Turkish Attitude Feared.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 26, 1912:
    LONDON, Tuesday, Nov. 26.— The extreme anxiety manifested by all the European Governments to deny the reports- of warlike preparations, and to represent the political situation as peaceful and satisfactory, is in itself an indication of how slender a thread the issue of peace and war in Europe now hangs.
    The danger arises not alone from the conflicting interests of Austria, Servia, and other States, but also from the possibility that Turkey, following her traditional policy of profiting by the embroilment of the great powers, may adopt an irreconcilable attitude in the peace negotiations.
    The withdrawal of the Austrian warship Admiral Spavin and of the Austrian contingent of bluejackets from Constantinople, with the sudden and unexplained departure for an unannounced destination of the Austrian squadron which has been lying at Smyrna, are factors which are disturbing diplomats, who see in a close union of all the great powers the only hope of a peaceable solution of the crisis.
    A dispatch from Antivari says Austria-Hungary is mobilizing a striking force at Port Ragusa, to which place a portion of the garrison of the Austrian fortress of Spizza, Dalmatia, has been sent.
    From Vienna comes the information that the Servian War Office has recalled all the Servian troops that can be spared from the columns operating in the neighborhood of Prisrend and Monastir and that the fortifications of the Servian capital are being hastily supplied with heavy artillery. The Austrians deduce from these facts that Servia is not deposed to yield, and a pacific settlement of the Austro-Servian dispute seems to them difficult of realization if Servia's demands are maintained as an irreducible minimum.
    These demands were outlined by Premier Pasitch of Servia yesterday. He declared that a minimum requisite of Servia's national development was economic independence and a free and adequate passage to the Adriatic Sea. This, according to the Servian statesman, meant Servia's possession of a stretch of coast line of about thirty-odd miles, which would be joined to the present territory of Servia by a strip of what was Old Servia.
    This minimum is declared to be wholly incompatible with the Austrian and Italian contention that Albania should be autonomous, as it would cut Albania in two and confine the autonomous provinces to a stony and poverty-stricken district unable to maintain an independent existence.