The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

Alliance—was annihilated; and instead of Serbia receiving a Bulgarian army 200,000 strong to assist her against Austria-Hungary, she only received Bulgarian threats, and was obliged to divide her small forces in order to use part of them for the protection of her lines of communication against bands coming across the Bulgarian frontier.

Some sentimental friends of Bulgaria in the western countries, over-eager to help her—and others wishing to see her as soon as possible actively engaged on the side of the Allies, readily accepted the Bulgarian point of view, that Bulgaria blundered in treacherously attacking in 1913 her allies, but that she had acted under the greatest provocation, and that the best course would be to at once satisfy her territorial claims and thus ensure her co-operation with the Allies. It was with that object in view that the diplomacy of the Entente last year undertook the negotiations in Sofia, Nish and Athens which ended in a complete failure.

This failure was foreseen by many who possessed a fair knowledge of the psychology and aims of the governing circles in Sofia. In 1915 as well as in 1913 Bulgaria pursued one and the same object. She had neither changed her feelings of jealousy and animosity towards her neighbours nor abandoned her ambitious desire for supremacy in the Balkans. Therefore the Bulgarian Government could not accept the

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