The treaty of Craiova: Bulgarian-Romanian conflict resolution in Southern Dobrudja and Soviet-German competition for Bulgaria (September 1940 – June 1941)
Abstract
The article notes that in post-Versailles Europe, Southern Dobruja acted as a local Bulgarian-Romanian national-territorial conflict, which turned into one of the factors that determined the inevitability of a new territorial redistribution. It describes how this conflict was built into the system of international relations in the late 1930s played a special role in Sofia’s relations with the Balkan Entente. In the struggle between the Anglo-French and German-Italian blocs to attract Bulgaria to their side and predominance in the Balkans in 1939–1940, all interested parties promised Bulgaria the return of Southern Dobruja. The unfolding peculiar rivalry of the great powers for patronage over the peaceful solution to the Dobrudzhan problem, in which Germany and Italy took the lead, is explored. Sofia preferred to receive Southern Dobruja from their hands. Romania received advice to cede the region, but only Berlin could formulate a proposal to Bucharest that was tantamount to an order. It is noted that the USSR has intensified the Balkan direction of its policy since the spring of 1939. The subsequent Soviet-German rapprochement, the fall of Poland, and the annexation of Bessarabia gave Sofia reason to count on cooperation in solving its territorial problems with both Moscow and Berlin. This led to an obvious improvement in relations with the USSR, which itself accepted the principle of border revision and began to implement it. The Soviet Union twice offered Sofia a contractual basis for relations, but in both November 1939 and November 1940 it rejected this opportunity. Bulgaria moved towards a restrained improvement in Soviet-Bulgarian relations, avoiding political obligations and relying on pro-German neutrality. The thesis is substantiated that the Bulgarian-Romanian Agreement of September 7, 1940, with all the drama of its development, was peaceful. Southern Dobruja, as a disputed province, was not dismembered and returned entirely to Bulgaria. Although the territorial component of the agreement was dominant in nature, its implementation was accompanied by a forced exchange of population. It is concluded that the settlement received unusually unanimous recognition in the international arena, was of a bilateral contractual nature and was not formally associated with fascist arbitration. With the Craiova Agreement, Sofia actually ignored the benevolent position of Soviet diplomacy. Nevertheless, Bulgaria became for the USSR one of the central links of the Soviet security system, and rapprochement with Sofia became one of its priority foreign policy tasks. The Craiova Agreement predetermined the accession of Bulgaria to the axis Rome – Berlin – Tokyo, which took place on March 1, 1941. It influenced the form of Sofia’s involvement in fascist aggression against Yugoslavia and Greece, as well as the nature of international relations on the eve of Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union.
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