Review of Ueviews, 111,113. 



i6i 



Leading Articles in the R 



e views. 



WHY THE BULGARIAN ARMY WON. 



So much has been said and published 

 about the success of the Bulgarians dur- 

 ing the recent fightmg being due to 

 their French artillery and their French 

 instructors, that the views and state- 

 ments of a Bulgarian officer of reserves 

 which appeared a short time ago in an 

 Eng-lish paper are of special interest. 

 After referring to the discussions as to 

 the cause of the Turkish defeats and 

 the way in which attempts have been 

 made to give credit to the alleged 

 foreign training of the Bulgarian offi- 

 cers, he says that those who know the 

 Turks hnd a sufficient explanation for 

 their defeats without mak'ing them mat- 

 ter for comparison between French and 

 German military art. " The arrogant 

 assertions," as he calls them, that the 

 Bulgarian army was formed under 

 French influence he declares to be as ill- 

 founded as similar statements about the 

 Japanese army having been the result 

 of other influences. 



This Bulgarian officer points out that 

 the number of the officers of his army 

 who received their training in the 

 French military schools is exceedingly 

 small, and the highest rank attained by 

 any of these was command of a bat- 

 talion, except three or four who went 

 into the commissary department. As to 

 the statement about the French guns, he 

 says people seem to be ignorant of the 

 fact that about half the Bulgarian ar- 

 tillery was furnished by Krupp. It 

 would be idle to ask whether results 

 would have been any different if the 

 Turks had been armed with Schneider- 

 Creusot cannon. He asks if it has al- 

 ready been forgotten that the purchase 

 of the Schneider guns was a peremptory 

 condition of the last loans negotiated in 

 France, and that their price is the sub- 

 ject of some very unedifying discus- 

 sion, and says that Bulgarians cannot 

 remain calm spectators of a discussion 

 tending to envenom the relations of two 



great powers at a moment when the col- 

 laboration of all Europe is necessary 

 to the restoration of peace as speedily 

 as possible. At the same time he flnds 

 the unluckh' subject offers a good op- 

 [lortunity to examine if and to what ex- 

 tent Bulgaria owes its military force to 

 foreign influences. 



To begin with (he shows that), during 

 the past twenty-flve years, no foreign 

 officer has served in the Bulgarian army. 

 During about seven years after the for- 

 mation of Bulgaria, all the superior 

 positions and some of the others were 

 filled by Russian officers. For that 

 period the Bulgarian army was in every 

 way a reflection of the Russian ; even 

 the technical expressions were Russian. 

 The military school at Sofia could not 

 be distinguished from a similar Russian 

 establishment. The teachers were Rus- 

 sians and the method of instruction was 

 Russian. The Bulgarian officers sent 

 elsewhere to complete their military 

 training went without exception to St. 

 Petersburg. Among them were the Gen- 

 erals Savov, Radko Dimitriev, and 

 Ivanov, the three princi]:)al commanders 

 in the war, and some other superior offi- 

 cers commanding divisions. 



After the union of Bulgaria with 

 East Rumelia in 1885 there was a sud- 

 den change, and there commenced a new 

 era for the Bulgarian army. On the 

 eve of the Serbo-Bulgarian War, the 

 Russian Government, desiring to express 

 its disapproval of the Bulgarian Gov- 

 ernment, recalled all its officers from 

 Bulgaria, and the young captains and 

 lieutenants of the Bulgarian army 

 found themselves promoted to be gen- 

 erals. Many of those who attained high 

 commands so unexpectedy find them- 

 selves still in the same positions they 

 reached twent\--seven years ago. This 

 recall of the Russian officers, which was 

 meant to be a punishment, turned out to 

 be a real benefit ; it delivered the Bui- 



