TRAITOR FOR LOVE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 305, 21 December 1912, Page 17

TRAITOR FOR LOVE.

A tragedy in which a Bulgarian woman's love led her to betray her country and brought npon her swift retribution is told In the "Petit Parisien." According to the special correspondent of that journal at Sofia, a woman of high standing in that capital, wife of a Bulgarian staff oflScer, was found guilty of betraying the Bulgarian mobilisation plans to the Turks, and was shot.

A few years ago when she was still a young girl she fell in love with a dashing young officer attached to the Turkish Legation at Sofia. Her parents, however, would not hear of their marriage, and when tie young officer was recalled to Constantinople the girl reluctantly married a Bulgarian officer. Some time later the Turkish officer returned to Sofia charged with a special mission, and friendship was renewed between the two. Finally, it is asserted, the Turk asked her to run away with him. "I have been ordered by my superiors." he said, '"to obtain the Bulgarian mobilisation plans. If 1 do not succeed I shall be relegated to some distant command in Asia Minor and we shall have no chance of seeing one another." The woman pointed out that they were both too poor to think of eloping, and told him to be patient. A few days later she handed him a bundle of documents containing the Bulgarian Army war plans. She had taken them from her husband's desk, and told the Turkish officer to photograph them and to give the originals back to her. When the war broke out the Turkish officer was captured in one of the first engagements, and papers were found on him revealing the whole affair. He was tried by court-martial and shot. The young Bulgarian woman, though the wife of an officer, was not spared, and having been found guilty by a special court at Sofia, was also Shot. Her husband, determined to wipe out the dishonour on his name, was one of the first in the storming line at Kirk Kilisse, and fell riddled with Turkish bullets.