A great extent of the frontier was not provided with the
telegraph, and the chosen partisans of Deliyanni were in command, and
determined to force a conflict. The blockade prevented Tricoupi from
sending officers by sea to take over the command, and there was not
time to send them by land. General Sapunzaki was the only general
officer on whom the minister could depend to obey orders, and he could
reach only a part of the line on which the fighting was going on.
There was no subordination and no general plan in the offensive;
but each detachment of troops on the frontier made war on its own
responsibility, and the Turks contented themselves with repelling
attacks.
I went to the telegraph office to get the late advices in the
afternoon of the last day of the fighting, when it had become very
general all along the frontier. Tricoupi had sent imperative orders to
cease hostilities, but the telegraph had been cut, probably by some
one who wanted the war to ensue, and when I found Tricoupi at the
telegraph in the afternoon in conversation with Sapunzaki over
the wire, he turned to me with an expression of intense distress,
exclaiming, "They are fighting again all along the line, and if it
cannot be stopped at once we are lost." "Can I do anything?" I asked.
He replied, "I should be glad if you would go to Baring" (who had been
sent to take charge of the legation, but with no diplomatic powers or
relation with the Greek government) "and tell him the position, and
ask him to telegraph to his government to urge Constantinople to send
word to Eyoub Pasha that the Greek government had given stringent
orders to stop the fighting, and ask him to co?perate.
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