Gone were those field-gray divisions which had stiffened
the Macedonian front and kept down popular discontent by garrisoning
Bulgarian towns. The peasant voice was at last free to speak, and it
spoke in no uncertain terms for an end of the war. Agrarian disturbances
increased in frequency. Peace demonstrations occurred in Sofia. In fact,
some of these demonstrations were tinged with revolutionary red.
Bolshevism, that wild revolt against the whole existing order to-day
manifest in every quarter of the globe, had not passed Bulgaria by. Of
course there was the army, but the army itself was not immune. By early
July, Bulgarian deserters and prisoners taken on the Macedonian front
were telling the Allied intelligence officers strange tales--tales of
midnight soldiers' meetings at which "delegates" were chosen in true
Russian fashion, and which Bulgarian regimental officers found it wisest
to ignore. Such was the situation in early summer. By the first days of
autumn Bulgaria was cracking from end to end. It was in mid-September
that General Franchet d'Esperey, the Allied commander, ordered the
Macedonian offensive. Small wonder that within a fortnight Bulgaria had
surrendered and retired from the war.
[Sidenote: Turkey's doom sealed.]
The consequences of Bulgaria's capitulation should be both momentous and
far-reaching. In the first place, Turkey's doom is sealed. Cut off from
direct communication with the Teutonic powers save by the Black Sea
water-route and staggering under her Palestine defeats, Turkey is now
menaced at her very heart.
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