Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, Bulgaria's place in British foreign policy had been determined by a number of interrelated political, strategic and economic factors fused in the so-called ‘Eastern Question’. Even after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the intricacies of this great-power controversy for dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean were to a degree still relevant to Britain's Balkan policy. Before and during the Second World War Britain retained its commitment to securing the naval routes to its imperial territories in the Middle East. This overriding objective shaped Britain's relations with the individual countries in the region.

Bulgaria could influence developments not only in the Balkan Peninsula but also across Eastern Europe. At the heart of the Balkans and bordering the Black Sea, the country attracted Britain's attention as it stood close to the Mediterranean Straits, an area of traditional British interest. In the nineteenth century, the approach towards Bulgaria was complicated by the British perception of the country as closely attached to Russia because of ethnic and cultural similarities. Such an opinion continued to hold sway after the First World War despite a number of open rifts between Russia and Bulgaria in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Britain considered Bulgaria a convenient stepping stone for the fulfilment of Russian aims of predominance in the Eastern Mediterranean. Centuries-long Russian conflict with the Ottoman Empire affected the development of the whole Balkan Peninsula and the adjoining areas.