Turks' Situation Desperate.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 26, 1912:
European Observers Amazed at the Bulgarian Successes.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Saturday, Oct. 26.— The Bulgarian Premier's description of Kirk-Kilisseh as "a second Plevna," combined with the details which have reached here since news of its capture by King Ferdinand's army, has dissipated the previous opinion here that the loss of the town by the Turks was a matter of little importance. Now it is regarded as a Turkish disaster of the first magnitude.
    Despite the efforts made in official dispatches from Constantinople to minimize it, the importance of the Bulgarian victory is proved by the fact that the Turks are now hoping for intervention by the powers.
    In this connection the following special dispatch to The Daily Mail from Constantinople is of the utmost significance:
    "Great hope exists here that after the inevitable battles around Adrianople the powers will intervene for a cessation of hostilities. In principle the Government is not opposed to the powers' intervention, but its hopes of such intervention would have for its object to put an end to the Balkan States' pretensions.
    Observers are now asking if the Turks are already recognizing that the game is lost. It is now known from Turkish sources that 150,000 excellent troops were massed near Kirk-Kilisseh. Whether they were all engaged is still uncertain, but in any case their enforced retreat must be disastrous to the morale of the army.
    In Germany, where the strength of the Kirk-Kilisseh position was well known, its defenses having been planned by German officers, the news of its fall has aroused nothing less than amazement.
    In Berlin the grave position of the Turkish Army is recognized, even by those who have hitherto expressed the utmost confidence in the Ottoman fighting material.
    In other fields of the war there are signs that the crescent is growing dimmer. The Turkish reports of a great victory over the Servians near Kumanova are disproved by later dispatches. The Serbs Continue their victorious advance, and their first army is now established at Kumanova.
    In this district, however, only Turkish irregulars appear to have been engaged, and Fethi Pasha's main force is concentrated for the defense of Uskub, which is the pivotal point of the Macedonian campaign.

Captured According to Schedule.
    A Sofia dispatch to The London Times says:
    "The series of attacks on the positions around Kirk-Kilisseh began in the brilliant moonlight after 10 o'clock, being preceded by a vigorous bombardment.
    "Gen. Savoff, Commander in Chief of the Bulgarian Army, issued peremptory instructions to Gen. Dimitriff that the fortress must be taken Thursday morning. His order recalls the Czar's famous command, 'Let Plevna be taken.'
    "The troops, who appeared to have suffered nothing in morale from the unsuccessful issue of the previous attacks, advanced to the assault with alacrity.
    "Throughout the night successive positions were stormed at the point of the bayonet, a weapon in the use of which the Bulgarians excel, and before 10 o'clock on Thursday morning the situation of the defenders became desperate.
    "Mukhtar Pasha, the commandant; Prince Abdul Halim, and other Turkish superior officers with a portion of the garrison, had already succeeded in escaping in the direction of Bunar-Hissar, some fifteen miles to the southeast, and in saving a considerable amount of war material. An hour later the remnant of the garrison hoisted the white flag and surrendered.
    "The Bulgarian losses are estimated at 5,000 killed and wounded. All the Turkish dead that were found were left on the field. Care of the wounded will prove a serious embarrassment to the already overtaxed Bulgarian hospital staff."
    Lady Lowther, wife of the British Ambassador to Constantinople, who was formerly Miss Alice Blight of Philadelphia, writes to the London papers appealing for help for the war sufferers. There is urgent need of relief for the thousands who face the famine of the coming Winter.