The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1941. BULGARIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 49, 27 February 1941, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1941. BULGARIA

THE inability of Bulgaria to resist German pressure can be appreciated when it is realised that the military establish.iiient of the country was until recently very small indeed, that the country is still undeveloped insofar as communications are concerned, and the population comprises only six millions, mostly peasants, tied to their own freehold land. Although Bulgaria has of late improved her relationships with her neighbours, she could not miss the opportunity recently of demanding and securing from Rumania the province of the Dobrodja. With Yugoslavia she signed a pact of perpetual peace and friendship, and the barb-wired entanglements which were a feature of the frontier were removed. Relations with Turkey were improved and appear to have been carried a step further recently since the German occupation: but it is still true that it was Bulgaria which prevented the formation of a Balkan Bloc to sustain the neutrality of the Peninsula. That invasion has now come to her own doors may, therefore, be regarded as in the nature of retribution for her rcmissness in not joining the neutrality bloc. The country had been held back by the capricious and yet easy-going suzerainty of the old Turkish regime, and it is only about sixty years since the people have been released from the Turkish yoke. Its natural sympathy with Germany is to be appreciated when it is realised that it is to the Reich that it looks to sell the greater portion of her produce and to buy most of the manufactured goods which she must import. The passing of German troops through the country will, consequently, not be the subject of such resentment as would be felt by a nation with a more varied economy dealing with the wide world. It should also be borne in mind that the Bulgars bear the Greeks no great affection. It is Greece which bars the way of the Bulgar to the Aegean Sea, and the holding of the port of Salonika by the Hellenes gives to the latter a dominant position in the trade situation of the Balkans, which the Bulgars resent. Had peace prevailed in the Balkan Peninsula for a few more decades, then the close inter-dependence of the Balkan countries on the means of transport, would have probably encouraged the idea that their mutual interests were to be preserved by maintaining peace. Unfortunately, Rumania was too weak, and the Balkan situation generally historically too new to enable a united front to be developed and sustained. The backward nature of the population of Bulgaria can be gauged from the following facts: Roads suitable for motor traffic in an area of 38.814 square miles comprise only 11,866 miles, railways open for traffic 1818 miles, motor vehicle licences (at December, 1937), ears 2020, and commercial 1091; wireless receiving sets 31,658, and telephone subscribers 24,000. in a population of over 6.000,000. The nature of the country, however, is suitable for defensive fighting, as the roads pass frequently through mountain gorges, especially where they run from north to south. Unfortunately, Bulgaria was bound by the Treaty of Neuilly to limit her army to 20,000 of all ranks, enlisted by voluntary service. The strength of the army in 1937 was 1062 officers and 19,030 other ranks, but this was subjected to a quick expansion, and according- to the Adjutant-General’s Office of the United Slates of America, on November 1, 1939, Bulgaria had 160.000 on the active list and 510,000 on the trained reservists, with 3200 in the air forces. This force is too new to withstand a German onslaught alone, and what is of greater importance, it is insufficiently equipped to engage a first-class modern army. But if a close association had been maintained with Greece and Turkey this force would probably have been sufficient, coupled with the nature of the country, to have deterred Germany from embarking upon her present adventure. As it. is, the Bulgars, havinglost a strip of the Aegean coastline as a result of siding with the Central Powers during the last war, may not be averse to speculating upon the success of the Germans in this war and a recovery of the coastal strip as a prize for not being inconveniently neutral.