Victory banquets had become the norm across Europe lately. Whether great powers like the United Kingdom and France, or small countries like Portugal and Belgium, all were holding event after event to divert public attention.
After all, everyone had lost plenty of people in this world war. Aside from the two unlucky sods, Italy and Germany, even the Austro-Hungarian Empire was holding events to liven up the public mood.
Fortunately, this was continental Europe; there was no scene of "the whole city white with mourning, every household still weeping."
Bulgaria was naturally no exception. Ferdinand had recently been busy granting titles. To show how seriously he took it, he personally presided over the investiture ceremonies for all the nobles. Naturally, these were conducted collectively, proceeding in order from duke—marquis—count—viscount—baron—knight.
If he did them one by one, Ferdinand probably would not finish them in his lifetime! The final rank of lord was simply omitted; Europe's titular nobles were not worth much.
With the noble titles bestowed, it was naturally time to grant military ranks. This time, Ferdinand was exceptionally generous, conferring the rank of marshal upon five men at once, along with more than twenty generals, over one hundred and twenty lieutenant generals, and more than five hundred major generals.
Then, with a wave of his hand, everyone over fifty among them entered the Military Committee in neat unison and began their semi-retired lives, while the younger officers remained in the army to continue serving.
The only exception was the five great marshals, whose prestige was too high for Ferdinand to retire outright. He had them resume their original posts once more, namely:
Minister of the Navy: Petrov
Minister of the Army: Popov
Minister of Defense: Dante-Christoph
Minister of War: Andrei-Blaskov
Chief of the General Staff: Imiya-Dimitriev
In any case, they