ABSTRACT
My first political memories go back to the Tripolitan War of 1911 between Italy and Turkey and the First Balkan War of 1912 between Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, on the one hand, and Turkey, on the other. I sympathized with the enemies of Turkey and was particularly fascinated by the Bulgarian siege of the Turkish fortress of Adrianople. I acquired the sheet music of the Bulgarian national anthem and played it on the piano. Every day I would mark on a map the changing positions of the contending armies with differently colored pins. Later, my favorite playthings were toy soldiers in their various historic uniforms, with which I reenacted the historic battles—from Cannae to Waterloo—that we were discussing in school.
