destiny. The glorious fruits of victory shall be our reward.

Forward, with the help of God!

FERDINAND.

To the army the King addressed the following Order of the Day:

Soldiers: I have summoned you to carry your standards beyond the frontier, where our brothers are waiting for you impatiently and with hearts filled with hope. The memory of the Great Voivodes Michael the Brave and Stephen

Germany, with all the other powers, signed this declaration of The Hague:

"The contracting parties agree not to use projectiles which have for their sole aim to spread asphyxiating or deleterious gases." The ink was hardly dry on the paper when German chemists received instructions, secret but precise, from the Imperial and Royal Government, while all other peoples, civilized or even halfbarbarous, held themselves bound by their word.

The abominable felony, which had been long prepared, was committed for the first time on April 22, 1915, in an attack against the division of General Putz in the neighborhood of Langemarck, Belgium, a yellow smoke, coming from the German trenches and driven by the north wind, suddenly swept down on our lines. Marshal French's report said:

"The effect of the poisonous vapors was so violent that all action was made impossible over the whole ground occupied by the French division." Hundreds of men fell asphyxiated, writhing in frightful pain. Others, stupefied and staggering, coughing streams of blood, fell back in all haste out of the zone of

the gas; they abandoned thirty cannon. There had not yet been, in all history, so infamous a victory. There shall not be one to cost the victors dearer.

Had the English been the victims, instead of being only the witnesses, of such treachery, they could not have experienced more horror. Necessarily, it released our allies and ourselves-the chemistry of war was created. Several hundred English chemists set to work, coolly, resolutely, patiently. To those who saw them at their work they were the executioners of justice. The German lines, which extend more than sixty miles in Belgium and France, facing the English lines, know now what it costs a people to become the accomplices of a Government of treachery, ferocity, and crime. There is sometimes even human justice. There may be pity for the individual. No one in the world will have pity for the army and nation-for they have chosen to stand and fall with imperial felony. Honor, after their fashion, and profit they may have had from itbut not victory. And they must pay for it. Two hundred dead German soldiers in one row, dead from English gases, tell the rest.

T

HE European war, if not in its ultimate implications, is at least in its immediate provocation a Balkan conflict-a conflict for Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean dominion. It should not be forgotten that the Serajevo outrage was the initial casus belli, and its inevitable connections with Bosnia and Herzego

vina and the road to Saloniki, with the Berlin Congress and the Sick Man of Europe, with the Drang nach Osten politics on the one hand and Peter the Great's "testament " concerning Constantinople on the other, suggest the underlying causes of the present RussoGerman conflict, with which the Anglo-German and the FrancoGerman conflicts are chronologically, but not logically, associated.

In this conflict for the Eastern Mediterranean and for Balkan dominion the centuryold enemy of Balkandom, Turkey, has ranged her arms the side of the Aus

on

sia, which liberated her from the Turk less than forty years ago. Now, even if this course were inexcusably base, still it would demand explanation. Nations do not stoop to ingratitude for no cause whatever. Before praising or condemning Bulgaria's step we must first of all understand its motives. And to this end

a very brief survey of Bulgaria's immediate past is indispensable.

The middle of the nineteenth century found the Bulgarian Nation, from the Danube to the Aegean Sea, and from the Black Sea to the Lake of Ochrid, reaching the climax of a death struggle to shake off the ecclesiastical oppression of the Greek Patriarchate and the political-economic tyranny of the Turk. The first struggle ended successfully with the recognition by the Sultan of a national Bulgarian Church in 1870; the second revolt, for political independence, after claiming thousands of martyrs, led

yesterday rivers of Balkan blood spilled themselves in a war the avowed object of which was the expulsion of Islam from Europe. Yet Bulgaria is today fighting in league with her oppressor of half a thousand years, the Turk-fighting in opposition to Rus

and to the treaty of San Stefano, which reconstituted an independent Bulgaria, including practically the entire Bulgarian folk. But Western Europe feared that an independent Bulgaria would become Russia's pawn in the Balkans, that the Czar would use Bulgaria as his road to the Medi

terranean instead of the one through Constantinople and the Dardanelles, which had been closed to him after the Crimean War. At the Berlin Congress, accordingly, England, Germany, and Austria dismembered the Bulgar land that had just awakened to freedom after 500 years of bondage. In the end, one section of Bulgaria was given freedom, another was accorded partial autonomy, a third was definitely assigned to Rumania, a fourth to Serbia, while the fifth, comprising Macedonia and Western Thrace, was actually handed back to the Sultan.

In spite of the political obstacles with which she was confronted, however, little Bulgaria made a cultural endeavor which today challenges a parallel. During the quarter century from 1887 to 1912, for instance, she multiplied her railroad mileage almost nine times; her telegraph service trebled; her postal service increased twentyfold; her imports doubled; her exports quadrupled; for every vessel that entered and cleared her ports in 1887 there were thirty in 1912. But her greatest effort was directed in the line of public education. In 1880 Bulgaria was as illiterate as any country could well be. In 1910 onetenth of her population attended the public schools. The illiteracy of the Bulgarian Army, which was 70 per cent. in 1887, has been so reduced that the younger regiments of Bulgars are less than 10 per cent. illiterate. There are as few Bulgars who cannot read and write in the regiments formed today as there were men who could read and write in the regiments formed thirtysix years ago. The Greek Army is 30 per cent. illiterate, the Rumanian over 64 per cent., and the Serbian population over 11 years of age shows an illiteracy of almost 79 per cent.

Forty-five years ago everything ever printed in the Bulgarian language could have been assembled on one library table. Today Bulgaria has over 350 periodical publications; the world's literature may be read in Bulgarian translations, and several Bulgarian writers have seen their works translated in many European languages. Open the International "Who's Who in Science"

and you will find that Bulgaria contributes as many names as all the other Balkan States put together. In the Balkans Bulgaria has become the home of genuine ethnic and religious tolerance; with a truly representative electoral system; with labor-protection laws such as many States in America cannot yet boast; a country economically solid and democratic, five-sevenths of her sons owning the farms they till. What more could Bulgaria desire?

Only this, and this above all: The liberation of those Bulgars whom the Berlin Congress had handed back to the Sultan. This aim inspired the bloody Macedonian insurrections; it led Bulgaria into the Balkan Alliance and the war of 1912. The history of the Balkan war needs no rehearsal here. Suffice it to recall that Bulgaria found herself confronted by the main Turkish Army, crushed it decisively, drove it back to the very gates of Constantinople, and for half a year held it there in check.

But the victory whereby Bulgaria had liberated the Balkans from Turkdom fanned the old envy of her allies. In refusing to relinquish the "uncontested. zone in Macedonia and to arbitrate about the "contested zone," Serbia broke here treaty of alliance with Bulgaria; Greek cunning conspired with Rumanian cupidity and Turkish rancor to overwhelm Bulgaria and to rob her of almost all the fruits of her war of liberation. By the treaty of Bucharest, August, 1913, Bulgaria lost 1,000,000 Macedonian Bulgars to Serbia and Greece and 286,000 of her prosperous Dobrudja citizens to Rumania. The Fall of 1913 found Bulgaria diplomatically isolated, territorially robbed, and to all appearances crushed into abject helplessness.

Yet such has been the irony of fate that, within one brief twelvemonth after the Bucharest Treaty, Serbia's dream of empire involved her in a conflict threatening her very existence as an independent State. The course of the great war, its military and its diplomatic history, has disclosed several striking developments in the Balkans. It has accentuated with increasing clearness the importance of Bulgaria's position. In a

small way, hers is the same advantage which Germany and Austria enjoy in Europe and which has given them the name of the Central Powers. No Balkan State could make a move without reckoning with Bulgaria. The geographical position which had proved Bulgaria's undoing in 1913, when her neighbors, surrounding her on all sides, succeeded in isolating her, proved a tower of strength to her now that her neighbors either were engaged or planned to be engaged each in a different direction. The policy of Rumania and Greece necessarily depended on that of Bulgaria. Again, Bulgaria, which touches both of the neutral Balkan States, is likewise the only European neighbor of Turkey.

The strongest trump in Germany's hand has been her central position, the fact that she held the inner line, allowing the transferance of troops at will from one front to another. In this chain of military coherence, one link was missing. This needed link was Bulgaria. Germany needed the raw resources of Turkey; Turkey needed German guns, ammunition, and equipment. Only through Bulgaria could Berlin communicate with Constantinople overland.

On the other hand, the Entente's greatest source of weakness was the absence of communication between east and west. To remedy precisely this situation the forcing of the Dardanelles was thought imperative. The success of the Dardanelles expedition would have achieved two ends-with one stroke it would have severed Germany from Turkey, and so frustrated the menace to England's dominion over Egypt and India, and also established oversea communication between Russia and her allies. Here again the importance of Bulgaria's position was para

the Russian Black Sea fleet. With a Bulgaria friendly to Germany, however, the Anglo-French expedition faced a Sisyphean task. Bulgaria held the key which could either unlock the Constantinople gates for the Entente or lock them to Germany. The fact that of all the neutral States Bulgaria alone possessed both a Black Sea coast and an Aegean coast gave her a position of inestimable value and made her sympathies precious beyond belief to both hostile coalitions. One doubts if the most astute of diplomats could have anticipated the gain in power which Bulgaria acquired by securing in 1913 the strip of coast line on the Aegean.

But, once the European war had begun, neither Germany nor the Entente appreciated the importance of Bulgaria's position any better than did the Bulgarian people, Government, and Czar. Ferdinand's manifesto of Oct. 14, 1915, declares: Exhausted and worn out, but not vanquished, [in 1913,] we had to furl our flags and wait for better days. The better days have come much sooner than we had reason to expect." In the Fall of 1913 Bulgarian emissaries were waiting in cold European anterooms, begging for recognition of the ethnic and political justice of their cause. In the Fall of 1914 emissaries of the European powers were in Sofia, returning Bulgaria's calls.

In modern history there is scarcely an equally dramatic instance of poetic justice. Sofia, the geographic heart of the Balkan peninsula, once more became its political centre of gravity. Once more Bulgaria beheld the possible realization of her national ideal, her one ambition. And this one ambition of all Bulgars was and is: That political Bulgaria become coextensive with ethnic Bulgaria. This means today the restoration to Bulgaria of the Macedonian districts of which Serbia and Greece robbed her, and of the Dobrudja region which Rumania extorted from her at the treaty of Bucharest. Only the at least partial attainment of this national idea could justify the spilling of Bulgarian blood in this war. Bulgaria, accordingly, asked herself this question: Would the liberation of Macedonia and Dobrudja be more likely of attainment if she abandoned her

neutrality than if she remained neutral? And in case she did enter the war, which of the two hostile groups could more sincerely and more reliably assure her of the realization of this national ideal?

It has always been England's policy to crush her most dangerous Continental rival by using for that purpose the allied forces of that power's Continental enemies. A hundred years ago Great Britain used Germany and Russia to crush France. Sixty years ago the Russian Czar became the great danger to civilization, and Britain used Europe's armies to crush Russia. The last few decades have registered sufficient German progress and vitality to make Germany the immediate source of Britain's alarm. be that the more astute British statesmen still realize that Russia, their present ally, is their inevitable future enemy, but for this moment Britain is entirely anti-German. She not only seconded Russia's move toward Constantinople, but herself tried to batter open for Russia the Dardanelles gates, as if to scratch out from the British creed that article for which the Light Brigade charged at Balaklava.

It may

On this doubtless fascinating chessboard of war tiny Bulgaria unfortunately appears merely as a pawn, and so it happens that, while for Britain Russia is the distant and Germany the immediate danger, for Bulgaria the case is exactly reversed. Germany's immediate aim is economic dominion over the Near East, and that immediate aim need not preclude-indeed, it may demand-a strong and friendly Bulgaria to guard the German caravan's flank. But Russia's immediate aim is political mastery over Constantinople and the Dardanelles. This means Adrianople and Thrace, and how much more of the Black Sea coast it does or may mean the Bulgar mind finds it very uncomfortable to contemplate.

Thus, realizing with increasing clearness that in the present conflict England had left the destinies of the Balkans in the hands of Russia and that Russia was there the decisive factor, Bulgaria saw that fighting on the side of England meant really fighting for Russia.

The

great question for the Bulgars, therefore, early resolved itself into this: Was it to Bulgaria's interest to fight for Russia? And, since Bulgaria's relation to Russia is a deeper relation than one of interest, a second more momentous question arose: Was Bulgaria morally bound to join Russia?

The entire history of modern Bulgaria registers a constant effort on the part of the Bulgarian people to remain grateful and loyal to the great Russian Nation, their liberator, without yielding to the machinations of the Russian Government. The interest which imperial Russia has taken in Bulgaria, however, has always been measured by its expectation of cowing or bringing Bulgaria into ultimate submission. This Russian policy is quite easy to understand if one looks at things from the point of view of Russian imperial expansion. Constantinople and the Dardanelles are Russian ambitions far more properly than even Antwerp is a Germanic ambition, and a Russian expansionist may well shed tears at the way in which Russia's outstretched arm is forever being balked from reaching the high seas in China, in Persia, in the Near East. But can Bulgaria grieve that the Russian appetite has not yet been satisfied at her expense? Any nation must needs look at a world conflict primarily from the point of view of its own selfpreservation, and this is the way in which Bulgaria has looked at this war.

The geographic position of Bulgaria made her naturally a possible bridge of Russian advance on Constantinople; the geographic position of Serbia, on the other hand, made her a wall of protection for Russia against the AustroGerman advance on Saloniki. Bulgarian loyalty was thus a necessary part of Russia's plan of "benevolent assimilation"; but Serbian loyalty was essential to the very security of Russia in the Near East. Now the fact that the Serb, toward the end of the century, was courting Viennese favor and was fast becoming Austria's economic vassal, worried imperial Russia. Consequently the Belgrade tragedy of 1903 resulted in an entire change of things Serbian. The Russian Minister at Belgrade replaced