Later, at a little village outside Kirk Kilisse, a young civil servant, an official of the Foreign Office, spoke of the war whilst we ate a dish of cheese and eggs. "It is a war," he said, "of the peasants and the intellectuals. It is not a war made by the politicians or the soldiers of the Staff. That would be impossible. In our nation every soldier is a citizen and every citizen a soldier. There could not be a war unless it were a war desired by the people. In my office it was with rage that some of the clerks heard that they must stay at Sofia, and not go to the front. We were all eager to take arms." At Nova Zagora, travelling by a troop train carrying reserves to the front, I crossed a train bringing wounded from the battle-fields. For some hours both trains were delayed. The men going to the front were decorated with flowers as though going to a feast. They filled the waiting time by dancing to the music of the national bagpipes, and there joined in the dance such of the wounded as could stand on their feet. There was no daunting these trained patriots. These and a score of other pictures pass through my mind and explain Kirk Kilisse and Lule Burgas, and give confidence for the battle to come. Here was a people ranged for battle with the steady nerves and the stolid courage that come from tilling the soil, with the skill and the discipline that come from adequate training, with the fervent faith of a great patriotism. I have talked with Turkish prisoners and found infantrymen who had been sent to the front after two days' training, gunners who had been drafted into a battery after ten days' drill. Such soldiers can only march to defeat. [Illustration: A BALKAN PEASANT WOMAN] Ermenikioi (Headquarters of the Third Bulgarian Army), _November 17 (Sunday)_.--The Battle of Chatalja has been opened. To-day, General Demetrieff rode out with his Staff to the battle-field whilst the bells of a Christian church in this little village rang. The day was spent in artillery reconnaissance, the Bulgarian guns searching the Turkish entrenchments to discover their real strength. Only once during the day was the infantry employed; and then it was rather to take the place of artillery than to complete work begun by artillery. It seems to me that the Bulgarian forces have not enough big gun ammunition at the front. They are ten days from their base, and shells must come up by ox wagon the greater part of the way.