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A Bulgarian law, not one which was passed on the outbreak of the
war—they were far too clever for that—but an Act which was part
of the organic law of the country, allowed the military authorities
to requisition all surplus food and all surplus goods which could
be of value to the army on the outbreak of hostilities. The whole
machinery for that had been provided beforehand. But so great was
the voluntary patriotism of the people that this machinery practically
had not to be used in any compulsory form. Goods were brought
in voluntarily, wagons, cart-horses, and oxen, and all the surplus
flour and wheat, and—I have the official figures from the Bulgarian
Treasurer—the goods which were obtained in this way totalled in
value some six million pounds. The Bulgarian people represent half
the population of London. The population is poor. Their national
existence dates back only half a century. But they are very frugal
and saving; that six millions which the Government signed for
represented practically all the savings which the Bulgarian people
had at the outbreak of the war.
Chapter VII
A War Correspondent’s Trials in Bulgaria
A sense of grievance was the first fruits of my experience as
a war correspondent in Bulgaria. It was the general policy of the
Bulgarian army and the Bulgarian military authorities to prevent war
correspondents seeing anything of their operations. They wished
nothing to interfere with the secrecy of their plans. There were only
three British journalists who succeeded, in the ultimate result, in
getting to the front and seeing the final battle of the first phase of the
war, at Chatalja. There were over a hundred correspondents who
attempted to go. Perhaps as I was one of three who succeeded, I do
not think I, personally, have any reason to complain. But I found a
good deal of vexation in the Bulgarian policy, which was to prevent
any knowledge of their plans, their dispositions, their strategy,
and their tactics, from getting beyond the small circle of their own
General Staff. Even some of their generals in the field were kept in
partial ignorance. Officers of high standing, unless they were on the
General Staff, knew little of the general plan; they were informed
only about the particular operations in which they were engaged.
This policy of secrecy was, however, a good thing from the point
of view of getting to know the Bulgarian people. If the military
authorities had given me facilities to go with the army and see its
operations I should have become familiar with the Headquarters
Staff, perhaps with a few regimental officers, but not with the great
mass of the army nor with the Bulgarian people generally. But
the refusal of facilities to accompany the army cast upon me the
responsibility of trying to get through somehow to the front, and in
the process of getting through I won to knowledge of the peasant
soldiers and their home life.
Ultimately the residuum of my grievance was not with the
secretive methods of the Bulgarians—they were wise and necessary—
but with the wild fictions which some correspondents thought to be
the proper response to that policy of secretiveness.
Returned to Kirk Kilisse from the Bulgarian lines at Chatalja, I
amused myself in an odd hour with burrowing among a great pile
of newspapers in the Censor’s office, and reading here and there the
war news from English, French, and Belgian papers.