It was of wonderful value to the Bulgarian generals entering upon this war that the whole Bulgarian nation was filled with the martial spirit--was, in a sense, wrapped up in the colours. Every male Bulgarian citizen was trained to the use of arms. Every Bulgarian citizen of fighting age was engaged either at the front or on the lines of communication. Before the war, every Bulgarian man, being a soldier, was under a soldier's honour; and the preliminaries of the war, the preparations for mobilisation in particular, were carried out with a degree of secrecy that, I think, astonished every Court and every Military Department in Europe. The secret was so well kept that one of the diplomatists in Roumania left for a holiday three days before the declaration of war, feeling certain that there was to be no war. Bulgaria is not governed altogether autocratically, but is a very free democracy in some respects. It has a newspaper Press that, on ordinary matters, for delightful irresponsibility, might be matched in London. Yet not a single whisper of what the nation was designing and planning leaked abroad. Because the whole nation was a soldier, and the whole nation was under a soldier's honour, secrecy could be kept. No one abroad knew anything, either from the babbling of "Pro-Turks," or from the newspapers, that a great campaign was being designed. [Illustration: _Topical Press_ BULGARIAN TROOPS LEAVING SOFIA] The Secret Service of Bulgaria before the war evidently had been excellent. They seemed to know all that was necessary to know about the country in which they were going to fight. This very complete knowledge of theirs was in part responsible for the arrangements which were made between the Balkan Allies for carrying on the war. The Bulgarian people had made up their minds to do the lion's share of the work, and to have the lion's share of the spoils. They knew quite definitely the state of corruption to which the Turkish nation had come. When I reached Sofia, the Bulgarians told me they were going to be in Constantinople three weeks after the declaration of war. That was the view that they took of the possibilities of the campaign. And they kept their programme as far as Chatalja fairly closely.