Provision of Personnel and Network of Agents of the Residence of the Bulgarian Military Intelligence Service in Bucharest (November 1913 – August 1916)

Authors:

Pages: 141-155

Abstract:

An attempt has been made in the paper at analyzing one of the most essential aspects of the activity of the residence of the Bulgarian Military Intelligence Service in Bucharest in the period between November 1913 and August 1916 – the provision with regular professional intelligence agents and secret employees. Attention has been paid to the unfavourable factors that hindered the activities of the military attaché Alexander Samardzhiev: the general shortage of officers with the necessary training in the Bulgarian Army, the financial problems and especially the active work of the Romanian counter-intelligence agencies. The main negative characteristic of the network of agents has been indicated – the fact that actually it consisted entirely of ethnic Bulgarians. This circumstance made impossible the active work of the agents in the conditions of real war. At the same time relatively well preserved archive materials give the opportunity to identify probably the greater part of the employees that actually worked for the military attaché. Though Samardzhiev never managed to realize his ambitious plans to set up a network of agents, the overall estimation of his activities in Romania by the Headquarters of the Operative Bulgarian Army was rather positive. This conclusion is corroborated by the successful development of his later carrier.

Keywords:

interstate relations between Bulgaria and Rumania, Bulgarian military intelligence service, military attaché

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