[Sidenote:  The opportunity for revenge.]

The opportunity was not long in coming.  The Pan-German devil was already preparing his stroke for world dominion, and when the blow fell in 1914, Bulgaria’s alinement was almost a foregone conclusion.  The military losses in the recent Balkan Wars had of course so weakened her that cautious diplomatic jockeying was a preliminary necessity, but when Russia had succumbed to Hindenburg’s hammer-strokes in the summer of 1915 and the Germanic hosts menaced Serbia in the autumn, Bulgaria threw off the mask, struck Serbia from the rear, and joined the Teutonic powers.  Thus did the “Berlin-Bagdad” dream grow into solid fact, and Mitteleuropa became a hard reality.

[Sidenote:  The people give hearty assent.]

[Sidenote:  Germany promises cessions from Turkey.]

[Sidenote:  Victory over Serbia and Rumania.]

There can be no question that when Bulgaria entered the war on the Teutonic side in the autumn of 1915 she did so with the hearty assent of the vast majority of her people.  The Germans had promised Bulgaria those things which Bulgarians most desired.  A Teutonic alliance offered Bulgaria immediate possession of Serbian Macedonia, where lived the bulk of the Bulgarian element still outside Bulgaria’s political frontiers, together with the practical destruction of the Serbian arch-enemy.  The Teutonic alliance likewise offered prospects of reclaiming the Bulgarian populations of Greek Macedonia and of the southern Dobrudja, annexed by Rumania, in 1913, should Greece and Rumania, both notoriously pro-Ally, strike in on the Entente side.  Lastly, the German Government agreed to use its good offices with its ally, Turkey, to obtain for Bulgaria a Turkish cession of the Demotika district of Thrace west of the Maritza River, thereby giving Bulgaria direct railroad communication with Dedeagatch, her one practicable outlet on the AEgean Sea.  All these things presently came to pass.  Serbia lay crushed, and Serbian Macedonia was under Bulgarian control before the close of 1915.  Turkey soon yielded Demotika.  In the spring of 1916 the quarrel between the Greek King Constantine and the Entente powers permitted Bulgaria to occupy the coveted Drama-Serres-Kavala districts of Greek Macedonia, while that same autumn Rumania’s intervention on the Allied side resulted in her speedy defeat, with Bulgarian troops overrunning the whole Dobrudja as far as the Danube mouth, and Bulgarian regiments triumphantly parading through the streets of Bukharest.  Small wonder that up to the close of 1916 Bulgaria remained a loyal member of Mitteleuropa, thoroughly contented with her bargain.

[Sidenote:  Effects of defeats on Russia.]

[Sidenote:  The Russian Revolution.]

[Sidenote:  Bulgaria only a link in Mitteleuropa.]