Refugees and Retaliation in Turkey

Misery in Constantinople.

Refugees Continue to Arrive – Reports of Massacres Corroborated.

Special Cable to the New York Times.

London, Tuesday, Nov 12. – The Daily Telegraph’s Constantinople correspondent wires via Constanza:

   “Constantinople presents a very mournful aspect.

   “Mussulmen families from the country, worn out with hunger and fatigue, continue to flock into town.

   “All the hospitals are filed with the wounded to such an extent that it is impossible to give them all the proper attention, and in certain hospitals gangrene has begun to make its appearance. Pitiful cases are related of soldiers dying, not from wounds, by from starvation.

   “To crown all these calamities, the authorities now admit an outbreak of cholera.

   “Constantinople, however, remains perfectly calm, and no single case of aggression is reported. At the same time there appears to be no doubt that in the immediate environs, or example at Silivri, on the Sea of Marmora, a few miles from Tchatalja, massacres have taken place, and details given to the Silivri affair contain a fact which is perhaps presented for the first time in Turkish history, namely, that the massacres were not political, but religious, as it is announced that Greeks, Armenians, and Jews were killed indiscriminately.”

Balkan League Gaining Momentum Against the Ottoman Empire

One month into the First Balkan War and the Momentum of the War appears to be completely on the side of the Balkan League, as they march towards Istanbul. An account, published in the New York Times, also demonstrates the role of the Great Powers in this war, and wars to come.

Difficult Questions Now Up.

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES

   London, Saturday, Nov 9. – With Salonika fallen to the Greeks, Adrianople almost fallen, and the Bulgarian attack upon Tchatalja lines progressing favorably, the Balkan war in the full sense of the word is practically over. There now remains only the settlement of the questions which the war has raised.

   The difficulties of that settlement are now bulking greater than ever. Bulgaria officially declared, in a communiqué issued in London yesterday, that her army must enter Constantinople in order to obtain a stable and lasting peace, but not remain there. This the question of the ultimate ownership of Constantinople is left open to the possible solution by what undoubtedly is the easiest course at present within the power of European diplomacy, namely, that of leaving the peninsula on which Stamboul stands as a last remnant of the Ottoman dominion in Europe.

   This is the most favorable aspect of the diplomatic situation that the news of the past twenty-four hours presents. The most unfavorable feature is the approaching crisis in the relations of Austria and Servia. The news of Austria’s attitude cabled to the New York Times’s Vienna correspondent to-day:  

   Austria is absolutely determined not to allow Servia to occupy an Adriatic port, even at the risk of Servia’s being supported by Russia.  The Austrian view is fully supported by Germany and Italy.

Austria Suspicious of Russia.

   Austria offers Servia a seaport on the Aegean. Servia shows every sign of persisting in her ambition for an outlet on the Adriatic. In Vienna there exists a strong suspicion that she is being encouraged by Russia, and although a London news agency yesterday circulated a report to the effect that the powers of the Triple Entente had notified Servia that while felling the warmest sympathy with her in her desire for an Asiatic port, they hoped she would consent to submit the matter to international decision in the interests of European peace, this morning’s Times denies that Russian, France and England have yet taken up any definite position on the question. The situation thus seems to be one of extreme delicacy and difficulty.

   The serious view taken of the international outlook may be gauged by a leader in this morning’s Telegraph, which says:

   “At the end of the week of such anxiety as the diplomacy of Europe has not known in many years it is our duty to say that the situation in the Near East gives more ground for apprehension than has existed at any time since the opening of the war.”