"Here Turkey had her last close shave," laughingly said my driver. "The next one will be more severe, I am afraid; for me, I should not be surprised to see the Russians, or the English, or even both, here before next summer." At Pavlo-Keni I left my courteous guide.
After waiting a few hours in a dirty inn full of soldiers, of pipe-smoke, and of the onion-like smell of Turkish cooking, I managed to get a train to Dedeagatch. There another unpleasant surprise awaited me. Bulgaria had two days ago closed her ports and no boat was allowed to sail.
Dedeagatch, the curious little town in which it seems impossible to meet two people of the same nationality, so mixed are the races, the costumes, the languages, does not show any signs of its recent change of proprietorship. Dirt and dogs and rags are everywhere, as in a true Turkish town.
I remember an old journalist of wide Balkan experience and of great wit, Vico Mantegazza, telling me two years ago: "You ask a Bulgarian for his political ideas or the designs of his country's diplomacy, then reverse his answer, and you will be just as near the truth as you will ever get!"
As a matter of fact, every Bulgarian I have had occasion to talk to, lately, has told me a different tale. To some the enemy is Greece; to others Serbia. At a few minutes' interval I was told, first, by an officer, that Bulgaria wanted another fight with Turkey, "her traditional enemy"—and then that Bulgaria's relations with Turkey had been excellent since the last war, and would probably continue so for a long time.
The impression I received here was that the Austro-German influence is very strong; Bulgaria is ruled by a German, the German language is spoken and understood everywhere, and business life as well as private life is strictly connected with Germany. I do not know if the charge of ingratitude generally made against Bulgaria is true, but it seems that the country has forgotten the times of the dreadful, century-long Turkish domination and the help Russia always gave to Bulgaria, who owes to the great Slav nation both her birth as an independent State and her existence after the last war.
The immoderate ambitions of the Bulgarian Government, ambitions of increasing her territory and of becoming the great nation of the Balkans, has made her forget all this. It is certain that no mystery is made in Bulgaria of her bitter feelings against Russia, feelings reciprocated by Petrograd papers, which call the Bulgarians "the Balkan Germans."
The personal influence of King Ferdinand has been very strong; he has Germanised his capital and most of the important towns of his nation, and has tried to attenuate as much as possible the natural intercourse of Bulgaria with the other Slav countries.
The unnatural relations between Bulgaria and Serbia are a continuous danger to the Entente. Bulgaria is certainly going to keep neutral for some time, but supposing Serbia should one day suffer reverses on the Austrian frontier, who could be sure of Bulgaria's attitude?
The infatuation for the German-Austrian power is such that one often hears sentences like this: "Germany and Austria united cannot be beaten by any nation on earth."