THE BALKANS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 18, 20 January 1913, Page 5

THE BALKANS.

WHOLESALE MASSACRES

(By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright (United Press Association.)

Vienna, January 18

The ‘Reichpost’ publishes details of the alleged massacre of twenty-five thousand Turks and Albanians by the

Servians since the outset of the war in the vilavet of Kossovo.

The ‘Reichpost’s’ statement is entitled “Servin’s Blood Guilt in Albania.” It details that a hundred out of a hundred and thirty-two wounded Albanians at Uskuh were allowed to die from starvation. The Servians admit that in a village where shots were fired after the white fiag had been used, the villagers, smoked out of their homes, came screaming and weeping, and were shot down, the adults bayonetted and women and girls above the age of twelve violated before the eyes of their fathers and husbands.

The Servians slaughtered twelve hundred Albanians at Ferisovitch, the entire population of Gillane, and live thousand at Pristina. The Servians at Prizrend entered the homeS of the inhabitants, slaying irrespective of age or sex, killing four hundred. They also destroyed three villages near Prizrend, shooting thirty headmen because they were favourable to Austria. The soldiers bound Albanian women together, forced them to dance in rings, and then fired their rifies, watching them fall one by one.

General Janovitch ordered the destruction of twenty-seven villages in the Ljuma district, where women and children were wrapped in straw and burnt alive.

Four hundred men who surrendered were shot in batches of forty.

THE POWERS’ NOTE

Paris, January IS

The Powers’ Note draws the attention of the Porte to the grave responsibility cast on her by resisting their counsels and presenting the reestablishment of peace. Turkey would only have itself to blame if the prolongation of hostilities involved the question of the fate of Constantinople and the extension of hostilities to Asiatic provinces. In such a contingency the Porte would be unable to count upon the Powers’ efforts to preserve it from danger against which it had already been warned. If it would consent to the cession of Adrianople and leave the question of the Aegean Islands to the Powers’ decision, the Powers would endeavour to assure the safeguarding of Mussulman interests in Adrianople, and exclude all menace of Turkey’s security in the settlement of the Aegean Islands.

TURKEY’S ANSWER

London, January 18

Reuter’s Constantinople correspondent says that the Porte’s draft reply insists on the retention of Adrianoplo, and declines to surrender the Aegean Islands near the coastf, but is ready to continue pourparlers regarding the more distant islands. ' Ildradounghian Pasha informed Reuter’s agent that the Government would not give way in regard to Adrianople. The Hamidieh, not the Merjidier, bombarded Syria.

PROTESTING AGAINST MASSACRES.

A number of Turkish Senators have memorialised King George and other Sovereigns, protesting against the Balkan massacres.

The Moslem League in London has addressed Sir Edward Grey, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, protesting against the massacres, and urging Britain not to press for the surrender of Adrianople, which was a holy sanctuary and the key to Constantinople. BULGARIA’S LOSSES. Sofia, January 18. The Bulgarian war losses are as follows : Men killed ... ... 21,018 Officers killed ... 284 Officers wounded ... 87G Men wounded ... 51,000 About 70 per cent, of the latter have recovered. Thirty-five thousand were stricken with cholera at Chataldja, and thirty thousand died.

ENGAGEMENT BY THE FLEETS

(Received 8.5 a.m.) Athens, January 19

The Turkish and'Greek fleets engaged in a two-hours’ fight southward of Tenedos. The former was damaged and retreated in disorder to the Dardanelles, being pursued by the Greeks.