But the outbreak of the second Balkan War nullified all these fair
prospects. And Bulgaria, who brought it on, found herself encircled
by enemies, including not only all her recent Allies against Turkey,
but also Turkey herself, and even Roumania, who had remained a
neutral spectator of the first Balkan War. Of course Bulgaria was
defeated. And a terrible punishment was inflicted on her. She was
stripped of a large part of the territory she had just conquered
from Turkey, including her most glorious battle-fields; her original
provinces were dismembered; her extension to the Aegean Sea was
seriously obstructed, if not practically blocked; and, bitterest and
most tragic of all, the redemption of the Bulgarians in Macedonia,
which was the principal object and motive of her war against Turkey
in 1912, was frustrated and rendered hopeless by Greek and Servian
annexations of Macedonian territory extending from the Mesta to the
Drin with the great cities of Saloniki, Kavala, and Monastir, which
in the patriotic national consciousness had long loomed up as fixed
points in the "manifest destiny" of Bulgaria.

That the responsibility for precipitating the second Balkan War
rests on Bulgaria is demonstrated in the latter portion of this
volume. Yet the intransigent and bellicose policy of Bulgaria was
from the point of view of her own interests so short-sighted, so
perilous, so foolish and insane that it seemed, even at the time, to
be directed by some external power and for some ulterior purpose. No
proof, however, was then available. But hints of that suspicion were
clearly conveyed even in the first edition of this volume, which, it
may be recalled, antedates the outbreak of the great European War.
Thus, on page 103, the question was put:

"Must we assume that there is some ground for suspecting that