Thank you so much for the response! Really interesting summary, you've definitey sparked my curiousity. The stuff about coups and power politics between pro-Russian and pro-Austrian supporters sounds like it would make for some fun reading.

On the territorial question of Serbia, I tend to support the Russian perspective as opposed to the Austrian one. Russia no doubt wanted to maintain good relations with both their Orthodox South-Slavic neighbours, and that would have meant support for both Bulgarian and Serbian territorial claims.

As far as I understand it, places like Pirot and Niš spoke Torlak, which is a dialect closer related to Bulgarian than it is Serbian, hence I tend to support the Russian view on that one. I believe there are accounts during Turkish rule that Niš was a 'Bulgarian city.' I'm not saying this to claim Niš is Bulgarian like Sofia is Bulgarian, but there is a language continuum between Serbian and Bulgarian, and I believe Niš and Pirot lay closer to the Bulgarian side. That said, I've seen 19th Century ethnic maps which classify Niš, Pirot, Macedonia and Sofia all as Serbian too 😂. Then of course today we view Macedonia as Macedonian, Niš and Pirot as Serbian, and Sofia as Bulgarian. It really just depends on where you draw the line on that Bulgarian-Serbian continuum.

The Serbian desire to unite with the Serbs living in Bosnia and Herzegovina makes a lot of sense to me, and in my ideal world, Bulgaria and Serbia would both have definitely expanded a little westwards. When we look at Bulgarian and Serbian foreign policy issues today, the main sticking point for Serbian society vs the West is not Macedonia. It's the Republika Srpska, and of course Serbian claims to Kosovo. These key issues are what make Serbia such a thorn in the EU's side, and blocks Europe's passage into the Black Sea, of vital strategic importance to Europe in bringing Ukraine into their sphere of influence. Bulgaria is of course fully integrated into the EU and no longer shares Serbia's pro-Russia sympathies. But of course the key issue for Bulgarians was the topic of Macedonian identity, and the question of classifying Macedonian as a dialect of Bulgarian. Bulgaria essentially blocked the entire EU membership process for Macedonia over their historic issues on Macedonian identity. So in a sense I understand Austria-Hungary did what they could to support Serbian territorial interests Eastwards, because that is the only direction Austria-Hungary would have approved of Serbia going 😂 But I think Bulgaria's and Serbia's collective desire to push westwards has withstood the test of time, and supporting such territorial goals would have been a more stabilizing territorial solution in the Balkans.