The results of the Second Balkan (Interally) War (Bulgaria gained small sections of Thrace and Macedonia but lost part of Dobrudja, the once detached Bulgarian territory was given to Romania after the second Balkan war. Two million Bulgarians which was one third of the total Bulgarian people, were to remain again under foreign rule.) predetermined Bulgaria's participation in the First World War which broke out in 1914. During the first year of the war, Bulgaria maintained neutrality trying to find out which of the two opposing sides could offer a Bulgarian interest-friendly settlement of the problem of its territories lost to the other Balkan states. Serbia Romania and Greece, swinging towards the Entente and their governments showing relenlessness, significantly impeded British, French and Russian diplomacy propose a solution acceptable to the Bulgarians.
In the last reckoning, they were awake to the serious danger of the Bulgarian huge and efficient army's involvement on the side of the Central Powers, i.e. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey (at that time it was indeed capable of defeating the Entente's southern flank, and what is more important, of allowing the establishment of the unavailable until then territorial link between the Central Powers). The Entente offered Bulgaria nothing more than leavings of territories in Turkish Thrace and their deigning to assist in its settling territorial problems with the other Christian Balkan states as soon as the war ended. However, the Bulgarian politicians' recent past bitter experiences of promises for 'benevolent assistance' made them react with skepticism and reticence to the proposals of the Entente.
At the same time the Central Powers were too profuse of promises: if Bulgaria chose to participate on their side, it would receive all territories aspired for by the Bulgarians, even bonus lands, which they had never claimed.
Under these circumstances, the Bulgarian political minds would be expected to make sober analyses of the two sides' chances of winning the war. Even a passing glance at the geopolitical situation, the raw material resources, the economic and human potentialities clearly showed that Austria-Hungary, Germany and Turkey had no strategically-justified vistas of being on the eve of victory over the bloc of the Great western democracies plus Russia and Japan, which actually had at that time all the resources of the world at their back and call. Having succumbed to emotions and having forgotten about their making a cool judgement, the monarch and the ruling circles joined the Central Powers and, in the autumn of 1915 attacked Serbia, an ally of the Entente. The Serbian army was literally mown down just in a few days. The Bulgarians were on the march to Thessaloniki, sweeping away on passing, the French and British divisions which had come to Serbia's aid. The fate of Thesaloniki - the Entente base on the Balkans - seemed to have been decided. However, the Supreme German command had not been very keen on closing the Balkan front as it diverted a million of Entente soldiers from possible engagement in fighting against the Germans on the Western front. The advance of the Bulgarian army was then stopped by the Germans under the pretext of keeping the neutrality of Greece, which, by the way, was I broken by the Entente long before that. A front line stretching from Albania to Aegian Thrace was set up. There, in the course of three I years the Bulgarians were forced into waging wearisome positional warfare against the better armed and better equipped British and French troops, aided by the Greek army which joined them in 1917.
In the autumn of 1916 Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente. The Bulgarian military command could afford throwing against the Romanians only one of its armies - the famous Third army. The soldiers and the officers, however, clearly saw this battle as fighting for the liberation of their compatriots in Dobrudja, the section of Bulgaria taken only three years before. They made wonders in a series of military exploits. Both the Romanian army and the several Russian divisions which came to its assistance took only two months to be defeated. In the beginning of December, divisions of the Third Bulgarian army invaded Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in the company of several German units. Having advanced to the northeast, Third army divisions opened a positional front against the Russian army along the Seret river.
Germany and Austria-Hungary, however, had their resources gradually drained. The industrial enterprises in Bulgaria had almost stopped work due to raw materials and energy shortages. Agriculture had lost its draught animals which had been requisitioned for the needs of the army. Farming had no male work force as it had all been mobilized in the army. In that war Bulgaria, with a population of about five million, mobilized 900 000 men - the highest percentage of the available male population, compared with the other countries in the hostilities. Food production dropped down and days of famine set in. The intolerable scarcity and the corrupt easy profiteering ruling circles were the cause of mass popular discontent both in the back areas and on the frontline. Social stress was perilously building up.
The outbreak of the socialist revolution in Russia and the Bolshevik ideas for peace and social change were gaining certain popularity among the Bulgarian workers and farmers. The crisisridden society was threatening to rise in a powerful revolution.
The explosion took place in September 1918. The forces of the Entente launched two assaults against the Thessaloniki front, at Doiran and Dobro Pole. Their intention was to have the two advancing armies first break through the Bulgarian defence lines and then, once in the rear, join together to encircle the whole Bulgarian army. The forces of the Entente succeeded in breaking through the Bulgarian front at Dobro Pole and in slowly taking the offensive. At Doiran, however, the Bulgarian army defeated completely oncoming British and Greek troops. The commander of the Bulgarian troops at that section of the front even demanded that he be given orders for a counter-offensive and a line of its advance - Thessaloniki.
At this juncture, however, the troops in Macedonia refused to obey the orders of the command. A spontaneous mutiny burst forth. Without surrendering or permitting to be encircled by the Entente army, the Bulgarian divisions headed for Sofia to square accounts with the monarch and the ruling government, who were thought to be at the bottom of the war. On 25 September 1918 uncontrollable soldiers' masses seized the headquarters in Radomir and began preparing for the main blow at Sofia.
The frightened monarch and the panic-stricken government released the Agrarian party leaders Alexander Stamboliski and Raiko Daskalov from prison and sent them to the mutineers' camp, counting on their popularity and reposing hopes in their appeasing the mutinous soldiers' masses. Stamboliski and Daskalov, however, had something else on their mind. They intended to canalize the energies of the mutiny and to add to it clear political zest and ultimate goal - the overthrow of monarchy. They addressed the party of the 'narrow' socialists with concrete proposals for joint actions to that end. The socialists, though, turned the Agrarian party proposals down.
The Agrarian leaders displayed greater determination. On 27 September 1918 they stood at the head of the mutiny, proclaimed Bulgaria a republic and declared the monarchy overthrow. On 29 September 1918 the mutineers' masses advanced towards Sofia. Feeling fatigued and being poorly organized, the soldiers failed to break through the defenses of Sofia, composed of units obsequious to the government, and of German divisions. The mutiny was suppressed on October 2.
In the meantime, the government sought truce with the Entente. An armistice was concluded in Thessaloniki on 29 September 1918. Its terms dictated withdrawal of the Bulgarian army to its prewar positions and occupation of strategically important zones.
This was the second national catastrophe since 1913, during the reign of the absolute monarch Ferdinand (1912-1918). That was clearly more than enough to force the culprit to abdicate and leave the country for good on 3 October 1918. His son, Boris Ill, ascended the Bulgarian throne. Bulgaria saw the disastrous outcome of the war in black and white when a treaty of peace was signed in the Paris suburb of Neuille in November 1919. The country suffered further territorial amputations in favorer of its neighbors: the loss of fertile Aegean Thrace and of access to the Aegean Sea to Greece was the heaviest of all. Besides this Bulgaria was liable to payment of enormous reparations that would be back-breaking even for any big and economically advanced European country. On the basis of the treaty of Neuille, Bulgaria was to abolish its military service and to maintain only voluntary units not exceeding 30 000 men. It also had to submit the better part of its draught animals and its energy sources to the hands of the Entente. Defeated, humiliated and burdened with heavy bonded debt, Bulgaria was brought down to the lowest point in its post-Liberation development.
