Boris III, Tsar of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, 1894-1943

Boris assumed the throne upon the abdication of his father in the wake of Bulgaria's defeat in World War I. Under the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria was forced to, amongst other things, cede various territories, pay crippling war reparations, and greatly reduce the size of its military. After the corporatist Zveno movement had staged a coup in1934, Boris opposed it and overthrew them. For the remainder of his reign, Boris would rule as a de facto absolute monarch. Following the outbreak of World War II, Boris sympathized with Hitler, but refused to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union and partially resisted German attempts to deport Bulgarian Jews as part of the Holocaust.