SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

Sir. A. Peel to Earl Curzon.—(Received July4.)

(No. 238.)

My Lord, Sofia, June29, 1921.

I HAVE the honour to refer to my telegram No. 84 of the 22nd instant, in which I stated that the Prime Minister, shortly after his arrival at Sofia, had paid me a visit. I was under that impression because the King had told me that M. Stambouliisky would return on the 21st instant, but I have since heard that, on receiving the King's message, which was despatched after the audience which His Majesty was pleased to accord me, and when I drew his attention to the negotiations I had heard were proceeding between the Kemalists and agents of the Soviet Russian Government and the Thrace-Bulgarian and Macedonian Committees, and to the responsibility which his Government would have to bear if any disorders were to break out in Thrace. M. Stambouliisky cut short his visit to Rila, and returned either on the evening of the 19th or the morning of the following day.

I cannot say that I was much impressed by the Prime Minister's declaration that he looked to Great Britain for protection as Bulgaria's natural ally. It is not very long ago, as I reported in my despatch No. 132 of the 18th April, that he told Colonel Baird that he feared that it was the evident intention of Great Britain to maintain an attitude of animosity towards Bulgaria. It is true that he also said that there was no other Great Power whose influence and protection he was so anxious to secure, and that he would be prepared to give any guarantee that His Majesty's Government might desire to secure a change of attitude on her part, but I know that he says much the same thing when he speaks to the French and Italian representatives. Nor have I much faith in the assurance that he gave me that he had never seen Djevet Abbas, because the evidence would appear to favour the report that he did see that emissary of Mustafa Kemal.