h the group did succeed for the
most part in ridding the country of Macedonian terrorism, its rule was
overtly authoritarian. By 1935 the king, with the aid of the military,
had regained his power and replaced the Zveno group with a more moderate
government.

With the reestablishment of the monarchy, a royal dictatorship took
power and ruled over Bulgaria until 1943, when Boris died. There were at
this time no forces left to oppose the king, political parties were
negligible, and only a shadow parliament existed. Ironically, the
military, which had aided the Zveno in the overthrow of the king, now
was an instrument of his control.

Foreign relations under Boris III before World War II were leading the
country again inevitably into a war that would bring it to total defeat.
In 1934, despite the suppression of IMRO by the newly formed government,
Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey, as in the Second Balkan War,
were once again wary of Bulgaria's irredentist ambitions. In that year
the four powers signed the Balkan Pact, from which Bulgaria naturally
was excluded, in order to prevent Bulgarian encroachment in the area.
Although Bulgaria and Yugoslavia later established a rapprochement in
1937, the potential of a Bulgarian annexation of Macedonia was still
considered a threat by its neighbors.

During the 1930s, while Bulgaria was viewed with suspicion by its
neighbors, it began to form new friendships with Germany and Italy.
Boris had married the daughter of King Victor Emanuel of Italy, a
country that had already become fascist, thus strengthening ties with
that country. At the same time, Bulgaria began to solidify its ties with
Germany, principally by means of trade. A new-founded prosperity was
based almost exclusively on German trade, an arrangement that eventually
weakened the country. Within a short period German agents were pouring
into the country. Thus, Bulgaria was on one side alienated from its
neighbors and on the other being drawn into the nazi-fascist camp.

WORLD WAR II

Bulgaria's motives for entering World War II were once again based on
irredentism, coupled with almost total economic dependence on Germany.
Once more it hoped to regain the lands of Thrace and Macedonia, which
were lost after the Treaty of San Stefano was reversed by the Congress
of Berlin. The lesson of the two subsequent Balkan wars and World War I
had fallen on deaf ears. Bulgaria was still estranged from its Balkan
neighbors