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From the Once Classified Files - Part 17
Department of National Health and Welfare
War Charities Division
Ottawa , April 23rd, 1947
Secretary of State For External Affairs, Ottawa
Attention Mr. Scott Reid
Dear Sir:
Your letter of April 11th to my Deputy Minister concerning Macedonian and Bulgarian activities in Toronto has been directed to me for reply.
Following your information received in November, 1946, one Mr. Pepcoff, 24 Sydenham street, Toronto, was informed by registered letter that we were aware of appeals for Macedonian relief were being conducted and that $ 15,000 had been collected for the purchase of supplies. We pointed out that the raising of funds for objects connected with the War could not be carried on without benefit of registration and that if they could not affiliate themselves with the registered organization in Toronto , which contributed to Yugoslav relief, they were to discontinue raising monies forthwith.
As no reply was received, on December 4th a request for an investigation was dispatched to the Commissioner of the R.CM.P. A copy of this letter is enclosed.
I have taken advantage of your letter to write the Commissioner and call his attention to the possible connection between the last named group and the individuals we heard about last Full. I am asking the Commissioner what progress might nave been made with regard to the investigation requested by the Department last December. As soon as word has been received from the constabulary I shall lost no time in getting in touch with you.
Yours sincerely,
Leon Trebert,
Registrar,
War Charities Act.
LT/MH
Draft Minute to Mr. Laffan
The following is a resume of the points I made when discussing with you your paper on Macedonia .
Paragraph 12
Were the Bulgarian Tsars Slavisized Turks or Tartars?
Paragraph 24
Two points seemed to me to require elaboration. The first was that there were really three Macedonian groups: (1) those agitating for complete independence; (2) those agitating for the inclusion of all Macedonia within Bulgaria ; and (3) those willing for some form of compromise. The second point was about the Protoguerrovists. It is necessary to bring them into the picture because they link on to and explain Tito' Macedonian policy. Protogueroff split from Mihailoff because he was willing to co-operate with Agrarians and Serbs. His party moreover was subsidized by the Yugoslav Government.
Paragraph 28
Can we find out whether Petrich is now linked with the Greek railway system?
Paragraph 35
So long as Yugoslavia and Bulgaria are at loggerheads, Yugoslavia will require Greek and Turkish support to keep the Bulgars down. .Their interest in the acquisition of Salonika would therefore from the purely strategic point of view be problematical, because it would not merely weaken Greece in itself, but, by depriving the Turks and Greeks of a common frontier, weaken the whole defensive system on which any form of Balkan entente directed against Bulgaria would have to be founded. Naturally if Yugoslavia and Bulgaria came to terms, the position would be different. The main Serbian interest in Salonika (see paragraphs 35 and 37) is at present historical or connected with prestige.
Serbian and (see paragraph 42) Bulgarian economic interest in Salonika is at the moment somewhat indeterminate. If the trade of these countries is mainly to be with Europe , or with Russia , the economic importance of Salonika to either will be very small. How far this country or America will take Yugoslav or Bulgarian produce after the war is very doubtful.
Paragraphs 38, 39 and 49
Salonika for the Greeks is as important strategically and economically as it is ethnically. The town and its hinterland are the richest of the Greek provinces and as we know from the present war, Salonika is essential to the defense of Greece .
Paragraph 47
A greater Yugoslavia , including Bulgaria especially under Russian influence, would almost certainly be, objectionable to us.
Though in pre-war days the Russians may have favoured the idea of a Balkan federation, we can now say quite definitely that they regard it askance.
Editor Krapched Explains why Bulgaria Can Not Accept Anglo-American Demands for the Evacuation of Recent Armed Territories
February 14, 1944
No. 2434 (R-2260)
American Consulate General, Istanbul , Turkey
SUBJECT: Editor Krapched Explains why Bulgaria Can Not Accept Anglo-American Demands for the Evacuation of Recent Armed Territories
Sir:
I have the honor to present below an editorial from the Bulgarian newspaper ZORA of February 6, 1944 , in which the Editor, Mr. Krapchev, explains why Bulgaria can not accept the demands made by the Anglo-Americans for the evacuation of the recently annexed territories. The reason he gives is that actually these demands are based on the perpetuation of the terms of the Treaty of Neuilly, a treaty which Bulgarians have always regarded as unjust and intolerable.
Mr. Krapchev reviews some of the circumstances connected with the Treaty of Neuilly as he interprets them. He regards the Treaty of Neuilly, and the other treaties signed at Paris in 1919, as the primary cause of the present war. He points out that these treaties were imposed by force upon the conquered, and that without the participation of Russia . He adds that similar conditions were imposed upon the Soviet Union . In their demand that Bulgaria evacuate Macedonia and Thrace the Anglo- Americans merely indicate that their first demand with respect to Bulgaria is the restoration of the terms of the Treaty of Neuilly.
The second condition which they lay down is equally impossible, the writer says, for it demands that Bulgaria make war upon Germany .
These demands can not be accepted by Bulgaria because they would restore an intolerable situation and, even if accepted, would not be the final demands, for they would be followed by others just as the terms of the Armistice of Salonika, which were not altogether intolerable, were followed by other harsher demands at Paris . All Bulgarians, the writer says, remember conditions in Bulgaria following the Treaty of Neuilly between 1919 and the beginning of the Second World War, a period in which Bulgaria ' s neighbors did not cease to interfere in her affairs, as far as they were able, and to terrorize her.
In commenting on this editorial one is obliged to point out that Mr. Krapchev vails--as he fails in all his editorials-- to refer to the fact that Bulgaria of her own free will and without provocation declared war upon the United States and Great Britain in December 1941. This was a wholly wanton act, although doubtless performed at the urgency and insistence of Germany , but still performed by the Bulgarian government acting as a sovereign power. At that time there was no hostility felt by Americans against Bulgaria , although Bulgaria had given great offense by providing bases for the German army from which the latter attacked Greece and Yugoslavia . Hence Mr. Krapchev should make clear to his countrymen why it is that the Anglo-Americans demand that Bulgaria evacuate the territories she has occupied in connection with this war. Mr. Krapchev is quite right when he states that many British and American writers and leaders in the past supported the rightness of Bulgaria 's demands to Macedonia and to an outlet on the Aegean Sea in Thrace . Every person informed on Macedonian affairs knows that Bulgarians predominate by a large majority in the population of that part of Macedonia included in Yugoslavia in accordance with the terms of the treaties of Bucharest and Neuilly . Everyone also knows that the application of the term " South Serbia " to Macedonia and " South Serbians " to the Macedonians is only political camouflage and has no more actual justification than to call the Irish " West Anglians ".
By declaring war on the United States and Great Britain Bulgaria put herself in a blind alley from which there appears to be no exit except by giving up the territories annexed after Apri1, 1941. Nobody believes that this would be an act of justice, for war does not create justice, but rather promotes injustice of every kind. "He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword", whether right or wrong.
Mr. Krapchev's final assumption that the demand to evacuate Macedonia and Thrace, plus the demand to make war on Germany, would be followed by other demands is probably true, but Mr. Krapchev and other Bulgarians who advocated the seizure of these territories following Bulgaria's alliance with the Axis should have thought of all this before they have committed themselves and their country to such a policy.
The editorial in free translation reads as follows:
THEY WISH TO PERPETUATE INJUSTICES
By Danail Krapchev
"When one knows what the Anglo-Americans demand of Bulgaria first of all--because this demand is number 1 --he understands that as far as she is concerned they are going back to the Treaty of Neuilly, to the treaties of Paris of 1919. And these ill-omened treaties-acknowledged as such not only by the conquered but also by eminent English and Americans-- brought on the Second .World War. Even the aged Lloyd George withdrew from the unwelcome work in which he, together with the late Clemenceau, took an active part and predicted, though rather late, the Second World War. The late American President Wilson, who went to the Paris Conference with a definite program, as is known from the memoir of his helper Lansing, the second American delegate to the Conference, considered himself betrayed and died tragically of regret in his native land. The tragedy of his predecessor is best known to President Roosevelt who was then his Minister.
Besides we must recall that the Paris treaties were imposed on the conquered at the" end of the First World War without Russia 's participation. And not only this: they were imposed on the Soviet Union as well.
It is these ominous treaties of peace, signed with the knife at the throats of the conquered, that the Anglo-Americans wish to perpetuate, to become the corner stone of human history.
Otherwise what does the Anglo-American invitation to Bulgaria mean when they ask her to evacuate the Bulgarian lands liberated in 1941, what does it mean if not the perpetuation of the injustices committed toward her at Neuilly ? The demand is that we should evacuate the newly liberated Bulgarian lands--and this is the first demand-- lands which were taken away from us by force after the First World War, but also those which were taken away from us by force during the war between the Balkan allies (1913) by our former allies.
The Anglo-Americans wish to make the injustices committed toward the Bulgarian nation in the course of history, in the course of centuries, permanent, even including those injustices against which the English protested at that time. Even those treaties which do not beat the signature of the Americans, as in the case with regard to Western Thrace . This of course is demand number one, after which the other numbers follow. The second of these is to make war on Germany . Other demands will follow later, as was the case after the First World War, when at the Armistice of Salonika somewhat more tolerable conditions were imposed, but later at Neuilly they were made ten times more severe. These conditions affected even the oldest territories, as the Western Frontiers. They also affected the army, while preparations and restitutions were imposed upon us. Nothing was left of Bulgarian sovereignty. Our neighbors continually and un-interruptedly made Bulgaria 's conditions worse up to the eve of the Second World War. Bulgaria was constantly terrorized and humiliated, while the Bulgarian nation was torn and enslaved.
Only he who has a short memory has forgotten the not distant past, which the Anglo-Americans desire to perpetuate."
Respectfully yours, Burton Y. Berry, American Consul General
To Department in original and hectograph
FHB; SA. File No.891
Department of National Health and Welfare
War Charities Division
Ottawa , April 23rd, 1947
Secretary of State For External Affairs, Ottawa
Attention Mr. Scott Reid
Dear Sir:
Your letter of April 11th to my Deputy Minister concerning Macedonian and Bulgarian activities in Toronto has been directed to me for reply.
Following your information received in November, 1946, one Mr. Pepcoff, 24 Sydenham street, Toronto, was informed by registered letter that we were aware of appeals for Macedonian relief were being conducted and that $ 15,000 had been collected for the purchase of supplies. We pointed out that the raising of funds for objects connected with the War could not be carried on without benefit of registration and that if they could not affiliate themselves with the registered organization in Toronto , which contributed to Yugoslav relief, they were to discontinue raising monies forthwith.
As no reply was received, on December 4th a request for an investigation was dispatched to the Commissioner of the R.CM.P. A copy of this letter is enclosed.
I have taken advantage of your letter to write the Commissioner and call his attention to the possible connection between the last named group and the individuals we heard about last Full. I am asking the Commissioner what progress might nave been made with regard to the investigation requested by the Department last December. As soon as word has been received from the constabulary I shall lost no time in getting in touch with you.
Yours sincerely,
Leon Trebert,
Registrar,
War Charities Act.
LT/MH
Draft Minute to Mr. Laffan
The following is a resume of the points I made when discussing with you your paper on Macedonia .
Paragraph 12
Were the Bulgarian Tsars Slavisized Turks or Tartars?
Paragraph 24
Two points seemed to me to require elaboration. The first was that there were really three Macedonian groups: (1) those agitating for complete independence; (2) those agitating for the inclusion of all Macedonia within Bulgaria ; and (3) those willing for some form of compromise. The second point was about the Protoguerrovists. It is necessary to bring them into the picture because they link on to and explain Tito' Macedonian policy. Protogueroff split from Mihailoff because he was willing to co-operate with Agrarians and Serbs. His party moreover was subsidized by the Yugoslav Government.
Paragraph 28
Can we find out whether Petrich is now linked with the Greek railway system?
Paragraph 35
So long as Yugoslavia and Bulgaria are at loggerheads, Yugoslavia will require Greek and Turkish support to keep the Bulgars down. .Their interest in the acquisition of Salonika would therefore from the purely strategic point of view be problematical, because it would not merely weaken Greece in itself, but, by depriving the Turks and Greeks of a common frontier, weaken the whole defensive system on which any form of Balkan entente directed against Bulgaria would have to be founded. Naturally if Yugoslavia and Bulgaria came to terms, the position would be different. The main Serbian interest in Salonika (see paragraphs 35 and 37) is at present historical or connected with prestige.
Serbian and (see paragraph 42) Bulgarian economic interest in Salonika is at the moment somewhat indeterminate. If the trade of these countries is mainly to be with Europe , or with Russia , the economic importance of Salonika to either will be very small. How far this country or America will take Yugoslav or Bulgarian produce after the war is very doubtful.
Paragraphs 38, 39 and 49
Salonika for the Greeks is as important strategically and economically as it is ethnically. The town and its hinterland are the richest of the Greek provinces and as we know from the present war, Salonika is essential to the defense of Greece .
Paragraph 47
A greater Yugoslavia , including Bulgaria especially under Russian influence, would almost certainly be, objectionable to us.
Though in pre-war days the Russians may have favoured the idea of a Balkan federation, we can now say quite definitely that they regard it askance.
Editor Krapched Explains why Bulgaria Can Not Accept Anglo-American Demands for the Evacuation of Recent Armed Territories
February 14, 1944
No. 2434 (R-2260)
American Consulate General, Istanbul , Turkey
SUBJECT: Editor Krapched Explains why Bulgaria Can Not Accept Anglo-American Demands for the Evacuation of Recent Armed Territories
Sir:
I have the honor to present below an editorial from the Bulgarian newspaper ZORA of February 6, 1944 , in which the Editor, Mr. Krapchev, explains why Bulgaria can not accept the demands made by the Anglo-Americans for the evacuation of the recently annexed territories. The reason he gives is that actually these demands are based on the perpetuation of the terms of the Treaty of Neuilly, a treaty which Bulgarians have always regarded as unjust and intolerable.
Mr. Krapchev reviews some of the circumstances connected with the Treaty of Neuilly as he interprets them. He regards the Treaty of Neuilly, and the other treaties signed at Paris in 1919, as the primary cause of the present war. He points out that these treaties were imposed by force upon the conquered, and that without the participation of Russia . He adds that similar conditions were imposed upon the Soviet Union . In their demand that Bulgaria evacuate Macedonia and Thrace the Anglo- Americans merely indicate that their first demand with respect to Bulgaria is the restoration of the terms of the Treaty of Neuilly.
The second condition which they lay down is equally impossible, the writer says, for it demands that Bulgaria make war upon Germany .
These demands can not be accepted by Bulgaria because they would restore an intolerable situation and, even if accepted, would not be the final demands, for they would be followed by others just as the terms of the Armistice of Salonika, which were not altogether intolerable, were followed by other harsher demands at Paris . All Bulgarians, the writer says, remember conditions in Bulgaria following the Treaty of Neuilly between 1919 and the beginning of the Second World War, a period in which Bulgaria ' s neighbors did not cease to interfere in her affairs, as far as they were able, and to terrorize her.
In commenting on this editorial one is obliged to point out that Mr. Krapchev vails--as he fails in all his editorials-- to refer to the fact that Bulgaria of her own free will and without provocation declared war upon the United States and Great Britain in December 1941. This was a wholly wanton act, although doubtless performed at the urgency and insistence of Germany , but still performed by the Bulgarian government acting as a sovereign power. At that time there was no hostility felt by Americans against Bulgaria , although Bulgaria had given great offense by providing bases for the German army from which the latter attacked Greece and Yugoslavia . Hence Mr. Krapchev should make clear to his countrymen why it is that the Anglo-Americans demand that Bulgaria evacuate the territories she has occupied in connection with this war. Mr. Krapchev is quite right when he states that many British and American writers and leaders in the past supported the rightness of Bulgaria 's demands to Macedonia and to an outlet on the Aegean Sea in Thrace . Every person informed on Macedonian affairs knows that Bulgarians predominate by a large majority in the population of that part of Macedonia included in Yugoslavia in accordance with the terms of the treaties of Bucharest and Neuilly . Everyone also knows that the application of the term " South Serbia " to Macedonia and " South Serbians " to the Macedonians is only political camouflage and has no more actual justification than to call the Irish " West Anglians ".
By declaring war on the United States and Great Britain Bulgaria put herself in a blind alley from which there appears to be no exit except by giving up the territories annexed after Apri1, 1941. Nobody believes that this would be an act of justice, for war does not create justice, but rather promotes injustice of every kind. "He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword", whether right or wrong.
Mr. Krapchev's final assumption that the demand to evacuate Macedonia and Thrace, plus the demand to make war on Germany, would be followed by other demands is probably true, but Mr. Krapchev and other Bulgarians who advocated the seizure of these territories following Bulgaria's alliance with the Axis should have thought of all this before they have committed themselves and their country to such a policy.
The editorial in free translation reads as follows:
THEY WISH TO PERPETUATE INJUSTICES
By Danail Krapchev
"When one knows what the Anglo-Americans demand of Bulgaria first of all--because this demand is number 1 --he understands that as far as she is concerned they are going back to the Treaty of Neuilly, to the treaties of Paris of 1919. And these ill-omened treaties-acknowledged as such not only by the conquered but also by eminent English and Americans-- brought on the Second .World War. Even the aged Lloyd George withdrew from the unwelcome work in which he, together with the late Clemenceau, took an active part and predicted, though rather late, the Second World War. The late American President Wilson, who went to the Paris Conference with a definite program, as is known from the memoir of his helper Lansing, the second American delegate to the Conference, considered himself betrayed and died tragically of regret in his native land. The tragedy of his predecessor is best known to President Roosevelt who was then his Minister.
Besides we must recall that the Paris treaties were imposed on the conquered at the" end of the First World War without Russia 's participation. And not only this: they were imposed on the Soviet Union as well.
It is these ominous treaties of peace, signed with the knife at the throats of the conquered, that the Anglo-Americans wish to perpetuate, to become the corner stone of human history.
Otherwise what does the Anglo-American invitation to Bulgaria mean when they ask her to evacuate the Bulgarian lands liberated in 1941, what does it mean if not the perpetuation of the injustices committed toward her at Neuilly ? The demand is that we should evacuate the newly liberated Bulgarian lands--and this is the first demand-- lands which were taken away from us by force after the First World War, but also those which were taken away from us by force during the war between the Balkan allies (1913) by our former allies.
The Anglo-Americans wish to make the injustices committed toward the Bulgarian nation in the course of history, in the course of centuries, permanent, even including those injustices against which the English protested at that time. Even those treaties which do not beat the signature of the Americans, as in the case with regard to Western Thrace . This of course is demand number one, after which the other numbers follow. The second of these is to make war on Germany . Other demands will follow later, as was the case after the First World War, when at the Armistice of Salonika somewhat more tolerable conditions were imposed, but later at Neuilly they were made ten times more severe. These conditions affected even the oldest territories, as the Western Frontiers. They also affected the army, while preparations and restitutions were imposed upon us. Nothing was left of Bulgarian sovereignty. Our neighbors continually and un-interruptedly made Bulgaria 's conditions worse up to the eve of the Second World War. Bulgaria was constantly terrorized and humiliated, while the Bulgarian nation was torn and enslaved.
Only he who has a short memory has forgotten the not distant past, which the Anglo-Americans desire to perpetuate."
Respectfully yours, Burton Y. Berry, American Consul General
To Department in original and hectograph
FHB; SA. File No.891
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