The Balkan Peninsula

Macedonian massacres, of Christians by Christians as well as by Turks, to arrive at a sufficient degree of unity to allow them to make war jointly on Turkey. Bulgaria and

obably having it clearly in his head that he would have all his own way after the war or fight the issue out subsequently. A later Punch cartoon put this peculiarity of a Balkan alliance with pretty

Thracian campaign. In this book I do not intend to attempt a history of the war but will give some impressions of it which, whilst not neg

ristian Provinces of Turkey had, in the opinion of the Bulgars, been absolute failures, and they had done their best to make them failures, wishing for a destroyed Turkey not a reformed Turkey. In their opinion there was nothing to hope for except armed intervention on their part against Turkey. And, believing that, they had made most careful preparation extending over several years for the struggle. That preparation was in every sense admirable. For instance, it had extended

ut feeling that the Balkan States were preparing for war, the Turks were undoubtedly willing to make great concessions. But whatever concessions the Turks might have offered, war would still have taken place. I do not think one need offer any harsh criticism about the Balkan nations for coming to that decision. If you have made your preparation for war-perhaps a very expensive preparation, perhaps a preparation which has involved very great commitmen

re was a real grievance) one would have been manufactured to justify a war of spoliation. It not being necessary to manufacture a grievance, the existing one was carefully nursed and stimulated: and when the ripe time came for war the unreal pretext that war was the alternati

eak of the war had offered autonomy of the Christian provinces. I was informed in very high quarters, and I

would be allowed to any of the participants; that is to say, the Balkan States were informed, on the authority of all Europe, that if they did go to war, and if they won victories they would be allowed no fruits from those victories. Th

uch the same position internationally; that their independence was, in a sense, guaranteed. Korea's independence was guaranteed by both the United States and Great Britain. But the independence of Korea has now vanished. Korea could not fight for herself, and nobody was going to fight f

ate war, warned that they would be allowed no territorial advantage from that war, bu

ries of the war, the preparations for mobilisation in particular, were carried out with a degree of secrecy that, I think, astonished every Court and every Military Department in Europe. The secret was so well kept that one of the diplomatists in Roumania left for a holiday three days before the declaration of war, feeling certain that there was to be no war. Bulgaria is not governed altogether autocratically, but is a very free democracy in some res

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TROOPS LEA

were made between the Balkan Allies for carrying on the war. The Bulgarian people had made up their minds to do the lion's share of the work, and to have the lion's share of the spoils. They knew quite definitely the state of corruption to which the Turkish nation had

left as an international city, to be governed by a commission of the Great Powers. Bulgaria was, then, to have practically all Turkey-in-Europe-the province of Thrace, and a large part of Macedonia as far as the city of Salonica. Constantinople was to be left, with a small territory, as an international city, and the Bulgarian boundary was to stretch as far as Salonica. Salonica, they admitted, was desired very much by the Bulgarians, and also very much by the Greeks; and the Bulgarian idea in regard to Sal

ed, perhaps, one side of the Dardanelles (but I believe they thought that the Dardanelles might also be left to a commission of the Powers). It needed great

s with the actual results of the war, and to reflect that at one time he had three-f

ht the code of patriotic honour of the soldier-then at a time of crisis, spies, grumblers, critics are impossible. Bulgaria, as I have said, is very democratic. Unlike Roumania, where a landed aristocracy survived Turkish rule, the whole nation is of peasants or the sons

set to amassing railway material, and one railway official, without giving exact figures, talked of locomotives being added by "fifties" at a time. I doubt that. But perhaps there were between 200 and 225 locomotives in Bulgaria in October 1912, though one military attaché gave me the figure a

uled for this reason the idea of the war being anything but a dismal failure from the point of view of the Balkan States.) It was necessary to win in a hurry if they wer

Kilisse captured, and the cavalry sent raiding south-west to attack the Turk's lines of communication and to feel for his field army, an excellent plan of campaign was followed. If the main Bulgarian army had then swung over from Kirk Kilisse and had made a resolute-and, under the circumstances, almost certainly victorious-effort to rush Adrianople the natural course, from a military point of view, would have been followed. The one r

rmy for three months. As a matter of fact, whilst it was a valuable base for an enterprising field army, surrounded as it was by natural features of great strength, it was not a real fortress at all. St

d three days. During that time the fleeing Turks had won back some of their courage, had come back in their tracks, recovered many of the guns they had abandoned, and the battles of Ivankeui and Yanina-battles in which the Bulgarian losses were very heavy-were necessary to do over again work which had been already once accomplished. This criticism must be read in the light of the fact that I am totally ignorant of the tran

ts second stand was expected. That expectation was not realised. The flight continued to Chatalja. This was the turning-point of the campaign. Up to now the Bulgarian success had been complete. If now Adrianople had been made the ma

But that was not the position. Actually Adrianople straddled the only practical line of communication for effective operations against the enemy's capital. The railway from Bulgaria to Constantinople passed through Ad

FF, THE CONQUERO

stapha Pasha by railway, and then to Kirk Kilisse around Adrianople. From Kirk Kilisse to the rail-head at Seleniki, close to Chatalja, they could come not by railway, but by a tramway, a very limited railway. If Adrianople had fallen, the railway woul

Pasha comfortably by railway. And then it was necessary to use bullock or horse transport from Mustapha Pasha to Kirk Kilisse. That journey I took twice; once with an ox wagon, and afterwards with a set of fast horses, and the least period for that journey was five days. From Kirk Kilisse there was a line of light rai

he politicians saying, "We must hurry through, we must attempt something, no matter how desperate it is, something decisive." In the second instance, after Adrianople had been attacked in a very half-hearted way, and after the main Bulgarian army had pushed on to the

think it was a plan forced upon them by political authority, feeling that the war must be pushed to a conclusion somehow. Why the Bulgarians did not take Adrianople quickly in the first place is to be explained simply by the fact that they could not. But if their train of sappers had been of the same kind of stuff as their field artillery, they could have taken Adrianople in the first week of the war. The Bulgarians, however, had no effective siege train. A Press

field at Chatalja with the guns and ammunition necessary for their work. Ther

tion, and food possible, the enterprise would probably have succeeded. But one may judge that that too was impossible, in view of the transport position. There was a long pause. Then an attempt was made to do deliberately against an entrenched army what it was thought impossible to do against

nfantrymen were asked to do the work of shrapnel, and valuable lives paid for very slight information. Still, the Turkish artillery work was so poor; their sticking to their trenches was so persistent, that I half anticipated that the night would see a big Bulgarian success on the left flank, making an effective attack on the centre possible with the morning. But by next morning little had been done. That day was spent in a heroic display of infantry courage. Men rushed out from trenches again

But the Serbians had swept the Turks from Old Serbia and from Northern Macedonia in fine style, and had carried through an expedition of great gallantry over the mountains to the Adriatic. As the Bulgarians and Turks stood at bay on opposite ranges of hills within

at was made plain during the invasions of the Goths and the Huns. There was now to be a melancholy modern proof. At the end of 1912 the Balkan States, united and victorious, were in the position to take the Balkan Peninsula for themselves and keep out European interference for the future. They had

ed political interest. In the majority of cases Bulgarian soldiers and peasants gave themselves up to pillaging. At Vassilika, Agiaparaskevi, Apostola, Alihatzilar, Serres, Langada, Asvestohori, Baroritza, Tohanli, Karaburnu, Vardar, Doiran, and Salonica pillaging and thefts of all kinds were committed, the stolen articles including horses, goats, sheep, barley, hay, jewels, and other articles of value, large sums of money, carpets, furniture, clothes, and arms. Attac

the Bulgarians ardently desire the maintenance of the Balkan Alliance, es

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que of Sultan Selim on the left

nce to attempt to judge as to the truth of the Salonica events, but I quote this official charg