Balkan War

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 161, 25 November 1912, Page 5

Balkan War

AN ADRTANOPLE SORTIE. A FURIOUS BOMBARDMENT. BULGARIANS FLANKING ON CONSTANTINOPLE. By Cable—Prsss Association—Copyright. Received 24, 5.5 p.m. ■ Sofia, November 23. The bombardment of Adrianople is proceeding furiously. Several positions have been captured. The Turks sortied on Wednesday, and attempted to recapture Fort Karataltje, but were repulsed, 350 being killed. The Bulgarians have occupied Dedegatch and Malgara, midway between Dedegateh an>l Rodosto, thus opening the way through the territory westward to Constantinople. It is untrue that the torpedoers were sunk, but they were slightly damaged. The newspaper Mir's Adrianople correspondent reports that the garrison made a general sortie at four o'clock on Friday morning, apparently for provisions, but were repulsed with heavy loss. Fighting continued all day. "MOST SEVERE BATTLE OF THE WAR." THE-SERVIANS AT MONASTIR.

Received 24, 5.5 p.m. Belgrade, November 23. Retreating from Monastir, the Turks made a stand near Lerm, but the Servian cavalrj routed them, capturing ten guns. . ~ The wounded from Monastir described the battle as the most severe of the war. Owing to the swampy ground the Servian artillery was unable to get into action in the early part of the engagement, the infantry sometimes being breast-deep in the water. Fethy-Pasha, commanding the Turks at Monastir, was killed prior to the capture of the town. The Servians identified his body, and buried it with full military honors. > The Servians have occupied Kesna, westward of Monastir. GREEKS PURSUING THE TURKS. HEAVY CAPTURE OF MUNITIONS. Received 24, 5.5 p.m. Athens, November 23. The Crown Prince reports that the cavalry are pursuing the enemy after the Fiorina battle. They have captured twenty guns and much war material. BOMBARDMENT OF SCUTARI. Received 24, 5.5 p.m. Cettinje, November 23. The bombardment of Scutari is proceeding continuously. Much damage has been done to the Mohammedan quarter.

Vienna, November 23,

Two Greek torpedoers searched the Austrian steamer Durazza, but Ismal Kamil had already landed.

TURKS EVACUATE A TOWN. Received 24, 5.5 p.m. Athens, November 23. The Consuls at Mytil'ene persuaded 7000 of the Turkish garrison to evacuate the town. Fifteen thousand Greeks thereupon disembarked, 1100 of them pursuing the Turks to the interior. NEGOTIATING AN ARMISTICE. POWERS' ADVTCE TO BULGARDL HOSTILITIES CONTINUE.

Received 24, 5.5 p.m. Sofia, November 23. Generals Daneff, Savon" and Fitcheff have gone to Chataldja to negotiate an armistice.

' The Towers have advised Bulgaria not to make the conditions too severe. Negotiations for peace continue, despite the present hostilities. A NARROW ESCAPE.

TURKISH COMMANDER IN-CHIEF NEARLY KILLED.

A SERVANT'S DEVOTION SAVES HIM.

Received 24, 5.5 p.m.

Constantinople, November 23,

Mukhtar Pasha, Commander-in-Chief, with his staff, were in the fighting line on Sunday, and were repeatedly begged to retire, but refused, later on riding to Lake Dukas. They passed Fort Pasbakativili, which they believed the Turkish garrison was in possession of. Suddenly, alarmed by the shouts of his staff, Mukhtar saw the black astrakans of the Bulgarians. The fort had been abandoned without Mukhtar Pasha's knowledge, and, wheeling round, the staff galloped to safety in the face of a heavy rifle fire. Mukhtar Pasha was wounded with two bullets, but a devoted bodyservant saved him. Practically all the staff were wounded. A new staff was sent for.

Mukhtar Pasha's third army corps, which have been uniformly courageous, have been successful, despite their hunger. After Kirk Kilissia they were, five flays without bread. NARROWING THE HELD OF CONFLICT. STATEMENT BY BRITISH PRIME MINISTER. Received 24, 5.5 p.m." s ' JisSfSS! ' London, November 23. Mr. Asquith, speaking at Nottingham, said that he was glad to repeat that the Powers were firmly co-operating with a view to circumscribing the field of possible conflict in connection with the Balkans trouble. Be added that there might be certain questions which, in the best interests of peace and ultimate stability,'might possibly be reserved and dealt with when the time came for a general definite settlement. OMINOUS SIGNS. AUSTRIA MOBILISING. GERMANY AND AUSTRIA CONFERRING. Received 24, 5.5 p.m. Vienna, November 23. While official circles regard the situation as stationary, the newspapers continue to fulminate against Russia. The semi-official paper, the Fremdin Blott, says that Austria does not desire to limit the political independence of the Balkan States, nor does she aspire to economic preference, but she does desire security for her State, and also to develop political and commercial relations by conventions which shall not exclude Servia's economic independence or prevent the other Balkan States participating. Austria must take care that her trade in the Levant is assured by a free route to Salonika. Austria is not adopting a conciliatory attitude towards Servia's approach to the Adriatic, so long as no sea-bound territorial acquisitions are involved. The Daily Mail's correspondent states that notwithstanding Count Berchtold's denial, mobilisation of certain of the arinv

corps is going on, while sentries have been doubled on five bridges over the river Danube. Small detachments have also< been drafted to Bosnia, whilst similar reinforcements have been made on the Russian frontier. Vienna, the correspondent adds, is excited over the rumors of Russian mobilisation. The Chronicle's correspondent reports that 300,000 men are massed round the Servian frontiers. General Schannta, chief of the Austrian general staff, visited Berlin and had a prolonged conference with Count Moltke. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is visiting the Kaiser, and is attending Court and a hunt at Hanover. The Kaiser's guests include Ilerr von Bethmann Hollweg, Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, Herr Kiderlen-Wechter, and the chief generals of the general army staff.

WARNING TO TURKEY. Paris, November 22. The Government has informed the Porte that it will hold it responsible for any massacre of Christians. A DASH TO THE ADRIATIC. Belgrade, November 22. The flying column whicli penetrated to the Adriatic encountered severe hardships. They had scanty rations, and the weather was bitterly cold. The horses and guns frequently sank three feet in the snow. Allessio yielded after four hours joint attack by the Montenegrins and Servians, who shelled the town. One thousand Turks and thirty officers surrendered. One thousand fled.

REPORTED BULGARIAN ATROCITY.

Athens, November 22,

Salonika newspapers report that Bulgarian officers, alleging that they had been insulted by the Turkish populace at Seres, ordered the troops to fire on the crowd. Five hundred people were killed and wounded. v

POLICY OF TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

Vienna, November 22.

As the result of a conference between Count Berehtold, Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the German and Italian Ambassadors, at BudaPesth, it is proposed that the Triple Alliance suggest to the other Powers a joint examination of the treaty for peace before its conclusion.

CONDITIONS OF PEACE

REJECTED BY TURKEY.

Constantinople, November 22. The conditions included the surrender of Adrianople, Scutari, Durazzo, Janina and Disra, and the evacuation of the Chataldja lines-. There 'was no mention of Constantinople. The Turks point out that the extreme conditions deprive them of the possibility of resuming hostilities in the event of the failure of. the claim. Turkey has not sunk to such impotence as compelled her to bind herself hand and foot.

A violent cannonade opened last evening.

' Rcuter's Sofia correspondent says that Cabinet is re-discussing the Turkish proposals. There are indications that the Bulgarians are more conciliatory, and will modify the conditions.

SERVIAN PRINCE WOUNDED. Belgrade, November '22. Prince Arsene was seriously wounded at Monastir.

TURKISH VESSEL DAMAGED.

Constantinople, November 22. The Hamidieh has arrived at Temo, down at the stem.

AEGEAN ISLAND OCCUPIED.

Athens, November 22. The Greeks have occupied the Island of Mitylene.

TURKISH COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, i NAZIM PASHA'S MISFORTUNES.

The Turkish Commander-in-Chief has an excellent record, and has seen plenty of the war service (writes a contributor to a Sydney journal). Hussein Nazim Pasha was born at Constantinople,'-and is sixty-four years of age. He received his military education at the famous French Military College at Saint Cyr, and when the Russo-Turkish war broke out in 1877 he distinguished himself so highly in the field that Redjeb Pasha made him his chief of staff. Later in life Nazim became imbued with Liberal principles, probably as a direct result of all that he saw during his residence in France, when he had plenty of opportunities of contrasting the liberty and security of life under the liberal institutions of France with the tyranny and oppression under which the population of Turkey groaned while Abdul Hamid sat upon the throne of an autocratic Sultan. Nazim Pasha suffered for his political opinions, and was imprisoned for five years in a fortress, after which he was exiled to Erzerum. But when the Young Turks came into power, and Abdul Hamid was deposed, the exiled officer returned and became the commander of the 2nd Army Corps at Adrianople. He has the reputation of being a fine soldier, and the demoralisation not only of the rank and file of the Turkish army, but also of the officers, must have sorely wounded his soldierly pride. It is a fine tribute to his courage that he still bids the nation hope for eventual victory. Hussein Nazim Pasha has leaned upon a broken reed in the Turkish army—which was reorganised by Ccrman military officers during the regime of Abdul Hamid—and the broken reed has not only pierced his hand, but has entered his soul also, if one may judge by his anguished cry at the "abominable" indiscipline and "cowardice" of both officers and men. Yet officers and men have been trained by German military instructors, and the positions which they were called upon to defend were in several instances—and notably at Kirk Kilisseh —laid out by German experts in field fortification. It would be rash to assume that the training was inefficient, and hence another cause for the defeat of the Turks must be looked for. Perhaps when the foreign military attaches who have observed the course of the campaign send in their reports it may be found that they will point to the incapacity of the individual Turkish officers, staff as well as regimental, as the chief cause of the Turkish downfall. It is plain that there must have been deplorable incapacity in the general stall', accentuated and emphasised, no doubt, by the usual Turkish maladminstration and corruption in the department of the Minister of War, to produce the total breakdown of supplies which has robbed the Turkish battalions of their traditional vigor and warlike spirit. It is part of the business of the general staff to see that the army is properly fed, and the Turkish general staff obviously failed to perform that duty. Starving men cannot fight, yet there is ample testimony that the men who served under Nazim Pasha were left for two days without food and were then called upon for a supreme effort to withstand the furious bayonet charges of the triumphant Bulgarians. It looks as though there was a, stage of the campaign at which the Turks, if they had not. had the heart taken out of them by starva-

tion, might have turned defeat into victory. The Turkisji soldier has always been patient under hardship. In the Russo-Turkish war he endured hunger, fatigue and deprivation of pay, cold, exposure and wounds, but he still fought on indomitably. In this present war it seems that lie has been conquered by famine as much as by the onset of the allied armies. For the price of a dinner to her soldiers, Turkey has thrown away an Empire.

A BISHOP'S VIEW. "WORSE THINGS THAN WAR." In a recent lecture Dr. Long, Anglican Bishop of Bathurst, New South Wales, expressed a wish that the Powers would not intervene in the present war in the Balkans, but allow the belligerents to fight it out. Following this, the Bishop was accused of taking up an unchristianlike attitude.

Dr. Long replied: "I am no lover of .war, but at the same time I hold that there are worse things than war, and that the condition of the peoples of the Balkans for the past 500 years has been worse than war, but as war is, I am prepared to welcome it to end a worse evil. Therefore I justify the Allies in their present effort to free their countries from « cruel oppression. The Congress of Paris actually handed over to the Turks a brave and independent country like Montenegro, which for 400 years had gallantly resisted this brutal enemy to their faith and country, and had never bowed to the -Moslem yoke. • Such was the cynically shameless reward that she got for her neutrality during the Crimean War. As a Power, though not as a people, England was unmoved by Mr. Gladstone's magnificent appeal for the massacred Bulgarians, and when Bulgaria was liberated by Russia, England was foremost in tearing up the Treaty of San Stefano, which gave nearly everything for which the Allies are now"fighting, and substituting for it the Treaty of Berlin, when Macedonia was again placed under the spiked heel of the Turk. England was quite ready to be gulled by the flambuoyant self praise of Lord Beaconsft'eld that he had brought back peace with honor. The honor was miserable dishonor, which the groans of the dying in renewed massacres were soon to prove, and the peace was like that of the false prophets of Beaconsfield's race, who cried peace when there was 110 peace. I gave my audience the opinion of Professor Vambcry, who is probably the first authority on the Tuvkisli question, and who is also a very friendly critic, that the greatest hope ot the reform of Turkey lies in her being deprived of the European elements, which are foreign to herself; and certainly the only hope of the Balkan nations lies in being rid ol the alien Turk. The Powers have wept their crocodile tears too often to impose upon anyone any longer. The Allies realise that lie who would be free must free himself. All honor to them, and all good success be theirs."