Allies Offer Terms Powers Must Refuse

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 15, 1913:
Imminent Fall of Adrianople and Scutari Increases Their Demands.
INSIST UPON INDEMNITY
Proposed Boundary Threatens Constantinople Defenses — Turkey to Cede Islands.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    LONDON. March 14.— A Vienna dispatch to The Times says that very positive reports that both Adrianople and Scutari are about to fall have been received there. The Politische Correspondenz, which publishes nothing without the imprimatur of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, is informed from Constantinople that the capitulation of Adrianople is impending, and a telegram from Cettinje announces that all the preparations have been made for a general assault upon Scutari. Before the assault the fortress will be summoned to surrender. In case of a refusal, a bombardment will precede the infantry attack, which will be undertaken simultaneously on three sides. Both Adrianople and Scutari have now held out longer than Plevna, and it is believed that the garrisons must be becoming exhausted.
    Meanwhile the Balkan allies have replied to the offer of mediation made by the powers, accepting the offer, but on terms to which the powers will be unable to accede. The allies maintain their demand for Rodosto, which would bring Bulgaria down to the Sea of Marmora, would cut off the Gallipoli Peninsula from Constantinople, and materially detract from the defensive value of the Dardanelles. They also insist upon the payment of an indemnity and upon the cession of the Aegean Islands. This reply will be considered at a meeting of Sir Edward Grey and the Ambassadors, which, according to present arrangements, will be held on Saturday.
    There is much discussion of the reasons that induced the allies to put forward terms obviously impossible for the powers to recommend to Turkey. One of the plausible explanations is that the Balkan Governments are influenced by considerations of internal politics; another that, in true Oriental fashion, they are beginning by asking far more than they expect to get. According to a third view, they wish to delay the negotiations for peace until Adrianople and Scutari have been taken.
    In all the capitals, however, the feeling is growing that the war must now be brought to an end, and that the only way in which this can be done is for the powers to formulate conditions of peace and recommend them to Turkey and the allies.

    SOFIA, March 14.— The reply of the Balkan allies on the question of mediation by the powers was presented to-day to the foreign legations here. It declares that the Balkan nations will accept European mediation on the following conditions:
    First— As a basis of negotiations for the delimitation of the territory between Turkey and the Balkan allies, a line shall be drawn from Rodosto on the Sea of Marmora to Cape Malatra, seven miles south of Midia on the Black Sea, excluding the peninsula of Gallipoli, which shall be left to Turkey. All territories west of the line, including Adrianople and Scutari, must be ceded by Turkey to the allies.
    Second— Turkey shall cede the islands in the Aegean Sea to the allies.
    Third— Turkey shall renounce all her interests in the Island of Crete.
    Fourth— The Porte shall consent in principle to the payment of a war indemnity, the amount of which shall be fixed when peace has been concluded, and also to the payment of private individuals of compensation for damage caused prior to the war. The allies shall participate in the deliberations regarding the indemnities.
    Fifth— The allies reserve the right to settle by definite treaty of peace the treatment to be accorded to their subjects and to their trade in the Ottoman Empire, as well as the guarantees to be given regarding the privileges of the orthodox churches and the legal standing of their racial brothers who are Ottoman subjects.

    LONDON. March 14.— The Ambassadorial conference will meet here to-morrow to consider the reply of the allies to the offer of the powers to mediate in the war in Southeastern Europe. The reply, it is believed, will fail to supply a reasonable basis for successful mediation. It is assumed that the allies have presented impracticable terms in the belief that Europe is divided into two hostile groups and will be unable to agree to employ coercion against them.
    It is stated in Belgrade that the Servian siege army now preparing to bombard Scutari numbers 42,000 men.

    FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN, March 14.— Three hundred Albanian inhabitants of the district of Liuma, in the Turkish Province of Kossovo, were yesterday shot without trial by Servian troops, according to a dispatch from Uskub to the Frankfort Gazette.
    The inhabitants of the district were 400 in number. They were unarmed peasants, and did not follow the example of the rest of the Albanians in fleeing to the mountains. All were captured by a column of Servian troops, who, after shooting 300 of them, brought the surviving 100 as prisoners to Prisrend, the capital of the province.

    ATHENS. March 14.— The damage done to the Greek transports by the Turkish cruiser Hamidieh on her recent raid along the Adriatic Coast was even more serious than at first reported. Four of the Greek transports, while landing Servian troops at San Giovanni de Medua to aid the Montenegrins in their attack upon Scutari, were burned, one transport was sunk, and two other vessels were riddled by the shells of the Hamidieh.