THE WARS OF 1912-13
By 1912, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro had contrived, in
spite of any past quarrels, in spite of the mutual jealousies even then
being displayed in the recurring Macedonian massacres, of Christians by
Christians as well as by Turks, to arrive at a sufficient degree of
unity to allow them to make war jointly on Turkey. Bulgaria and Serbia
concluded an offensive and defensive alliance, arranging for all
contingencies and providing for the division of the spoils which it was
hoped to win from the Turks. Between Bulgaria and Greece there was no
such definite alliance, but a military convention only. The division of
the spoil after the war was left to future determination, both Greek and
Bulgarian probably having it clearly in his head that he would have all
his own way after the war or fight the issue out subsequently. A later
Punch cartoon put this peculiarity of a Balkan alliance with pretty
satire. Greece and Serbia were discussing what they should do with the
spoils they were then winning from Bulgaria. "Of course we shall fight
for them. Are we not allies?" said one of the partners.
I was through the war of 1912 as war correspondent for the London
_Morning Post_, and followed the fortunes of the main Bulgarian army in
the Thracian campaign. In this book I do not intend to attempt a history
of the war but will give some impressions of it which, whilst not
neglecting any of the chief facts in any part of the theatre of
operations, will naturally be mainly based on observations with the
Bulgarians.
First, with regard to the political side of the war, one could not but
be struck by the exceedingly careful preparation that the Bulgarians had
made for the struggle. It was no unexpected or sudden war. They had
known for some time that war was inevitable, having made up their minds
for a considerable time that the wrongs of their fellow-nationals in
Macedonia and Thrace would have to be righted by force of arms. Attempts
on the part of the Powers to enforce reforms in the Christian Provinces
of Turkey had, in the opinion of the Bulgars, been absolute failures,
and they had done their best to make them failures, wishing for a
destroyed Turkey not a reformed Turkey. In their opinion there was
nothing to hope for except armed intervention on their part against
Turkey. And, believing that, they had made most careful preparation
extending over several years for the struggle. That preparation was in
every sense admirable. For instance, it had extended, so far as I could
gather, from informants in Bulgaria, to this degree: that they formed
military camps in winter for the training of their troops. Thus they did
not train solely in the most favourable time of the year for manoeuvres,
but in the unfavourable weather too, in case that time should prove the
best for their war. The excellence of their artillery arm, and the proof
of the scientific training of their officers, prove to what extent their
training beforehand had gone.
When war became inevitable, the Balkan League having been formed, and
the time being ripe for the war, Bulgaria in particular, and the Balkan
States in general, were quite determined that war should be. The Turks
at this time were inclined to make reforms and concessions; they had an
inclination to ease the pressure on their Christian subjects in the
Christian provinces. Perhaps knowing--perhaps not knowing--that they
were unready for war themselves, but feeling that the Balkan States were
preparing for war, the Turks were undoubtedly willing to make great
concessions. But whatever concessions the Turks might have offered, war
would still have taken place. I do not think one need offer any harsh
criticism about the Balkan nations for coming to that decision. If you
have made your preparation for war--perhaps a very expensive
preparation, perhaps a preparation which has involved very great
commitments apart from expense--it is not reasonable to suppose that at
the last moment you will consent to desist from making that war. The
line which you may have been prepared to take before you made your
preparations you may not be prepared to take after the preparations have
been made. And, as the Turks found out afterwards, the terms which were
offered to them before the outbreak of the war were not the same terms
as would be listened to after that event.
To a pro-Turk it all will seem a little unscrupulous. But it is after
the true fashion of diplomacy or warlike enterprise. The simple position
was that Turkey was obviously a decadent Power; that her territories
were envied and that if there had not been a real grievance (there was a
real grievance) one would have been manufactured to justify a war of
spoliation. It not being necessary to manufacture a grievance, the
existing one was carefully nursed and stimulated: and when the ripe time
came for war the unreal pretext that war was the alternative to reform
and could be avoided by reform was put forward. No reform would have
stopped the war just as no "reform" would stop, say, San Marino
attacking the British Empire if she wanted something which the British
Empire has got and felt that she could get it by an attack.
I do not think that the Balkan League would have withdrawn from the war
supposing the Turks before the outbreak of the war had offered autonomy
of the Christian provinces. I was informed in very high quarters, and I
believe profoundly, that if the Turks had offered so much at that time
the war would still have taken place.
There is another interesting lesson to be gleaned from the political
side of this war. At the outset, the Powers, when endeavouring to
prevent hostilities, made an announcement that, whatever the result of
the war, no territorial benefit would be allowed to any of the
participants; that is to say, the Balkan States were informed, on the
authority of all Europe, that if they did go to war, and if they won
victories they would be allowed no fruits from those victories. The
Balkan States recognised, as I think all sensible people must recognise,
that a victorious army makes its own laws. They treated this _caveat_
which was issued by the Powers of Europe as a matter to be politely set
aside; and ignored it.
Political experience seems to show that if a nation, under any
circumstances, wishes its international rights to be respected, it must
be ready to fight for them. There is proof from contemporary history in
the respective fates of Switzerland and Korea. Both nations once stood
in very much the same position internationally; that their independence
was, in a sense, guaranteed. Korea's independence was guaranteed by both
the United States and Great Britain. But the independence of Korea has
now vanished. Korea could not fight for herself, and nobody was going to
fight for a nation which could not fight for herself. The independence
of Switzerland is maintained because Switzerland would be a very thorny
problem for any Power in search of territory to tackle. In case of an
attack on Switzerland, that country would be able to help herself and
her friends.
On the opposite side of the argument, we see the Balkan League entering
upon a desperate war, warned that they would be allowed no territorial
advantage from that war, but engaging upon it because they recognised
that a victorious army makes its own laws.
It was of wonderful value to the Bulgarian generals entering upon this
war that the whole Bulgarian nation was filled with the martial
spirit--was, in a sense, wrapped up in the colours. Every male Bulgarian
citizen was trained to the use of arms. Every Bulgarian citizen of
fighting age was engaged either at the front or on the lines of
communication. Before the war, every Bulgarian man, being a soldier, was
under a soldier's honour; and the preliminaries of the war, the
preparations for mobilisation in particular, were carried out with a
degree of secrecy that, I think, astonished every Court and every
Military Department in Europe. The secret was so well kept that one of
the diplomatists in Roumania left for a holiday three days before the
declaration of war, feeling certain that there was to be no war.
Bulgaria is not governed altogether autocratically, but is a very free
democracy in some respects. It has a newspaper Press that, on ordinary
matters, for delightful irresponsibility, might be matched in London.
Yet not a single whisper of what the nation was designing and planning
leaked abroad. Because the whole nation was a soldier, and the whole
nation was under a soldier's honour, secrecy could be kept. No one
abroad knew anything, either from the babbling of "Pro-Turks," or from
the newspapers, that a great campaign was being designed.
[Illustration: _Topical Press_
BULGARIAN TROOPS LEAVING SOFIA]
The Secret Service of Bulgaria before the war evidently had been
excellent. They seemed to know all that was necessary to know about the
country in which they were going to fight. This very complete knowledge
of theirs was in part responsible for the arrangements which were made
between the Balkan Allies for carrying on the war. The Bulgarian people
had made up their minds to do the lion's share of the work, and to have
the lion's share of the spoils. They knew quite definitely the state of
corruption to which the Turkish nation had come. When I reached Sofia,
the Bulgarians told me they were going to be in Constantinople three
weeks after the declaration of war. That was the view that they took of
the possibilities of the campaign. And they kept their programme as far
as Chatalja fairly closely.
The view of the Bulgarians as to the ultimate result of the war, and
what they had designed should be the division of spoil after the war, I
gathered from various classes in Bulgaria, speaking not only with
politicians but with bankers, trading people, and others. They concluded
that the Turk was going to be driven out of Europe, at any rate, as far
as Constantinople. They considered that Constantinople was too great a
prize for the Bulgarian nation, or for the Balkan States, and that
Constantinople would be left as an international city, to be governed by
a commission of the Great Powers. Bulgaria was, then, to have
practically all Turkey-in-Europe--the province of Thrace, and a large
part of Macedonia as far as the city of Salonica. Constantinople was to
be left, with a small territory, as an international city, and the
Bulgarian boundary was to stretch as far as Salonica. Salonica, they
admitted, was desired very much by the Bulgarians, and also very much by
the Greeks; and the Bulgarian idea in regard to Salonica before the war
was that it would be best to make it a free Balkan city, governed by all
the Balkan States in common, and a free port for all the Balkan States.
Then the frontier of Greece was to extend very much to the north, and
Greece was to be allowed all the Aegean Islands. The Serbian frontier
was to extend to the eastward and the southward, and what is now the
autonomous province of Albania (the creation of which has been insisted
on by the Powers) was to be divided between Montenegro and Servia.
That division would have left the Bulgarians with the greatest spoil of
the war. They would have had entry on to the Sea of Marmora; they would
have controlled, perhaps, one side of the Dardanelles (but I believe
they thought that the Dardanelles might also be left to a commission of
the Powers). It needed great confidence and exact knowledge as to the
state of the Turkish Army to allow plans of that sort to have been not
only formed, but to be generally talked about.
It must be tragical now for a patriotic Bulgarian to compare these high
anticipations with the actual results of the war, and to reflect that at
one time he had three-fourths of his hopes secure and then sacrificed
all by straining after the remainder.
The Bulgarian mobilisation--effected after lengthy preparation with
perfect success and complete secrecy--was a triumph of military
achievement. It emphasises a point often urged, that when a whole nation
is wrapt up in the colours, when every citizen is a soldier and taught
the code of patriotic honour of the soldier--then at a time of crisis,
spies, grumblers, critics are impossible. Bulgaria, as I have said, is
very democratic. Unlike Roumania, where a landed aristocracy survived
Turkish rule, the whole nation is of peasants or the sons and grandsons
of peasants. The nobles, the wealthy, the intellectuals were
exterminated by the Turk. Yet the strategy of the war suffered nothing
from the democracy of the people. They acted with a unity, a secrecy,
and a loyalty to the flag that no despotism could rival.
The mobilisation was effected on very slender resources. Official
statistics--perhaps for a reason--are silent regarding the growth of
railway material since 1909. But in that year there were only 155
locomotives in the country. As soon as war was anticipated these
provident and determined people set to amassing railway material, and
one railway official, without giving exact figures, talked of
locomotives being added by "fifties" at a time. I doubt that. But
perhaps there were between 200 and 225 locomotives in Bulgaria in
October 1912, though one military attaché gave me the figure at 193. It
was a slender stock, in any case, on which to move 350,000 men and to
keep them in supplies. But the people contributed all their horses,
mules, and oxen to the war fund. Soldiers were willing and able to walk
great distances, and within a few days all the armies were over the
frontier.
The Bulgarians, by the way, began the war with a _moratorium_. (The week
of the declaration of hostilities, meeting some personages notable in
European finance, they ridiculed for this reason the idea of the war
being anything but a dismal failure from the point of view of the Balkan
States.) It was necessary to win in a hurry if they were to win at all.
They could take the field only because of the magnificent spirit of
their population. They could not keep the field indefinitely under any
circumstances.
The main line of communication was through Yamboli, and here the chief
force was massed whilst exploratory work was carried on towards
Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse. I believe that originally the capture of
Adrianople was the first grand object of the campaign, and that a
modification was made later either for political or military reasons, or
for a mixture of both. Up to the point at which Adrianople was invested
from the north, Kirk Kilisse captured, and the cavalry sent raiding
south-west to attack the Turk's lines of communication and to feel for
his field army, an excellent plan of campaign was followed. If the main
Bulgarian army had then swung over from Kirk Kilisse and had made a
resolute--and, under the circumstances, almost certainly
victorious--effort to rush Adrianople the natural course, from a
military point of view, would have been followed. The one risk involved
was that the Turkish field army would come up from the south and force a
battle under the walls of Adrianople, aided by a sortie from the
garrison. But the experience of Kirk Kilisse and the following battles
argued against this. There would have been, one may judge, ample time
allowed to subdue Adrianople with an army flushed by its success at Kirk
Kilisse, operating against a garrison thoroughly despondent at the
moment.
Kirk Kilisse, it must be noted in passing, was a vastly overrated
fortress. The Turks, I believe, valued it highly. The Bulgarians
triumphantly quoted a German opinion that it could withstand a German
army for three months. As a matter of fact, whilst it was a valuable
base for an enterprising field army, surrounded as it was by natural
features of great strength, it was not a real fortress at all. Still,
the moral effect of its capture was great, and on the flood of that
success the Bulgarian army could have entered Adrianople if it had been
willing to make the necessary great sacrifice of infantry.
A second sound--and more enterprising, and therefore probably better
course--was that which I thought at the time was being followed, to
pursue the Turks fleeing from Kirk Kilisse, to search out their field
army, give it a thrashing, and then swing back to subdue Adrianople. But
neither of these courses was followed. Kirk Kilisse was not followed up
vigorously in the first instance. After its capture the Bulgarian army
rested three days. During that time the fleeing Turks had won back some
of their courage, had come back in their tracks, recovered many of the
guns they had abandoned, and the battles of Ivankeui and Yanina--battles
in which the Bulgarian losses were very heavy--were necessary to do over
again work which had been already once accomplished. This criticism must
be read in the light of the fact that I am totally ignorant of the
transport position in the Bulgarian Third Army at the time. General
Demetrieff had made a wonderful dash over the wild country between
Yamboli and Kirk Kilisse, carrying an army over a track which took a
military attaché six days to traverse on horseback, and a hospital train
seven days to traverse by ox wagon. He might at the time have been
seriously short of ammunition, though Kirk Kilisse renewed his food and
forage supplies.
After three days the Bulgarians moved on. Ivankeui and Yanina were won,
and the pursuit continued until Lule Burgas, where the Turkish army in
the field was decisively defeated and driven with great slaughter
towards Chorlu, where its second stand was expected. That expectation
was not realised. The flight continued to Chatalja. This was the
turning-point of the campaign. Up to now the Bulgarian success had been
complete. If now Adrianople had been made the main objective, with a
small "holding" force left at Chorlu, the entry into Constantinople
would possibly have been realised. But the decision was made to "mask"
Adrianople and to push on with all available force towards
Constantinople.
In considering this decision it is easy to be misled by giving
Adrianople merely the value of a fortress in the rear, holding a
garrison capable of some offensive, necessitating the detachment of a
large holding force. But that was not the position. Actually Adrianople
straddled the only practical line of communication for effective
operations against the enemy's capital. The railway from Bulgaria to
Constantinople passed through Adrianople. Excepting that line of
railway, there was no other railroad, and there was no other carriage
road, one might say, for the Turk did not build roads. Once across the
Turkish frontier there were tracks, not roads.
[Illustration: GENERAL DEMETRIEFF, THE CONQUEROR AT LULE BURGAS]
The effect of leaving Adrianople in the hands of the enemy was that
supplies for the army in the field coming from Bulgaria could travel by
one of two routes. They could come through Yamboli to Kirk Kilisse, or
they could come through Novi Zagora to Mustapha Pasha by railway, and
then to Kirk Kilisse around Adrianople. From Kirk Kilisse to the
rail-head at Seleniki, close to Chatalja, they could come not by
railway, but by a tramway, a very limited railway. If Adrianople had
fallen, the railway would have been open. The Bulgarian railway services
had, I think, something over 100 powerful locomotives at the outset of
the war, and whilst it was a single line in places, it was an effective
line right down to as near Constantinople as they could get.
But, Adrianople being in the hands of the enemy, supplies coming from
Yamboli had to travel to Kirk Kilisse by track, mostly by bullock wagon,
and that journey took five, six, or seven days. The British Army Medical
Detachment, travelling over that road, took seven days. If one took the
other road you got to Mustapha Pasha comfortably by railway. And then it
was necessary to use bullock or horse transport from Mustapha Pasha to
Kirk Kilisse. That journey I took twice; once with an ox wagon, and
afterwards with a set of fast horses, and the least period for that
journey was five days. From Kirk Kilisse there was a line of light
railway joining the main line. But on that line the Bulgarians had only
six engines, and, I think, thirty-two carriages; so that, for practical
purposes, the railway was of very little use indeed past Mustapha Pasha.
Whilst Adrianople was in the hands of the enemy, the Bulgarians had
practically no line of communication.
My reason for believing that it was not the original plan of the
generals to leave Adrianople "masked" is, that in the first instance I
have a high opinion of the generals, and I do not think they could have
designed that; but think rather it was forced upon them by the
politicians saying, "We must hurry through, we must attempt something,
no matter how desperate it is, something decisive." In the second
instance, after Adrianople had been attacked in a very half-hearted way,
and after the main Bulgarian army had pushed on to the lines of
Chatalja, the Bulgarians called in the aid of a Serbian division to help
them against Adrianople. I am sure they would not have done that if it
had not been their wish to subdue Adrianople. To be forced to invoke
Serbian aid was a serious wound to their vanity.
The position of the Bulgarian army on the lines of Chatalja, with
Adrianople in the hands of the enemy, was this: that it took practically
their whole transport facilities to keep the army supplied with food,
and there was no possibility of keeping the army properly supplied with
ammunition. So if the Bulgarian generals had really designed to carry
the lines of Chatalja without first attacking Adrianople, they
miscalculated seriously. But I do not think they did; I think it was a
plan forced upon them by political authority, feeling that the war must
be pushed to a conclusion somehow. Why the Bulgarians did not take
Adrianople quickly in the first place is to be explained simply by the
fact that they could not. But if their train of sappers had been of the
same kind of stuff as their field artillery, they could have taken
Adrianople in the first week of the war. The Bulgarians, however, had no
effective siege train. A Press photographer at Mustapha Pasha was very
much annoyed because photographs he had taken of guns passing through
the town were not allowed to be sent through to his paper. He sent a
humorous message to his editor, that he could not send photographs of
guns, "it being a military secret that the Bulgarians had any guns." But
the reason the Bulgarians did not want photographs taken was that these
guns were practically useless for the purpose for which they were
intended.
In short, whilst Adrianople stood it was impossible to keep 250,000 men
in the field at Chatalja with the guns and ammunition necessary for
their work. Therefore the taking of Adrianople should have followed the
Battle of Lule Burgas.
A reservation is perhaps necessary. If after Lule Burgas the victorious
Bulgarians had been able to push on at once, the fleeing Turks might
have been followed to the very walls of Constantinople. If even the
flower of the force to the extent of 50,000 men had gone on with all the
guns, ammunition, and food possible, the enterprise would probably have
succeeded. But one may judge that that too was impossible, in view of
the transport position. There was a long pause. Then an attempt was made
to do deliberately against an entrenched army what it was thought
impossible to do against a fleeing rabble. Reasons of humanity were
given to me to explain the hesitation to assault Adrianople. The
Bulgarians shrank from the great expenditure of men necessary, from the
sacrifice of the Christian population involved. Such reasons would be
admirable if truthful; but they are not war.
When the action against the lines of Chatalja was at last opened the
Turks had had time to entrench strongly, to recover their wind, to
recognise that they had come to the last ditch. On November 17, after
the artillery reconnaissance of the position by the Bulgarians, I had
slight hope that success would be possible; it looked as if they were
short of ammunition, and not well supplied with food. Shells were used
very sparingly. When a storm was necessary there was a shower. Even on
that day infantrymen were asked to do the work of shrapnel, and valuable
lives paid for very slight information. Still, the Turkish artillery
work was so poor; their sticking to their trenches was so persistent,
that I half anticipated that the night would see a big Bulgarian
success on the left flank, making an effective attack on the centre
possible with the morning. But by next morning little had been done.
That day was spent in a heroic display of infantry courage. Men rushed
out from trenches against forts the strength of which was unknown, with
practically no artillery backing. Certainly the day was misty, and
artillery work could not have been properly effective. If the position
was--as I guess it was--that there was no adequate supply of ammunition,
the choice of the day was good. If it were possible to succeed with
infantry alone it would have been possible on that day and with those
men. But it was impossible. That night operations were suspended, and
negotiations for peace followed.
Meanwhile in other quarters of the theatre of war the Balkan Allies had
been doing as well or even better. True, the Montenegrins were not very
successful against Scutari (it did not fall until the second phase of
the war), and the Greeks had been held up at Janina. But the Serbians
had swept the Turks from Old Serbia and from Northern Macedonia in fine
style, and had carried through an expedition of great gallantry over the
mountains to the Adriatic. As the Bulgarians and Turks stood at bay on
opposite ranges of hills within 25 miles of Constantinople, all that was
left of Turkish territory in Europe was the little peninsula on which
Constantinople stood, the peninsula of Gallipoli, and the towns of
Adrianople, Scutari, and Janina. It was certainly high time for the Turk
to talk of peace.
War was now interrupted for a time to allow the Balkan Allies who had
shown themselves so gallant in war to show their mettle as statesmen and
negotiators. It is one of the established facts of history that warlike
prowess alone has never made a nation securely great. Within the Balkan
Peninsula that was made plain during the invasions of the Goths and the
Huns. There was now to be a melancholy modern proof. At the end of 1912
the Balkan States, united and victorious, were in the position to take
the Balkan Peninsula for themselves and keep out European interference
for the future. They had soon dissipated all this advantage with mutual
jealousies and blundering negotiations. Already, before the Peace
Conference had actually begun its work, charges and counter-charges of
atrocities were bandied about between Bulgar and Greek. A Greek
official account set forth the following accusations:
The detailed inquiry with regard to excesses and crimes committed
by the Bulgarian army shows that they constitute a cause for the
disturbances reported during the first days after the surrender of
Salonica. According to this inquiry, the excesses of the Bulgarians
can be divided into three categories: (1) damage to property; (2)
crimes against the life and honour of private persons, especially
Turks; and (3) offences--and these were the less frequent--due to
misconceived political interest. In the majority of cases Bulgarian
soldiers and peasants gave themselves up to pillaging. At
Vassilika, Agiaparaskevi, Apostola, Alihatzilar, Serres, Langada,
Asvestohori, Baroritza, Tohanli, Karaburnu, Vardar, Doiran, and
Salonica pillaging and thefts of all kinds were committed, the
stolen articles including horses, goats, sheep, barley, hay,
jewels, and other articles of value, large sums of money, carpets,
furniture, clothes, and arms. Attacks were made on Austrian
subjects, and the Austrian Consulate in consequence, lodged an
energetic protest. Unspeakable outrages were committed at Serres
and at the other towns and villages mentioned above. At Doiran,
despite the protests of the municipality, the Bulgarians seized and
imprisoned the rich Turkish residents, who after having secured
their liberty by the payment of enormous ransoms, were ambushed by
the Bulgarians and massacred, sixty of them being killed.
The political crimes were of little importance, as the greater
number of the Bulgarians ardently desire the maintenance of the
Balkan Alliance, especially a Greco-Bulgarian _entente_,
safeguarding their political interests.
[Illustration: _Exclusive News Agency_
ADRIANOPLE
A general view, showing the Mosque of Sultan Selim on the left and the
Old Mosque on the right]
On the Bulgarian side just as positive charges against the Greeks were
made. It is not my province to attempt to judge as to the truth of the
Salonica events, but I quote this official charge as illustrative of the
spirit which had come over the Balkan League before the close of 1912.