Aleksander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian Contract

Bulgaria suffered a swift and devastating defeat in the First World War, due, G.D. Sheppard argues, to its peasant leader-in-waiting’s shrewd use of propaganda.

Barrel-chested: Aleksander Stamboliski, 1900.Bulgaria was the last country to enter the First World War on the side of the Central Powers, in 1915. In 1918 it became the first to capitulate. Bulgaria's sudden military collapse was significant in that it both presaged and probably hastened the defeat of its more powerful allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary.

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