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156 QUARRELS BETWEEN THE ALLIES [ch. xi.
countermanded the triumphal entry into Adrianople,
and postponed it sine die. It was the Turks who
entered it four months later!
Meanwhile, the Bulgarians displayed another trait
of their national character in Adrianople—cold and
relentless cruelty. Forty thousand Turkish prisoners
had been put in a camp on an island, which is formed
by the two arms of the Maritza below the town; they
were to be taken from there into the interior of the
country. But when cholera broke out, the removal
was postponed. Huddled together in an almost
incredible way on the island, which was encircled with
a network of barbed wire, and within range of the guns
on the other side of the river, the wretched Turks had
soon eaten all the bread they had with them, and began
to suffer from hunger. It should be mentioned that,
prior to the surrender of the town, the Turks had had
time to set fire to fairly large quantities of flour and
grain, which were still in the town, and the Bulgarian
military authorities, who bore a grudge against the
Turks for this destruction, could find no better means
of revenge than that of refusing, with heartless cruelty,
to supply provisions to the unhappy prisoners of war.
"But what can we do?" replied the Bulgarians to
those who came to plead the cause of these miserable
wretches, " it is the fault of the Turks. Why did they
set fire to their grain stores? Now we have nothing
to give them to eat." And for eight or ten days one
heard the plaintive cries of thousands of famished men
coming from the prisoners’ camp on the island. To
keep body and soul together these poor wretches
gnawed the bark of the trees, and drank the water from
the river. As was to be expected, in a few days cholera
was raging among the prisoners, and the dead and the
dying lay next to those who were still immune. Finally,
rumours about this abominable behaviour with regard
to the Turkish prisoners of war reached Sofia, and from
there got through to Europe, and the Bulgarians were
forced to remove the poor wretches; but during the
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