Bulgaria was one of the most unlikely neutrals in the Second World War. The country had been on the losing side not only in the First World War but also in the Second Balkan War, and had territorial grievances against all four of its neighbours. Her revisionist aspirations should have driven her willingly into the arms of Nazi Germany, the continent's leading revisionist power. At the same time, the lessons of the two defeats had sunk deep in the psyche of the country's small and vulnerable political élite. Their overwhelming priority was to avoid yet another military defeat and the social disturbances that were bound to follow in its wake. As King Boris, the effective ruler of the country in the late 1930s and early 1940s, confided to one of his closest confidants in October 1939: ‘I can still remember the roar of the rebel guns at the very gates of Sofia (in 1918) … I know what it feels to be faced with a discontented nation.’ Bitter experience had left Bulgarians with both an abiding distrust and a resigned helplessness towards the Great Powers. As Boris put it in one of his homely proverbs, ‘when the horses start kicking each other, it is better for the donkeys to stand aside’. He had little faith in the judgement of the upstart ‘corporal’ ruling Germany and regarded him as ‘a showcase in hysteria’ and yet felt powerless to stand in his way.