The War in the Balkans

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 125, 14 October 1912, Page 5

The War in the Balkans

THE MONTENEGRIN LOSSES. By Gable—Press Association —Copyright. Received 14, 12.50 a.m. Podgoritza, October 13. The Montenegrins lost 120 killed and 400 wounded at Detschitch.

FOURTEEN HOURS' FIGHTING. THE FIRST CLASH. HEAVY LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES. CONFLICTING REPORTS. Cettinje, October 11. After fourteen hours' fighting the Montenegrins captured the fort dominating Tuzi, thus opening the road to Scutari. General Martinovics then crossed the Bojana and captured some block-houses near Scutari.

The Malissori assisted the Montenegrins, the latter advancing. The losseslon both sides were heavy. London, October 11.

The Belgrade correspondent of the Daily Chronicle says that the Montenegrins have occupied Berane. There are 18 Turkish battalions l on the left bank of the River Linn, and it is reported they are isolated. Telegrams from Constantinople announce a Montenegrin defeat at Berane. The Daily Mail's Serajevo (Bosnia) correspondent says that field guns were heard at Fotcha on the Bosnian frontier.

■ There is a belief that a Turkish victory at Berane will be officially announced, and also the reoccupation of the heights of Gusinye.

FURTHER DETAILS. KING NICHOLAS AT THE FRONT. MONTENEGRINS CAPTURE A FORT. Received 13. 5.5 p.m. Podgoritza, October 12. Fighting on Friday was general along the whole frontier.

General Martinovieh, in command of a, division of the Montenegrin army, attacked a strong fortress at Tarabosch, /Which dominates Scutari. Six thousand • Malissori attacked the Turks simultaneously in the rear. King Nicholas led a night attack, and captured Foil Rojane and Baranga Island. The latter is like a hill on the plain, and was equipped with big guns. The fire of these was ill-directed. The Turks retreated, but were unable to destroy the bridge. London, October 12. The report of the Montenegrin occupation of Bijlopolije is considered incompatible with the Constantinople report of a Turkish victory at Berane. Reports received in London state that the Montenegrins have only taken the outlying forts at Berane.

BULGARIANS ACTIVE. SERVIANS READY FOR THE FRAY. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. London, October 12. Bulgarian bunds blew up two bridges between Islitib and Kocliana. Mr. Bennett Burleigh, the well-known correspondent, reports from Sofia that there are abundant transports, including horses, navy cyclists and a field telegraph system complete. A BIG CONCERTED MOVEMENT. SERBS ENVELOPING FRONTIER. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. Belgrade, October 12. iServia's left army is concentrating on Baribod and co-operating with the Bui-1 garian central army, concentrating on' Nish, against Uskub. The right army is! at Kraljevo, against Novibazar. . THE ITALIAN FLEET. SERVIA'S MOBILISATION. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. Rome, October 12. • The first squadron has been ordered to be in readiness to proceed to the Aegean Sea. London, October 12. Military experts attribute the delay in Servia's mobilisation to the heavy rains and a desire to give Greece time to get the cruiser Chanibo and her destroyers out of Britiish waters. '•WHAT WE TAKE, WE KEEP." SERVIA'S DEFIANCE. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. Belgrade, October 12. 1 Several members of the SkupstcMna, interviewed, declared: "No matter what the Powers desire, we go ahead. What we take we keep, even if Austria does not recognise territorial changes." AUSTRIA'S ACTIVITY. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. Paris, October 12. The newspapers contend that Austria's activity shows her intention to peremptorily intervene if Servia bars the route to Salonika. Le Matin declares that the Powers are discussing the formulation of a clearer joint proposal.

The Powers' Note Ignored. Peace Prospects Less Hopeful Guerilla Warfare.

THE POWERS' NOTE. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. London, October 32. The Porte has deferred examination of the Powers' Note regarding the Balkans till Sunday.

GREECE'S ATTITUDE. THE RED CROSS LEAGUE. Berlin, October 11. The Frankfurter Zeitung states that as the result of negotiations Greece has been induced to abandon the Bulgarian alliance, and will demobolise immediately. Received 13, 5.5 p.m. Athens, October 12. The newspapeis indignantly deny that I Greece is quitting. The League of the British Red Cross, of which Queen Alexandra is president, has offered assistance to all belligerents.

BULGARIA'S ATTITUDE. A BIG WAR CHEST. Sofia, October 11. ■ M. Gueschoff, president of the Buljgarian Council, interviewed, said: "'The impending war is appalling, but it is the ransom we are going to pay for the freedom of our Christian brethren." j The Minister of Finance states that Bulgaria has a war chest of £4,000,000, [and therefore without risk can issue £12,000,000 of paper money.

TURKISH MOBILISATION. A HUGE ARMY. Constantinople, October 11. Mobilisation is proceeding rapidly and smoothly. Nazim Pasha has been placed in supreme command. It is estimated that a week hence 140,000 Anatolian troops will be concentrated in European Turkey, making a total of 400,000 men. Guns and ammunition are being poured into the district between Adrianople and Kirkili'sse behind a chain of foTts, devised by the German expert, General von der Goltz, in 1909. The Turks have armed the Pomaki Bulgarians, who, under Ahmed Agsa, were responsible for the Batak massacre in 1877.

The Porte, by enrolling students in the army, has silenced a troublesome element.,

TURKISH MOBILISATION. Constantinople, October 12. The Sultan has proclaimed a general mobilisation. He exhorts the Turks to emulate their brethren in Tripoli and repel the enemies seeking to snatch their patrimony. VARIOUS ITEMS. Cettinje, October 11. Princess Alice has started for the frontier with a number of nurses. Sofia, October 11. Five airmen have joined the army. Paris, October 11. Baron Destournelles 'de Constant, in an open letter to King Nicholas, dc- ' nounces his declaration of war, and warns him that he will risk the censure of the civilised world. London, October 11. The Chinese cruiser Chambo, which j is under construction at the Elswick yards, and for which Turkey was also bidding, has been sold to Greece. A telegram from Novibazar (Bosnia) says that the leave of Austrian officers has been suspended. The Telegraph's Belgrade (Servia) correspondent states that Bashi-Bazouks burned three villages on Monday and attacked the monastery at Vratchevo. ,The villagers went to help the monks, and many were killed and wounded. } Reuter's Athens correspondent reports that the Crown Prince has been appointed Commander-in-Chief in Thessaly, and is expected to join the troops to-morrow. Vienna, October 11. Austria has informed the Porte of the garrisons of Bosnit being reinforced, inasmuch as Montenegro has brought the theatre of hostilities near Austrian territory. Servian insurgents burntd the barracks at Berane, killed some soldiers, and captured 80, whom they handed to Montenegro. THE SHARE MARKET. London, October 12. Heavy selling orders from the Conti nent have depressed the Stock Exchange. There is a general relapse in prices. THE POWERS' NOTE. TOO VAGUE AND TOO LATE. Received 14. 12.25 a.m. Sofia, October 13. It is understood that the Cabinet will reply to the Powers that their representations are too vague and too late. TURKISH BARBARITIES. WHAT MONTEXBGRO HAS SUFFERED. A striking account of recent events on the Montenegrin frontier is <nven by the Manchester Guardian's special correspondent in a despatch from Andrijevitza

(Montenegro) under date of August 22. The correspondent states:— The reports of Turkish doings jiist beyond the frontier being very contradictory and incoherent, I hastened as near to the scene of action as possible, and arrived at the Montenegrin border town of Andrijevitza last night. By the refugees and the wounded, of whom sixty have been brought in here, a detailed and most vivid account has been given me of the terrible events of the past week.

They are all Serbs by race, and form part of the large Vasojevitch tribe, the oilier part of which is Montenegrin and lives in and around Andrijevitza. The report at first spread—that the affair originated in a quarrel with the Moslem Albanians over some burnt crops—is wholly denied by the refugees here. They relate that all was quiet, that no more than the usual difficulties under which all Christian subjects of the Turks suffer were taking place, when suddenly and with no warning, on the night of August 14-15, the Turkish Nizams fell on the village of Urzhanitza, near iterane, and, rushing into the houses, began a search for arms. They began throwing the garments out of the clothes chests and demanding weapons. As tin wretched Christians possessed very few a terrible scene of slaughter followed. One woman—now in the hospital here—was ordered bv the soldiers to leave her house, and was shot in the back as she fled. In all seventeen women and young children in this village were, killed. One baby of seven months was taken from the cradle and shockingly mutilated. It is in the hospital here. Its father was killed; its mother violated and killed. Its little brother hid in a heap of hay and escaped unhurt. In the same village a man, Suro, his brother, and his nephew were all killed in their beds, so sudden was the attack. Their heads were cut off and carried on a tnreeforked branch into Berane, where four other heads were likewise taken. FIRE AND SLAUGHTER.

Several other villages were attacked, and the refugees appealed to their relatives in Montenegro to eoiife to their rescue and that of the other Serb villages, but just as the relief expedition was about to start news came from Cettinje that all the Ministers of all the Great Powers had given stringent orders that the status quo was to be maintained. And maintained it has been. For a whole week the burning and massacring has continued. Twelve Christian villages have been burnt, reckoned roughly at 1500 houses in all. As the upper floor and roof of all houses in these parts is of timber this means that they are almost completely destroyed. The number of deaths cannot yet be correctly estimated. Up to to-day GO wounded have been brought in here over the border! A woman, wounded by shrapnel, told the ■writer that she knew that 15 women and children of her village had been killed. How many more she could not say: she believed many. That this destruction was worked by Turkish regulars is proved by the fact that artillery was freely used. All the refugees and wounded agree in stating that although there were some Moslem Albanians with the troops, as Bashibazouks, it was not an Albanian attack. Thirty women and children have been taken prisoners, and their relatives are in great anxiety as to their possible fate. The report that was spread at the beginning, possibly by the Turkish authorities, that the Christians had destroyed two 'Moslem villages, is untrue. The two villages named were both Christian. The Christians, however, succeeded in rushing and burning several Turkish block-houses on the extreme frontier and driving the Nizams into Montenegro.

PEASANTS SHOT IN THE FIELD. The question of these frontier blockhouses is very serious. For the past four years the Asiatic soldiers stationed in them have been a constant danger to the Montenegrin villages on the border. The Nizams 'have been in the habit of firing from their loopholes, merely for amusement, at the houses, which are of wood. Unfortunate peasants liave been killed at their own fireside, the bullets passing clean through the wooden walls. In some instances these blockhouses are within a few 'hundred metres only of the nearest villages, which are thus an easy mark for long-range rifles—so easy that the Nizams amuse themselves by shooting also at hens and sheep. A favorite pastime is firing at peasants who are reaping corn or otherwise at work in the fields. Small wonder that these border peasants pray most earnestly that if .the Great Powers wish to maintain the Turk in Europe they will take some steps to preserve the lives and property of those who live under and near to liini.

WHAT BULGARIA WANTS. WAR PARTY'S REASONS. There is nothing in the behaviour of this sunny little capital of Bulgaria, lying in the plain at the foot of the steep wood-covered slopes of Mount Vitocha, to show that over it hangs the shadow of war (wrote the Daily Mail's correspondent at Sofia early last month). Yet Bulgaria is very near to war with Turkey, nearer than she has been for many of these last eventful years—and that means very close indeed.

The Bulgarians are talking about war openly and eagerly—at the tables outside the "Casino," in the leafy public garden of the little town; on the stone verandah of the Military Club, where stalwart officers in white linen tunics and blue breeches sit in the afternoon; in the manoeuvre camp on the road to Knyajero. And they talk not excitedly and sentimentally, but in a calm, calculated, determined way that is much more impressive.

If a referendum, of Bulgaria could be taken at the present moment tliree Bulgarian Army Corps would be attacking the fortifications that guard Adrianople twenty-four hours after mobilisation was complete, and they say they can mobilise in five days.

The massacre of 18(i Bulgarian Macedonians at Kotehana on August 1 inflamed the Bulgarian nation. A clamor is raised for a "war of liberation," with the aim of annexing to the new Bulgarian Crown the whole of the northern parts of Macedonia, inhabited by Bulgarian subjects of Turkey. The present Bulgarian Government is disturbed by this pressure of public, opinion. It is Conservative, and would keep the peace. Also it sees clearly that such a knighterrant adventure might cripple the new kingdom, already heavily in debt, and that even were it successful the fruits of victory might be snatched away by an intervention by the Powers.

Can the Bulgarian Government resist the popular demand for war with Turkey? The next three weeks will answer the question and decide the issue of war or peace in tile Balkans. Summarised, the Bulgarian ease is this: "Europe was deceived in its belief that the Young Turks were sincere in their promises of equality to the subject races of their Empire. Their idea of equality w».« the 'Tiirkincaiion' of the subject races by destroying I heir national institutions, by abolishing their languages, by murdering their leaders, and dragooning the rest. This is the policy they are still following towards the Macedonian Bulgarians, and it is th» duty of Bulgaria, who has won her own freedom, to sacrifice herself, if necessary, in the attempt to .fi'ee her countrymen who are still under Turkish rule, and to bring this Bulgaria irredenta beneath her own national flag "

On the other hand, an Ottoman statesman will assure you that the condition of the Macedonian Bulgarians is due to a campaign of pan-Bulgarianism, relentlessly carried on, even at the expense of suffering to the people of that race. "The Macedonian Internal Organisation," it is said, "deliberately provokes harsh treatment for the Bulgarians in Macedonia, in order to move the Powers to transfer them and their territory to Bulgarian rule. The revolutionaries commit bomb outrages to incite the Turks to massacre Bulgarian peasants, who by their deaths purchase European sympathy for the survivors." Turkish reforms in Macedonia are frustrated by the determination of Bulgaria that there shall be no peace in Macedonia till Macedonia is hers.

There are the two points of view. Meanwhile, who ever's the fault may be, the Bulgarian peasant continues to be murdered singly or en masse.

AUSTRIA AND MONTENEGRO. AN ALLEGED SECRET TREATY.

A document of the highest importance at the present juncture is, according to the Temps, published hy the Golos Moskvy (Voice of Moscow), a Moscow paper. The document is nothing less than the text of a secret treaty between Austria and Montenegro signed at Vienna on June 12, 1907, for a period of 20 years. Its chief provisions ara: (1) In case of war between Austria and Russia or Servia, Montenegro is to preserve strict neutrality. (2) In case of war between Austria and Turkey, Montenegro is to lend the former her assistance.

'(3) In case of war between Austria and Italy, Montenegro is to cede to the former the port of Antivari for temporary use in return for payment. (4) In case Montenegro is attacked by Turkey, Austria is to support Montenegro materially and diplomatically, and should Montenegro be defeated Austria guarantees her integrity and the restoration of the status quo ante bellum. (5) Montenegro undertakes not to protest against the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and not to enter into negotiations with any Power, especially Russia, Italy and Servia, without previously informing Austria. (fi) If a Balkan federation is realised under the protectorate of the Hapsburgs, Montenegro shall obtain a large measure of autonomy and an accession of territory by the addition of Herzegovina and northern Albania, from the Bay of Catfciro down to the river Drin.

(7) Austria is to make a yearly payment of 360,000 kronen ( £15,000) to tlie King of Montenegro, and guarantees the maintenance of liis dynasty.,