SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE. July 26, 1929.

CONFIDENTIAL. Section 1.

[C 4996/197/7]

Notes on the Present Relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

AS the existing tension along the Yugoslav-Bulgarian frontier may easily produce international complications, it will be useful to take stock of the present situation.

General State of the Frontier.

Since the end of the Balkan wars in 1913, the Yugoslav-Bulgarian frontier has been in a state of chronic unrest. For the ultimate causes reference should be made to the Departmental memorandum of the 26th November, 1925, on the Macedonian question. Briefly, the situation is that, as a result of Turkish oppression, the Balkan wars, and the Great War, a large proportion of the population of Bulgaria now consists of refugees of Macedonia. The extremist elements amongst them have for more than thirty years been formed into a revolutionary organisation— a body somewhat like the former Irish Republican army and a law unto themselves. Before the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 they waged guerilla warfare against the Turks. They now conduct systematic raids into Southern Yugoslavia in order to create disturbances and terrorise the local administration, with the ultimate object of securing autonomy for Macedonia, possibly under the agis of Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Government have, until recently, alleged, with some show of reason, that they are powerless to exert any real control over the Macedonian revolutionaries. Since the advent to power of M. Lyapchev (himself a Macedonian), the Bulgarian Government have adopted a firmer attitude towards them.

Counter-raids from the Yugoslav side into Bulgarian territory are the usual sequels of such Macedonian activity. These counter-raids are carried out usually by Bulgarian political refugees to whom the Yugoslav Government give asylum. How far they are encouraged to raid Bulgarian territory is difficult to ascertain. At times during the past ten years extreme bitterness between the two Governments has been caused by these frontier activities, and the policy pursued on these occasions by His Majesty's Government has been (a) to urge upon the Bulgarian Government the necessity of restraining the activities of the revolutionaries, who are using Bulgaria as their base of operation, and who practically control the south-western provinces of Bulgaria, and (b) to impress upon the Yugoslav Government the advisability of allaying discontent in their southern provinces by creating better conditions for the indigenous population.