The War in Eastern Europe Volume 550

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... BULGARIA GOES TO WAR BUT the key to the Balkans is Bulgaria, not Rumania. Leaving Bucarest on a dirty little train, you crawl slowly south over the hot plain, passing wretched little villages made of mud and straw, like the habitations of an inferior tribe in Central Africa. Gentle, submissive-looking peasants in white linen, stand gaping stupidly at the engine. You stop at every tiny station, as if the Rumanian Government were contemptuously indifferent of any one going to Bulgaria, and at Giurgiu there is an unnecessarily rigid examination by petty despotic customs officials, who make it as disagreeable as possible to leave the country. But across the yellow Danube is another world. While the steamer is yet a hundred yards from the landing-stage somebody hails you with a grin--a big brown policeman who has been in America, and whom you saw once as you passed that way two months ago. Good-natured, clumsy soldiers make a pretense of examining your baggage, and smile you a welcome. As you stand there a well-dressed stranger says in French: "You are a foreigner, aren't you? Can I do anything for you?" He is not a guide; he is just a passenger like yourself, but a Bulgarian and therefore friendly. It is wonderful to see again the simple, flat, frank faces of mountaineers and free men, and to fill your ears with the crackling virility of Slavic speech. Bulgaria is the only country I know where you can speak to any one on the street and get a cordial answer --where if a shopkeeper gives you the wrong change he will follow you to your hotel to return a two-cent piece. Never was sensation more poignant than our relief at being again in a real man's country. The train labors up through Rustchuk--half Turkish with its minarets, spreading tile...