Turks Destroyed Historic Mosque.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 28, 1913:
Troops Blew Up Famous Adrianople Building Before They Surrendered the City.
SERBS SHARED IN VICTORY
Say the Fortress Fell Owing to Their Artillery Fire — Bulgarians Renew the Battle at Tchatalja.
    LONDON, Friday, March 28.— A telegram from Sofia to the Exchange Telegraph Company says that before they surrendered Adrianople the Turkish troops blew up the Grand Mosque.
    The same company has received unconfirmed wireless reports via Vienna that the Turkish cruiser Hamidieh has again bombarded and almost destroyed the port of San Giovanni di Medua, on the Adriatic Sea.
    It is stated that unless peace is speedily concluded the troops which captured Adrianople, with the heavy siege guns used there, will be moved to Tchatalja, behind which the Turks have been driven.
    A Belgrade dispatch says that Adrianople fell as the result of the heavy artillery fire of the Servians. The prisoners taken were in a state of exhaustion and had been induced to continue fighting only by the indomitable will of the Turkish commander, Shukri Pasha.
    The Servians were, it is added, the first to enter the city, the outer streets of which were deserted. As the soldiers penetrated further the people began to come out. The garrison captured is estimated to number 30,000. Shukri Pasha intended to continue resistance in the northern and western, sections, but the capture of the western front by the Servians made this impossible.

    CONSTANTINOPLE, March 27. — The Bulgarian Army, which is investing the lines of Tchatalja, began a determined attack at dawn to-day. The main assaults were directed against the Turkish centre and right wing.
    The Tanin states that there was serious fighting on the Turkish left wing, where the Ottoman troops encountered superior forces of Bulgarians. Three battalions of infantry who formed the Turkish outposts fought like lions and succeeded in inflicting heavy losses on the Bulgarians.
    The fighting on the Tchatalja lines ceased at 10 o'clock this morning, after which quiet reigned along the entire front.
    A number of wounded arrived here to-day from the Tchatalja lines.

    SOFIA, March 27.— The great Bulgarian army operating in front of the Turkish line of defense at Tchatalja received orders to take the offensive simultaneously with the advance against Adrianople by the combined Servian and Bulgarian besieging force.
    During three days, beginning Sunday, constant assaults on the Turkish works at various points of the Tchatalja lines were carried out. The Turkish defenders operated against the advance of the Bulgarians with five divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry, supported by Ottoman warships at each end of the line.
    The result of the fighting was a steady advance by the Bulgarian troops, who re-occupied their old positions in front pf the principal forts along the line, which they had abandoned at the beginning of Winter.
    The Bulgarian Council of Ministers has decided to distribute flour and other foodstuffs to the value of $24,000 among the poorer inhabitants of Adrianople without distinction of religion or nationality.
    Crowds filled the streets of Sofia throughout last night, rejoicing over the fall of the Turkish stronghold. Thousands of persons demonstrated enthusiastically outside the foreign legations.

    BELGRADE, March 27.— The news of the surrender of Djavid Pasha, Commander of the Seventh Turkish Army Corps, with 15,000 Ottoman troops, announced in Cettinje on March 25, was premature.
    The negotiations between the Servian and Turkish commanders are not yet ended.