Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1922 A REMARKABLE TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1922 A REMARKABLE TRIAL

Bulgaria was the last of Germany's allies to enter the Greai War and the first to quit. It was oh. thei 14th October, 1915, that she declared war on Serbia, and on the 30th September, 1918, that she pioneered the debacle of theiCeri^ tral Powers, by her unconditional surrender. The attack upon Serbia had been preceded by the aasurance that the mobilisation then proceeding was in the interests of '! friendly neutrality," and that there was no intention of attacking Serbia 91?''. Greece.- With equal propriety the Kaiser's declaration' that "Serbia and Montenegro are j finished" had preceded by about the same interval the GODiplete finishing of Bulgaria. In the same speech the Kaiser had adjured his audience of Krupp's employees to carry on the war, and in so doing to rely upon the' text,'*" Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto, you." 'It was rather late^in the day to be advising so startling a change of tactics, and- a. .few weeks later bo"th the Kaiser "and hjs friend Ferdinand, with whom he bad arranged the secret treaty., which brought Bulgaria into the war, were to find that neither the promise that the meek shall'inherit the earth,' nor" the treaty on 'Ferdinand hitherto placed greater reliance, would suffice !. to save either of them. The surrender of Bulgaria and the abdication of Ferdinand were followed by similar performances in the. inverse order on the part of the Kaiser and Germany.

The bringing of the ex-Kaiser to trial as the aroh-criminal of the war was 'one of the items on the^ Allies' agenda paper when Germany capitulated, but it has come to nothing. They were more successful in bringing some of Germany's smaller criminal fry to book, but /even in the rare, cases where convictions were recorded the, sentences imposed by the German Courts were so- outrageously inadequate that it is doubtful whether, the trials did not do as much harm as good. We have been ije J minded, however, during the ,last few days that they manage these things better in Bulgaria. They would doubtless have been glad to put their late " Tsar, "---for so Ferdi«.nd liked to be called—in the dock if he had been : available. Failing him, the Bulgarians have done the next best thing in bringing his advisers to trial, and they seem to be making a very thorough job of it. It was in the teeth of a strong agitation on the part of the Opposition against his Germ anophile policy that M. Badoslavoff brought Bulgaria the war. The protest has been justified by the events, and the late Premier and his colleagues are now being called upon to answer for their mistake. As a (Berlin message informed us on Thursday, the whole ] twelve were imprisoned at the end of 1919, and, except one who has j since been released by death, they j are all undergoing trial now. It is a trial which has already beaten every record, and may still have much further to go. i

The trial, we are told, began in Ootober last, "since when the pris-. oners have marched three times daily, manacled, through the streets of Sofia, guarded by an armed escort." Nearly three years' imprisonment, interrupted only by ten months of trial under* these conditions, seems to the Western mind a severe,punishment for men who, after the trial has proceeded for another ten months, may. prove to be innocent. But innocence is an alternative for which the procedure adopted appears to make no provision. The very title of the Act under which the trial has been instituted—a "Law for the Prosecution of the Originators of the National Defeat "—seems to preclude that possibility; ~ The law which has brought the unfortunate men to trial' brands them as " Originators of the National Defeat," and if HK*y fti'e the »Mfrisftt«>r« e.t the national deiett are they not guilty,

without so much as an alibi to pleadby.way of defence? It certainly looks very like the ordinary cart-before-the-horse procedure of lynch law which condemns and executes its victim and allows-the; formality of a trial to follow if anybody thinks it worth while.

First hang and then draw; "Then try the case by Lydford law. ' The inference' suggested by the short title of the Act is confirmed by the interesting description of it in our cablegram as." really an indictment, a verdict, arid a judgment combined." It is strange that so 'astonishing a performance. should have been in progress, for nearly a year,,and so Mile known about it. .■■'■ : ' "

The counts of the indictment, which are duly set out in this extraordinary piece of legislation,' are as follow:— ' - \

(1) That the Cabinet declared. war without the consent of Parliament. (2) They leased the: State coal mines to Germany for ninety-nine years. (3) Seized enemy property without consent of Parliament. * (4) Increased the severity of the military penal code. (5) Are guilty of bribery and other'corruption. (6) Were diplomatically prepared to join Germany without considering the advantages offered by the other aide. .

The principal penalty prescribed is death, but we are not told whether the other penalties are graded to fit: the different degrees of guilt covered by the six counts. Increasing the severity of the military penal code without considering the advantages, and being*' 'diplomatically ', prepared to join Germany without considering the advantages offered by the other side," have not, let us hope, been made hanging matters. The second of these charges must be particularly hard to meet.. It does not say that the prisoners made a bad bargain with Germany, or that they shouldhave accepted instead the less:tempting! Ijait that Sir Edward Grey, aB he then; was, had to offer. T^e prisoners are not accused of doing the wrong thing in backing the wrong horse, but of being, "diplomatically prepared "to do it without a due regard to the evidence.. It is not bad diplomacy but a bad state of mind of which they are accused, and if the ttate of mind of their iudgeß-^ten of whom are peasants— is,anything like that of those who drew and passed the Actj the charge will not be; easy to refute. But it may reasonably be hoped that such a bias, even if ij led to an error of judgment, has hot been made^even in Bulgaria, a capital offence. If statesmen are to set about hanging one another for arrors of judgment, politics will become a parlous business indeed. But the terrors of v the Act are not limited to the death penalty. I? also "contains a "civil damages " clause of a most alarming character. "All '■■ who participate- in diplomatic preparation for war are liable," says this clause, " to the same''punishments, besides the responsibility for the whole cost of the ,war.*' As the war is said to have , cost Bulgaria £400,000,000, the liability of the defenclanis, inclusive of costs according to scale, seems likely to be more than any of them can*put up- in cash. The taxpayer may. still have -a small balance to pay.