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164 QUARRELS BETWEEN THE ALLIES [ch. xi.
Office ordering me to urge the Bulgarian Government to
make some concessions to the Serbians with respect
to the demarcation of Macedonia. All the arguments
used by the Foreign Office were cleverly constructed
and admirably expressed; but alas! I had good reason
to foresee that they would not produce the desired
effect, and that the actual fact of our taking this step
would cause a formidable outcry from Bulgarian public
opinion. It was perfectly well known to the public in
Sofia that our representatives in Belgrade, Athens and
Bukharest shared the prejudices of the countries to
which they were accredited against Bulgaria, and in
consequence were quite ready to lend their support to
all the Serbian and Greek claims in Macedonia and also
to those put forward by the Rumanians with regard to
the Dobrudja. From that moment the partition of
Macedonia became for the Bulgarians not only a cause of
dispute with the Greeks and the Serbians, but it also
involved them in a struggle with a current in Russian
diplomacy at the head of which, according to Sofia, was
M. Hartwig, our Minister in Belgrade.
The Bulgarians were certainly mistaken in attributing
such exaggerated importance to the opinions and the
activities of my colleague of Belgrade. Hartwig’s
influence was due to the fact that he was in Serbia at the
time and expressed the Serbian point of view in his
dispatches to St. Petersburg. Now, throughout the
course of these last Balkan events, the behaviour of
the Serbians with regard to Russia was marked by
perfect sincerity and deferential confidence in our advice.
Unfortunately one could not say the same of the
Bulgarians. King Ferdinand’s behaviour—as I said above—
was such as to inspire us with well-founded suspicions ;
and even the actions of the celebrated "Russophile"
Danev aroused justifiable displeasure amongst us and
amongst our allies.
When the situation became still more acute, that is
towards the end of May, 1913, the whole of Russian
public opinion had veered round to the Serbian side,
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