torial concession from Bulgaria.

The diplomacy of Bulgaria under these difficult circumstances was
deplorable. Her statesmen seemed bemused with the intoxication of
Bulgarian military victories, and unable to forget the glowing
calculations of the future Bulgarian Empire which they had made during
the course of the war. Those calculations I gathered from gossip with
all classes in Bulgaria at different times, speaking not only with
politicians but with bankers, trading people, and others. They concluded
that the Turk was going to be driven out of Europe, at any rate, as far
as Constantinople. They considered that Constantinople was too great a
prize for the Bulgarian nation or for the Balkan States, and that
Constantinople would be left as an international city to be governed by
a commission of the Great Powers. Bulgaria was, then, to have of what
had been Turkey-in-Europe, the province of Thrace, and a large part of
Macedonia as far as the city of Salonica.

[Illustration: A YOUNG GIRL OF IRN]

Salonica was desired very much by the Bulgarians, and also very much by
the Greeks; and the decision in regard to Salonica before the war was
that it would be best to make it a free Balkan city, governed by all the
Balkan States in common, as a free port for all the Balkan States. The
frontier of Greece was to extend to the north, and Greece was to be
allowed all the Aegean Islands. The Servian frontier was to extend to
the eastward and the southward, and what is now the autonomous province
of Albania (the creation of which was insisted on by the Powers) was to
be divided between Montenegro and Servia.

That division would have left the Bulgarians with the greatest spoil of
the war. They would have had entry on to the Sea of Marmora; they would
have controlled, perhaps, one side of the Dardanelles (but I believe
they thought that the Dardanelles might also be left to a commission of
the Powers). Now, with the clash of diplomacy, it was sternly necessary
to curtail that ambition considerably, and to decide to seek a friend
among the different rivals. Bulgarian diplomats could not be made to
see that. They were firm with Turkey: wisely enough, for Turkey had no
power left to wound or to help. But at the same time they refused to
make any concessions either to Servia, to Greece, or to Roumania, all of
whom were determined to have a share of the plunder which Bulgaria had
assigned for herself. "A leonine partnership" as the lawy