A Bloody War.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 31, 1912:
    At best the war in the Balkans was bound to bring suffering unknown in other modern conflicts. None of the armies was supplied with adequate modern means for caring for the wounded. The troops of Turkey have notoriously been neglected in this regard, and the military system has been much demoralised by the changes of Government due to a conspiracy in the army. The armies of the Balkan league, also insufficiently equipped, were put in motion so hurriedly that this defect became an the more evident. The rapid movements of the invaders have all been made across a rough country, over poor roads, with no railways available, and the transport department necessarily was used first for the troops fit to fight. In many of the encounters the wounded were left entirely without care, to die on the field. In all of them provision for them has been scant and poor.
    In addition to these inevitable causes of cruel suffering there is the savagery of the combatants. So far specific accounts of bloody outrage have come only from Bulgarian and Servian sources. They would be incredible if we did not know only too well from recent history how terrible is the cruelty of racial and religious passion among the wild tribes of Asia and among the Moslems native to the Balkan provinces. It is to be remembered also that the very first movements of the league's armies across the Turkish frontier were to be traced by burning villages whose population was scattered or slain.
    It is not too much to say that what in the cold technical language of the soldier's profession are called "casualties" have so far been, and will continue to be, double those of any war in modern times. And it ought not to make easy the sleep of the statesmen of the civilised nations of Europe to reflect that the ghastly slaughter and suffering might wholly have been avoided had they had the courage to compel Turkey to treat her European subjects decently.