They easily defeated the comparatively weak Turkish forces opposing them, and arrived before the city on Nov. 8, anxious to forestall a Bulgarian column aiming at the same objective. The Bulgarians, who took Serres on Nov. 5, reached Salonika at about the same time as their rival; but the Turkish commander chose to capitulate to the Greeks, who occupied the city the next day. Within four weeks the Ottoman Empire had lost Macedonia and Albania except the fortress and district of Yanina whose garrison as yet lay outside the area of operations.
These were rapid and remarkable triumphs, but they did not affect decisively the outcome of the war; they took from Turkey two outlying provinces; they did not strike at the heart of Turkish resistance. The weight of Turkish resistance lay in Eastern Thrace, concentrated there for the defence of the capital and the straits. Turkish reinforcements could not reach Macedonia by sea as fast as rail and steamer could bring them. They were poured into Eastern Thrace from Anatolia. The heavy and decisive operations of the war were carried out by the Bulgarian army.
The main Bulgarian advance was made south-eastward through Eastern Thrace. During Oct. 21-25 the Turkish armies commanded by Abdulla Pasha were driven back in confusion and retired to positions passing through Bunar Hissar and Lule Burgas to the railway. The fortress of Adrianople, containing a large Turkish garrison, was thus isolated and left to Bulgarian investment. Between Oct. 29 and Nov. 3 the issue of the war was decided at the great battle of Lule Burgas, in which the Turkish army was heavily defeated, and retreated in disorder to the Chatalja lines, in front of Constantinople. Abdulla Pasha was superseded, and the defence of the capital entrusted to Nazim Pasha, at the time Minister of War in the Turkish Cabinet.
A great attack by the Bulgarian army on this last defence of the capital took place on Nov. 17-18. It was pushed with determination, but achieved no success, and no further attempt was made. Bulgarian losses were great, and the army ravaged by cholera; on Dec. 2 an armistice was concluded which remained in force until Jan. i 1913. During this period the Turkish Government, with Kiamil Pasha as Grand Vizier, was over- thrown by a coup d'etat; and Nazim Pasha, the commander-in- chief, who like Kiamil had been in favour of peace, was assassi- nated in Constantinople. In consequence of these events, originat- ing with the Committee of Union and Progress, hostilities were recommenced at the beginning of February. Subsequent Bulgarian operations were confined to resisting Turkish attempts to advance from Chatalja; to the occupation of Thrace down to the Sea of Marmora; to resisting an attack on the Bulgar lines across the isthmus of the.Gallipoli Peninsula; and to the capture of Adrianople. This great fortress was taken by assault, in which Serbian troops bore a part, during the last days of March, and a second armistice was arranged soon afterwards.
To these armistices Greece did not subscribe. She continued naval operations and occupied all Turkish islands not under the Italian flag; and on Jan. 17 1913 a Greek squadron roughly handled the Turkish fleet in serious naval encounter.
Peace negotiations had been in progress in London since Dec. 1912, but made little headway owing to Turkish obstinacy. The hope of advancing from Chatalja and relieving Adrianople of in fact changing the whole course of the war was sufficient to prevent all but small concessions on the part of the Turkish Government. The fall of Adrianople on March 26 ended these unrealities; and on May 30 1913 the Ottoman delegates signed the Treaty of London. The Treaty provided for the cession by Turkey to the allied Balkan sovereigns of all European Turkey west of the line Enos-Midia, but excluding Albania; for the delimitation of Albania's frontiers by the Great Powers; for the cession of Crete to Greece; and for the destination of other Turkish islands being left to the same Powers.
Within a month of the signature of the treaty, the second Balkan War broke out between Bulgaria and her allies over the division of territory wrested from Turkey. The Bulgarian armies were on the Greek and Serbian frontiers; the force left in Thrace was weak, and the Turkish Government saw their opportunity.
Two months after the same Government had signed away their European provinces, Enver Bey at the head of a Turkish army overran Eastern Thrace and reentered Adrianople almost unop- posed. Bulgaria herself was helpless; the Powers would not assist her; her late allies now her enemies were not opposed to the Turkish aggression; and in the end Bulgaria executed a treaty restoring the province to the Ottoman Empire. For the Committee of Union and Progress it was a triumph beyond expectation. They were again the power behind the Government and now had not only justified but confirmed their position.
It is necessary now to glance at the growth of German influence in the Ottoman Empire as being closely connected with the Turkish downfall. A definite German policy of penetration had been at work for many years. German commercial undertakings had been encouraged and assisted by the German Government to acquire immense and valuable interests within Ottoman domains; among them the construction and working of the great line of railway designed to connect Constantinople with Syria, Arabia and Bagdad. In fact the economic development of Asia Minor, a backward but richly endowed land, great in area as Germany herself, had been secured for German enterprise when the first Balkan War intervened. Much more than commercial advantage lay behind Germany's aims; political advantages of incalculable importance were also in view. In the great vision of world domination which had gradually unfolded itself before German Imperialists, the high-road to be followed ran through Constantinople and Asia Minor thence the East and the chief waterway to it, the Suez Canal, would come within reach. In prosecution of these political designs, Turkish officers were ever welcomed in the German army. They were attached to it in numbers; they returned imbued with professional admiration for German military organization and science; with a conviction of German power; they became the conscious or unconscious agents of German policy. The bond thus established caused German advice and assistance to be sought in reorganizing the Ottoman army. It led also to relations between Germany and the Com- mittee of Union and Progress. And because each found that much might be got from the other, Germany and the Committee worked more and more in alliance. German influence eventually became so great that when the time came, the Committee leaders were willing and able to bring their country into the World War on the side of Germany.
To complete German political preparations in the Near East, and to make her Turkish Alliance effective, it was necessary to secure the support of Bulgaria. This country lay across and completely barred the German route to Constantinople. The prospect of revenge upon her enemies of the Second Balkan War Serbia, Greece and Rumania and of attaining her large territorial ambitions at their expense, proved sufficient, after prudent hesitation, to attract Bulgaria to the side of Germany.
After hostilities broke out in Europe in Aug. 1914, Turkish public opinion, such as it was, desired nothing so much as the avoidance of war by the empire. That was the supreme desire, but no effective means of enforcing it existed. The Committee was all-powerful in the Government, and a small group of lead- ers Enver, Talaat, Djcmal Pasha and others, supported by the presence at Constantinople of two German warships, the " Goeben " and " Breslau," were able to commit the country to hostilities, by the bombardment of Russian Black Sea ports by these vessels under the Turkish flag. At the beginning of Nov. 1914, Great Britain, Russia and France had all declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
In justification of their action, and to enlist the support of the Turkish people, the Government made much of the facts that the war was against Russia, the traditional and inexorable enemy of the empire, and that Great Britain and France were in alliance with Russia. The war policy of the Government was declared to be primarily the protection of Islam, particularly Turkish Islam, against the hostile and dangerously subversive policy of Great Britain. The recovery of lost Ottoman territory, the furthering of Pan-Islamism, and the freeing of the empire from all exasperating fetters of European control, were given as
