Atrocities By Moslems.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 30, 1912:
Member of Red Cross Tells of Fiendish Acts of Turkish Irregulars.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, Oct. 29.— An account by a witness of the battle of Kirk-Kilisseh published in the Neueste Nachrichten of Leipzig comes from a member of the Bulgarian Red Cross who went through the entire fight. He dispatched his message to a German friend by smuggling the letter through the Roumanian post.
    The Kurds, Bashi-Bazouks, and Tartars who fought with the Turks in every way distinguished themselves more than the Turkish regulars. It was they alone who enabled the Turkish commanders to execute the retreat to Bunar-Hissar, and to them also was due the slaughter on the Bulgarian side.
    These wild tribesmen, it is asserted, perpetrated the most indescribable atrocities on the Bulgarian wounded.
    In face of the fire which the Turkish defenders poured out from the vineyards where they had taken up concealed positions, the Bulgarian attack, the message says, suddenly became disorderly.
    All the Bulgarian wounded on the firing line were massacred by Kurds and Bashi-Bazouks. When the ambulance corps men finally came up they found in all directions dead and dying. Those whom bullets had not killed outright were in the last agonies, having eyes gouged out, noses and ears cut off, and bodies ripped with knives by the Turkish irregulars,
    Again and again the Bulgarians returned to face the Turkish volleys. Again and again they were repulsed, only to come back with renewed dash and desperation. Hand-to-hand fighting became general amid the grape vines. Finally the rattle of rifles ceased, and the Bulgarians took the vineyards at the bayonet's point.
    The Turks defended every inch with the utmost stubbornness. Axes, scimiters, knives, rifle butts, and even bare knuckles and teeth were their weapons. The ambulance corps found more than one Bulgarian with his neck bitten through by some mad tribesman. Many other Bulgarian soldiers had been impaled by Turks.
    From daylight on Monday, Oct. 21, to 5 P. M. on Wednesday, Oct. 23, the fighting for the possession of the heights of Kirk-Kilisseh raged with ferocity. Finally the defense was broken down under a succession of assaults.
    Rockets from the Turkish forts gave the Bulgarian General to understand that an Ottoman retreat was about to take place, and then the attackers made a final rush and attained their goal with a cruel sacrifice. The Christian soldiers of the garrison surrendered in great numbers, but the Mohammedans continued to fight. By 3 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 24, the Bulgarian artillery had enabled an entry to be made into the town, and another desperate fight in the streets gave the Bulgarians the final victory.