Aspects of Bulgaria
The British delegate spoke not a whit too strongly at Paris on Monday about Bulgaria's preposterous claim to territorial aggrandise- ment at the expense of Greece. That a defeated enemy should advance such a claim against an Allied State is almost incredible, and it is certain that even Bulgaria would hardly have tabled a proposal so intolerable if she had not been assured of support—if indeed it was not actually a case of external instigation—by Russia and Russia's immediate satellites. Quite certainly Greece ought to get the slight territorial adjustments she is asking for, to give her an adequate defensive frontier against a Bulgaria which has in three wars since 1912 shown herself the most aggressive State in the Balkans. Bulgaria herself, as the result of the overwhelming plebiscite on Sunday, becomes a republic—whether Socialist, Communist or democratic in the western sense remains to be seen ; it can only be hoped that the decision on that will be left to the country's own unfettered choice. The abolition of monarchy is wise, in view of the fact that the King is a boy of nine, and the son of a father whose traits, if the boy inherited them, would be no recommendation. Whatever is to be said of monarchy as a system, singularly little can be said for the recent sovereigns of Bulgaria, and the plebiscite decision need cause neither surprise nor regret.
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