dad" dream grow into solid fact, and
Mitteleuropa became a hard reality.

[Sidenote: The people give hearty assent.]

[Sidenote: Germany promises cessions from Turkey.]

[Sidenote: Victory over Serbia and Rumania.]

There can be no question that when Bulgaria entered the war on the
Teutonic side in the autumn of 1915 she did so with the hearty assent of
the vast majority of her people. The Germans had promised Bulgaria those
things which Bulgarians most desired. A Teutonic alliance offered
Bulgaria immediate possession of Serbian Macedonia, where lived the bulk
of the Bulgarian element still outside Bulgaria's political frontiers,
together with the practical destruction of the Serbian arch-enemy. The
Teutonic alliance likewise offered prospects of reclaiming the Bulgarian
populations of Greek Macedonia and of the southern Dobrudja, annexed by
Rumania, in 1913, should Greece and Rumania, both notoriously pro-Ally,
strike in on the Entente side. Lastly, the German Government agreed to
use its good offices with its ally, Turkey, to obtain for Bulgaria a
Turkish cession of the Demotika district of Thrace west of the Maritza
River, thereby giving Bulgaria direct railroad communication with
Dedeagatch, her one practicable outlet on the AEgean Sea. All these
things presently came to pass. Serbia lay crushed, and Serbian Macedonia
was under Bulgarian control before the close of 1915. Turkey soon
yielded Demotika. In the spring of 1916 the quarrel between the Greek
King Constantine and the Entente powers permitted Bulgaria to occupy the
coveted Drama-Serres-Kavala districts of Greek Macedonia, while that
same autumn Rumania's intervention on the Allied side resulted in her
speedy defeat, with Bulgarian troops overrunning the whole Dobrudja as
far as the Danube mouth, and Bulgarian regiments triumphantly parading
through the streets of Bukharest. Small wonder that up to the close of
1916 Bulgaria remained a loyal member of Mitteleuropa, thoroughly
contented with her bargain.

[Sidenote: Effects of defeats on Russia.]

[Sidenote: The Russian Revolution.]

[Sidenote: Bulgaria only a link in Mitteleuropa.]

The year 1917, however, saw the beginning of that estrangement from
Germany which has finally caused Bulgaria's abandonment of the Teutonic
cause. The first rift in the lute was the Russian Revolution. This event
was a great shock to Ferdinand and the Sofia politicians. When Bulgaria
had joined Germany in the autumn of 1