the Bulgars' first
line of two hundred and eighty thousand.

A branch of the Sofia-Constantinople railway line runs northeast to
Yamboli, on the Bulgarian frontier. Between Yamboli and Kirk-Kilesseh
is a highway--the Turkish kind of highway--and no unfordable streams or
other natural obstacles to an army's progress. At Yamboli the Bulgars
concentrated their third army corps, under General Demetrief, and a
portion of their second. The rest of the second faced Adrianople, while
the first corps operated to the south and east.

Swinging around on Kirk-Kilesseh, the third army would not take "No!"
for an answer. The Bulgarian infantry stormed the redoubts in the
moonlight. They knew how to use the bayonet and the Turks did not.
Skilfully driven steel slaughtered Mohammedan fanaticism that fought
with clubbed guns, hands, and teeth, asking no quarter this side of
Paradise. Kirk-Kilesseh fell. The Turkish army, flanked, had to go;
Adrianople was isolated. The Bulgarian dead on the field could not
complain; the wounded were in the rear; the living had burning eyes on
the next goal.

"_Na noj!"_ ("Fix bayonets!") had won. "_Na noj!_ Give them the steel!"
was the cry of a nation. Soldiers sang it out to one another on the
march. Children prattled it at home as if it were a new kind of game:

"Give them the steel and they will go! Nothing can stop Bulgaria!"

Not more than two Bulgarian soldiers out of twenty ever reached the
Turk with a bayonet. The Turk did not wait for them. So the bayonet
counted no less in the morale of the eighteen than of the two.
Frequently they fixed it at a distance of five or six hundred yards.
Their desire to use it made them press close at all points with the
grim initiative that will not be gainsaid. When they charged, the
spirit of cold steel was in their rush.

There was a splendid audacity in General Demetrief's next move after
Kirk-Kilesseh. He did not pause to surround Adrianople. To the east was
a wide gap in the investing lines. Through this the garrison might have
made a sortie with telling effect. But Demetrief knew his enemy. He
took it for granted that the garrison was settling itself for a siege.
With twelve thousand Turkish reenforcements a day arriving from Asia,
even hours counted.

As yet, the Turks were not decisively beaten; only the right that
fought at Kirk-Kilesseh had been really demoralized. On the line of
Bunar Hissar to Luele Burgas they formed to receive the second