Ferdinand had been in an excellent mood lately. Victories from the front kept pouring in, while the country remained peaceful. The war had not disrupted Bulgaria's social order.
Most crucially, the troublemakers were gone. Before the military tribunal Popov had set up could even try many people, most of the Ottomans had fled in a great rush. It seemed that practically everyone had participated, to a greater or lesser extent, in the persecution and even slaughter of ethnic minorities.
Although the country was under military administration, the masses of Ottomans leaving were still seen off with goodwill. Their flight only nailed the charge firmly in place before world public opinion.
As for exactly how many people the Ottomans had killed, that was difficult to determine. According to preliminary statistics from later records, during the First World War alone, the Ottoman government massacred as many as 1.5 million Armenians.
Then there was the Syrian massacre that had just erupted. More than a million Romanians, Greeks, Black people, and Serbs had died beneath the butcher's blades of the Ottoman Empire's army.
All of this was irrefutable evidence. It provided Bulgaria with a favorable foundation in public opinion for bringing the Ottoman Empire to an end. Even if someone later wanted to make an issue of the Ottomans, no one would dare openly support them.
That was secondary. More importantly, it hastened the Ottoman Empire's demise. More people were not always better, especially when food was scarce.
Three or four million extra mouths had suddenly appeared. Did the Ottoman government have that much in reserve? The answer was clear: no!
The Ottoman Empire's population had only ever been a little over twenty million. With such vast territory, they should have lived quite comfortably. Unfortunately, with agricultural productivity still stuck in the century before