Is Turkey Yielding?

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 25, 1913:
    Behind the veil of concealment secured by the banishment of press correspondents from the field of military operations in the Balkans very conflicting reports are heard. They are for the most part unfavorable to the Turks, as was to have been expected. The fortress of Adrianople has not been and can not be reinforced or revictualed. Its actual capture would be a bloody and perilous undertaking, but a rigid siege, in the opinion of the military experts, makes its surrender only a question of time. In other parts of the area of war a waiting game is carried on, to the obvious disadvantage of the Turks, whose treasury is empty, whose armies seem to have been taxed to the verge of exhaustion, and whose Government is wrestling with bitter and savage internal dissension. In view of these facts, the general expectation in the European capitals of an early end of the Balkan war seems reasonable.
    This expectation is accompanied by a growing feeling of security as to the peaceful relations of the Powers among themselves. It is now pretty safe to assume that the advances toward an understanding made by the venerable Emperor of Austria to the Czar of Russia were decisively successful. The contrary reports sent out from St. Petersburg and from Berlin have been explicitly denied. The good faith of Austria has been distinctly recognized by the Government of Russia, and the response is declared to have been entirely reassuring. One of the earliest and most promising consequences of this rapprochement has been the undertaking by Russia — now pretty well authenticated — to mediate between Rumania and Bulgaria in the dispute over the claims of the former. That dispute has for weeks been regarded as the point at which Russia and Austria were likely to come into conflict. Equally reassuring are the latest reports as to the possibility of an adjustment of the long-standing rivalry in naval armament between Great Britain and Germany. The first reports of the expressions of the German Naval Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs are more than confirmed. These expressions were more specific and more encouraging than they were made to appear. That the German Government should take pains to let the public know this fact is in itself significant.