Horrors Of Turkish Retreat.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 20, 1912:
Ruin and Slaughter Everywhere — Massacre of Christians Confirmed.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Wednesday, Nov. 20.— William Maxwell, correspondent of The Daily Mail, sends a dispatch, dated Istranja, telling of the terrible scenes he witnessed after the Turks were overwhelmed by the Bulgarians in the  five days' struggle near Lule-Burgas. He says:
    "The horrors of the road to Istranja are evidence of the demoralized flight of the Turks after their defeat along the line from Bunar Hissar to Lule-Burgas.
    "Miles of ox wagons, toiling through the heavy clay, pass over the dead in whose bodies ruts are worn. At Tartarli, south of Visa, I came upon a sight which surpassed in horror everything else. Yards back of the dark earth seemed to have been churned by some mighty force. Here were limbers and wagons, splintered and half buried in the quagmire. Many scores of soldiers, who had fallen in the rearguard action, lay with bloodstained hands stretched out, in the clay. Their livid faces seemed to float on the morass. Some were gray-haired men. Others were mere boys.
    "A motor hung over the ditch. In it lay two men, shot through the head. At its side was stretched a soldier, rifle in hand, upon whom death came as he turned to flee.
    "Amid these terrors, which the infernal regions could not match, roamed women and children seeking what the dead no longer need.
    "I passed through three or four villages, which the Turks in their retreat had given to flames.
    "There is, I fear, no doubt that they added to the horrors of their position by foul massacres of Christians. The evidences of these atrocities are buried, but I heard from eye-witnesses, whose word I cannot dispute, that women were murdered in cold blood and their slaughtered infants were cast down in the mud.
    "The atrocities were limited to two or three places. Most of the people of the Christian villages, with which the whole country is dotted, escaped, though their houses were burned, and they are left without shelter or means of subsistence."