MODERN WARFARE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 72, 2 April 1913, Page 5

MODERN WARFARE.

THE FALL OF ADR!ANOPLE

GENERAL I VAN OFF’S CROWNING FEAT. [lsv Electric Telegraph—Copyright] [United Press Association.] London, April 1. Correspondents entering Adrianople describe as decisive the stomiing of the six forts regarded as the most formidable. They crowned a great ridge three miles eas’t'Nif Adrianople. Thence sixty guns had thundered for months.

General Ivanoff, during the armistice, discovered the vulnerable point at the north-east, where Aivastabia formed the apex, which could be bombarded from the north and east.

Eighty siege guns were secretly placed in position, cases of shells being conveyed at night time to the -ap pointed positions and hidden behind the reserve slopes, on the distant heights. Each waggon load acios, the pathless fields consisted of six rounds for the heavy guns, yet fifty thousand rounds wore thus patiently amassed for the casements and big batteries.

A general attack was ordered while General Ivanoff gathered 25,000 of a storming party behind the concealed batteries.

At the first glimpse of dawn the Bulgarians bounded to their feet uttering with superhuman yells “To the bayonet!” and hurling themselves forward. They crossed three wire entanglements and thick spiderwebs. When they reached the last barrier the Turks fled without resisting the stormers, who Captured the redoubtt and trenches for a mile in front oi Aviastahia.

■ Meanwhile the eighty cannon threw an avalanche of projectiles, making it impossible for tho forts on Aivastabia to reply. The walls crumbled. Adrianople, April 1.

Upon a front of two or three miles the fire of 160 guns was concentrated. Each shell contained twenty pounds of melinite, and they fell in flights oi 15 to 20 at a time. The bombarded heights were invisible in the smoke and dust raised by a tempest of thirty thousand shells. the forts were silenced at 5 o’clock on Tuesday evening, but the bombardment continued all night, while the infantry crept up to Aivastabia, which was only capable of being stoimed on the south-east. Its capture rendered 1 the whole eastern position untenable.

An examination shows that Aivastabifl, i -is merely, ybnekwook; The much-vaunted fortresses of Adrianople are miserable; primitive the casemates are of brick, with a slight surface of earth, the gun emplacements being hollowed soil. There is not a cement wall, no protecting works, fosses, scarps or counter-scarps and the guns are fairly old; hence the modern fortifications of Adrianople are another Turkish myth, * y , There was an insufficiency of big guns, and the Turks moved them to the points that were attacked, thus securing superiority of gun fire. General Ivanoff’s general assault stopped the, trick. The inhabitants were found to he in perfect health, and the troops were well fed. Chukri Pasha maintained the men’s courage with daily bulletins of victories at the chief points in the Balkans, and with- reports of war between the Greeks and Bulgarians, and of :> general Turkish advance. A QUESTION OF THE HONORS. (Received ,9.45 a.m.) There is a sharp controversy between the Servians and Bulgarians respecting the honors of capturing Adrianople, especially in regard to the capture of Chukri Pasha. The latest phase is detailed in a semi-official statement from Sofia disproving Servians claims. BRILLIANT TURKISH VICTORY.

English correspondents at Haderakeni assert there was a brilliant Turkish victory at Chataldja on Saturday. The Bulgarians drove the wedge into the Turkish line occupying a steep hill. The Turks eventually routed the Bulgarians at the point of the bayonet and reoccupied the hill. Four thousand Bulgarians were killed and wounded.