tience was
at length exhausted, and that the sword alone was able to enforce proper
treatment of the Christian populations in European Turkey. On October 17
Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and unexpected conclusion of peace with
Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia, and on
October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a sentimental exhortation to his
people to liberate their fellow-countrymen, who were still groaning under
the Crescent.

The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was about
180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to oppose
the Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was considered by the
Turks to be the most important theatre of war, yet the proximity of the
Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople made it necessary to retain a large
number of troops in Thrace. On October 19 the Bulgarians took the frontier
town of Mustafa Pasha. On October 24 they defeated the Turks at
Kirk-Kilisse (or Lozengrad), further east. From October 28 to November 2
raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas, which resulted in a complete and
brilliant victory of the Bulgarians over the Turks. The defeat and
humiliation of the Turks was as rapid and thorough in Thrace as it had
been in Macedonia, and by the middle of November the remains of the
Turkish army were entrenched behind the impregnable lines of Chataldja,
while a large garrison was shut up in Adrianople, which had been invested
by the end of October. The Bulgarian army, somewhat exhausted by this
brilliant and lightning campaign, refrained from storming the lines of
Chataldja, an operation which could not fail to involve losses such as the
Bulgarian nation was scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the
armistice was signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months
led, however, to no result, and on February 3, 1913, hostilities were
resumed. These, for the Bulgarians, resolved themselves into the more
energetic prosecution of the siege of Adrianople, which had not been
raised during the armistice. To their assistance Serbia, being able to
spare troops from Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy siege
artillery, an arm which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913, the
fortress surrendered to the allied armies.

The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that year,
fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous Enos-Midia
line, running betw