SERVIA AND BULGARIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1530, 1 April 1916, Page 4

SERVIA AND BULGARIA.

It has frequently been stated that Servia would have attacked Bulgaria before the Bulgarian mobilisation was complete but that she was restrained by Britain, whose diplomatists hoped to secure King Ferdinand’s aid or at least to keep Bulgaria neutral. On this point Dr. E. J. Dillon says : “The Servians were not at that time in a position to carry out an attack on Bulgaria, because the bulk of their army was stationed along the Danube, In fact, there were no more than three divisions in Macedonia on the line AegriPalanka Kotchana, and it was precisely the movement of those divisions that precipitated Bulgaria's mobilisation. Consequently, the attitude of Great Britain and her allies on the moral aspect of a Servian invasion of Bulgaria was wholly immaterial to the issue. In order to be in a position to invade Bulgaria the Servians ought to have moved their whole army into Macedonia much earlier than the date of the mobilisation. And they knew - it. In fact, this expedient was actually suggested to them by the allies while there was still time as an advantageous prelude to invasion. But they shrank from having recourse to it. What their motives were does not concern us. The point is that if what I have just advanced on the authority of well informed military vouchers be correct, it is, hardly fair to accuse the British Government which has quite enough sins of its own to answer for, of having hindered the Servians from saving themselves. Possibly it would have hindered them if the occasion had really arisen. But it did not arise. If King Peter’s general staff had transported the bulk of the army to Macedonia some time before Bulgaria began to mobilise, then the Austro-German forces, held back by Servian rearguards, would have found it a very arduous task to take heavy artillery with them. Meanwhile, the Servians would not only have been suitably placed to deal with Bulgaria during her mobilisation—had that plan found favour —but would also more easily have maintained their communications with Salonika, and obviated in advance the excuse alleged by Greece for not marching to help them.”