Delay For Montenegro.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 26, 1913:
Powers Decide to Await King Nicholas's Decision on Scutari.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Saturday, April 26.— The Ambassadorial Conference met to-day and considered the Austrian note, urging prompt and decisive action on the part of Europe against Montenegro, to vindicate its authority. It was decided before discussing coercive steps to await the result of the notification to King Nicholas that the capture of Scutari does not affect the powers' decision that the town must form a part of autonomous Albania.
    Harold Spender, writing in The Daily News, says that Montenegro followed up the Austrian note by offering to leave Scutari on conditions. She won't accept money, but wants territorial compensation in the shape of freer access to the sea and easier access to the frontier town of Ipek.

    CETTINJE, April 25.— Conditions in the fortress of Scutari on Wednesday last, when Essad Pasha surrendered to the Montenegrins, were appalling. The Turkish troops and the whole population were in a state of such extreme exhaustion from lack of food that Essad Pasha had been threatened with death unless he agreed to the capitulation of the city. When the victors entered they were surrounded by half-starved men and women clamoring for food.
    The hospitals also were in a horrible condition. Unburied and semi-decomposed corpses were lying about in the streets, and in the houses many people were found dead or dying of exhaustion.
    In the last few days of the siege, whenever Essad Pasha appeared in public he was followed by groups of desperate, famished natives demanding "Bread or surrender!"
    The Montenegrins alleviated the immediate distress of the population, but their own supplies of food were scanty. King Nicholas has despatched three boats to Scutari, laden with provisions and medical and sanitary supplies.
    Crown Prince Danilo, commander of the Montenegrin forces, telegraphs from Scutari that the Turkish garrison, which was allowed to march out of the fortress with the full honors of war, consisted of 26,000 nizams, or soldiers of the active army; 5,000 bashi-bazouks, or irregular volunteers; and 458 officers, including a number of Austrians.
    The spoils of war taken by the Montenegrins included forty-six quick-firing canon and twelve howitzers, with a number of heavy siege guns.