The War to Remember and Forget
Atop the gate leading to Vienna’s Hofburg Palace march a series of laurel wreaths with inscriptions so small they can be read only with a magnifying glass.
Four of them contain the names of the royals from the Central Powers who fought World War I together – Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire, and Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Those were the losers of conflict that brought the greatest carnage Europe had encountered so far, outshone only later by World War II. This year we commemorate its centenary.
Considering the present status of Bulgaria, the Hofburg inscriptions are striking. Bulgaria is treated as a first-rate ally of three much bigger empires. Likely never again will it achieve such prominence on the world stage.
Yet the 100th anniversary of World War I barely strikes a chord with Bulgarians. They do not call it “the Great War,” as Serbs do. Nor do they have a special commemorative symbol like Britain’s poppy.
Such indifference for a war that claimed the lives of 100,000 Bulgarians and wounded 160,000 more. A whole generation suffered a wound that did not heal, although in the losing cause Bulgaria’s military achieved some astonishing victories. One of the greatest – forgotten to most Bulgarians – was General Vladimir Vazov’s defense of Doiran against the Entente. Some 20 years later Vazov was invited to a commemoration ceremony in London, a rare act of respect for a former enemy in interwar Europe.
Besides the bravery of soldiers, there was the enormity of defeat. This was the second of three great national catastrophes, between the Second Balkan War and World War II, and it was particularly painful. For the first time since the country’s 19th-century Renaissance, Bulgarians were divided. Disgruntled soldiers staged an uprising in 1918, which was violently put down. Shortly thereafter began a long period of civil strife began that many say has not yet ended.
That is the main reason Bulgarians should think deeper about 1914. Why did Sofia go to war? Yes, it suffered the injustice of the Second Balkan War in 1913 – and sought to retake territory from Serbia and Greece. But did it have another choice? Was neutrality an option? And didn’t political shortsightedness and extremism in the media match soldiers’ bravery?
The answers to those questions are not always flattering for Bulgarians, so they do not indulge in commemorations.
Or perhaps they instinctively understand the loss was deeper than a military defeat. Those were the last years Bulgarians shared a dream of national unification. That ended disastrously in 1918, and since then some Bulgarians have opted not to dream at all.
In the beginning of 20th century Bulgaria was the most industrialized and the most economically and financially developed Balkan nation. Sofia pursued industrialization on a large scale, using textile production from the Ottoman period as a base for development. The capital city took on a European cast, with Secessionist facades and yellow street nameplates. Henry Kissinger once noted that before World War I Bulgaria had a bigger army than the United States. Oxford professor Richard Crampton, the best British historian on Bulgaria, recalls the judgment of an esteemed predecessor, R.W. Seton-Watson, in calling Bulgaria “the great island of stability in the Balkans in the 1900s.”
All that burned up in the flames of the Great War. Since then, Bulgaria has gradually descended into a second-rate country, which some historians say accounts for the otherwise inexplicable Bulgarian pessimism I have often written about in this column. People who lack confidence can easily think that every effort is doomed. “You could have a victim complex, or you could have a victor complex,” Crampton says. “And I think probably Bulgaria has more of a victim complex or attitude toward history.”
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Four of them contain the names of the royals from the Central Powers who fought World War I together – Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire, and Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Those were the losers of conflict that brought the greatest carnage Europe had encountered so far, outshone only later by World War II. This year we commemorate its centenary.
Considering the present status of Bulgaria, the Hofburg inscriptions are striking. Bulgaria is treated as a first-rate ally of three much bigger empires. Likely never again will it achieve such prominence on the world stage.
Yet the 100th anniversary of World War I barely strikes a chord with Bulgarians. They do not call it “the Great War,” as Serbs do. Nor do they have a special commemorative symbol like Britain’s poppy.
Such indifference for a war that claimed the lives of 100,000 Bulgarians and wounded 160,000 more. A whole generation suffered a wound that did not heal, although in the losing cause Bulgaria’s military achieved some astonishing victories. One of the greatest – forgotten to most Bulgarians – was General Vladimir Vazov’s defense of Doiran against the Entente. Some 20 years later Vazov was invited to a commemoration ceremony in London, a rare act of respect for a former enemy in interwar Europe.
Besides the bravery of soldiers, there was the enormity of defeat. This was the second of three great national catastrophes, between the Second Balkan War and World War II, and it was particularly painful. For the first time since the country’s 19th-century Renaissance, Bulgarians were divided. Disgruntled soldiers staged an uprising in 1918, which was violently put down. Shortly thereafter began a long period of civil strife began that many say has not yet ended.
That is the main reason Bulgarians should think deeper about 1914. Why did Sofia go to war? Yes, it suffered the injustice of the Second Balkan War in 1913 – and sought to retake territory from Serbia and Greece. But did it have another choice? Was neutrality an option? And didn’t political shortsightedness and extremism in the media match soldiers’ bravery?
The answers to those questions are not always flattering for Bulgarians, so they do not indulge in commemorations.
Or perhaps they instinctively understand the loss was deeper than a military defeat. Those were the last years Bulgarians shared a dream of national unification. That ended disastrously in 1918, and since then some Bulgarians have opted not to dream at all.
In the beginning of 20th century Bulgaria was the most industrialized and the most economically and financially developed Balkan nation. Sofia pursued industrialization on a large scale, using textile production from the Ottoman period as a base for development. The capital city took on a European cast, with Secessionist facades and yellow street nameplates. Henry Kissinger once noted that before World War I Bulgaria had a bigger army than the United States. Oxford professor Richard Crampton, the best British historian on Bulgaria, recalls the judgment of an esteemed predecessor, R.W. Seton-Watson, in calling Bulgaria “the great island of stability in the Balkans in the 1900s.”
All that burned up in the flames of the Great War. Since then, Bulgaria has gradually descended into a second-rate country, which some historians say accounts for the otherwise inexplicable Bulgarian pessimism I have often written about in this column. People who lack confidence can easily think that every effort is doomed. “You could have a victim complex, or you could have a victor complex,” Crampton says. “And I think probably Bulgaria has more of a victim complex or attitude toward history.”
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