Turkey had now enough of the war. On November 3d she had asked a mediation of the Powers, but these replied that she must treat directly with the Balkan nations. This caused delay until the end of the month, the protocol of an armistice being approved by the Turkish cabinet on November 30th, and signed by representatives of Turkey, Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro on December 3d. Greece refused to sign, but at a later date agreed to take part in a conference to meet in London on December 16th.

This peace conference continued in session until January 6, 1913, without reaching any conclusions, Turkey refusing to accept the Balkan demands that she should yield practically the whole of her territory in Europe. At the final session of the conference she renounced her claim to the island of Crete, and promised to rectify her Thracian frontier, but insisted upon the retention of Adrianople. This place, the original capital of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, and containing the splendid mosque of Sultan Selim, was highly esteemed by the Mohammedans, who clung to it as a sacred city.

War seemed likely to be resumed, though the European Powers strongly suggested to Turkey the advisability of yielding on this point, and leaving the question of the fate of the Aegean Islands to the Powers, which promised also to guard Mussulman interests in Adrianople. Finally, on January 22d, the Porte consented to this request of the Powers, a decision which was vigorously resented by the warlike party known as Young Turks.

Demonstrations at once broke out in Constantinople, leading to the overthrow of the cabinet and the murder of n.a.z.im Pasha, former minister of war and commander-in-chief of the Turkish army. He was succeeded by Enver Bey, the most spirited leader of the Young Turks, who became chief of staff of the army.

On January 30th the Balkan allies denounced their armistice and a renewed war seemed imminent. On the same day the Ottoman government offered a compromise, agreeing to divide Adrianople between the contestants in such a way that they might retain the mosques and the historic monuments. As for the Aegean Islands, they would leave these to the disposition of the Powers.

THE WAR RESUMED

To this compromise the Balkan allies refused to agree and on February 3d hostile operations were resumed. The investment of Adrianople had remained intact during the interval, and on the 4th a vigorous bombardment took place, the Turkish response being weak. Forty Servian seven-inch guns had been mounted, their sh.e.l.ls falling into the town, part of which again broke into flames. At points the lines of besiegers and besieged were only 200 yards apart. An attempt was made also to capture the peninsula of Gallipoli, which commands the Dardanelles, and thus take the Turkish force in the rear. Fifty thousand Bulgarians had been landed on this coast in November, and the Greek fleet in the Gulf of Saros supported the attack. If successful, there would be nothing to prevent this fleet from pa.s.sing the straits, defeating the inferior Turkish war vessels and attacking Constantinople from the rear. Fighting in this region continued for several days, the Turkish forces being driven back, but still holding their forts.

SIEGE OF SCUTARI

In the west the most important operation at this period was that of the Montenegrins, led by King Nicholas in person, against Scutari, an Albanian stronghold which they were eager to possess.

Servian artillery aided in the a.s.sault, and on February 8th the important outwork on Muselim Hill was taken by an impulsive bayonet charge. The city was not captured, however, until April 23d, when an entire day's ceaseless fighting ended in the yielding of the garrison, the climax of a six-month siege.

An energetic attack had been made by the Bulgarians and Serbs on Adrianople on March 14th, ending in a repulse, and on the 22d another vigorous a.s.sault was begun, continuing with terrific fighting for four days. It ended in a surrender of the city on the 26th. The siege had continued for 152 days. Before yielding, the Turks blew up the a.r.s.enal and set fire to the city at several points. At the same time Tchatalja, which had been actively a.s.sailed, fell into the hands of the allies and Constantinople lay open to a.s.sault.

Meanwhile the Powers of Europe had again offered their good services to mediate between the warring forces, and a conditional mediation was agreed to by the Balkan allies. Movements towards peace, however, proceeded slowly, the most interesting event of the period being a demand by Austria, backed by Italy, that Montenegro should give up the city of Scutari. Earnest protests were made against this by King Nicholas, but the despatch of an Austrian naval division on April 27th to occupy his ports and march upon Cettinje, his capital, obliged him reluctantly to yield and on May 5th Scutari was given up to Austria, to form part of a projected Albanian kingdom.

TREATY OF PEACE

Peace between the warring nations was finally concluded on May 30, 1913, the treaty providing that Turkey should cede to her allied foes all territory west of a line drawn from Enos on the Aegean coast to Media on the coast of the Black Sea. This left Adrianople in the hands of the Bulgarians and gave Turkey only a narrow strip of territory west of Constantinople, the meager remnant of her once great holdings upon the continent of Europe.

The victors desired to divide the conquered territory upon a plan arranged between them before the war, but the purposes of Austria and Italy were out of agreement with this design and the Powers insisted in forming out of the districts a.s.signed to Servia and Greece a new princ.i.p.ality to be named Albania, embracing the region occupied by the unruly Albanian tribes.

This plan gave intense dissatisfaction to the allies. It seemed designed to cut off Servia from an opening upon the Mediterranean, which that inland state ardently desired and Austria strongly opposed. Montenegro was also deprived of the warmly craved city of Scutari, which she had won after so vigorous a strife. Bulgaria also was dissatisfied with this new project and opposed the demands of Servia and Greece for compensation in land for the loss of Albania or for their support of the Bulgarian operations.

WAR BETWEEN THE ALLIES

Thus the result of this creation of a new and needless state out of the conquered territory by the peace-making Powers roused hostilities among the allies which speedily flung them into a new war. Bulgaria refused to yield any of the territory held by it to the Servians and Greeks, and Greece in consequence made a secret league with Servia against Bulgaria.

It was the old story of a fight over the division of the spoils.

It is doubtful which of the contestants began hostile operations, but Bulgaria lost no time in marching upon Salonica, held by Greece, and in attacking the Greek and Servian outposts in Macedonia. The plans of General Savoff, who had led the Bulgarians to victory in the late war and who commanded in this new outbreak, in some way fell into the hands of the Greeks and gave them an important advantage. They at once, in junction with the Servians, attacked the Bulgarians and drove them back. From the accounts of the war, probably exaggerated, this struggle was accompanied by revolting barbarities upon the inhabitants of the country invaded, each country accusing the other of shameful indignities.

What would have been the result of the war, if fought out between the original contestants, it is impossible to say, for at this juncture a new Balkan State, which had taken no part in the Turkish war, came into the field. This was Roumania, lying north of Bulgaria and removed from any contact with Turkey. It had had a quarrel with Bulgaria, dating back to 1878, concerning certain territory to which it laid claim. This was a strip of land on the south side of the Danube near its mouth and containing Silistria and some other cities.

THE FINAL SETTLEMENT

King Charles of Roumania now took the opportunity to demand this territory, and when his demand was refused by Ferdinand of Bulgaria he marched an army across the Danube and took the Bulgarians, exhausted by their recent struggle, in the rear. No battles were fought. The Roumanian army advanced until within thirty miles of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, and Ferdinand was obliged to appeal for peace, and in the subsequent treaty yielded to Roumania the tract desired, which served to round out the frontier on the Black Sea.

Another unexpected event took place. While her late foes were struggling in a war of their own, Turkey quietly stepped into the arena, and on July 20th retook possession, without opposition, of Adrianople, Bulgaria's great prize in the late war.

A peace conference was held at Bukarest, capital of Roumania, beginning July 30th, and framing a treaty, signed on August 10th.

This provided for the evacuation of Bulgaria by the invading armies, and also for a division of the conquered territory.

Bulgaria gained the largest amount of territory, though less than she had claimed. Greece retained the important seaport of Salonica, the possession of which had been hotly disputed, and gained the largest sea front. Montenegro, though deprived of the much-coveted Scutari, was a.s.signed part of northern Albania and the Turkish sanjak of Novibazar, adjoining on the east, considerably increasing her diminutive territory.

Servia had most reason to be dissatisfied with the result, in view of her craving for an opening to the sea. Cut off by Albania on the west, it sought an opening on the south, demanding the city of Kavala, on the Aegean Sea. But to this Greece strongly objected, as that city, one of the great tobacco marts of the world, was inhabited almost wholly by Greeks. Servia, however, extended southward far over its old territory, gaining Uskub, its old capital. And the Powers also agreed that it should have commercial rights on the Mediterranean, thorough railroad connection with Salonica.

As regards Turkey's shrewd advantage of the opportunity to retake Adrianople, it proved a successful move. The Russian press strongly advocated that the Turks should be ejected, but the jealousy of the Powers prevented any agreement as to who should do this and in the end the Turks remained, with a considerable widening of the tract of land before a.s.signed to them.

In these wars it is estimated that 358,000 persons died, and that the cost of the two wars, to the several nations involved, reached a total of $1,200,000,000. Its general result was almost to complete the work of expelling the Turks from Europe, the territory lost by them being divided up between the several Balkan nations.

Chapter XIX. METHODS IN MODERN WARFARE

Ancient and Modern Weapons - New Types of Weapons - The Ironclad Warship - The Balloon in War - Tennyson's Foresight - Gunning for Airships - The Submarine - Under-Water Warfare - The New Type of Battleship - Mobilization - The Waste of War

One hundred years ago the Battle of Waterloo had just been fought and Napoleon's star had set never to rise again. For years he had swept Europe with his armies, rending the nations into fragments, and winning world-famous victories with weapons that no one would look for today except in a military museum, weapons antiquated beyond all possible utility on a modern field of battle.

ANCIENT AND MODERN WEAPONS

Every fresh modern war has been fought with new weapons, and during the past century there have been countless inventions for the carrying on of warfare in a more destructive manner, apparently on the philanthropic theory that war should be made so terrible that it must quickly pa.s.s away.

But it has happened that as soon as a particularly horrible contrivance was invented and introduced into armies and navies, other inventors immediately set themselves to offset and discount its probable effect. Consequently war not only has not pa.s.sed away, but we have it with us in more frightful form that ever before. Thus it is that each big war, after being heralded as the world's last conflagration, has proved but the herald of another war, bigger and more death-dealing still.

Since the Civil War in the United States, in which probably more new features in modes of fighting were introduced than in any conflict that had preceded it, there have been immense improvements in arms, in armament and in general efficiency of both armies and navies. It was the Civil War that brought into being the turreted MONITOR, one of the greatest contributions to naval architecture the navies of the world had then known. While the turrets on the modern battleship are very different in design, in armor and in arrangement from those on the old monitors, they are nothing more than an adaptation of the original devices.

The same is the case with the small arms and the field guns of the modern armies, these having been greatly improved since the period of the Civil war. The breech-loading and even the magazine rifle are now in use in every army, while the smallest field piece of today is almost as efficient as the most powerful gun in use fifty years ago.

The first attempt to use a torpedo boat dates back to the Civil War. A primitive contrivance it was, but it showed a possibility in naval warfare which speedily led to the general building of torpedo boats, and to the invention of the highly efficient Whitehead torpedo.

THE IRONCLAD WARSHIP

Another lesson in warfare was taught when the ironclad MERRIMAC and MONITOR met and fought for mastery in Hampton Roads. The ironclad vessel was not then a new idea in naval architecture, but its efficiency as a fighting machine was then first demonstrated. Iron for armor soon gave way to thick and tough steel, while each improvement in armor led to a corresponding improvement in guns and projectiles, until now a battle at sea has grown to be a remarkably different affair from the great ocean combats of Nelson's time.

But development in the art of war has not ceased with the improvement in older types of weapons. New devices, scarcely thought of in former wars, have been introduced. These include the use of the balloon and aeroplane as scouting devices, of the bomb filled with explosives of frightful rending power, and of the submarine naval shark, designed to attack the mighty battleships from under water.

THE BALLOON IN WAR

Of recent years the balloon has been developed into the dirigible, the flying machine that can be steered and directed.

Made effective by Count Zeppelin and others, its possibilities as an aid in war were quickly perceived. Then came the notable invention of the Wright Brothers, and after 1904 the aeroplane quickly expanded into an effective aerial instrument, the probably serviceableness of which in war was evident to all.

Here we are tempted to stop and quote the remarkable prediction from Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," the truth of which is now being so strikingly verified:

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder storm; Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled In the parliament of man, the federation of the world."

GUNNING FOR AIRSHIPS

The airship does not float safely in the cental blue, aside from attacks by flying foes. Guns pointing upward have been devised to attack the daring aviator from the ground and flying machines can thus be swiftly brought down, like war eagles shot in the sky. Several types of guns for this purpose are in use, some to be employed on warships or fortifications, others, mounted on automobile trucks, for use in the field.

The Ehrhardt gun, a German weapon, which is designed to be mounted on an auto-truck, weighs nearly 1700 pounds. The car carries 140 rounds of ammunition and the whole equipment in service condition weighs more than six tons. The gun has an extreme range at 45 degrees elevation of 12,029 yards, or more than six miles. The sights are telescopic, a moving object can be followed with ease, and the gun is capable of being fired very rapidly. The British are provided with the Vickers gun, which is mainly intended for naval use, but the military arm is also provided with anti-balloon guns, which have great range and can throw a three-pound sh.e.l.l at any high angle. Some of these guns use incendiary sh.e.l.ls, intended to ignite the gas in dirigibles.

There is another type that explodes shrapnel. In addition to these, rifle fire is apt to be effective, in case of airships coming within its range.

Jules Vedrines, a well-known French aviator, tells this story of his experience while doing scout duty for the French army:

"Those German gunners surely have tried their best to get me," he wrote. "Each night when I come back to headquarters my machine looks more and more like a sieve because of the numerous bullet holes in the wings.