A strict censorship was established in Bulgaria. No one, native or foreigner, who by chance saw just what the armies were doing, could have any hope of sending out the information. Postal and telegraphic communications were in the hands of the military authorities. No one, who happened to be in the region in which the troops were moving forward, was allowed to leave by train, automobile, bicycle, or even on foot. Never in history has the world been so completely in the dark as to the operations of the army. But the attacks of the outposts of Adrianople, and the commencement of the bombardment of the forts, seemed to indicate the common objective of the three Bulgarian armies. Adrianople had the reputation of being one of the strongest fortresses in the world. This reputation was well justified.
Some miles to the east of Adrianople, guarding the mountains of the south-eastern frontier of Bulgaria, was Kirk Kilissé, which was also supposed to be an impregnable position. Here the Ottoman military authorities had placed stores to form the base of supplies for the offensive military operation against Bulgaria. Shortly before the war, a branch railway from the sole line between Constantinople and Adrianople, going north from Lulé Burgas, was completed. It furnished direct means of communication between the capital and Kirk Kilissé.
The General Staff at Constantinople wisely decided to leave in Adrianople only a sufficient garrison to defend the forts and the city. It was their intention to send the bulk of their Thracian army north-west from Kirk Kilissé, using that fortress as a base, in order to cut off the Bulgarians from their supplies, and throw them back against the forts of Adrianople. In this way they intended to put the Bulgarians between two fires and crush them. Then they would commence the invasion of Bulgaria. The plan was excellent. If Turkey had actually had in the field a half million men well trained and well equipped, well officered and with a spirit of enthusiasm, and—most important of all—properly fed, it is probable that the Bulgarians could have been held in check. But this army did not exist. The millions spent for equipment had disappeared—who knows where? There were not enough horses, even with the requisitions in Constantinople, for the artillery, and for the cavalry reserves. That meant that there were no horses at all for the commissary department. The only means of communication with the front was a single railway track. Roads had never been made in Thrace since the conquest. The artillery and the waggons had to be drawn through deep mud.
Beyond the needs of the nizam (active) regiments, there were hardly any officers. The wretched masses of redifs (reservists) were without proper leadership. Not only was this all important factor for keeping up the morale of the soldiers lacking, but, from the moment they left Constantinople—even before that—there was insufficient food. Nor did the soldiers know why they were fighting. There was no enthusiasm for a cause. The great mass of the civil population, if not, like the Christians, hostile to the army, was wholly indifferent. I do not believe there were ten thousand people in the city of Constantinople, who really cared what happened in Thrace. Since I have been in the midst of a mobilization in France, and have seen how the French soldiers are equipped for war and fed, and how they have been made to feel that every man, woman, and child in the nation was ready to make any sacrifice—no matter how great—for "the little soldiers of France," I feel more deeply the tragedy of the Turkish redifs. My wonder is that they were able to fight as bravely as they did. The world has no use for the government—for the "system"—which caused them to suffer as they did, and to give their lives in a wholly useless sacrifice.
The story of the Thracian campaign I heard from the lips of many of those who had taken part in it, when the events were still fresh in their memory. It is fruitless to go into all the details, to discuss the strategy of the generals in command, and to give a technical description of the battles, and of the retreat. Turkish and Bulgarian officers, as well as a host of foreign correspondents, have published books on this campaign. Most of them hide the real causes of the defeat under a mass of unimportant detail, and seem to be written either to emphasize the writer's claim as a "first-hand" witness, to take to task certain generals, or to prove the superiority of French artillery, and the faultiness of German military instruction. When all these issues are cast to one side, the campaign can be briefly described.
We have already anticipated the débâcle of the military power of Turkey by giving the causes. This is not illogical. For these causes existed, and led to the inevitable result, before the first gun was fired.
On October 19th, the Bulgarians began the investment of Adrianople from the north and west. There was no serious opposition. The Turkish garrison naturally fell back to the protection of the forts, for the Turks had not planned to oppose, beyond Adrianople, the Bulgarian approach. The Ottoman advance-guard, composed of the corps of Constantinople and Rodosto, under the command of Abdullah and Mahmud Mukhtar pashas, was ordered to take the offensive north of Kirk Kilissé. They were to be followed by another army. This movement was intended to cut off the Bulgarians from their base of supplies, and throw them back on Adrianople. The remainder of the Turkish forces in Thrace were to wait the result of this movement. If the Bulgarians moved down the valley of the Maritza, leaving Adrianople, they would meet these imposing forces which covered Constantinople, and would have behind them the garrison of Adrianople, and the army of Abdullah and Mahmud Mukhtar threatening their communications. If they besieged Adrianople, the second army would take the offensive and the Bulgarians would be encircled.
The outposts of the Turkish army came into contact with the Bulgarians on October 20th. Believing that they had to do with the left of the army investing Adrianople, Mahmud and Abdullah decided to begin immediately their encircling movement. On the 21st and 22d, the two columns of the Turkish army were in fact engaged with the advance-guards of the first and second Bulgarian armies. But, in the meantime, General Dimitrieff and the third army (which they believed was on the extreme Bulgarian right, pressing down the Maritza to invest the southern forts of Adrianople) had quietly crossed the frontier almost directly north of Kirk Kilissé, and fell like a cyclone upon the Turks. The Turkish positions were excellent, and had to be taken at the point of the bayonet. From morning till night on October 23d, the Bulgarian third army captured position after position, without the help of their artillery, which was stuck in the mud some miles in the rear. In the evening, during a terrible storm, two fresh Bulgarian columns made an assault upon the Turkish positions. It was not until then that the Turks realized that they were fighting another army than that charged with the investment of Adrianople. A wild panic broke out among the redifs, who were mostly without officers. They started to retreat, and were soon followed by the remainder of the army. At Uskubdere, they met during the night reinforcements coming to their aid. Two regiments fired on each other, mutually mistaking the other for Bulgarians. The reinforcements joined in the disorderly retreat, which did not end until morning, when, exhausted and still crazed by fear, what remained of the Turkish army had reached Eski Baba and Bunar Hissar.
The army was saved from annihilation by the darkness and the storm. For not only were the Bulgarians ignorant of the abandonment of Kirk Kilissé, but, along the line where they knew the enemy were retreating, their cavalry could not advance in the darkness and mud, nor could their artillery shell the retreating columns. On the morning of the 24th, when General Dimitrieff was preparing to make the assault upon Kirk Kilissé, he learned that the Turkish army had fled, and that the fortress was undefended.