THE BALKANS.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1014, 6 October 1903, Page 3

THE BALKANS.

TWO .SMART ALBANIAN BOYS.

APPEAL FOR THE SUCCOUR OF EUROPEAN TURKEY.

Bjs Telegraph—Press Association-* Copyright, CONSTANTINOPLE, Oct. 4.

A hand of eight hundred Bulgar ans under Chakalaroff, are looting Kolona villages. Two Albanian bvys, furious at Tur-key-s inability to. protect the people, collected a force of twelve hundred, and exterminated Chakalaroff’s detached parties. LONDON, October 4.

The Americans’ Mission Board strongly petition the Red Cross Societies of Great Britain and America to succour European Turkey. They state that thousands of people are suffering, some living on roots and grass.

They state that whole districts are weltering in blood, without a single do. ctor or trained nurse.

FIGHT BETWEEN TURKS AND BULGARIANS.

By Telegraph—Proßß Association—Copyrlghi Received 10.26 p.m., Oct. 6 Sofia, Oct. 5.

It is reported that serious fighting has occurred at Domir Kopi. Thirty Turkish cavalry and eleven Bulgarian infantry were killed, The conflict was precipitated through Bulgarians intervening to rescue refugees from the cavalry. Bulgaria, while professing confidence in Natehevitch’s mission to Stamboul to secure peaco, continue activoly to prepare for war, prematurely calling out 24.000 recruits, and concentrating 200 artillery on tho frontier.

Constantinople, Oct. 5.

All the Balkan news is extraordinarily conflicting. Each accuses the other of horriblo atrocities.

As a result of the Czar and Emperor Josoph’s conference, a fresh identical note sent blames the Porte for want of zeal in reform, admits the right and duty to suppress disorders, deplores excess, urges repatriation of the peasantry, restoration of villages, churches, and schools, and blames insurgents for provoking disturbances.

PROTEST BY GREECE.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright

Received 12.3 a.m., Oct. 6. Constantinople, Oct. 6. Groece protosts that the pourparlers between Bulgaria and the Porte imply that Bulgaria claims a preponderating influence in Macedonia. It accuses the Porte of not recognising Groeco’s loyalty in restraining Greeks in Macedonia from joining the rebels.

FURTHER NEWS BY THE MAIL.

TERRIBLE TALE OF ATROCITIES

Per R.M.S. Sonoma at Auckland, [By Telegraph.]

SAN FRANCISCO, Sepfc. 17

A despatch from Sofia, dated September 13th, says : —The Albanian and Turkish troops in the vilayets of Adrianoplo appear to be pursuing the usual tactics of burning and plundering villages and killing peasants, instead of making an attempt to break up insurgent bands. Little news is filtering through from Monastir, but reports agree that the position of the Christians is desperate. The Turks are making a clean sweep of the whole of the Bulgarian element. The Albanian soldiers in Adrianople are stated to bo entirely beyond control. At Kosturseo influential Beys oomplained to officers of excesses committed by troops. The officers resented the criticisms, and told the soldiers the Beys were the friends of revolutionists, whereupon the soldiers burned the Beys’ farms. Turks have burned the villages of Almagik and Orikler, in tho district of;Losengrad. They beheaded twenty-five Bulgarians at Almagik in tho presence of their families.

Twelve thousand troops are assembled around Malkotonovi, and engaged pillaging and burning villages. The population is everywhere fleeing to the forests and mountains. All the Turkish population in the districts of Losengrad plundered villages en route and robbed churches and burned villages. Final arrangements for a revolutionary outbreak in Eastern Macedonia have been completed, but for some inexplicable reason the rising hangs fire.

London, Sept. 11,

The Powers are evidently still exerting pressure both at Constantinople and Sofia to prevent a Turko-Bulgarian war, apparently with some temporary buccoss, but in the meantime the increasingly terrible tale of atrocities committed in Macedonia shows that the situation is daily becoming aggravated. News that the Frenoh squadron is going to the Levant is also considered ominous, and this step by the French Government will probably be followed by similar action on the part of other Powers. The Turkish Embassy in London in a denial issued daily of the Turkish atrocities, to-day deolares it to be “ absolutely false that Ottoman troops are burning villages, the truth being that it is Bulgarians who, at the approach of the troops, use explosives to burn tho villages before leaviog them, and then acouse the Turkish troops of such abominable deeds.”