But just a month after Malinov's accession came the dramatic shift of fortune in the West. The German offensive broke down, and the Allies began their astounding succession of victories. Instantly the Balkan situation altered. Bulgaria knew that the spring offensive had been Germany's supreme bid for victory. To fill the ranks for the rush on Paris and the channel ports the last German veterans had been withdrawn from the East. Gone were those field-gray divisions which had stiffened the Macedonian front and kept down popular discontent by garrisoning Bulgarian towns. The peasant voice was at last free to speak, and it spoke in no uncertain terms for an end of the war. Agrarian disturbances increased in frequency. Peace demonstrations occurred in Sofia. In fact, some of these demonstrations were tinged with revolutionary red. Bolshevism, that wild revolt against the whole existing order to-day manifest in every quarter of the globe, had not passed Bulgaria by. Of course there was the army, but the army itself was not immune. By early July, Bulgarian deserters and prisoners taken on the Macedonian front were telling the Allied intelligence officers strange tales—tales of midnight soldiers' meetings at which "delegates" were chosen in true Russian fashion, and which Bulgarian regimental officers found it wisest to ignore. Such was the situation in early summer. By the first days of autumn Bulgaria was cracking from end to end. It was in mid-September that General Franchet d'Espérey, the Allied commander, ordered the Macedonian offensive. Small wonder that within a fortnight Bulgaria had surrendered and retired from the war.
Turkey's doom sealed.
The consequences of Bulgaria's capitulation should be both momentous and far-reaching. In the first place, Turkey's doom is sealed. Cut off from direct communication with the Teutonic powers save by the Black Sea water-route and staggering under her Palestine defeats, Turkey is now menaced at her very heart. By the terms of the recent armistice Bulgaria has agreed to allow the Allies free passage across her territory, including the full use of her railways. This means that the Allies can move through Bulgaria upon Turkish Thrace, the sole land bastion protecting Constantinople. Turkey's military situation is thus hopeless, and it is not impossible that before these lines appear in print Turkey will have followed Bulgaria's example and will have thrown up the sponge.
Rumania to be freed.
A second possibility is the liberation of Rumania. The "peace" imposed upon Rumania by the Central powers last spring was one of the most shameless acts of international brigandage in the annals of modern history, and though dire necessity compelled Rumania to sign, it was plain that she would submit to her new slavery only so long as the Teutonic pistol was held to her head. This pistol took the form of a Teutonic army of ten divisions camped upon her soil. But to-day Rumania is thrilling to the great news, and when Allied bayonets begin flashing south of the Danube these heliographs of liberty will light a flame of revolt which second-rate German divisions will be unable to stamp out. With the ground burning under their feet the Teutons will probably evacuate Rumania with only the most perfunctory resistance to the advancing Allies.
German prestige in the East crumbles.
And southern Russia is in much the same case. To-day it is bowed beneath the Teuton yoke, yet the Teutonic corps of occupation are mere islets lost in its vast immensity and ruling more by prestige than by physical power. But German prestige is crumbling fast, and when Turkey's surrender opens the Black Sea to the Allied fleets, southern Russia, like Rumania, should be in a blaze. From the Ukraine to the Caucasus the land is already seething with disaffection. The Don Cossacks have never been subdued. Will the Germans dare to hold their thin communication lines till the guns of Entente warships are thundering off Odessa and Batum?
Austria's condition is desperate.
Lastly, there is Austria-Hungary. Bulgaria's capitulation opens the way for the liberation of Serbia and an Allied push to the Austrian border on the middle Danube. Beyond lie whole provinces full of mutinous Jugoslavs and Rumanians. For that matter, all the non-German and non-Magyar peoples of the Dual Empire are in a state of suppressed revolt, held down by armies largely composed of their disaffected brethren. Perhaps the Balkan winter may delay the Allied advance, perhaps Germany may find enough troops to stifle Austrian disaffection, but the condition of the Hapsburg realm is at best a desperate one, full of explosive possibilities.
Bulgars are disillusioned about Germany.