BULGARIA AND KULTUR.
In the semi-official Servian daily, Samouprava, published in Belgrade and now at Nish, the following editorial article appeared early in the first week of October, 1914:
The Bulgarians are a queer people. Those of the foreigners who sympathize with them are apt to call them realists, positivists, and calculants, but we Servians, knowing them, understand that such definitions applied to them are flattering euphemisms and nothing more. The Bulgarian people are really laborious and thrifty. Unfortunately the cultured members of Bulgarian society, who studied abroad, bear in their social and political life the fundamental characteristics of the German intellect.
The cultured Bulgarians have absorbed the German Kultur, although they do not owe Germany even the hundredth part of what they owe to Russia.
All these are facts that need not proofs. Bulgaria, therefore, could not more wantonly accuse Servia than by saying that we allied ourselves with the enemies of Slavdom. The cynicism of these accusations is proved by the following officially registered Bulgarian actions:
The Stoïlof Ministry has concluded an alliance with Servia and also an understanding which the Bulgarians sold to Turkey for eight Bishoprics in Macedonia.
During the crisis which followed the annexation of Servian Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria, and when Russia was mortally insulted, Bulgaria, in common understanding with Austria, proclaimed her independence and definitely annexed Oriental Rumelia. These profits Bulgaria secured to the detriment of Servian interests.
During the Balkan war, and notwithstanding all that Servia had done for Bulgaria, the Bulgarian attitude was once more treacherous, culminating in the wanton attack upon her allies at the instigation of Austria.
Today, when Russia fights a life-and-death struggle, Bulgaria is keeping neutral, and every one knows what kind of neutrality is this when such a multitude of Germans is passing through Bulgarian territory in order to arm and lead the Turks against Russia. And, last but not least, immediately after the present war between Austria and Servia, the Bulgarians proposed an alliance to Rumania.
After all this it is a wonder how the Bulgarians dare to invoke Slav sympathies, which they always sold to Austria, and which the Bulgarian press is now trying to sell at auction. Lucky he who buys them.