‘The Enemy is Behind Us’: The Morale Crisis in the Bulgarian Army during the Summer of 1918

Abstract

By the summer of 1918 a lack of food and clothing had seriously undermined the morale of the Bulgarian army. Worries about conditions at home and suspicions about their Central Powers allies also caused Bulgarian soldiers to question the war effort. For the Bulgarian soldiers fighting on the Macedonian front in the summer of 1918, the real enemy, whether greedy Bulgarian war profiteers, grasping Ottoman diplomats or arrogant German generals, was behind their lines, not in front of them.