Bulgaria is one of the least thought about supply centers in all Diplomacy (it’s usually thought of as being just as much Turkish as Constantinople, Ankara, and Smyrna), so it’s unlikely that Khan Omortag’s statement about the value of the written word will apply to generations yet unborn concerning this little article about Bulgaria in Diplomacy. Yet as Turkey’s sole land corridor into Europe (other than Armenia), Bulgaria is crucial to the destinies of all great powers that wish to control Eastern Europe. And the game can be won or lost depending on what the player does about one minor detail concerning Bulgaria. Bulgaria emerged into the Copper Age sometime during the 5th millennium B.C. but was dominated for more than 4000 years by Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, and Byzantines. The Bulgars, a Turkic tribe from Central Asia that is mentioned in Chinese records from the Han Dynasty, were migrating around the northern to the western edges of the Black Sea at the same time that Southern Slavs were migrating there (A.D. 400 – 800), leading to intermarriage and integration. Ironically, “Bulgar” means “one of mixed ancestry” in Old Turkic. Bulgaria was independent from 681 to 1018 and again from 1185 to 1396, a powerful empire stretching west to the Adriatic. Bulgaria was occupied by the Ottoman Turks from 1396 to 1908 before being liberated by German prince Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who became Tsar Ferdinand I. Three wars followed before World War I, when Bulgaria allied with Germany (and Turkey) against her Balkan neighbors. In World War II, Bulgaria again allied with Germany, but relations soured when Bulgaria refused to war against her fellow Slavs in the U.S.S.R. Bulgaria became a Soviet satellite 1946-1989. Today, having come full circle, Bulgaria is led by Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who just happened to be Tsar Simeon II in 1944-1946. In 2002, Bulgaria was formally invited to join NATO; Bulgaria is also progressing towards joining the European Union. Just as Bulgaria has been a strategic crossroads to be fought over for nearly 7000 years, so Bulgaria is a strategic crossroads between Turkey, Austria, and Italy, and less so with Russia. While Bulgaria is nearly always Turkish by the end of 1901 (93.8% of the time according to a 1998 article), it often becomes a battleground in the mid-game. While Turkey is typically successful in taking back Bulgaria from Austria or Italy once one of those Central Powers has been attacked from the west or north, how Turkey takes back Bulgaria may determine Turkey’s destiny in that particular game. Bulgaria shares with Spain and St. Petersburg the feature that it is bicoastal (Bulgaria lost its Aegean coast to allied power Greece in the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I). While this usually doesn’t play a part in the opening game since Turkey inevitably takes Bulgaria with the army from Constantinople, the positioning of Turkey’s units in the mid-game may complicate this. With an enemy fleet sitting in the Aegean and Turkish units in Constantinople and the Black Sea, Turkey will often choose to retake Bulgaria using its Black Sea fleet. This could be a fatal mistake. As an example, I’d like to use USDP/nopress04. This was an opening round game in the 2002-2003 USDP No-press Tournament. In this game, Austria and Italy started with a strong anti-Turkish opening which drained Turkey down to 2 SCs by 1903. Italy then had to pull back when France launched a strong attack. By 1906, when Russia and Turkey managed to finally get coordinated, Turkey began to recover, helped by France’s 1907 invasion of Austria. In Fall 1907, Turkey re-captured Bulgaria using a Black Sea fleet, supported by a Constantinople fleet, which was destined for the Mediterranean. However, while a fleet on the east coast of Bulgaria was ideal for supporting Russian units to help them survive, it was powerless to help Turkey expand in the Balkans. As more of the Austrian homeland fell to the French, Austria fell back to the southern Balkans, which forced Turkey to devote more unit strength to defense, especially since Austria kept attacking Turkey. With an effective fleet strength of 1, Turkey could not get a fleet into the Aegean Sea until 1909. In 1910, the battle for Greece began between Turkey and Austria, one fleet vs. one fleet. It ended when France took Greece in Fall 1910 with fleets in the Ionian and Albania. With Turkey impotent in the Aegean, France took Bulgaria in Fall 1911, the Aegean in Spring 1912, and the Eastern Mediterranean in Fall 1912 before the game stopped because of a French solo. If Turkey had taken Bulgaria with his Constantinople fleet back in 1907, supported from the Black Sea, and sent that Constantinople fleet to the south coast of Bulgaria, rather than the east coast, Turkey would have had support to ensure that Greece would have been his, and would have had enough strength on his west fast enough to slow down, if not stop, France’s drive to the Turkish homeland. Thus, an improper appreciation of the power of using the appropriate coast designation and a failure to look far enough into the future affected the outcome of the game. . . . . . . . . . .
It’s only appropriate that the game I used as an example should be from USDP, one of Manus’ many projects. Having not played Diplomacy from 1994 to 2001, I accidentally stumbled across the Diplomatic Pouch in 2001 and immediately got hooked. I still have not played a face-to-face game since 1994, yet I consider myself very much a devotee of this endlessly fascinating and interesting game, and I have Manus to thank more than anybody else. I have played in several games that he has mastered, and have always found him gracious, prompt, and friendly with his responses. Thank you, Manus, for all your hard work which has given so much enjoyment to so many people.
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