Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1913-03-05
Writer Reveals Fiendish Acts
Committed by Turks.
5ulgar Soldiers, Maddened by Treat
ment of Their Countrymen, Show
MosIem Troops-Women Are
Horribly Mutilated.

Kabaktcha Village, near Tchatalja.
Owing partly to the fear of bloody
vengeance to come for the horrors of
this war, partly to more natural
causes, great migratory changes are
taking place in that rich eastern sec
ton of Turkey in Europe through
which the Bulgars swept on their hur-
ricane storm to Tchatalja. Though
from all appearances the old regime
of murder, mutilation and injustice
will soon be forever ended, the fear
struck Turkish population is moving
southwark again toward Asia Minor,
whence it came, while the Bulgar
peasants of the Tchatalja district are
heeing as nervously north. Amid
these scenes of exodus, one is led to
think it may yet not be too late to
bring some order in the Balkan racial
chaos.
Meanwhile, the Turks have waged
the present conflict in their old style
burning, violating, massacring. AL
most at the Bulgarian frontier the
atrocious tale begins.
Well, the moment the war was de-
clared the Turks began to loot and
burn the Bulgar villages. But as
the stern soldiers from the north
pressed down, winning victory after
victory, the Turkish population, per
haps rightly fearing vengeance in kind
from the men who found their blood
kin wronged and slain right and left,
set off on frantic migration to Con-
stantinople, where they arrived in the
p1tIable state already known to the
world OF such Turks as stayed be-
hind the Bulgars felt forced to kill
some Others they put to work with
the army transports, still others they
left in peace, their villages intact,
just as one finds also Bulgar villages
intact-where the Turks did not have
time to do thorough job.
I'VE expected" said Bulgar officer
with whom 1 talked at Tchatalja, ito
ind rich and plenteous country as
we neared Constantinople We found
instead-what you see, nothingi Hard
ly living being! Utter devasta-
toni"
l met an old Bulgarian woman near
Tchorlu who was the first Red Cross
nurse upon the ground after the ter
rible destruction at Lule Burgas. She
said that on her way to the field hos
pital she was sent to the succor of a
Greek village where the Turks had
scattered ruin. Unlock your western
ears now, and hear the truth. She
found young girls lying naked by the
roadside nearly dead. She found chill
dren stricken down by careless sa-
bers. A housewife had been muir
dered as she kneaded her bread, the
dough still on her hands And in a
bloody sack the Turks had gathered
women's breasts!
1t is not difficult to verify such
stories. They are common knowl-
edge here. The Bulgar peasant has
no Imagination He tells what he
sees. 1 will give one more example.
According to the Mohammedan re-
ligion, pork is unclean and is forbid
den. For a Turk to kill a pig is thus
considered special insult to a Chris
many pigs shot down or stabbed in
farm yards
The Bulgars began the war in a
humane spirit, as such terms go in
war time. But not a soldier in that
army OF 100000 is ignorant now of
certain fiendish evidence his comrades
have witnessed. In the fighting at
Tchatalja, the Bulgars, having adj
vanced during the day, were fire.
quently obliged to retire at night. leav-
ing their wounded on the field
When the next days fortunes
brought them again over the same
ground they found only stripped bod
les gruesomely hacked, while the Of
ficers' corpses had been mutilated in
a way so much more disgusting than
anything / have hitherto mentioned
that l cannot even write of it. / think
even kindly people in their tranquil
homes across the world in America
will understand the reason now, when
/ add that should the war continue,
no more Turkish wounded will be sent
north to be nursed in Bulgar hospit-