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Separated from The Netherlands by the breadth of Europe, by an even broader gulf of culture and blood. Bulgaria was last week forced to face a grim and startling fact: in the strategy of World War II, Bulgaria is The Netherlands of 1941.
Now, as a year ago, the Nazis hope to win the war by knocking Britain out. But Britain is difficult to reach. A year ago, leaving that difficult project in abeyance, the Nazis chose the main Allied Armies as their major objective. Those Armies were in France and the easiest military way to reach them was through The Netherlands and Belgium.
This year, the main Allied Armies are in the eastern Mediterranean: the Greeks in Albania, the British and Anzacs in Libya. And the easiest way for the Nazis to get into the area where the Allied arms are now rampant—the only way to get there by land—is through Bulgaria and its neighbor Yugoslavia. So 1941 finds Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in much the same predicament as Belgium and The Netherlands in the first weeks of 1940.
Twice—in November 1939, and in January a year ago—the war of nerves in the Lowlands focused into specific scares. Imminent attack was rumored. Concentrations were observed across the border, deadlines were whispered about. Last week Bulgaria was in the same spot strategically and nervously.
More Than Ulcers. At 6:05 one evening last week, Bulgaria's Premier Professor Bogdan Filoff arrived back in Sofia after five days in Vienna. To newspapermen he said curtly: "Reports circulated in America concerning my visit to Germany are not true." He had really been to see his doctor, nothing more.
But though it was late in the day, he went straight to his office. Next day he drove 43 miles to the piney winter resort of Tcham Koria and told King Boris all about his trip to see his doctor. Next day he and the King talked again. That night he called the Cabinet together in Sofia for an unusual night session, and told them about his health trip.
Something more crucial than Bogdan Filoff's stomach ulcers was discussed in those feverish sessions. That something could only have been one thing: whether or not to grant Germany troop transit through Bulgaria or at least use of air bases in Bulgaria, so that the big end of the Rome-Berlin Axis could get the little end out of its Grecian swivet. The Bulgars' decision might make no immediate difference whatsoever: the Germans could undoubtedly penetrate Bulgaria whether the Bulgars wished it or not. But the ramifications of the decision might have heavy bearing on the outcome of the whole war. On the weary spine of Boris III, who never wanted to be king in the first place, rested a backbreaking, heartbreaking weight.