Naval operations during October, November and December 1912 were restricted chiefly to the Greek fleet. Wherever opportunity offered Greek destroyers assisted their military forces. The main body of the fleet, however, was oc cupied with the blockade of the Dardanelles and with the capture of the islands of Lemnos, Thasos, Imbros, Samothrace, Tenedos, Ikara, Psara, Chios and Mitylene. The Turkish fleet was primarily engaged with transporting rein forcements from Asia to Europe. It also at tempted, with more or less success, to blockade the Bulgarian coast on the Black Sea. In November it was of considerable value in de fending the Chataldja lines. One Turkish cruiser was seriously damaged on 21 November before Varna by a Bulgarian torpedo and an other was sunk by a Greek torpedo boat on 31 October in the harbor of Salonica.
The Turkish appeal to the powers for me diation (3 November) met with no favorable response. On 13 Nov. 1912 Turkey approached Bulgaria for the purpose of opening peace nor gotiations. For approximately a week military operations were more or less suspended but when on 21 November Turkey declined to ac cept the conditions demanded by Bulgaria and her allies hostilities were reopened. Neverthe less, representatives of the belligerents contin ued to meet a few days later before the Cha taldja lines, and on 3 -Dec. 1912 an armistice was signed between Turkey and Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro. Greece alone declined to be a party to this arrangement As a result representatives of the four parties to the armis tice met in London, 16 Dec. 1912, to consider the possibility, in the presence of the ambassadors of the Great Powers, of a settlement of the Balkan question. Sir Edward (now Viscount) Grey, the British Foreign Minister, presided at the conference. Bulgaria demanded Adrian ople; Greece insisted on the cession of all the fEgean Islands; and all the Allies demanded an indemnity from Turkey. The Turkish emis saries rejected all of these demands, and on 6 Jan. 1913 the Allies withdrew from the nego tiations. In order to avoid if possible the re sumption of hostilities which threatened more and more to involve all Europe, the powers combined in a note to Turkey advising the ces sion of Adrianople and suggesting that the set tlement of all the other questions be left in the hands of the powers. The utter impossibility of returning to the status quo ante was voiced by Mr. Asquith: °The map of eastern Europe has to be recast. . . . Upon one thing I be lieve the general opinion of Europe will be unanimous — that the victors are not to be robbed of the fruits which have cost them so dear° (9 Nov. 1912). By 22 Jan. 1913 appear ances indicated that Turkey would yield to the inevitable, but on the next day a revolution suddenly broke out in Constantinople. Nazim Pasha, Minister for War, was assassinated, and hostilities were resumed a week later.
The position of Turkey was indeed desper ate. Of all its former great possessions in Eu rope nothing was left beyond the small stretch of land between the Bosporus and the Cha taldja lines, and the three fortresses of Adrian ople, Janina and Scutari. These latter were so closely invested by the superior forces of the Balkan Allies that all hope of escape for them seemed to be cut off. Every attempt to push back the invaders over the Chataldja lines was repulsed, a fact that was not sufficiently coun terbalanced by the strength shown by the Turkish lines which held firm against every Bulgarian assault. On 6 March 1913 Janina surrendered to the Greeks with its garrison of 30,000 men. The Turkish position at Adrian ople became more and more untenable; famine and lack of ammunition gradually weakened the resistance in the last and most important Turkish stronghold west of the Chataldja lines. Bulgars and Serbs made a series of de termined assaults on the fortress; on 9 March two important forts were stormed and finally, on 26 March, Shukri Pasha, in command at Adrianople, had no other alternative than to capitulate with 33,000 men.
In the meantime the Montenegrins had valiantly continued their attacks on Scutari. They found, however, that in their operations in Albania they had to contend not only with Turkish resistance, but also with the conflicting interests of Serbia supported by Russia and of Italy supported by Austria-Hungary. These powers arrived at an understanding over the future of Albania and, on 20 Dec. 1912, had announced their acceptance of the principle of Albanian autonomy and of •Serbian right to free commercial access to the sea. To deter mine the frontiers of the new state to every one's satisfaction was more difficult. But an agreement was finally reached on 26 March 1913. Serbia received some of the Albanian territory adjacent to Montenegro and Scutari was to become part and parcel of the new state. Both of these arrangements were considered by Montenegro unjust; the little mountain state flatly refused to acquiesce in the arrangement in spite of immense pressure brought to bear by all the European Powers, in spite of the withdrawal of such Serbian forces as assisted in the siege of Scutari, and even in defiance of an actual blockade of the Montenegrin coast instituted by all the powers except Russia, in April 1913. Montenegro's persistence had its reward in the capitulation of Essad Pasha and Scutari on 22 April 1913. However, she was to enjoy the fruit of her victory but a short time. Austria-Hungary and Italy made such strong representations that the agreement of 26 March should be fulfilled, that Russia, in view of a possible intervention by these two powers, exerted powerful pressure on Monte negro to evacuate Scutari. This was done on 14 May 1913, and Scutari was occupied by sailors from the international fleet.