915 her political leaders had
divined the fact that Russia's war spirit was broken by the crushing
defeats inflicted upon her by the Germans and that she would ultimately
retire from the war. But Sofia had looked forward to a Russian
retirement under imperial auspices and thereafter to a Russo-German
rapprochement in which Bulgaria should be the connecting-link,
extracting a profitable brokerage by playing off one against the other
in Balkan affairs. The idea was subtle, yet not without reason when we
remember that it was toward this very state of things that the last
czarist governments of Stuermer and Golytzin were feeling their way.
However, Bulgarian expectations were completely dashed by the credo of
Revolutionary Russia, which renounced imperialism and eschewed all those
near-Eastern ambitions which had been the watchword of the old regime.
Now, Bulgaria did not like the new situation. For though Russia was
definitely out of the Balkans, Germany and Austria were emphatically
not, and their weight was too heavy to be borne pleasantly even by their
friends. It was one thing for Bulgaria to be the connecting link of
Mitteleuropa, with mighty Russia always potentially present to redress
the balance. It was quite another matter to be just the link. That this
was to be Bulgaria's future role in Mitteleuropa, Germany's new attitude
made increasingly plain. The progressive disintegration of Russia
through 1917 riveted Teutonic domination on the Balkans and even offered
alternative routes to the East. This meant that Germany no longer needed
to show Bulgaria special consideration, and what that fact implied to
Teutonic minds was quickly shown by the series of bitter
disillusionments that Bulgaria had to experience.

[Sidenote: Germany disposes of the Dobrudja.]

The first shock came regarding the Dobrudja. When the Teuton-Bulgar
armies had swept the Rumanians out of the Dobrudja at the close of 1916,
Bulgaria had expected to acquire the entire peninsula. But Germany soon
showed that she had other ideas on the matter. The Dobrudja not only
controlled the mouth of the Danube, but also contained the port terminus
of the main railroad trunk-line from Central Europe to the Black Sea.
These things Germany had no intention of placing in Bulgarian hands.
Accordingly, Bulgaria was given only the southern Dobrudja, the rest of
the peninsula being held "in common." And when in the spring of 1918
Russia's final collapse forced Rumani