[Ads-l] "a regular Bulgarian army" (1917)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Nancy Friedman wrote:
> The volunteer archivist at the bay swimming and boating club I belong to
> has a question about a phrase she came across in a July 1917 club document:
>
> “Our athletes will be lost in the shuffle among a regular Bulgarian army of
> contestants, and their chances of showing or even getting mentioned in the
> papers are practically nix.”
>
> Any ideas about what the phrase signified?

A search for “Bulgarian” and “Bulgaria” at Green's Dictionary of Slang
produced no matches.

Wikipedia has an entry for “First Balkan War” which occurred several
years before the 1917 date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Balkan_War

[Begin excerpt]
The First Balkan War . . . lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and
involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria,
Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan
states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior
(significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically
disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success.
[End excerpt]

Wikipedia also has an entry for “Second Balkan War” which also
occurred a few years before the 1917 date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Balkan_War

[Begin excerpt]
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria,
dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War,
attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 (O.S.) / 29
(N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian
offensive and counter-attacked, entering Bulgaria.
[End excerpt]

Newspapers in this time period contained many articles about the
Bulgarian army attacking and retreating. Perhaps the figure of speech,
“regular Bulgarian army of Contestants”, was inspired by news reports
of the Balkan Wars.

Garson

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