La propagande française et les Bulgares sur le front d’Orient
The French propaganda and the Bulgarians on the Thessaloniki Front

Summary/Abstract: During the First World War the states of the two warring camps used also the mighty power of the propaganda machine. The impact methods aimed, on the one hand, to positively influence their own soldiers and the population in the rear, and on the other, to crush the enemy’s morale. But while there are a lot of papers about the propaganda on the Western Front, such studies are missing for the Bulgarians as an enemy with which the Entente fought for three years from October 1915 to September 1918. The purpose of this study is to briefly review the propaganda of one of the major warring states France, against the Bulgarians. Bulgaria’s entry into the First World War in the autumn of 1915 partly surprised the Entente, which to the last moment until hoped that it would be able to attract Bulgaria or at least would force it to maintain its neutrality. In the first months, the lack of specific knowledge of the enemy forced the French to use mass materials provided by the Serbian side. When the efforts proved unsuccessful and Bulgaria ranked among the enemies of France, the propaganda machine started to rotate. To the French audience, the new enemy was portrayed as a wild, cruel and belligerent nation who did not stop at anything to conquer the surrounding countries. Three years later, the French propaganda was already targeting the enemy, using the particular problems of the Bulgarian soldiers in the trenches the deprivation and fatigue of the fighting, the growing distrust of the ruling and the desire for a peaceful exit from the war. Many testimonies and facts showed that, at least in terms of soldiers, propaganda was successful. But after the signing of the Neuilly Peace Treaty, the Bulgarians felt cheated by the promises of a just peace, and France was the country that was basically accused of deceived illusions.

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