After Ferdinand abandoned the straits strategy and turned instead to the peninsula strategy, the negotiations that followed went much more smoothly.
For the Germans, if sacrificing Greece could preserve the Ottoman Empire, that was entirely acceptable. The ruling party of the Ottoman Empire now—the Young Turks—had performed in a manner that left the Germans quite satisfied!
Perhaps the German government was also preparing to continue its historical approach: helping the Ottoman Empire complete its internal reforms and train a truly modern army, thereby easing the Alliance's pressure on the Eastern Front!
The first to conclude negotiations, unsurprisingly, was the Kingdom of Montenegro. Since the differences between the two sides were not great, Metev accepted Montenegro's request to pay war reparations in place of ceding territory. Of course, the sum was raised slightly as well.
On September 15, 1909, Metev, representing Bulgaria, and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Montenegro signed a ceasefire treaty before the representatives of various nations—the Bulgaria-Montenegro Armistice Treaty, namely the Montenegro Treaty under the Treaty of Constantinople!
The treaty stipulated: from the day of its signing, the two nations would formally end the war; the Kingdom of Montenegro would pay Bulgaria a lump-sum war indemnity of 4.8 million pounds, payment in goods being acceptable, with any shortfall to be covered by loans provided by the Alliance.
Thus, the Kingdom of Montenegro formally withdrew from the Second Balkan War. When the news spread, Nicholas I, far away in Podgorica, let out a deep sigh of relief.
Then began the miserable life of debt repayment. Do not be fooled by the seemingly modest figure of 4.8 million pounds—it amounted to only 120 million lev—but for this mountainous little country of barely more than 1.2 million people, it meant each person was saddled with 100 lev in foreign