Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1913 — SOFIA WAR SCENES [ARTICLE]

SOFIA WAR SCENES

Streets of Bulgarian Capital Ring With Songs of Recruits. People Remain Silent as Battalions of French Reserves Pass Through Town on Their Way to the Front. Sofia, Bulgaria.—Above the regular tramp, tramp, tramp of soldier feet rises the hoarse chorus of soldier voiqes—like a sullen sea rolling on a short of rock. The armistice has been proclaimed, but the streets of Sofia are filled with reserves who, battalion after battalion, are being dispatched to the front, to fill the sickening gaps at roll call, and to mix new strength with the tired valor of the veterans. At the beginning of .the war Bulgaria had expected to raise barely 300,000 men. On the establishment of truce there were already over 600,000 in the field. Now 100,000 new conscripts are gathering toward Adrianople and Tchatalja. And still this calm, fierce little nation is not exhausted. Many men remain. If Turkey shows the least sign of arrogance or of trickery the war will go on. Tramp, tramp, tramp sound the feet. Pour by four the recruits filed by—young men between 20 and 30. They are singing. Is it a song? It is more like the battle growl of some slow moving monster roused to fury, says a correspondent for the Chicago News. The throats are deep and hoarae. The music breaks and pauses in odd, stern rhymes. “Slavna Bulgaria!" Tramp, tramp, tramp. “Slavna Bulgaria!” Tramp, tramp, tramp. The uniforms are old and muddy and torn. They are the color of earth. The faces are those of a stolid peasantry —not too stolid, however, to feel the fires of unquenchable patriotism burning within those broad breast. "Slavna Bulgaria!” growl the sullen lips. From the head of the column the chorus echoes back: “Slavna Bulgaria!” Tramp, tramp, tramp. “Slavna Bulgaria!” Yes, “Glorious Bulgaria!” Come look at Sofia in war time. It is gayer, they say, in peace. The swarming crowd in the Bquare before the old white mosque, whose narrow minaret rises like an admonition into the blue sky, chattered louder, they say, and bartered longer, in the days before the war. But even now the city is calmly animated. One is farther east than at Belgrade. The general effect is more Asiatic, more picturesque. Belgrade is an overgrown village, a :ity in the formative state. Sofia is tlready a city, compact and Individual. Remove the people and the street (tails and it will somewhat resemble iny bright new town of Europe or America. The streets are paved with

brick, the central part is clean and green, the buildings are of brick or stone or plaster. There are some worthy examples of architecture —the theater, with its lion drawn chariots surmounting the facade; the palace, its yellow stone harmonizing quietly with the green of the gardens which surround and half conceal It; the market, with a touch of orientalism in the mosaic about the doors. In the design of the bricks, laid In broad red and tan stripes; and then, above all. the churches. An unshorn convalescent soldier saunters up, the cloth of his coat still torn where the Turkish bullet went through. And over all the busy swarm fly flocks of loudly clattering rooks;

a family of them Ifves in every chimney pot; their scolding and gossip never ceases. Hark! The measured tramp of feet again! Another battalion of recruits Is marching to the railroad station. Far down the street you can .hear the growling voices: “Slavna Bulgaria f“ Tramp, tramp, tramp. "Slavna Bulgaria!" The crowd swerves slowly in the direction of the singing. Every one watches anxiously. Good! say approving eyes. The quality is not declining! Bulgaria still has sons of the studiest to hurl against the Turk! The. soldiers reach the corner, torn and disappear. Nobody cheers. But on every face glows a look of stern pride.