Bulgars Tried To Rush Forts.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 19, 1912:
But Cruiser in the Bay Began Firing and the Batteries Awoke.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Tuesday, Nov. 19.— G. Ward Price, The Daily Mail's correspondent, has returned to Constantinople after spending eighteen hours at the battle on the Tchatalja lines, which, he says, is still going on.
    "So far," he says, "the Turks are holding their own in the furious artillery duel, at least as far as the southern end of the lines is concerned, where the hottest action is taking place. They even claim to have captured as many as six batteries of Bulgarian artillery and four machine guns, but this I only heard by report.
    "At 1 o'clock Sunday morning the sudden booming of guns came from the southwest. According to what I was told by Turkish soldiers, this sudden start of the battle was the chief Bulgarian attempt to rush the Turkish positions, commanding the Lake of Biyuk Chekmeji. In the half light of the dawn the Bulgarian infantry had already crept up within a close distance of the Turkish lines.
    "It is said that when the Turkish cruiser lying in Biyuk Chekmeji Bay saw them it immediately opened fire with its big guns. The Turkish land batteries joined in, and the Bulgarian advance was driven back."
    From the crest of the ridge of hills commanding a broad valley, the correspondent was able to watch the Bulgarian and Turkish artillery pounding each other. He says:
    "It was the ridge just across the railway, where the line goes southwest before turning to the north up the valley to Tchatalja. Along this ridge stands the rearmost line of forts, and from it one looked across a deep, broad valley to a village which I identified on the map as Iszedin.
    "The Bulgarian batteries were flashing along a line, stretching from this village to Tchatalja, which was itself hidden from sight by a piece of rising ground on my left front, which was occupied by two Turkish batteries.
    "On these the Bulgarian shells were bursting freely without, however, doing much damage to either the guns or the infantry lying in the shelter of a dip in the ground.

Shells Reach Turks in Trenches.
    "To the right of a disused redoubt, the parapet of which I made my post of observation, was a Turkish fort shelling the village of Izzedin. A battery close by was doing the same along the front.
    "Between these points lay a long line of Turkish trenches full of infantry, among whom the shell fire was evidently doing damage, for supports in a widely extended tine were going slowly to them, sought out themselves now and then by those sudden death-dealing clouds of compact white smoke that flung the black earth in showers into the air.
    "Further away on the right were two more Turkish forts, from which still more shells went petulantly screaming across the land toward where tiny flashes in the blue haze of the valley marked the Bulgarian batteries at work.
    "It was difficult to estimate the range, but I noticed that many Turkish shells fell short, while some of the Bulgarian shells were bursting 300 yards behind the batteries in front of me.
    "About 3 o'clock in the afternoon the Bulgarians sent forward infantry from Tchatalja against the Turkish trenches, lying along the opposite ridge. For a quarter of an hour a heavy rifle fire took place at this point and then slackened. "As the Bulgarians withdrew shortly afterward, a dense column of cream colored smoke sprang up in the village of Izzedin. Evidently the Turkish shells had set it on fire.
    "All this time heavy firing was going on along the valley that stretched away to the left and round in a crescent shape toward Lake Biyuk Chekmeje. There the Turkish cruiser Hamidiyeh was engaged all day, covering with her fire the narrow neck of land that separates the lake from the sea.
    "As night fell the long day's artillery duel slackened and died away to silence.

Firing Resumed at Dawn.
    "To-day we got up before sunrise and returned to see the battle start. Again it began as soon as it was light, but only along the valley between Tchatalja and Lake Biyuk Chekmeji. The forts on our right, which were yesterday so active, were now silent, one battery coming away from that part of the line as we watched.
    "That Bulgarian fire against that section of the front had ceased, however, was shown by the impunity with which a bullock wagon and train of ammunition was crossing the ground where yesterday shells were bursting. "I heard several stories from soldiers of the incidents of Sunday's battle, which I cannot guarantee. One was to the effect that the presence of a regiment of 500 Bulgarian cavalrymen was detected near the village of Biyuk Chekmeji by the fact that two of their scouts entered the village and obtained food from a Greek priest.
    "Another said the attempt to blow up the railway bridge near San Stefano by two Bulgarian spies was noticed by a child, who told the Turkish patrol."
    Speaking of the cholera victims which he saw in the rear of the Tchatalja lines, the correspondent says:
    "It is pitiful to see the corpses of soldiers who died of cholera lying scattered by the side of the road, and worse to see the dying with blackened faces curled up on the ground.
    "At Hadem Keui Village on our right the dead had been collected in piles of a hundred or more each. These lay in a hideous tangle of arms, bodies, heads, and legs, while a trench was being dug to cover them."