WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.620 Welcome back to the deep dive. You know, we spent 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:05.799 a lot of time on this show talking about the 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:08.039 big flashy moments in history. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:08.220 --> 00:00:10.859 The huge sweeping battles, right? The dramatic 00:00:10.859 --> 00:00:13.039 revolutions, the events that inevitably get turned 00:00:13.039 --> 00:00:15.919 into those like three hour blockbuster movie 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:19.940 massive budgets. Exactly. But today we are zeroing 00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:23.440 in on a single piece of paper, a document that. 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:27.980 quiet and well, methodically, completely redrew 00:00:27.980 --> 00:00:30.480 the map of the Balkans. And utterly crippled 00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:32.560 a sovereign nation in the process. Yeah, and 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:34.700 without anyone fully realizing it at the time, 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:37.979 it planted these deep -seeded seeds for future 00:00:37.979 --> 00:00:40.270 global conflicts. and we're going to do all of 00:00:40.270 --> 00:00:42.850 this for you today without getting bogged down 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:45.750 in dense dusty historical jargon. That is the 00:00:45.750 --> 00:00:47.369 ultimate goal here because when you actually 00:00:47.369 --> 00:00:49.450 look at the underlying mechanics of how peace 00:00:49.450 --> 00:00:52.049 is negotiated or imposed right or in this specific 00:00:52.049 --> 00:00:54.710 case how it is imposed from the top down it is 00:00:54.710 --> 00:00:57.810 often just as ruthless and honestly just as devastating 00:00:57.810 --> 00:01:00.530 as the warfare that preceded it. The source we're 00:01:00.530 --> 00:01:02.689 examining today gives us a really comprehensive 00:01:02.689 --> 00:01:05.170 factual breakdown of a highly pivotal agreement 00:01:05.170 --> 00:01:08.980 from 1919. We are talking about the Treaty of 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:10.879 Neuse -sur -Seine. It's a bit of a mouthful. 00:01:11.019 --> 00:01:13.359 It is a mouthful, but its impact on the 20th 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:16.439 century is absolutely mind -blowing. Our mission 00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:19.159 for you today is to extract the most fascinating 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:21.700 nuggets from our source material about this treaty. 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:25.219 We want to show you how lines drawn on a map 00:01:25.219 --> 00:01:28.400 at a fancy French town hall can just devastate 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:31.359 an entire economy. Erase long -standing local 00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:34.060 identities. Yeah, and fuel national resentments 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:37.010 that last for generations. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:37.010 --> 00:01:39.689 this. Set the stage for us. Where are we in the 00:01:39.689 --> 00:01:42.530 timeline of global history when the ink is hitting 00:01:42.530 --> 00:01:45.569 this page? So we are in the immediate, very chaotic 00:01:45.569 --> 00:01:48.569 aftermath of World War I. The guns have finally 00:01:48.569 --> 00:01:51.629 fallen silent after years of just unprecedented 00:01:51.629 --> 00:01:54.510 industrialized slaughter. Great war. Exactly. 00:01:54.890 --> 00:01:57.049 And the victorious allies are now sitting in 00:01:57.049 --> 00:01:58.890 this incredibly powerful position of setting 00:01:58.890 --> 00:02:01.310 the terms for the defeated nations. The world 00:02:01.310 --> 00:02:03.170 has just been through a trauma unlike anything 00:02:03.170 --> 00:02:05.670 it had ever seen. Unimaginable trauma. And the 00:02:05.670 --> 00:02:08.030 winning side is fiercely determined to make sure 00:02:08.030 --> 00:02:10.849 it never happens again. Their primary strategy 00:02:10.849 --> 00:02:14.210 for ensuring that peace, making absolutely sure 00:02:14.210 --> 00:02:16.770 the losing side can never rise up to possess 00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:19.229 the military or economic capacity to threaten 00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:23.189 them again. It's this moment of immense forced 00:02:23.189 --> 00:02:25.969 geopolitical restructuring. So let's put you, 00:02:26.330 --> 00:02:28.180 the listener, Right in the room where it happened. 00:02:28.219 --> 00:02:31.840 Picture this. It is November 27, 1919. We're 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:33.919 at the Hôtel de Ville. Right, the local tan hall 00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:36.560 in Nuit -sur -Seine, which is this picturesque 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:38.819 commune located just west of Paris in France. 00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:41.719 On one side of the heavy wooden table, you have 00:02:41.719 --> 00:02:44.000 the victorious principal, allied and associated 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:46.819 powers. We're talking about the major global 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:49.120 players here. The heavy hitters. Yeah, the United 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.159 Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan and the United 00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:53.639 States. And on the opposite side, you have Bulgaria, 00:02:53.780 --> 00:02:55.879 who was one of the defeated central powers during 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:58.080 the First World War. If we connect this to the 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:00.259 bigger picture, it is crucial to understand that 00:03:00.259 --> 00:03:02.500 the Treaty of New Easter Sen was not just some 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:05.699 isolated, vindictive, one -off event. It was 00:03:05.699 --> 00:03:08.180 actually one crucial piece of a much larger, 00:03:08.439 --> 00:03:10.819 highly deliberate grand strategy. Because there 00:03:10.819 --> 00:03:13.400 were a bunch of treaties. A whole series of interconnected 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:16.000 treaties following the war. Everyone has heard 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:17.759 of the Treaty of Versailles, which dealt with 00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:20.300 Germany. But there was also the Treaty of Saint 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:23.020 -Germain dealing with Austria, the Treaty of 00:03:23.020 --> 00:03:25.280 Trianon for Hungary, and the Treaty of Sevres 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:28.039 for the Ottoman Empire. So was Nilly Sersain 00:03:28.039 --> 00:03:30.879 just a copy paste of Versailles or did they have 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:33.400 a, you know, a specific agenda for the Balkans? 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:36.659 They had a very specific regional agenda, though 00:03:36.659 --> 00:03:39.300 the ultimate shared goal of all these treaties 00:03:39.300 --> 00:03:42.080 was identical. They wanted to systematically 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:44.719 diminish both the military and the political 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:47.099 strength of the defeated central powers, breaks 00:03:47.099 --> 00:03:49.840 them down, deliberately dismantling the empires 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:51.800 and nations that had fought against them piece 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:54.800 by piece, breaking them into smaller, more manageable 00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:58.340 and significantly weaker. States, all to ensure 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:01.659 a lasting allied dominance in Europe. And while 00:04:01.659 --> 00:04:03.900 they're doing all this meticulous dismantling, 00:04:04.379 --> 00:04:07.020 there's this one really surprising historical 00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:09.719 irony that popped out of the source material. 00:04:10.319 --> 00:04:12.120 It's something that almost sounds like a bureaucratic 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:14.319 punchline today. The League of Nations piece. 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:18.089 Yes. Alongside all the harsh punishments and 00:04:18.089 --> 00:04:20.889 territorial changes, the text of the Treaty of 00:04:20.889 --> 00:04:23.829 Nubia Sirsen also contained the Covenant of the 00:04:23.829 --> 00:04:25.689 League of Nations. Which was supposed to be this 00:04:25.689 --> 00:04:28.250 great new international peacekeeping organization. 00:04:28.470 --> 00:04:30.970 Right, but because that specific covenant was 00:04:30.970 --> 00:04:33.129 baked right into the text of the treaty, the 00:04:33.129 --> 00:04:35.269 United States actually refused to ratify it. 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:38.060 That is a fascinating diplomatic contradiction. 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:40.699 It really tells you a lot about American domestic 00:04:40.699 --> 00:04:43.959 politics at the time. The United States was a 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:47.240 principal allied power. They literally had representatives 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:49.879 sit down and sign the treaty in that French town 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:52.579 hall. But the US Senate never ratified it. Never 00:04:52.579 --> 00:04:55.620 did. This came down to a fundamental clash of 00:04:55.620 --> 00:04:58.399 visions. President Woodrow Wilson was a huge 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:00.579 champion of the League of Nations. He wanted 00:05:00.579 --> 00:05:03.500 a global internationalist approach to peace. 00:05:03.959 --> 00:05:06.170 But the US Senate was swinging hard back toward 00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:07.889 isolationism. They didn't want to get pulled 00:05:07.889 --> 00:05:10.870 into more European wars. Exactly. They feared 00:05:10.870 --> 00:05:13.069 that joining the League would obligate the United 00:05:13.069 --> 00:05:15.370 States to get dragged into future conflicts, 00:05:15.889 --> 00:05:17.750 stripping them of their sovereign control over 00:05:17.750 --> 00:05:20.970 their own military. So they rejected the very 00:05:20.970 --> 00:05:23.970 treaty they helped draft. The U .S. signs it, 00:05:24.129 --> 00:05:27.389 but effectively steps back from legally enforcing 00:05:27.389 --> 00:05:30.990 it on their end. But for Bulgaria, there was 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:33.240 no stepping back. The bill for the First World 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:35.519 War had officially come due. And it was a steep 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:39.100 bill. To really help you grasp the sheer scale 00:05:39.100 --> 00:05:41.300 of what happened next, let's put it in modern 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:44.500 terms. I want you to imagine losing your backyard, 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:47.220 your savings account, and your home security 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:50.240 system all in one single day. That is essentially 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:53.180 what happened to Bulgaria. Imagine a modern nation 00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:55.759 today suddenly having its military capped at 00:05:55.759 --> 00:05:58.319 the size of a small -count police force, while 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:00.500 simultaneously being handed a sovereign debt 00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:04.100 bill that entirely wipes out its GDP. That was 00:06:04.100 --> 00:06:06.779 Bulgaria's stark reality. The concessions forced 00:06:06.779 --> 00:06:09.699 upon them were methodical, comprehensive, and 00:06:09.699 --> 00:06:12.060 absolutely devastating across multiple sectors 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:14.540 of their society. Let's break down exactly what 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:16.220 those punishments look like, starting with their 00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:18.519 national security. The military cuts. Right. 00:06:18.750 --> 00:06:21.449 The Bulgarian army was forcibly slashed to a 00:06:21.449 --> 00:06:24.470 mere 20 ,000 men. Which, in the context of the 00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:28.050 Balkans in the 1920s, seems incredibly dangerous. 00:06:28.370 --> 00:06:31.829 It was paralyzing. For a nation situated in a 00:06:31.829 --> 00:06:35.189 highly volatile region, surrounded by newly empowered 00:06:35.189 --> 00:06:37.670 neighbors who they had just been fighting? Yeah, 00:06:37.889 --> 00:06:39.870 neighbors who might be holding a grudge. Exactly. 00:06:40.139 --> 00:06:43.199 Having your military capped at 20 ,000 personnel 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:45.980 effectively neuters your ability to project any 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:48.560 kind of power. It barely leaves you with enough 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:51.420 manpower to maintain internal order, let alone 00:06:51.420 --> 00:06:54.100 ensure robust national defense against outside 00:06:54.100 --> 00:06:56.300 aggression. They were stripped of their ability 00:06:56.300 --> 00:06:58.439 to protect their own borders. And then there's 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:01.360 the economic blow, which is just staggering to 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:03.959 read about. Bulgaria was slapped with a reparations 00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:06.490 bill of 100 million pounds. We really have to 00:07:06.490 --> 00:07:08.529 remember the context of a devastated post -war 00:07:08.529 --> 00:07:11.449 economy to understand that number. 100 million 00:07:11.449 --> 00:07:14.490 pounds in 1919 for a country the size of Bulgaria 00:07:14.490 --> 00:07:17.370 was an astronomical sum. It's an impossible burden. 00:07:17.850 --> 00:07:21.139 Completely impossible. This was designed intentionally 00:07:21.139 --> 00:07:24.180 to economically hamstring the nation, ensuring 00:07:24.180 --> 00:07:27.120 that any future surplus wealth generated by the 00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:29.720 Bulgarian people went straight into the pockets 00:07:29.720 --> 00:07:32.040 of the victors. Rather than being used to rebuild? 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:34.779 Right, rather than rebuilding Bulgarian infrastructure 00:07:34.779 --> 00:07:37.959 or secretly rebuilding their military capacity. 00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:41.139 On top of that astronomical debt, there was a 00:07:41.139 --> 00:07:43.620 whole restitution component written into the 00:07:43.620 --> 00:07:46.670 treaty. Bulgaria was forced to either return 00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:49.290 property that had been ruled from occupied territories 00:07:49.290 --> 00:07:52.250 during the war or they had to pay direct compensation 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:55.290 to the rightful owners. Money and physical resources 00:07:55.290 --> 00:07:57.610 just bleeding out of the country in every direction. 00:07:57.910 --> 00:07:59.910 And beyond the military and the economy there 00:07:59.910 --> 00:08:02.910 were also major diplomatic humiliations layered 00:08:02.910 --> 00:08:06.399 into the text. The treaty legally forced Bulgaria 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:08.779 to officially recognize the existence of the 00:08:08.779 --> 00:08:11.800 newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. 00:08:12.100 --> 00:08:13.620 This is the state that would eventually become 00:08:13.620 --> 00:08:16.860 known as Yugoslavia. So Bulgaria had to formally, 00:08:16.939 --> 00:08:20.399 legally acknowledge the legitimacy of a powerful, 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:23.100 unified new neighbor right on their western border. 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:26.060 A neighbor they had just spent years locked in 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:29.279 a brutal war with. It was a bitter pill to swallow 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:31.939 diplomatically. This brings up an incredibly 00:08:31.939 --> 00:08:34.490 vital question though. How do you pay a hundred 00:08:34.490 --> 00:08:37.149 million pound bill when the same treaty takes 00:08:37.149 --> 00:08:39.649 away your ability to generate wealth? Because 00:08:39.649 --> 00:08:41.929 we have to talk about the physical map, which 00:08:41.929 --> 00:08:44.350 is where the treaty arguably cuts the deepest. 00:08:44.769 --> 00:08:48.029 The territorial losses. Yeah. There is one territorial 00:08:48.029 --> 00:08:50.750 loss that stands out as just a brutal, fatal 00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:54.450 blow to Bulgaria's future prospects. They were 00:08:54.450 --> 00:08:58.090 forced to cede the region of western Thrace to 00:08:58.090 --> 00:09:00.519 the Entente. And just to clarify, for those who 00:09:00.519 --> 00:09:02.360 might not be familiar with the term, the Entente 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:05.159 was the victorious alliance, primarily led at 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:07.340 this stage by Britain and France. The treaty 00:09:07.340 --> 00:09:09.779 handed Western Thrace over to them as a collective. 00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:11.620 Right. And the Entente didn't hold on to it for 00:09:11.620 --> 00:09:13.960 long. They later turned around and awarded that 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:16.559 specific territory to Greece a few months later 00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:19.000 at the San Remo conference. The San Remo conference 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.519 being essentially a follow up meeting where the 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:23.600 allies divided up the remaining spoils of the 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:26.600 war and finalized jurisdictions. Now, looking 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:29.779 at a map of the region. Why is losing Western 00:09:29.779 --> 00:09:32.820 Thrace such a massive structural deal for Bulgaria? 00:09:33.179 --> 00:09:35.799 Because it completely severed Bulgaria's direct 00:09:35.799 --> 00:09:38.320 outlet to the Aegean Sea. They lost their coast. 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:40.919 Entirely. If you think about the geopolitical 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:43.500 and economic importance of a coastline, losing 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:46.639 Direct access to the Asians severely crippled 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:48.700 their international trade routes. They couldn't 00:09:48.700 --> 00:09:51.659 ship goods directly. No, it limited their economic 00:09:51.659 --> 00:09:54.059 potential by forcing their shipping to go through 00:09:54.059 --> 00:09:57.019 other, longer routes and completely eliminated 00:09:57.019 --> 00:09:59.100 any naval capabilities they might have developed 00:09:59.100 --> 00:10:02.259 in that sea. It turned Bulgaria into a much more 00:10:02.259 --> 00:10:04.759 isolated, geographically constrained state. And 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:06.679 they didn't just lose the land and the water. 00:10:07.399 --> 00:10:09.860 The treaty forced them to sign a convention on 00:10:09.860 --> 00:10:12.360 population exchange with Greece. Which sounds 00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:14.940 like a very sterile diplomatic way of saying 00:10:14.940 --> 00:10:17.100 forcing thousands of people to pack up their 00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:19.679 entire lives and move across a newly drawn border. 00:10:19.899 --> 00:10:22.299 That is the dark reality of a population exchange. 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:25.919 It was a massive state sponsored forced demographic 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:28.480 shift. The idea was to make the new political 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:31.639 borders neatly match the ethnic populations matching 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:34.039 people to maps. Right. If the land now belonged 00:10:34.039 --> 00:10:36.519 to Greece. The diplomats wanted ethnic Greeks 00:10:36.519 --> 00:10:39.039 living there, and they wanted the ethnic Bulgarians 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:41.759 moved back into the newly shrunken borders of 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:45.320 Bulgaria. In practice, this meant uprooting multi 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:48.200 -generational communities, widespread loss of 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:50.980 personal property, chaotic resettlement, and 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:52.860 immense human suffering. And that wasn't the 00:10:52.860 --> 00:10:55.549 only border change. In the north, the region 00:10:55.549 --> 00:10:58.509 of Debruja was returned to Romania. Which was 00:10:58.509 --> 00:11:01.649 actually a restoration of an older border. That 00:11:01.649 --> 00:11:04.370 northern line reverted back to the borders that 00:11:04.370 --> 00:11:06.990 had previously been set by the Treaty of Bucharest 00:11:06.990 --> 00:11:10.850 back in 1913, which ended the Second Balkan War. 00:11:11.269 --> 00:11:13.649 So on multiple fronts, losing the Aegean in the 00:11:13.649 --> 00:11:16.830 south and losing Debruja in the north work. Bulgaria 00:11:16.830 --> 00:11:19.549 is physically shrinking. They're shrinking. They're 00:11:19.549 --> 00:11:21.490 paying an impossible debt. They are disarming 00:11:21.490 --> 00:11:24.169 and they're dealing with waves of displaced refugees. 00:11:24.769 --> 00:11:27.470 But the territorial losses still don't stop there. 00:11:27.850 --> 00:11:29.629 The western border. Here's where it gets really 00:11:29.629 --> 00:11:31.570 interesting, especially when you look at the 00:11:31.570 --> 00:11:34.909 cold calculating strategy behind how these borders 00:11:34.909 --> 00:11:37.389 are drawn. Let's look at Bulgaria's western border 00:11:37.389 --> 00:11:39.490 with that newly recognized kingdom of Serbs, 00:11:39.649 --> 00:11:42.330 Croats and Slovenes. How much land are we actually 00:11:42.330 --> 00:11:44.720 talking about losing on that western front? The 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.139 treaty required Bulgaria to seat a further area 00:11:47.139 --> 00:11:51.299 of exactly 2 ,563 square kilometers on its western 00:11:51.299 --> 00:11:53.600 border. To give you some modern geographical 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:57.799 context, out of that total, 1 ,545 square kilometers 00:11:57.799 --> 00:12:00.279 are located in what is today modern Serbia. And 00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:03.480 the rest? The remaining 1 ,028 square kilometers 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:06.580 are in what is now North Macedonia. Our source 00:12:06.580 --> 00:12:08.980 material refers to four minor regions that make 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:11.100 up this territory, which historically have been 00:12:11.100 --> 00:12:13.559 referred to as the Western Outlands. And what 00:12:13.559 --> 00:12:16.419 is wild is that, except for one small area around 00:12:16.419 --> 00:12:18.960 Strumitsa, which was added a bit later in 1912, 00:12:19.419 --> 00:12:21.200 these regions have been part of Bulgaria since 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.980 its very inception as a principality back in 00:12:23.980 --> 00:12:27.629 1878. Deep historical roots. Exactly. When Bulgaria 00:12:27.629 --> 00:12:30.029 was internationally recognized as a fully independent 00:12:30.029 --> 00:12:33.129 country in 1908, they securely controlled these 00:12:33.129 --> 00:12:36.129 lands. So this wasn't newly conquered territory 00:12:36.129 --> 00:12:40.109 they were surrendering. This was historical foundational 00:12:40.109 --> 00:12:42.870 Bulgarian land. That is precisely why the loss 00:12:42.870 --> 00:12:45.470 was so deeply agonizing for the Bulgarian public. 00:12:45.710 --> 00:12:47.529 But if you look at it from the perspective of 00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:49.929 the allies and specifically the Serbs who were 00:12:49.929 --> 00:12:52.750 receiving this land, this border chains was a 00:12:52.750 --> 00:12:55.769 highly calculated military chess match. How so? 00:12:56.029 --> 00:12:58.690 Well, the old political boundary between Bulgaria 00:12:58.690 --> 00:13:01.330 and Serbia naturally followed a chain of high 00:13:01.330 --> 00:13:04.330 mountain ridges. Those mountains provided a formidable 00:13:04.330 --> 00:13:07.730 natural defensive barrier for Bulgaria. But the 00:13:07.730 --> 00:13:10.179 new boundary dictated by the Treaty of Nili, 00:13:10.659 --> 00:13:12.559 completely ignored those natural geographical 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:14.639 features. They basically just pushed the line 00:13:14.639 --> 00:13:16.879 down off the mountains and into Bulgarian territory. 00:13:16.940 --> 00:13:19.879 They did. And by moving that border off the high 00:13:19.879 --> 00:13:22.340 ridges and into the lower valleys, the new Kingdom 00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:25.159 of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes gained a massive 00:13:25.159 --> 00:13:27.620 permanent military and strategic advantage. It 00:13:27.620 --> 00:13:30.980 left them wide open. Completely. The new border 00:13:30.980 --> 00:13:33.879 dangerously exposed the Bulgarian capital city, 00:13:34.179 --> 00:13:37.379 Sofia. Suddenly, the capital was vulnerable, 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:40.220 sitting incredibly close to a hostile border 00:13:40.220 --> 00:13:42.539 without its natural mountain defenses to protect 00:13:42.539 --> 00:13:44.740 it. And it works both ways, right? Oh, absolutely. 00:13:44.990 --> 00:13:47.769 At the same time, this new border significantly 00:13:47.769 --> 00:13:50.129 reduced the military threat to eastern Serbia, 00:13:50.610 --> 00:13:52.610 making it much harder for Bulgaria to launch 00:13:52.610 --> 00:13:55.629 any future invasions. It was a purely strategic 00:13:55.629 --> 00:13:58.750 geographic maneuver designed for permanent dominance. 00:13:59.149 --> 00:14:01.610 It's basically designing a border to ensure that 00:14:01.610 --> 00:14:04.190 one side always has the high ground, literally 00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:07.610 and figuratively. But it wasn't just about preparing 00:14:07.610 --> 00:14:09.970 for future strategy, was it? There was a punitive 00:14:09.970 --> 00:14:12.370 retaliatory aspect to this specific land grab, 00:14:12.590 --> 00:14:14.940 too. Definitely. The cession of this Western 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:17.360 region was explicitly framed during the negotiations 00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:20.259 as partial compensation. It was direct payback 00:14:20.259 --> 00:14:22.340 for the fact that Bulgarian troops had occupied 00:14:22.340 --> 00:14:24.480 the southern and eastern parts of Serbia between 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:28.100 1915 and 1918 during the height of the war. So 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:30.860 it's retribution. A potent combination of retribution 00:14:30.860 --> 00:14:33.559 combined with strategic neutralizing. OK, so 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:36.259 we've talked about the grand strategy, the chess 00:14:36.259 --> 00:14:38.639 match of moving borders off mountains to expose 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.500 a capital city, the massive debts. But I want 00:14:41.500 --> 00:14:44.679 to ask you. the listener, to stop and really 00:14:44.679 --> 00:14:47.519 consider the human element here. Because we talk 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:50.019 about these thousands of square kilometers as 00:14:50.019 --> 00:14:52.480 if they're just empty plots of dirt. But they're 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:55.500 not. Right. What actually happens when international 00:14:55.500 --> 00:14:58.899 leaders sit in a room in France and redraw a 00:14:58.899 --> 00:15:01.320 political line right over the top of your house? 00:15:01.610 --> 00:15:04.730 That is the core tragedy of treaties like Nizi 00:15:04.730 --> 00:15:07.730 Sersen. They treat land as a commodity to be 00:15:07.730 --> 00:15:10.730 traded, compensated or confiscated. But these 00:15:10.730 --> 00:15:13.250 lands are filled with real people. People whose 00:15:13.250 --> 00:15:15.710 daily lives, legal identities and nationalities 00:15:15.710 --> 00:15:18.190 are suddenly thrown into total chaos by a stroke 00:15:18.190 --> 00:15:20.789 of a pen in a city hundreds of miles away. And 00:15:20.789 --> 00:15:23.110 the demographic data from our source highlights 00:15:23.110 --> 00:15:25.669 exactly how messy and heavily disputed this gets 00:15:25.669 --> 00:15:27.870 on the ground. Let's look at the people living 00:15:27.870 --> 00:15:30.690 in those ceded Western territories in 1919. The 00:15:30.690 --> 00:15:34.289 Western Outlands. Yes. The area corresponded 00:15:34.289 --> 00:15:36.649 to parts of several Bulgarian districts, places 00:15:36.649 --> 00:15:39.970 like Houston -Dill, Tsarbrad, Tran, Kula, and 00:15:39.970 --> 00:15:43.929 Vidin. So who actually lived there? when the 00:15:43.929 --> 00:15:46.350 border moved over their heads. According to Bulgarian 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.009 sources from that specific time, the population 00:15:49.009 --> 00:15:51.610 in these areas was overwhelmingly Bulgarian. 00:15:52.230 --> 00:15:55.009 Their data claims that in 1919, a staggering 00:15:55.009 --> 00:15:57.610 98 percent of the population in the Bostelagrad 00:15:57.610 --> 00:16:00.590 area and 95 percent of the population in Tsar 00:16:00.590 --> 00:16:03.590 Brod were ethnic Bulgarians, which sets up an 00:16:03.590 --> 00:16:05.889 immediate massive conflict. You have a newly 00:16:05.889 --> 00:16:08.370 drawn border placing a demographic that identifies 00:16:08.370 --> 00:16:11.490 as 98 percent Bulgarian under the direct legal 00:16:11.490 --> 00:16:13.960 control of a foreign kingdom. It creates a volatile 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:16.320 situation for the new ruling state. And what 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:19.179 follows is a fascinating, if troubling, historical 00:16:19.179 --> 00:16:22.559 maneuver regarding how you document or systematically 00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:24.700 erase those people. The census erasure. This 00:16:24.700 --> 00:16:27.200 detail in the source is wild. So you fast forward 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:30.399 a bit to the Yugoslav census of 1931. The authorities 00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:32.039 are trying to count the people in these newly 00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:34.259 acquired territories to get a handle on their 00:16:34.259 --> 00:16:36.820 demographics. But instead of recording who is 00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:38.860 Serbian, who is Croatian, who is Slovenian or 00:16:38.860 --> 00:16:40.820 who is Bulgarian. They just didn't. They just 00:16:40.820 --> 00:16:44.039 didn't. In that 1931 census, official policy 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:46.799 dictated that all South Slavs were to be counted 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:51.019 under one single overarching umbrella term. Yugoslavs. 00:16:51.419 --> 00:16:54.019 Exactly. By simply changing the categories on 00:16:54.019 --> 00:16:55.940 the bureaucratic paperwork, the state made it 00:16:55.940 --> 00:16:58.580 completely impossible to compare the actual demographics 00:16:58.580 --> 00:17:01.580 or to verify those Bulgarian claims from 1919. 00:17:01.899 --> 00:17:04.160 It's brilliant in a dark way. It is a highly 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:06.980 effective way of using state administration to 00:17:06.980 --> 00:17:09.759 forcibly assimilate a population on paper. If 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:12.759 the category doesn't exist, the minority ceases 00:17:12.759 --> 00:17:15.180 to exist in the official record. But the identity 00:17:15.180 --> 00:17:18.819 didn't actually disappear, even if the 1931 paperwork 00:17:18.819 --> 00:17:21.650 tried to legally say it did. Because if we jump 00:17:21.650 --> 00:17:23.730 way ahead to the last census mentioned in our 00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:26.890 source, the census taken in Serbia in 2002, the 00:17:26.890 --> 00:17:28.990 numbers are incredibly telling. The identity 00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:31.690 is persisting. Huge time jump. Yeah. Even after 00:17:31.690 --> 00:17:33.990 decades of border changes, political shifts and 00:17:33.990 --> 00:17:36.329 administrative erasure, Bulgarians still made 00:17:36.329 --> 00:17:39.009 up 50 % of the population in Dimitrovgrad and 00:17:39.009 --> 00:17:42.089 a massive 71 % of the population in Bosteligrad. 00:17:42.430 --> 00:17:45.329 The people and their identities were still there. 00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:48.069 It proves that while a punitive treaty can change 00:17:48.069 --> 00:17:50.950 a border overnight, and a state census can mandate 00:17:50.950 --> 00:17:53.769 a new label, deeply rooted national and ethnic 00:17:53.769 --> 00:17:57.230 identity is far more resilient. You cannot simply 00:17:57.230 --> 00:17:59.289 legislate away the culture of the people who 00:17:59.289 --> 00:18:01.089 live on the land. And speaking of the people 00:18:01.089 --> 00:18:04.130 living on the land, there's this one memorable, 00:18:04.450 --> 00:18:07.410 quirky little fact in the source that perfectly 00:18:07.410 --> 00:18:11.430 illustrates how bizarre and arbitrary these diplomatic 00:18:11.430 --> 00:18:14.869 border adjustments can be. The Timok River situation. 00:18:15.130 --> 00:18:17.990 Yes. Along that new western border, there was 00:18:17.990 --> 00:18:20.410 a tiny section of land along the Timuk River 00:18:20.410 --> 00:18:23.269 that was ceded. This specific section was composed 00:18:23.269 --> 00:18:26.029 of exactly eight localities. Out of those eight 00:18:26.029 --> 00:18:28.650 small towns, seven were populated by Romanians 00:18:28.650 --> 00:18:31.250 and only one was populated by Bulgarians. It 00:18:31.250 --> 00:18:33.269 really highlights the sheer detachment of these 00:18:33.269 --> 00:18:35.849 diplomatic lines. In their effort to secure a 00:18:35.849 --> 00:18:38.750 strategic river bend or exact a specific acreage 00:18:38.750 --> 00:18:42.069 of land, the mapmakers in Nulis or Sen swept 00:18:42.069 --> 00:18:44.190 up whatever local populations happened to be 00:18:44.190 --> 00:18:46.329 in the way. of who they actually were or what 00:18:46.329 --> 00:18:49.450 language they spoke. So we have a crippled military, 00:18:49.890 --> 00:18:53.230 a bankrupt economy, lost coastlines, an exposed 00:18:53.230 --> 00:18:56.329 capital city, and manipulated demographics. How 00:18:56.329 --> 00:18:59.009 does a country collectively process that kind 00:18:59.009 --> 00:19:02.410 of overwhelming multi -layered trauma? What's 00:19:02.410 --> 00:19:04.750 fascinating here is how this treaty was completely 00:19:04.750 --> 00:19:07.769 internalized by the Bulgarian public. The resentment 00:19:07.769 --> 00:19:11.069 was deep, immediate, and culturally pervasive. 00:19:11.500 --> 00:19:14.779 In Bulgaria, the results of the Treaty of Nuiusersen 00:19:14.779 --> 00:19:18.079 are popularly known to this day as the Second 00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:21.519 National Catastrophe. A second national catastrophe. 00:19:21.619 --> 00:19:24.119 It wasn't just viewed as a tough military loss. 00:19:24.140 --> 00:19:27.119 It was experienced as a catastrophic existential 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.740 humiliation of their national identity. That 00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:31.839 phrase alone tells you everything you need to 00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:33.900 know about the national mood. It sounds like 00:19:33.900 --> 00:19:36.059 a wound that wouldn't just heal with time. And 00:19:36.059 --> 00:19:38.420 that collective mood had massive, incredibly 00:19:38.420 --> 00:19:41.359 dangerous historical ripple effects. When you 00:19:41.359 --> 00:19:43.579 impose a peace that is purely punitive, that 00:19:43.579 --> 00:19:46.200 focuses entirely on punishing the loser, crushing 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:48.819 their economy, and taking their land, you create 00:19:48.819 --> 00:19:51.480 a deep well of national resentment. And resentment 00:19:51.480 --> 00:19:54.779 is easily weaponized. Very easily. In Bulgaria's 00:19:54.779 --> 00:19:57.740 case, that overwhelming desire to overturn the 00:19:57.740 --> 00:20:00.400 Treaty of Nui -sur -Sen and reclaim their lost 00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:02.920 territories eventually pushed them to align with 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:05.720 Nazi Germany during World War II. Wait, they 00:20:05.720 --> 00:20:08.019 joined forces with the Axis powers primarily 00:20:08.019 --> 00:20:10.519 as a mechanism to get that specific land back? 00:20:10.660 --> 00:20:13.660 Largely, yes. During World War II, by aligning 00:20:13.660 --> 00:20:16.740 with Nazi Germany, Bulgaria did manage to temporarily 00:20:16.740 --> 00:20:19.559 reoccupy most of those exact territories that 00:20:19.559 --> 00:20:22.059 had been stripped away under the 1919 Treaty. 00:20:22.029 --> 00:20:24.890 So they saw it as undoing the treaty. The alliance 00:20:24.890 --> 00:20:27.809 was viewed by many as a necessary means to an 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:31.029 end, the end being undoing the catastrophe. Now, 00:20:31.029 --> 00:20:33.309 it is important to note that most of that reoccupation 00:20:33.309 --> 00:20:35.809 was temporary and reversed after the Second World 00:20:35.809 --> 00:20:37.910 War. Though the source notes they did manage 00:20:37.910 --> 00:20:39.970 to permanently regain southern Debruja. Yes, 00:20:39.970 --> 00:20:42.470 as a result of the Treaty of Craiova in 1940. 00:20:42.869 --> 00:20:45.349 But the broader historical point remains undeniable. 00:20:45.809 --> 00:20:48.569 The incredibly punitive nature of the 1919 treaty 00:20:48.569 --> 00:20:51.069 directly fueled the deadly alliances of the next 00:20:51.069 --> 00:20:53.569 global war. So what does this all mean? We started 00:20:53.579 --> 00:20:55.819 this deep dive looking at a single document signed 00:20:55.819 --> 00:20:58.559 in a town hall in France over a century ago. 00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:01.740 But what we've unpacked is so much more than 00:21:01.740 --> 00:21:04.420 a dusty historical artifact. It's the blueprint 00:21:04.420 --> 00:21:07.319 for a disaster. The Treaty of New Isersand wasn't 00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:09.759 just about ending World War One. It was a devastating 00:21:09.759 --> 00:21:12.579 penalty that systematically dismantled a nation's 00:21:12.579 --> 00:21:15.980 ability to defend itself. It bankrupted an entire 00:21:15.980 --> 00:21:19.279 economy with a one hundred million pound bill 00:21:19.279 --> 00:21:22.519 choked off vital trade by taking the agent coastline. 00:21:22.539 --> 00:21:25.460 And perhaps most chillingly, it redrew the map 00:21:25.460 --> 00:21:28.079 based entirely on military dominance, shifting 00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:30.900 borders off mountains just to expose a capital 00:21:30.900 --> 00:21:33.940 city with zero regard for the actual human beings 00:21:33.940 --> 00:21:35.940 who woke up the next morning to find out they 00:21:35.940 --> 00:21:38.099 legally lived in a different country. The value 00:21:38.099 --> 00:21:40.140 of understanding this specific history today 00:21:40.140 --> 00:21:42.500 cannot be overstated. When we look at global 00:21:42.500 --> 00:21:44.660 conflicts, the focus is almost always on how 00:21:44.660 --> 00:21:47.299 wars begin and the tactics of how they are fought. 00:21:47.579 --> 00:21:50.500 The loud parts. The loud parts. But the Treaty 00:21:50.500 --> 00:21:52.940 of Nulliser Sen forces us to look critically 00:21:52.940 --> 00:21:55.900 at how wars end. It shows us with incredible 00:21:55.900 --> 00:21:58.339 clarity how peace treaties that focus purely 00:21:58.339 --> 00:22:01.619 on punishment, on forced economic ruin, and on 00:22:01.619 --> 00:22:04.960 strategic land grabbing rarely result in lasting 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.140 stability. They just set the stage for the next 00:22:07.140 --> 00:22:10.279 round. Instead, they inadvertently fuel the exact 00:22:10.279 --> 00:22:12.819 kind of deep -seated national grievance that 00:22:12.819 --> 00:22:15.980 sparks the next global conflict. The desire to 00:22:15.980 --> 00:22:18.619 undo a punitive, humiliating treaty is one of 00:22:18.619 --> 00:22:21.980 the most powerful, dangerous motivators in geopolitics. 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:23.759 It really is. It makes you realize that the ink 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:26.539 on a peace treaty can be just as explosive over 00:22:26.539 --> 00:22:29.299 time as the gunpowder used in the war itself. 00:22:30.180 --> 00:22:31.859 Which leads us to a final thought we want to 00:22:31.859 --> 00:22:33.940 leave you with today. We want you to think back 00:22:33.940 --> 00:22:36.619 to that 1931 Yugoslav census we talked about. 00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:39.319 The paperwork erasure. When we imagine modern 00:22:39.319 --> 00:22:41.539 warfare and territorial conquest, we usually 00:22:41.539 --> 00:22:43.539 think of soldiers, tanks, and dramatic treaties 00:22:43.539 --> 00:22:45.700 signed by world leaders under flashing cameras. 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:49.079 But consider how much immense power lies in basic, 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:51.859 everyday, bureaucratic paperwork. It's terrifying, 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:54.940 really. How often is something as simple and 00:22:54.940 --> 00:22:58.920 seemingly boring as a census? A legal document 00:22:58.920 --> 00:23:01.680 that can literally erase a specific local identity 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:04.759 just by lumping everyone together under a new 00:23:04.759 --> 00:23:08.579 state -mandated category, used as a quiet, bloodless 00:23:08.579 --> 00:23:11.319 continuation of territorial conquest. It is a 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:13.779 profound and unsettling question to consider. 00:23:14.019 --> 00:23:16.319 It suggests that the battle for a territory doesn't 00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:18.859 actually end when the treaty is signed in some 00:23:18.859 --> 00:23:21.240 foreign capital. Where does it go? It simply 00:23:21.240 --> 00:23:23.700 moves from the muddy battlefield into the filing 00:23:23.700 --> 00:23:26.400 cabinets of the state administration. The war 00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:29.140 continues on paper long after the guns stop firing. 00:23:29.539 --> 00:23:31.240 Thank you so much for joining us on this deep 00:23:31.240 --> 00:23:33.059 dive. We hope it gave you a new perspective on 00:23:33.059 --> 00:23:35.220 how the maps we take for granted are actually 00:23:35.220 --> 00:23:38.160 drawn and the incredible human cost hidden behind 00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:40.740 those borders. Keep questioning the history you 00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:42.559 read. Keep looking for those hidden administrative 00:23:42.559 --> 00:23:45.279 details. And most importantly, stay curious.