THE GRECO-TURKISH WAR. 664 and were not recognised as friends. However this may be, there was a loud outcry of alarm, a rush in which the weak were trampled down and carts and carriages wereoverturned. Shots flashed and rang out through the darkness. Here frightened men were firing on imaginary foes;thereofficers,revolver in hand,weretrying to conquer one fear by another and keep their men in the ranks by shooting down the first whodesertedthem. But for the most part the officers hadlost allcontrol of the soldiers. Some of them were thinkingonly of their own safety.

Seized by the general panic, they had ceased even to try to control the troops. The army manned the redoubts on the left bank of the river covering the approaches to the bridge. They were all that was left intact of General Makris' division.

During thenight the Crown Prince had held a hurried council of war at his headquarters En Larissa,shortly aftermidnight. It was recognised that it was no longer possible to oppose the Turkish advance near the frontier, and it was decided to rally the army south of the town and withdraw to the hills near Pharsala, where another stand might be made. The decision -was a wise one. The situation north of Larissa washopeless. Kaklamanos,with four battalions. had become a mere mob and the tide of headlong flight rolled into Larissa, leaving the road behind strewm with arms and equipments, with here and there wrecked waggons, and the corpses of men and women who hadbeen shot down or trampled to death in the panic.

In the town of Larissa officers,soldiers,andpeasants lay down in the streets, exhausted with the awful struggle and the mad flight from a danger that was all imaginary ; for the dreaded Turkish troopers were sleeping in their bivouacs far awaynorthofthe Xerias,and was retiring onMakrychori. The rest of General Makris' division had for the most part become a mass of fugitives. Smolenski, on the left, withhis right flank exposed by the collapse of the centre,mustabandonReveni. There wasnothingfor it but to retreat.

But there was no reason why this retreat shouldhave been carried out so as tomake it little better than a continuationof theheadlong flight from Tyrnavos. Larissa barred the direct road from the north. It was protected by a deep, broad river, crossed by a high bridge, beyond which re-GENERAL MAKRIS.

in theTurkish camptherewasnotyet the faintest idea that theGreek armyhadgone. Theofficers of the Crown Prince's staffhadmade anattempt to stop the fugitives at the bridge leading into Larissa,but it was all in vain;they were swept away by the human torrent. Some of the British war correspondents had an unpleasant experience during the retreat. Their carriage was overturned in the panic. They lost their baggage, notes, and sketches, and narrowly escaped death or serious injury in the panic. Mr.Charles Williams, the r«~-;—-<-,tiye of the .e-ondonDaily Chronicle, an old campaigner, was in Tyrnavos when the retreat began. He decided to remainthere, andhung out the British flag fromhis lodgings, and passed a quiet night while his less fortunate comrades wereinvolved in the rout on the Larissa road. Next day he retiredwith the rearguard,two battalions,which had held Tyrnavos during the night and now doubts had been erected, of which the heavy cannon swept the approaches. The Turks had not yet crossed the Xerias. A rearguard could have held Larissa for twenty-four hours without being even challenged; and, if one might judge by Edhem Pasha's slew advance, it would be at least another twentyfour hours before it was seriously attacked. The place could not hold out long. TheTurkscould cross the river at severalpoints higher up. But a delay even of two or three days would give time for removing arms, stores, guns and the sick and woundedin the hospital, and there would be time to destroy the great stone and iron bridge over the Salamvria, the telegraph, and whatever else might be useful to the invader. But once the retreat hadbeendecided upon, a precipitate flight began.

The hurried evacuation of Larissa isindeed a miserable story. At four a.m. on the Saturday