The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21: The Recent Days (1910-1914)
History
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21: The Recent Days (1910-1914)
World history
The soldier who is good only for the defensive can never win. What beat
the Turk was the Turk himself. His army was in the chaos between
old-fashioned organization and an attempt at a modern organization. His
generals were divided in their counsels; his junior officers aped the
modern officer in form, but lacked application. They had ceased to
believe in their religion. Therefore, they did not lead their privates
who did believe. In the midst of the war, captains and lieutenants,
trustworthy observers tell me, would leave their untrained companies of
reservists to march by the road while they themselves rode by train.
They took their soldiers' pay. They neglected all the detail which is
the very essence of that preparation at the bottom without which no
generalship at the top can prevail.
The Bulgarian officers, two-thirds of whom were reservists, enjoyed a
comradeship with their men at the same time that discipline was rigid.
They believed in their God; at least, in the god of efficiency. They
worked hard. They belong in the world of to-day and the Turk does not.
Therefore the Turk has to go.
"We will not make peace without Adrianople!" was the cry of every
Bulgar. Its possession became a national fetish, no less than naval
superiority to the British. Adrianople stood for the real territorial
object of the war. It must be the center of any future line of defense
against the Turk. Practically its siege was set, once there was
stalemate at Tchatalja. With no hope of beating the main Bulgarian army
back, there was no hope of relieving the garrison, whose fate was only
a matter of time.
At the London Peace Conference the allies stood firm for the possession
of Adrianople. The Turkish commissioners, after repeating for six weeks
that they would never cede it, had finally agreed to yield on orders
from Constantinople, when the young Turks killed Nazim Pasha, the
Turkish commander-in-chief, and overthrew the old cabinet. "You can
have Adrianople when you take it!" was the defiance of the new cabinet
to the allies.
PROF. STEPHEN P. DUGGAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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