The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-04-02
From the New York Post.

From the New York Post.
HNHE law of competition holds for
the news columns. If the floods
1 in the Ohio valley had not
monopolized the attention of the coun-
try for several days, more space would
have been found for the story of the
fall of Adrianople amidst circumstances
SURPRISING in dramatic intensity even
the last days of Port Arthur. In the
near future we shall undoubtedly learn
which resulted In the taking of
mighty fortress as a single redout is
taken, by the onrush of charging lines
of infantry, victors following on the
heels of the vanquished and settling
the final account, as now appears, with
in the city itself Notable for many
reason in the history of military oper-
ations, the siege of Adrianople will
stand out because of what may be de-
respondent. For over five months a
garrison of more than $4,000 men was
besieged by an army which at the end
must have attained twice that number.
Platoons of newspaper correspondents
were hovefing on the Bulgarian from
tier not much more than 20 miles away.
Yet we know little of what happened
around Adrianople after the first two
weeks of the war; and of what occurred
h. aft Ir.n ,nfh hfntr
the beginning there were almost daily
humors of plague, mutiny, and starva-
tion in the beleaguered city Gradu-
ally the rumors died of inanition, but
the Inhabitants of the city held out.
Englishmen of Wellingtons day actu-
ally knew more of what was going on
in the trenches around Badajos than
we of the wireless age knew of what
was going on on the banks of the
Martha.
AT the beginning of the war. the Bull
garian general staff was itself badly
informed as to the situation within
Adrianople. We have the word of
Lieutenant Wagner for that Fighting
in the environs of the city began on
october 10. and for 10 days the Second
Bulgarian army under General Ivanoff
resorted to assault tactics. Outlying
Turkish positions were captured. but
at such heavy cost that by October 20
it was decided to blockade the city and
starve 1t out. Adrianople was believed
to be insufficiently provided with food,
and its surrender was supposed to be
matter of days. Two Bulgarian divis-
ions had been assigned to the task of
reducing Adrianople. Later they were
reinforced by a third division from the
central Bulgarian army and by two
Servian divisions, one operating on the
northwest front of the fortress, the
other to the southeast. That was the
situation at the beginning of Novem-
ber AS the Servians completed their
own high speed operations in Mace
donia, still more troops were diverted
to Adrianople. The Servian siege guns
admittedly played an important part
In the reduction of the city. When the
October, the Bulgarian allies were ex-
tended in an almost perfect circle
some S5 miles in circumference. The
25 redoubts constituting the defences
of Adrianople formed an innner circle
25 miles in circumference. Full mas
terry of the inner circle was won by the
allies only during the last few days
After that the contest apparently re-
solved itself into something like open
field fighting, until the final charge
of the allies brought them inside the
city
1t was Lieutenant Wagner's good
fortune to be an eyewitness of the last
desperate assault delivered by the Bur-
garians before they shifted to a policy
of blockade and bombardment. 1t was
an attack on Karagash, on the south
west from of the fortress We can very
we'll infer what happened aroung Ad-
rianople during last weeks three days
of battle from what the correspondent
of the Reichspost saw and heard at
Karagasb last October:
"Denser and denser grow the Bull
garian firing lines. Again and again the
ncn spring up and dart forward with