Tsardom of Bulgaria

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Tsardom of Bulgaria Царство България Tsarstvo Bǎlgariya
Flag of Bulgaria
Bulgarian Coat of Arms
Bulgaria in Light Green TAG = BUL
Politics
Capital	Sofia
Ruling Party	Pravitelstvo na Tsaria
Head of State	Tsar Boris III
Diplomacy
Sphere	Grossraum Kontinentaleuropa
Foreign Alignment	Mitstreiter, Einheitspakt
Economy
GDP	$3.56B
Credit Rating	Fair
Market Type	Planned Economy

The Tsardom of Bulgaria (Bulgarian: Царство България) is a country in Southeast Europe. To the north, it borders The Kingdom of Romania, to the west, the Independent State of Serbia and the Italian Empire, to the south Greece and the Republic of Turkey and to the east, the Black Sea.

Initially established as a principality under the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Bulgaria was forged in 1908, when it declared independence from the Ottomans. Bulgaria notably sided with the Axis powers in World War II as a co-belligerent, alongside Romania and Hungary. It is a member of the Einheitspakt.

History

The Kingdom of Bulgaria has a somewhat infamous title, the so-called 'Prussia of the Balkans', self-proclaimed but arguably earned through the years of war the Balkan state has seen. Forged from the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, achieving independence in the throws of the Young Turks revolution and fighting then in the subsequent First Balkan War and later Second Balkan War, this miniature Prussia had endured its fair share of conflict. It was no surprise then, that when the First World War began, Bulgaria committed to the fight under Tsar Ferdinand I.

Much like the fortunes of Bulgaria during the Second Balkan Wars however, fortune favored Bulgaria's enemies, and the Tsardom found itself losing both territory, Tsar and prestige, the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine ensuring the humiliation ran deep. The fortunes of Bulgaria, it seemed, would continue to be dire well in to the 20th Century.

This proved not to be the case however, with Bulgaria's fortunes changing dramatically following a counter coup by Tsar Boris III in 1935, following a coup by the military organization known as the Zveno the year before, ushering in the so-called 'Golden Age of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom'. Bulgaria would soon find itself within the newly minted Axis powers, under an equally revanchist Germany, hell bent upon avenging it's humiliations in the First World War, an projecting it's power as the Central Powers once had. It was natural therefore, that Boris III and his government, would commit the Kingdom to the Axis, albeit with initial hesitance, to ensure the preservation of the Kingdom in the face of German and Italian operations in the Balkans, fighting alongside other Axis nations in the Balkans Second World War.

Despite this entrance, Bulgaria didn't see the victories and territorial expansion it had hoped. Seeing some gains in reclaiming most of Macedonia from the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, it failed to secure Thrace from the Greeks, instead seeing their former lands conquered by their former masters, the Turkish. Despite these disappointing returns, the War was won at little attrition to the Balkan kingdom. The true attrition lay ahead in the years to follow.

The 1950s brought out the worst folly's of the newly christened Greater Germanic Reich's ambitions for the Mediterranean, ambitions which would end disastrously for much of Southern Europe, leading to the equally disastrous German economic crash. This second disaster had a far more tangible effect upon the Balkans, where it set off a chain of economic crashes, from Hungary to Slovakia, to the ripples even being felt in Bulgaria herself.

Fearing the possibility of either Turkish or Greek incursions in to the fragile borders of Bulgaria, or even an incursion by the Romanian's themselves, Bulgaria entrenched itself within the burgeoning Einheitspakt, giving increased access to the previously infrequent German patrols, seeing increased German military deployments within Bulgaria's borders, alongside opening-wide the Bulgarian economy to the tattered German economy. All this only served to weaken the Tsar's government and it's image domestically and internationally.

Political Parties and Factions

Name	Ideology	LEader
Tsar's Government	Absolute Monarchy Ultramilitarism	Boris III
Zveno	Left-Wing Corporatism	Kimon Georgiev
Bulgarian Communist Party	National Communism	Todor Zhivkov
Bulgarian Agrarian National Union "Pladne"	Agrarian Socialism	Nikola Petkov
The Union of Bulgarian National Legions	Fascism	Todor Zhekov
Ratnitsi	National Socialism	Asen Kantardzhiev