Allies Have Given World A Lesson.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 8, 1912:
Secrecy and Completeness of the Mobilization Unprecedented, Says Gen. Allison, U.S.A.
BIGGER FORCE THAN TURKEY'S
Bulgaria's Fighting Machine Built Up In Eight Years — Artillery Strong Factor in Allies' Triumph.
    In the forthcoming issue of the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, published on Governor's Island by officers of the army, a leading article will deal with the military organizations of Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, Montenegro, and Turkey. The author is Brig, Gen. John N. Allison, who has made a study of the Balkan question.
    "Once again," writes Gen. Allison, "the eyes of the civilized world are turned anxiously toward the sick man of Southeastern Europe, who is surely and sorely in need of the services of a physician.
    Gen. Allison takes up in order the armies of the contending nations, beginning with Turkey. The Turks, according to Gen. Allison's figures, assume to have an infantry total of 37,008 officers and 1,222,000 enlisted men, a cavalry strength of 1,580 officers and 26,800 enlisted men, an artillery strength of 1,032 officers and 29,380 men, and 245 officers and 10,470 enlisted men in the Engineer Corps, besides a Medical Corps and a transportation department.
    "How much of this vast paper force actually exists," Gen. Allison writes, "what proportion of that actually existing can be made available for work in the Balkans, is a matter of pure conjecture. Col. Brose, late of the Information Department of the German General Staff, estimates such number as 600,000 men of all arms, and this estimate is thought to be liberal."
    The war strength of the allies Gen. Allison places at 680,000 men, of whom Bulgaria furnishes 350,000, Servia 180,000, Greece 100,000, and Montenegro 50,000.
    Writing of the Bulgarian Army, Gen. Allison points out that the present great fighting machine was organized less than eight years ago. The organization is divided into four parts: The field or active army, the active army reserve, the reserve army, and the militia. Prior to the present war the Bulgar Army was distributed in nine divisional areas, each with a headquarters, and these areas knew exactly how many men of all arms could be called upon in the event of war. The divisions were subdivided into districts, and from each district the organization was such as to produce at the earliest possible moment one fully equipped regiment of four battalions.
    The Servian Army is singled out for praise by the army officer, as are also the fighting forces of Greece and Montenegro. Gen. Allison calls the Montenegrins an intrepid race of sharpshooters, with an organization so perfect that it can be concentrated within a few days, the army being accompanied, when it is in the field, by the wives and daughters of the soldiers, who carry the ammunition and cook all of the food.
    The Greek Army, Gen. Allison points out, has learned the lesson of its defeat by Turkey in 1897, and since that time far-reaching administrative changes and disciplinary reforms have been adopted, and the present Greek force is the outgrowth of that transition.
    Reports from the seat of war agree on the important part that the artillery has played in the present war. Gen. Allison gives much space to this arm of the service and shows what each of the allied States as well as Turkey has in the way of big guns. The Turkish artillery comprises field, horse, mountain artillery and howitzer batteries, fortress artillery and artillery depots. All of the organizations are part of the Turkish regular army and there is no second line of artillery. On a war footing each field battery has four officers and 100 to 120 enlisted men.
    The latest available reports give the total Turkish artillery strength as 198 field batteries (1,188 guns,) eighteen horse batteries (108 guns.) forty mountain batteries (240 guns,) and twelve howitzer batteries (72 guns.) These guns are all of the various Krupp types. The artillery ammunition train consists of 1,254 wagons.
    The Bulgarian artillery numbers about 13,000 officers and men. The artillery consists mainly of 8.7 and 7.5 centimeter Krupp guns, 6.5 centimeter Krupp mountain pieces, Krupp 12 centimeter and Schneider howitzers, Creuzot siege guns, and 7.5 centimeter Creuzot quick-firers. The number of guns is 1,154.
    The Servian artillery comprises only Schneider-Canet quick-firing guns, while the Montenegrin artillery consists of eighteen siege, twenty-five field and thirty-eight mountain guns, four howitzers, fifteen mortars, and eighteen Gatling and Maxim-Nordenfeldt machine guns.
    The Greek artillery consists of thirty-six batteries of 7.5 centimeter Schneider-Canet, three heavy and six mountain batteries of six guns each, 7.5 centimeter special barrel. The heavy guns are of 17, 15, and 10.5 centimeters, with two batteries of howitzers.
    Commenting in general on the war, Gen. Allison says of the manner the Balkan States took the field:
    "The movements of the widely separated allied armies, up to the present time, beginning with the probably somewhat premature dash of impetuous little Montenegro, would indicate the direction by one controlling mind of a skilfully conceived and thoroughly understood plan of campaign. And the expedition and complete secrecy with which the four armies were mobilized and actually put into the field with scarcely a suspicion in the minds of watchful European diplomats probably stands without precedent in history."
    The article closes with a word of praise for the Servian cavalry, the work of which, Gen. Allison says, will give food for reflection to those military critics and essayists who have been busy composing dirges for the mounted troops of the allied armies.