In-Between Two Wars

Abstract

As WWII entered its closing stages, the power struggle for control of Western Thrace assumed a renewed urgency, both internationally and locally. With the advance of the Red Army, the Fascist Bulgarian regime at home collapsed. Subsequent Bulgarian attempts to re-write the history of Sofia’s entanglement with the Axis forces and maintain access to the Aegean Sea met with stiff opposition by both Greece and Turkey. Behind their reaction – and those of their allies in London – laid fears that Bulgaria’s ambitions could facilitate Soviet expansionism and disturb regional security. In Athens, the approaching end of the war encouraged territorial revisionism against Bulgaria through the deployment of the ‘Pomak card’. The claim of the Greek government to southern Bulgaria, however, lacked credibility and was eventually swept away by the wider geo-political bargain of the postWar settlement.