et faces--making the thunder of a torrent as
they charge. "Roaring Maritza" is the nearest that you can come to
putting it into English. The Maritza is the national river, and the
song pictures it swollen and rushing in the winter rains or when the
snows on the Balkans melt, on its way past the Bulgarian border into
Turkey; and the gray army was now to follow it to the Aegean, in the
spirit of its flood, and make the harbor at its mouth Bulgarian.

Yes, a gray army, bent on a grim business in a hurry, in gray winter
weather and chill mountain mists, with the sun showing through overcast
skies--something of the kind of weather that bred the Scotch. Cromwell
or Stonewall Jackson would have felt at home, saying his prayers at the
double-quick, in such company. As mementos from home, the soldiers wore
in their caps and buttonholes withered flowers and sprigs of green
which their womenfolk had given in farewell. The women were just as
Spartan as the Spartans; perhaps more so. If any soldier lacked innate
courage, the spur of public opinion drove him forward in step with his
comrades.

Naturally, Bulgarian generalship had to adapt its plan of campaign to
the obstacles between it and its adversary. For armies are cumbrous
affairs. In all times they have been tied down to roads and bridges.
The main highway and the main railway line from Sofia, the capital of
Bulgaria, to Constantinople both ran through Adrianople. Nature meant
this city, set in a basin among hills, for defense, and for the center
of any army defending Thrace. On the near-by hills is a circle of
permanent forts that commands all approaches for guns or infantry. In
front of it is the turbulent Maritza, and to the northeast lies the
town of Kirk-Kilesseh, partly fortified and naturally strong, which
formed the Turkish right. The left rested at Demotika, to the south of
Adrianople, in a rough country inaccessible to prompt action by a large
force.

The Bulgars must turn one wing or the other. Foreign military experts
thought that Kirk-Kilesseh could be taken only after a long operation,
and then only by a force much larger than the Bulgars could spare for
concentration at any one point of the line. Let two weeks pass without
a definite victory, and the Turks would have numbers equal to the
Bulgars; a month, superior numbers. As it was, the Turks had
altogether, including the Adrianople garrison, a hundred and
seventy-five thousand men in strong position against