The Bulgarians, from czar to peasant lad, are realists,
not given to vain sacrifices. They see that Germany's game is up and
that her Balkan grip is broken forever. They have also been bitterly
disillusioned about Mitteleuropa, and must to-day realize that under
Mitteleuropa whatever Balkan territories might have been colored
"Bulgarian" upon the map, they themselves would have been virtually
serfs of a Germany whose idea of empire was the outworn concept of a
master race lording it over submissive slaves. With their eyes thus
opened, the Bulgarians are in a position to appreciate the Allies'
profession of faith with its program of freedom for the smallest peoples
and fair-dealing even toward the foe. Imperialistic dreams must of
course be banished forever. But solicitude for race-brethren outside
Bulgaria's present frontiers is a sentiment which the Allies recognize
as wholly legitimate and which they are pledged to satisfy either by
permitting annexation to the homeland or, where this is impossible owing
to superior claims of intervening races, by assuring the unredeemed
Bulgars full cultural liberty. The Allies' hope is a Balkan
confederation in which its varied races may pull together in common
interest and mutual respect instead of rending one another in vain
dreams of barren empire achieved through blood and iron. Is it too much
to hope that so level-headed a people as the Bulgarians will come to
realize that in such a Balkan settlement their lasting interests will be
far safer than in a Balkans precariously dominated by a Bulgarian
minority holding down a majority of sullen and vengeful race enemies?
Copyright, Century, December, 1918.
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