Punch | October, 1915

REALISATION ("When I went to Bulgaria I resolved that if there were to be any assassinations I would be on the side of the assassins." STATEMENT BY FERDINAND.) 


 Mavi Boncuk | 
October, 1915.


September ended with the Western front once more ablaze, with bitter fighting at Loos and a great French offensive in Champagne. With October the focus of interest and anxiety shifts to the Balkans.Austrian armies, stiffened with Germans, have again invaded Serbia and again occupied Belgrade. The Allies have landed at Salonika, and Ferdinand of Bulgaria has declared war on Serbia. Thus a new theatre of war has been opened, and though it is well to be rid of a treacherous neutral, the conflict enters on a fresh and formidable phase. When Ferdinand went to Bulgaria he is said to have resolved that if ever there were to be any assassinations he would be on the side of the assassins. He has been true to his word ever since the removal of Stamboloff:


Here stands the Moslem with his brutal sword
  Still red and reeking with Armenia's slaughter;
Here, fresh from Belgium's wastes, the Christian Lord,
  His heart unsated by the wrong he wrought her;
And you between them, on your brother's track,
Sworn, for a bribe, to stick him in the back.