653 CHAPTER III.

THE RAID CF KARVA AND THE FIGHT FOR THE FRONTIER.

The fighting began between Nezeros and Karya, whereat seven in the eveningof Friday, the 16th, the Greeks drove the Turkish outposts from Mount Analipsis. In the night, Mount Godaman, the next ridge to the westward, was i 1 _ r* i_ THE European Powers had declared that, in the event of war between Turkey and Greece, whichever party began the fight would not be permitted, even if successful, to obtain any material profit from its vict~m.. TU*. I ml-\. seized by a (jreelc column, and next day three other columns advanced against the enemy's outposts oil the border, at the MelunaPass,nearMati, and on the spur that runs across the Reveni gap,beyond the ravine where the Xerias Rivercuts its way through the hills. The Greek account "t this general advance is that it was a reply to the all- -eil Turkish aggression at Analipsis, The Turks and those whoadopt theirview assert that it was an organised attempt to get p Ston hi surprise of the central portion of the bolderridge. Whichever account ton*, the result was that when hostilities at last began each party in the conflict was anxious to prove that the other had been the aggressor. So the accounts we possess of what happened on the evening of April 16th and during the following day are in flat contradiction with each other. The Greeks assert that the fighting began in consequence of the Turks pushing their outposts forwardto the summit of a hill near Lake Nezeros, known as Analipsis, from the nameof a monastery "ii its slope. This hill they claimed to be within their lines,and the Turks I-KINCE NIC-UOI .3 OF GREECE, Commander ofa Field Batteryin the Atiny of Thcssaly.

is true, this much is certain :that the Greeks, pressing forward in superior numbers and encountering only an outpost line weakly held, were, on the whole, successful.

The first news thatreached the Turkishheadquarters was of the advance near Karya. As a picture of what the opening fight of the war looked like, let us take an impressionist wordsketch from the narrative of Mi. Stevens, One of the English correspondents, who on the Saturday morning rode over from Elassona to the scene of action.

were fired upon in order to warn them to withdraw. On the other hand, the more probable account given by writers who were with the Turks is that not only near Mount Analipsis, but at several other points along the eastern section of the frontier, the Greeks ed the border in force, the raiders being partly the irregulars armed and organised by tlie F.thnikc Heiaireia, partly regular officers and soldiers, who had exchangedtheir uniforms for the loose jacket and short white kilt, the peasant costume of their irregular allies.