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192 BULGARIA ATTACKS HER ALLIES [cii. xii.
But a still greater disaster overtook the Bulgarian
troops who were operating against the Greeks. The
army of General Ivanov (the victor of Adrianople),
which occupied Southern Macedonia only, consisted of
two reduced divisions,1 that is to say, of about 30,000
to 35,000 men. The Bulgarian commander considered
this number quite sufficient not only to hold back but
even to defeat the.Greek Army, which the Bulgarians
treated with supreme contempt. They were cruelly
mistaken. King Constantine had under his command
80,000 men, experienced soldiers, better armed than the
Bulgarians, and animated by innate and historic hatred
of the latter; General Ivanov’s army was completely
beaten and he had to retire, without his artillery and
supplies, across the mountain range of Balachitza,
already famed in history by the decisive defeat inflicted
by the Emperor Basil II., the Exterminator of the
Bulgarians, on the last armies of the Bulgarian Tsar, John
Samuel Schischman.
During this retreat the Bulgarian second division
accomplished feats of tenacity and courage ; but at the
same time the Bulgarians, exasperated by defeat,
disgraced themselves by deeds of savage cruelty towards
the Greek population and prisoners of war. The Greeks
repaid them in their own coin, and the war between the
two co-religionist peoples so recently allied assumed a
thoroughly odious character.
However, at the close of this brief but bloody
campaign the Greeks had crossed the Bulgarian frontier in
several places and had no longer any important barrier
before them.
When the first reverses against the Greeks were
known and the retreat of Belachitza began, Danev, who
now came to see me nearly every day, confessed the
Bulgarian defeat very openly. This happened—if my
1 A Bulgarian division usually comprises six regiments, hence about
24,000 bayonets.
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