When General Theodoroff realized the demoralization of the Turks, and heard how the Greeks were approaching Salonika without any more serious opposition than that which confronted him, he hurried his column towards Salonika. The Bulgarian Princes Boris and Cyril joined him. They were not in time to take part in the negotiations for the surrender of the city. The cowardice of Tahsin pasha had brought matters to a climax on November 9th. But they were able to enter Salonika on the 10th, at the same time that Crown Prince Constantine was making his triumphal entry. Sandansky and his comitadjis hurried to the principal ancient church of the city, for over four hundred years the Saint Sophia of Salonika, and placed the Bulgarian flag in the minarets before the Greeks knew they had been outwitted. On the 12th, King George of Greece arrived to make his residence in the city that was to be his tomb.
After the capture of Monastir, the Servians pressed on to Okrida, on November 23d, and from there into Albania to Elbassan, which they reached five days later. It was their intention to join at Durazzo the other column of the third Servian army, of whose march down the Drin we have already spoken. But the threatening attitude of Austria-Hungary necessitated the recall of the bulk of the Servian forces to Nish. This is the reason they were not able, at that stage of the war, to give the Montenegrins effective assistance against Scutari.
The left wing of the Thessalian Greek army, after the capture of Monastir by the Servians, pursued towards Albania, the Turks who had escaped from Monastir. With great skill, they managed to prevent the Turks from turning north-west into the interior of Albania. After the brilliant and daring storming of the heights of Tchangan, what remained of the Turkish army was compelled to retreat into Epirus towards Janina.
On October 20th, the Greek fleet under Admiral Koundouriotis appeared at the Dardanelles to offer battle to the Turks. Under the cover of the protection of their fleet, the Greeks occupied Lemnos, Thasos, Imbros, Samothrace, Nikaria, and the smaller islands. The inhabitants of Samos had expelled the Turkish garrisons on their own initiative at the outbreak of the war. Mitylene was captured without great difficulty on November 2lst. The Greeks landed at Chios on the 24th. Here the Turkish garrison of two thousand retired to the mountainous centre of the island, and succeeded in prolonging their resistance until January. When he saw that no help was coming from Asia Minor, whose shores had been in sight during all the weeks of combat and suffering, the heroic Turkish commander surrendered with one thousand eight hundred starving men on January 3d. It was only because Italy, by a clause of the Treaty of Ouchy, still held the Dodecanese, that all of the Ægean Islands were not "gathered into the fold" by Greece.
There had been less than six weeks of fighting. The Balkan allies had swept from the field all the Turkish forces in Europe. The Turkish armies were bottled up in Constantinople, Adrianople, Janma, and Scutari, with absolutely no hope of making successful sorties. Except at Constantinople, they were besieged, and could expect neither reinforcements nor food supplies. The Greek fleet was master of the Ægean Sea, and held the Turkish navy blocked in the Dardanelles. No new armies could come from Asiatic Turkey. This was the situation when the armistice was signed. The Ottoman Empire in Europe had ceased to exist. The military prestige of Turkey had received a mortal blow.
THE ARMISTICE AND THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF LONDON
The hopelessness of the outcome of the war with Italy, the dissatisfaction over the foolish and arbitrary rule of its secret committees had weakened the hold of the "Committee of Union and Progress" over the army. Despite its success in the spring elections of 1912, its position was precarious. In July, Mahmud Shevket pasha, who was suspected of planning a military pronunciamento, resigned the Ministry of War. The Grand Vizier, Saïd pasha, soon followed him into retirement. The Sultan declared that a ministry not under the control of a political party was a necessity.
Ghazi Mukhtar pasha, after much difficulty, succeeded in forming a ministry, in which a distinguished Armenian, Noradounghian effendi, was given the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. The Unionist majority in the lower house of Parliament proved intractable. Its obstructionist tactics won for the Chamber of Deputies the name of the "comic operahouse of Fundukli." (Fundukli was the Bosphorus quarter in which the House of Parliament was located.) With the help of the Senate, and the moral support of the army, the Sultan dissolved Parliament on August 5th. Only the menace of the Albanian revolution prevented the Committee from attempting to set up a rival Parliament at Salonika. This was the unenviable internal situation of Turkey at the opening of the Balkan War.
The disasters of the Thracian campaign led to the resignation of the Ghazi Mukhtar pasha Cabinet. The aged statesman of the old régime, Kiamil pasha, was called for the eighth time to the Grand Vizirate. He retained Nazim pasha, generalissimo of the Turkish army, and Noradounghian effendi, in the Ministries of War and Foreign Affairs. The most influential of the Young Turks, who had opposed bitterly the peace with Italy and were equally determined that no negotiations should be undertaken with the Balkan States, were exiled. Kiamil pasha saw clearly that peace was absolutely necessary. His long experience allowed him to have no illusions as to the possibility of continuing the struggle. Before the Bulgarian attack upon Tchatalja, he began pourparlers with General Savoff. After the repulse of November 17th and 18th, he was just as firm in his decision that the negotiations must be continued. He won over to his point of view the members of the Cabinet, and notably Nazim pasha.
The conditions of the armistice, signed on December 3d, were an acknowledgment of the complete débâcle of the Turkish army. Bulgaria forced the stipulation that her army in front of Tchatalja should be revictualled by the railway which passed under the guns of Adrianople, while that fortress remained without food! Greece, by an agreement with her allies, refused to sign the armistice, but was allowed to be represented in the peace conference. The allies felt that the state of war on sea must continue, in order that Turkey should be prevented during the armistice from bringing to the front her army corps from Syria and Mesopotamia and Arabia; while Greece, in particular, was determined to run no risk in connection with the Ægean Islands. The peace delegates were to meet in London.