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Bulgaria Quits: Bulgarians

The Bulgarians have often been called the Prussians of the Balkans, and in this characterization there is a large measure of truth. A hard-working, tenacious folk, capable of great patience, docile to iron discipline, and appreciative of governmental efficiency, the material progress made by the Bulgarians during their forty years of independence is as striking in its way as the similar progress of the German people. Unfortunately, the Bulgarians resemble the Prussians not only in their virtues, but in their most unlovely qualities as well. There are the same tactlessness, brutality, overweening ambition, and cynical indifference to the means by which those ambitions are to be attained. This has shown itself clearly throughout Bulgarian history. When Bulgaria gained her independence of Turkey in 1878 she started with a perfectly legitimate ambition, the attainment of Bulgarian race-unity through the annexation of those Bulgar-inhabited portions of Macedonia that remained under Turkish rule. For this the Bulgarian people toiled and taxed themselves without stint. For this they built up a military machine relatively the most formidable on earth.

Projects of the leaders.