian Rule, 1919–1923

  The domestic factors which played a major role in Bulgarian politics during the inter-war years were the agrarians, the communists, the old sûbranie parties, the Macedonian organisations, the army, and the throne.

  Immediately after the war the two dominant factors were the agrarians and the communists. At the end of hostilities an interim cabinet had been formed under Teodor Teodorov of the People’s Liberal Party. Its actions were closely observed by representatives of the allies who had troops stationed in Bulgaria. Its main duty was to preserve order until elections could be held in August 1919.

  Those elections registered massive popular anger with the system which had taken Bulgaria into the war and approval of those parties which had opposed it. The agrarians took 31 per cent of the vote; the narrows, who had become the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) in May 1919, 18 per cent, and the democrats, the most left-wing of the old parties, 10 per cent. Stamboliiski formed a coalition with the democrats but his initial instinct had been to work with the communists; they, however, spurned him. They did not intend to form a coalition with anyone; they wanted and believed they could seize unadulterated power. The agrarians had the same ambition and an equal self-confidence.

  Map 7.1 Bulgaria’s borders after the first and second world wars.

  The communists and the agrarians were in fact competing for the vacancy created by the collapse of the old parties. Open confrontation was to come at the turn of the year. The communists were full of confidence. As living standards in the towns continued to plummet their support increased, particularly in the trade unions, and on 24 December they joined with the social democrats, the former broads, to stage a day of protest in Sofia. It was the first time the two socialist factions had cooperated since the split of 1903, and that cooperation continued when the transport and telegraph workers went on strike. Two days later a general strike was called. Stamboliiski reacted toughly. Strike leaders were arrested, their families’ ration cards were withdrawn, and some were evicted from their homes. To enforce these measures Stamboliiski used the army, allied troops, the police and the Orange Guard. The latter, armed with clubs, had been set up recently by BANU to counteract the semi-armed groups established by the social democrats and the communists. On 5 January the general strike was called off, although some transport workers and the miners in Pernik continued the struggle for another six weeks.

  Having defeated the communists on the streets Stamboliiski called a general election for 28 March 1920 to register popular endorsement of his victory. It produced a not entirely comforting result. One in three of the electorate voted for BANU but another one in five voted for the BCP. BANU returned 110 deputies and the BCP 51. Stamboliiski was just nine seats short of an absolute majority and therefore annulled the returns of thirteen deputies, nine of whom were communists and who were now replaced by agrarians. Stamboliiski had secured his absolute majority in a fashion worthy of the old sûbranie parties he so despised.

  The agrarians were now in a position to implement their ideology and, in the words of the great Anglo-Irish journalist and friend of Bulgaria, James Bourchier, to transfer power ‘from the political coteries of the towns, the office seekers and the parasites of the court, to the honest hard-working tillers of the soil, the bone and sinew of Bulgaria’. The agrarians’ programme, which had not been drawn up until 1918, wanted to create a society in which all held enough but none too much land, and which was dominated by tidy, modernised villages with paved streets, clean water, proper sanitation, good schools, adequate libraries, and cinemas. The peasant proprietor was to be helped by the cooperatives which would provide credit, store crops and find markets; the cooperatives would fit the square peg of peasant proprietorship into the round hole of commercialised, capitalised agriculture.

  Despite his parliamentary majority there were limitations on Stamboliiski’s freedom of action. Reparations complicated matters not only because revenue had to be diverted to meet payments, but also because the government was forced to requisition draught animals for delivery to Bulgaria’s neighbours. This impaired productivity and created yet another opportunity for corruption. Meanwhile, the allies remained suspicious of so radical a government, and in September 1921 they intervened to insist upon the dissolution of a government grain purchasing consortium which had restricted merchants’ sphere of operations, to say nothing of their profits.

  The grain consortium had been intended to restrict such profits and was part of BANU’s offensive against those whom it considered parasites. Lawyers were even more in the firing line. They were denied the right to sit in parliament or on local councils, and were barred from major public office. The agrarians also established new lower courts to deal with issues such as boundary disputes, and in these courts peasants were to plead their own cases before judges elected by the local populace. The agrarians also greatly limited the king’s power to make appointments, and they required banks to help fund credit cooperatives. BANU’s main objective, however, was to redistribute land.

  Plate 7.1 The old and the new in the Bulgarian peasantry; Aleksandûr Stamboliiski with his father.

  In June 1920 a bill was passed to establish a state land fund. Into this would go exce
ss property. All Bulgarians were allowed four hectares of inalienable land but absentee owners were to lose anything above that amount. For those working their land the maximum holding was to be thirty hectares in arable areas and a little more in forest regions; there was to be an extra five hectares for the fifth and every subsequent member of a family. For those who lost land there was to be compensation in the form of government bonds, with payment being on a sliding scale which reduced the amount per hectare as the number of hectares increased. In April 1921 a second act was passed clamping down on the corruption which had allowed some owners to escape the first bill. The 1921 act also stated that monastic lands were now to be included within the act’s provisions, and it made it easier for dwarf-holders and the few landless peasants to purchase more land. The agrarians had hoped to redistribute over a quarter of a million hectares but they were to be disappointed. The process of redistribution was slow and still open to corruption but most important of all there were very few individuals who owned large estates, and institutional owners were more difficult to tackle. By June 1923 only 82,000 hectares had changed hands, and in 1926 only 1 per cent of all the land held in the country had been acquired as a result of redistribution. On the other hand, after the fall of the agrarian government almost all of their land legislation, including the principle of maximum holdings, remained in force. This did not apply, however, to the extension of the maximum property regulations to urban areas and the ruling that all families should have only two rooms and a kitchen, with extra rooms for larger families. This legislation was repealed as was that placing limitations on office space.