THE BULGARIAN SUCCESSES
While these movements were taking place in the west, the siege of Adrianople was vigorously pushed. It was completely surrounded by Bulgarian troops by the 29th, and its commander formally summoned to surrender the city. The besiegers, however, had great difficulties to overcome, the country around being inundated by the rivers Maretza and Arda in consequence of heavy rains. These floods at the same time impeded the movements of the Turks.
On October 31st, after another three-day fight, the Bulgarians achieved the great success of the war, defeating a Turkish army of 200,000 men. Only a fortnight had passed since Turkey declared war. The first week of the campaign closed with the dramatic fall of Kirk-Kilesseh, fully revealing for the first time the disorganization, bad morale and inefficient commissariat of the Turkish army. Ten days later that army was defeated and routed, within fifty miles from Constantinople, forcing it to retreat within the capital’s line of defenses.
Apparently Nazim Pasha had been completely outmaneuvered by Savoff’s generalship. The Bulgarian turning movement along the Black Sea coast appears to have been a feint, which induced the Turkish commander to throw his main army to the eastward, to such effect that the Bulgarian force on this side had the greatest difficulty in holding the Turks in check.
In fact, the Bulgarians gave way, and thus enabled Nazim Pasha to report to Constantinople some success in this direction. In the meantime, however, General Savoff hurled his great strength against the Turks’ weakened left wing, which he crushed in at Lule Burgas. The fighting along the whole front, which evidently was of the most stubborn and determined character, was carried on day and night without intermission, and both sides lost heavily.
The final result was to force the Turks within the defensive lines of Tchatalja, the only remaining fortified position protecting Constantinople. These lines lie twenty-five miles to the northwest of the capital.
The seat of war between Bulgaria and Turkey, aside from the continued siege of Adrianople, was by this success transferred to the Tchatalja lines, along which the opposing armies lay stretched during the week succeeding the Lule Burgas victory. Here siege operations were vigorously prosecuted, but the Turks, though weakened by an outbreak of cholera in their ranks, succeeded in maintaining their position.