An incident which has created special animosity in Sofia has
been the capture after heavy street fighting of some thousand Bulgarian soldiers who were in the occupation of barracks in Salonica. When summoned to surrender by the Greeks they refused, and it was only after a desperate struggle at close quarters and great loss of life that they were obliged to capitulate. We must not forget to add that the order for the mobilization of the Roumanian army has been given, and that the Roumanians will soon have half a million men under arms. Nobody seems to know exactly what Roumania intends, but in all probability her efforts will be directed towards checking Bulgaria. The Roumanians assert that they do not mean to be left out of any fresh re-arrangement of territory in the Balkans. A more cynical but perhaps more accurate statement would be that they hold that their large and untouched army gives them the power to exact a solatium if the Allies fight among themselves over the spoils. No new-fangled ideas as to national propriety are going to prevent them from taking advantage of their physical strength when there is something substantial to be got by its exercise. Another item of news, for which Dr. Dillon is responsible in Friday's Daily Telegraph, is that Turkey is now preparing to take a hand in the game, and that the army is inflamed by the thought of regaining the lost territory. We cannot help believing that this fact, coupled with Rournania's mobiliza- tion, plus pressure from Russia and the rest of the Powers, will even at the eleventh hour bring about a resort to arbitra- tion. At the same time it would be rash to be too confident. It is quite possible that our optimistic view will be dissipated by new developments in the course of to-day, and that the unofficial war will have become official before these pages are in our readers' hands.
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