t the
bells of a Christian church in this little village rang. The day
was spent in artillery reconnaissance, the Bulgarian guns
searching the Turkish entrenchments to discover their real
strength. Only once during the day was the infantry employed;
and then it was rather to take the place of artillery than to
complete the work begun by artillery. It seems to me that the
Bulgarian forces have not enough big gun ammunition at the
front. They are ten days from their base and shells must come up
by ox-waggon the greater part of the way.

ERMENIKIOI, _November 18._

This was a wild day on the Chatalja hills. Driving rain and mist
swept over from the Black Sea, and at times obscured all the
valley across which the battle raged. With but slight support
from the artillery the Bulgarian infantry was sent again and
again up to the Turkish entrenchments. Once a fort was taken but
had to be abandoned again. The result of the day's fighting is
indecisive. The Bulgarian forces have driven in the Turkish
right flank a little, but have effected nothing against the
central positions which bar the road to Constantinople. It is
clear that the artillery is not well enough supplied with
ammunition. There is a sprinkle of shells when there should be a
flood. Gallant as is the infantry it cannot win much ground
faced by conditions such as the Light Brigade met at Balaclava.

ERMENIKIOI, _November 19._

Operations have been suspended. Yesterday's cold and bitter
weather has fanned to an epidemic the choleraic dysentery which
had been creeping through the trenches. The casualties in the
fighting had been heavy. "But for every wounded man who comes to
the Hospitals," Colonel Jostoff, the chief of the staff, tells
me, "there are ten who say 'I am ill.'" The Bulgarians recognise
bitterly that in their otherwise fine organisation there has
been one flaw, the medical service. Among this nation of peasant
proprietors--sturdy, abstemious, moral, living in the main on
whole-meal bread and water--illness was so rare that the medical
service was but little regarded. Up to Chatalja confidence in
the rude health of the peasants was justified. They passed
through cold, hunger, fatigue and kept healthy. But ignorant of
sanitary discipline, camped among the filthy Turkish villages,
the choleraic dys