ed the advice of his official advisers,
treacherously attacked his allies and brought down defeat upon his
armies and discredit upon himself. But the Habsburg Government had
undertaken to see him through the ordeal to which he was then
subjected by his own people. The Treaty of Bucharest, which deprived
Bulgaria of Kavalla and Salonica, left the wound to fester and
Austro-Bulgarian friendship to harden into a definite alliance. None
the less Bulgaria's friendship with the Central Empires was not openly
manifested until the financial transaction was concluded between them
which made Bulgaria the creditor of Austria-Hungary shortly before the
outbreak of the war.

Economically, Bulgaria, like her neighbours, had long been a tributary
of the Central Empires. German and Austrian interests were cunningly
intertwined with Bulgarian in almost every branch of national life.
The banks, financial houses, export firms, are all under Austrian or
German control. In the army, too, despite its Russian training and
traditions, there was a party of officers whose admiration for the
war-lord ran away with their discretion. And the celebrated loan of
half a milliard francs, which Austrian financiers undertook to advance
to Bulgaria--on outrageously oppressive conditions--set the crown to
the work of many years. This transaction was not intended by either
party to be purely financial. Its political bearings were evidenced by
the circumstances in which it was negotiated and the terms on which it
was concluded. But the economic concessions insisted upon by Austria
and conceded by Bulgaria constituted of themselves a convincing proof
of the design to reduce the latter country to the position of one of
the dependents of the Central Empires.

Of all the recognized agencies for penetrating international opinion,
swaying international sentiment, and influencing international action,
one of the most abiding and decisive is that of royal courts. Yet its
value was not merely underrated by Britain, France and Russia, but was
completely ignored. And Germany, whose diplomacy, in spite of its
clumsiness and brutality, was far-sighted and assiduous in watching
for and utilizing every opportunity of smoothing the way for the
execution of the grandiose plan, purveyed almost every court and
throne in Europe with kings, queens and princesses of its own. And
those who were neither Germans by birth nor connected with Germans by
marriage were influenced by ed