The Balkan Peninsula

1912 in illustration of phases of Balkan character, d

n the chief café there is displayed a great war map. Young soldiers not yet sent to the front l

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ecture, electric trams, and wood-blocked pavements. Near the railway station one side of a street is as the Turks left it and shows a row of hovels: the other side is occupied by a great school. The shops, because it is war-time and business is largely suspended, are mostly closed.

n to me, "they discover that swine fever has broken out in our country and stop our exports of pigs and bacon-our chief lines of export. What can we do? Once,

to obtain some bread, and five hungry correspondents in one carriage eat at it without enthusiasm, whilst in a corner sits a Serbian officer having a good meal of sausage and onions and bread. We make remarks, a little envious, a little jocose, in English, on his selfishness. "He is a greedy pig, anyhow," said one, putting the final cap on our grumbles. The Serbian officer had not betrayed by a smile or a frown that he understood but now in good En

e men marched away to the front; and the women of the house loaded up the surplus goods which they had in the house, and brought them for the use of the military authorities on the ox wagons, which also went to the military authorities to be used on requisition. A Bulgarian law, not one wh

ained in this way totalled in value some six million pounds. That represented the surplus goods, beyond those necessary for consumption by the Bulgarian people, at the outset of the war. The numbers of the Bulgarian people represent half the population of London. The peasant population is very poor. Their national existence dates back only half a century. But they are very frugal

ng but bread and water. The water, unfortunately, he took wherever he could get it, by the side of the route at any stream he could find. There was no attempt to ensure a pure water supply for the army. I do not think that, without that simplicity of commissariat, it would have been possible for the Bulgarian forces to have got as far as they did. There was an

id, the only thing that stuck to him during the war. The railway got choked, and even the horse failed, but the ox never failed. There were thousands of ox wagons crawling across the country. They do not walk, they crawl, like an insect, with an irresistible crawl. It reminds you of those armies of soldier ants which move across Africa, eating everything which they come across, and stopping at nothing. I had an ox wagon coming from Mustapha Pasha to Kirk Kilisse, and we went over the hills and down through the valleys, and stopped for nothing-we never had to unload once. And one could sleep in those ox wagons. Th

munition supply of the army at the front, which I suppose must number 250,000 to 300,000 men. That army has got right away fr

ll of night and the weariness of my horses have compelled me to halt at Arjenli, and this officer and Dr. Neytchef give me a warm welcome to their little mess. There are six members, and for all, to sleep and to eat, one room. Three are officers, three have no commissions. With this nation in arms that is not an objection to a common table. Discipline is strict, b

listed. He had become an American subject, I believe, and so could not be compelled to serve. In America he had learned to be an "International Socialist," and so he did not volunteer. I believe he was unique. With half the popu

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a serene and cheerful artillery officer. The past week had been one of hardship and horrors. From Chorlu the road was lined with the bodies of the Turkish dead, still awaiting burial. Entering the Bulgarian lines on their right flank that morning, I had tried in vain to succour a soldier dying of the choleraic dysentery whi

ding the ammunition wagons. He is given a patient hearing, is able to establish his innocence, and is allowed to go. There is no fe

ot was besieged by the peasants who had rushed in from their farms. The officer in charge could not give out the rifles, so the men lit fires, got food from the neighbours, and camped around the depot until they were armed. Some navvies received their mobilisation orders on returning to their camp after ten hours

ne she gave a cake. "They are hungry," she said. This woman had five men at the war-her four sons in the fighting line, her husband under arms guarding

ts and the intellectuals. It is not a war made by the politicians or the soldiers of the Staff. That would be impossible. In our nation every soldier is a citizen and every citizen a soldier. There could

trains were delayed. The men going to the front were decorated with flowers as though going to a feast. They filled the waiting time by dancing to the mu

ves and the stolid courage that come from tilling the soil, with the skill and the discipline that come from adequate training, with the fervent faith of a great patriotism. I have talked with Turki

N PEASA

village rang. The day was spent in artillery reconnaissance, the Bulgarian guns searching the Turkish entrenchments to discover their real strength. Only once during the day was the infantry employed; and then it was rather to take the place

ain up to the Turkish entrenchments. Once a fort was taken but had to be abandoned again. The result of the day's fighting is indecisive. The Bulgarian forces have driven in the Turkish right flank a little, but have effected nothing against the central positions which bar the

bitterly that in their otherwise fine organisation there has been one flaw, the medical service. Among this nation of peasant proprietors-sturdy, abstemious, moral, living in the main on whole-meal bread and water-illness was so rare that the medical service was but little regarded. Up to Chatalja confidence in the rude health of the peasants was justified. They passed through cold, hunger, fatigue, a

e abandoned. These peasant peoples of the Balkans have done wonderful things, but they have stumbled on one point-the want of knowledge of sa

to take the most elementary precautions against the outbreak of disease in the army. The medical service was almost as bad. I have seen much of the hospital work at Kirk Kilisse after the armistice; and it has been deplorable to see the fine

of a choleraic type; it had, as usual, a profound moral as well as physical effect. The courage of the men broke down before this vis

robable that their villages, inexpressibly filthy; the prisoners taken from the

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rom streams running through battle-fields, though a few feet away were swollen carcases. I have seen no attempt in the field at a proper latrine service. Some hundreds of thousands of peasant soldiers, accustomed to the simplest life on their own farms, were collected together and left practically without sanitary discipline. The details can be filled in without my setting them forth in print. There is on

sweet stuff, and, rarely, grilled meat or meat soup with vegetables. It is possible to judge that his alimentary tract differs widely from that of the Western European. I should say he was almost immune from enteric, unl

ence serious and unnecessary losses of wounded. Without seeking to pile up a record of horrors, I cite a few individual instances to illustrate bad methods. At the front, punctured bayonet wounds were closely bandaged-in some cases stitched up-without provision for irrigation, without even proper cleansing. This led to gangrene and often caused the sacrifice of a life or of a limb (which, to these peasants, was almost as great a lo

I record this criticism, and acknowledge that it is based on facts. Yet it may be urged on the other side that it was ultimately far more useful to have a model hospital to show how things should be done than to sacrifice that valuable lesson for the sake of striving to cope in rough-and-ready fashion with the flood of wounded. This hospital gives interesting proof that Great Britain is an Empire, not an island nation. I first encountered three of its doctors in a café. One was from the Mother Country, one from the West Indies, one an Australian friend, who set at once to talking of gum trees and of Melbourne University. Then a non-commission

were there trenches with overhead protection against howitzer fire. Except at the Chatalja lines and around Adrianople the trenches were, of course, intended to be of a very temporary use, and would naturally not be elaborate. Gun-pits and emplacements were usually fairly good. It was the custom to dig a pit, or to put up a little sod wall

ses of the nation's manhood. So far no lists of killed and wounded have been published. "The Mass at St. Sofia," which was the battle-cry of the first days of the war, is clearly not a possibility now. Some mystery attaches to the movements of the

grade is satisfied, but not over-elated. Across the Danube, a broad gloomy waste of dun waters under the winter mists, a division of the Austria

w. But generally tragic news is received stoically. Amid the congratulations on the results of the Allies' efforts there is an under-current of resolution to make a better bargain with Bulgaria than the ante bellum partition treaty proposed. Reports of envious and rude treatment of the Serbian army before Adrianople are curr

litely excuses the English for being such bad linguists. "For you English who have all the poetry, all the romance, all the science, all the philosophy a man may want i

nd Serbian, of course, are but differing dialects of Russian-a Russian can make himself understood in both tongues though he knows only Russian. But the grammar of one differs from that of the other, and many of the words are

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