Bulgaria Ahead In Balkan Conflict.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 7, 1913:
Has Invaded Servia, It Is Now Admitted, While Holding Greeks in Check.
FEARFUL HAVOC IN FIELD
35,000 Already Fallen In Ten Days — Servian Admissions Read as Foreshadowing Disaster.
    LONDON, July 7.— The last ten days of fighting among the former Balkan allies has resulted in the killing or wounding of 30,000 or 40,000 men — a greater slaughter than any recorded in the war against Turkey.
    The Servians alone have lost more men — 15,000 killed and wounded — than in the whole previous campaign, and semiofficial statements issued at Belgrade have the appearance of an intention to prepare the public for news of a disaster.
    Desperate fighting, with fluctuating fortunes, is proceeding along the Vardar and Bregalinitza Rivers, and this seems to be in favor of the Bulgarians.
    Important news has been received of a Bulgarian invasion of Servia through Belogradchyk, about forty-five miles northeast of Nish, Servia's most important fortified town. No indication is given of the strength of the Bulgarian column at this point, but the Bulgarians say that they have defeated the Servians and captured five guns and a quantity of other war material, and by the occupation of the passes have opened the road to Nish.
    There is heavy fighting also between the Servians and Bulgarians to the south of Istif and in the neighborhood of Kotchana.
    About 200,000 men in all are engaged, and the losses on both sides appear to be severe.

Dealing with Servia First.
    Bulgaria's strategy appears to be to hold the Greeks in check, probably with comparatively small forces, while she deals with Servia. This assumption, if correct, would explain the victorious advance of the Greek Army.
    Unconfirmed reports credit the Bulgarians with victories near Koprulu, giving them the key to Uskup, and with an outflanking movement from the south of Tahynos Lake, which would cut off the Greek retreat.
    Salonika dispatches continue to report Greek victories. The Greeks are said to have captured sixteen guns at Doiran. Evidence of desperate fighting is found in the arrival of 8,000 wounded at Salonika, taxing the town's accommodations and resources to the utmost. Thousands of destitute refugees from the scene of the fighting are pouring into Salonika.
    The Greeks have made wholesale charges against the Bulgarians of burning and pillaging all the villages they abandon, and of committing murders, mutilations and other horrors. More than 4,000 refugees are concentrated at Nigrita and adjacent villages.
    The Belgrade correspondent of The Daily Telegraph says that the losses of both Servians and Bulgarians are heartbreaking. There is reason to believe, however, that the Bulgarians suffered most, because throughout they hurled themselves on the Servian positions in close formation with bayonet, regardless of the sacrifices such primitive methods entailed.
    " Thus," adds the correspondent, "throughout the sixty miles front there has been for a whole week a series of desperate night attacks with the bayonet, resulting in great slaughter. It is easy to understand that the Servians proved more than a match for their formidable enemy, and it is obvious that the Bulgarians underestimated both the valor and skill of their opponents."
    The correspondent asserts that Istib has been burned, but not occupied by either side, owing to its being surrounded by marshes. He thinks a decisive battle will be fought near Kustendil and around Kivolak.
    The Vienna correspondent of The Daily Mail learns that Austria has arranged a bargain between Bulgaria and Rumania whereby Bulgaria will get Salonika in return for territorial concessions to Rumania.
    An Odessa dispatch to The Mail says:
    "As a precautionary measure the garrisons in Southern and Southwestern Russia are being mobilized with a view to eventualities arising out of the Balkan war."
    Servians Less Confident.

    BELGRADE, July 6.— A semi-official communication says that last week's battles were the longest, the bloodiest, and the hardest fought of all the battles in the Balkan war. The Servians had 10,000 killed and wounded, the Bulgarians 20,000. The Bulgarian losses were increased by the bad organization of their Red Cross service and lack of communications and transports. Their wounded were left on the battlefield; the dead were unburied.
    According to the latest advices the Servians have recaptured Krivolak.
    The Servian troops have victoriously entered Kotchana. A semi-official statement, however, describing the military position after five days' fighting, makes for the first time the admission that the Servian arms have not been so uniformly successful as was previously represented. But the claim is made that Servia has prevented Bulgaria from executing her political plan of gaining by a surprise attack possession of the Macedonian territories which she wished to occupy pending arbitration.
    The statement says that the Servians were taken by surprise and had to concentrate their forces, but succeeded in repelling the Bulgarian advance. Little by little the Servian Army assumed the offensive, and the position is that the Servians have forced the Bulgarian right wing back over the River Bregalinitza.
    The reported Bulgarian invasion of Servia is denied.