Silent War Broods Over Adrianople.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 7, 1912:
A War Correspondent Pictures Graphically the Fearful Peace Around the Besieged City.
ALL QUIET IN TRENCHES
But Bulgarians Yearn to Let Loose Their Artillery — Wounded Linger for Days Beyond Reach of Aid.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Thursday, Nov. 7.— The best picture of the siege of Adrianople, so far received, comes from Luagi Barsini, the correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, who, in a dispatch, dated Mustafa Pasha last Sunday, says:
    "Since yesterday the Turkish forts have resumed their cannonade at intervals, and the boom of their shots reaches like the rumble of distant thunder. The Bulgarian artillery, both large and small, remains silent and will only reveal itself at the opportune moment, which is approaching. A continuous fine, frozen rain, which is snow on the mountains, falls upon the besieged town, which appears in glistening confusion beneath the twilight sky.
    "It seems to be asleep and not a sign of life is to be perceived outside its walls. It is wrapped in an immense silence, in profound peace, in funereal immobility. It might be said that Adrianople was deserted, if every now and again a dull roar of artillery did not echo in the valley, followed by the formidable bursting of the shell, with a white cloud of smoke above one of the forts, spreading itself lazily in strange, changeful forms.
    "The Sultanschi Mosque towers spectrally above the mist, with four snowy minarets surrounded by a confusion of domes in the midst of the gray of the old town.
    "On the top of these wonderful slender columns the Turks have established posts of observation, from which they direct the fire of their artillery. They endeavor by long shots from their big batteries to discover the invisible encampments of the enemy, hidden behind the hills and within the valley, but nearly always the shells fall in the solitudes, raising great clouds of yellow earth.
    "Some fires are still languishing in the villages close to the town, which have been reduced to masses of black, smoking ruins. Marasch township, on the extreme point of the little peninsula, formed by the confluence of the Maritza with the Arda, was burned yesterday by the Turks. From their commanding positions the Bulgarians saw patrols of the enemy going about between the houses, piling up straw close to the wretched wooden buildings, and then applying fire.
    "All this takes place within rifle shot, but the Bulgarians only fire in order to repel attack, the strictest orders having been given that no fighting is to be engaged in until the appointed hour has arrived. The silence in the entrenchments is so complete that one has to enter them in order to perceive that they are occupied. Behind the trenches, in the approaches and bivouacs, there is a perfect tumult of life, but at the battle-front all this agitation is extinguished and one falls into the midst of a taciturn mob of motionless troops, crouching deep in the trenches with rifles ready to fire.
    "The gunners polish their weapons, which are placed in hidden positions, caress them and try the working of every part. Each gun has a name, and in the imagination of the soldiers it becomes a living sentient being, terribly impatient for battle. I heard one man say to his gun: 'Are you hungry, old man? Wait a bit and you shall eat a wagonload of fire.' "
    "In some suburbs of Adrianople and also near Karagach Station, where the new white city extends, some fires are burning. Now and again cavalry pass at a gallop along the bank of the Maritza and over the desolate plain.
    "A few rifle shots crackle here and there close to the Turkish advanced positions, around which troops are working every night, strengthening and adding to the auxiliary defenses.
    "On some declivities the poles of the wire entanglements resemble plantations and have the appearance of vineyards despoiled by Winter. Between the two lines of advanced posts the fields show no trace of labor. Trees have been cut down, hedges demolished, and houses burned. Land trodden by the foot of war again becomes wild; death has passed over it.
    "The Bulgarians, who from the parapets of their trenches look toward Marasch and Jurush, where the last combat raged, see the slopes strewn with the muddy corpses of Turks amid a confusion of objects that have been thrown away, and among the bodies are wounded, whom nobody can succor, and who have been in agony for the last four days. Men of the Bulgarian Red Cross are fired at every time they attempt to rescue these unfortunate sufferers, and a well-known doctor of Sofia, a Director of a sanitarium, was killed while assisting a wounded Turk.
    "Not a day passes without Turkish reconnaissance causing skirmishes at various points of the long battle-front, and frequently in consequence of these encounters little bodies of prisoners pass through the Bulgarian encampments to headquarters. Every morning groups of Turkish soldiers, guarded by sentries, are lined up in the courtyard of Konak, but after their two gallant attempts at a sortie the Turks seem to have given up the offensive and retired behind their defenses.
    "The rain, which has transformed the roads into torrents and turned Mustafa Pasha into a village of mud, must certainly create difficulties for the movements of the Allied forces, which are preparing for the last phase of the investment of Adrianople, but the movement continues without repose."

300 Servians Sail to Fight.
    Three hundred Servians sailed yesterday on the Austro-American steamship Alice for Triest to fight for their country against the Turks. They arrived here from San Francisco under the leadership of Bozo M. Gopesvic, a retired San Francisco newspaper man, who said that 4,500 more recruits would sail next week for Servia on the Laura of the Austro-American Line. He added that many of the party, had, been mining in Alaska, and gave up valuable claims to take part in the war.