Turks' Position Desperate.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 1, 1912:
Cabinet Believed to be Considering an Appeal for Peace.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Friday, Nov. 1.— There seems no reason to doubt the Bulgarian announcement, conveyed in agency dispatches from Sofia, of a severe defeat of the Turkish Army along the Lule-Burgas and Sarai line and a panicky retreat of Nazim Pasha's forces on Tchorlu, for even Nazim's official reports admit that the Bulgarians are advancing about Lule-Burgas, and the best he can say for his men is that they are offering "vigorous resistance."
    The most favorable deduction for the Turks that can be drawn from their own commander's reports is that they met with some success on their extreme right. As to what happened at the centre of the Ottoman position, Nazim is completely silent, and it is here that the Bulgarians assert they had their greatest success.
    That the Turkish centre has been pierced seems beyond contravention, and this means disaster in case the troops are disheartened by previous reverses.
    One extremely interesting admission is made in Nazim's reports. He says the Citadel at Adrianople is still holding out. If the Citadel alone is now resisting, all the forts guarding Adrianople must have fallen, and the doom of the Turkish fortress cannot long be delayed.
    The stern realities of the situation are apparently beginning to be understood at Constantinople, for a Council of Ministers was held at midnight (Thursday) for the purpose, it is believed, of considering the question of making peace.

Correspondents Silent.
    Up to 2 A.M. to-day no news had reached London of the great four days' battle from any of the special war correspondents. In fact, with the sole exception of Lieut. Wegener of the Vienna Reichspost, not one of the ninety war correspondents who sought to follow the Bulgarian colors has been allowed anywhere near the fighting line.
    Mustapha-Pasha, on the Turkish-Bulgarian frontier, was the headquarters of the special correspondents yesterday. They had permits to proceed, but were forbidden to approach Adrianople, and, judging from such dispatches as they transmitted yesterday, they are in utter ígnorance of the great events which happened in the last four days in this most rapid of modern campaigns.
    Great as the Bulgarian victory at Lule-Burgas has been, it is considered by military experts to be by no means complete, and Vienna dispatches which carry us to a point beyond the official reports from Sofia indicate that fighting is still proceeding.
    The main battle, according to the Neue Freie Presse, is expected between Muradli, Tchorlu, and Istrandja. The question is whether the Turks can make good their retreat upon the Tchataldja lines, which are considered impregnable.
    The fighting has been over such an extended area and probably of such a disconnected sort, as, was the case at Mukden, that it is difficult, with the Nazim Pasha, reports available, to obtain an altogether clear idea of the operations. The severest encounter was apparently in the direction of Lule-Burgas to Tchorlu. There is a difference of expert opinion here as to whether this was Nazim's left wing or his centre. The general idea is that it was the Turkish left, but various reports have spoken of a Turkish movement from Usundpru, which presumably referred to the force constituting the extreme Ottoman left in Nazim's original dispositions.
    In moving his front to the east in order to prevent a Bulgarian force marching by Viza and Midia, Nazim may have been unable to draw in his left wing in time to mass sufficient troops in the neighborhood of Lule-Burgas to resist the Bulgarian attack at that point. In that case the absence of any late news of the Turkish forces reported moving from Usundpru would indicate that the Ottoman commander lost touch with it. If this supposition is correct its chances of getting to the Tchataldja lines is remote and its capture by the Bulgarians probable.