30,000 wounded; forty-six cannon, thirty machine guns, and 140 ammunition wagons, besides an enormous mass of stores and transport. The Serbian troops had lost 3,000 dead and 15,000 wounded. Treatment of Civilians

"Toward such a population there is room for no humanity or generosity."

*

As for the civilians of the districts invaded, they were treated with a disregard of every law of civilized warfare, and a fiendish refinement of cruelty and malice, probably without parallel in modern history. The instructions issued to the Austrian troops, in the form of leaflets, began with the words: "You are going into a hostile country, the population of which is animated by fanatical hatred, and in which murder is rife in all classes of society. * * Toward such a population there is room for no feeling of humanity or generosity." The procedure adopted was, on entering any town or village, to shoot out of hand either the Mayor or a number of selected inhabitants, (amounting to fifty at Leshnitsa,) in order to "inspire terror "; to secure hostages among those that remained, and to take prisoners and remove to Austria the youths under military age, "in order that King Peter might remain without soldiers for some years."

At the same time the troops were given to understand that the campaign was an execution, and that they might not only loot and burn and ruin, but murder, violate and torture at will, 'because these people were Serbians." The pentup hatred and natural instinct of the Magyar found expression in deeds which could not, without offense, be described here; as a mild example we may cite the case of a man who in the village of Dvorska was tied to a mill-wheel; knifing him as he was whirled round was then engaged in by the soldiers as a game of skill.

Extortion of money from a woman by the threat to kill her babe was common, and generally followed by the murder of both; wanton mutilation was commoner still; all this during the invasion. The record of the Austrian retreat is probably one of the blackest chapters in the history

of mankind; whole families were burned alive, or systematically bayonetted and laid out in rows by the roadside; the treatment of the female population can only be hinted at; in their case the final act of murder must be looked on as a crowning mercy.

In the track of the army that fell back on Losnitsa followed a small group of doctors, officials, and engineers of Serbian, Dutch, and Swiss nationality, who reported circumstantially, and photographed, what they found. A day will come when the indictment thus constituted must be met by the Magyar race at the bar of public opinion.

It was not to be expected that Austria would accept as definite the blow inflicted on her military prestige at the battle of the Jadar. Having made good the losses in men and equipment, the enemy returned to the attack in September, and made a fresh attempt to invade the Matshva district and to occupy the left bank of the Jadar.

They were brought to an early halt, and again flung back across the Drina and the Save, retaining possession only of some of the heights of the Gutshevo and Boranya Mountains, with the territory to the immediate west, and of a small tract of land in the Matshva plain which was commanded by the guns of the river monitors. For six weeks they were held in these positions by the Serbian armies, who defended a line of close on a hundred miles of trenches with a totally inadequate force and supplies, and under a strain which no troops could long endure.

The Second Invasion

By the beginning of November a retirement to a shorter and stronger line of defense became imperative, and the staff decided to move right back to the Kolubara River. The Austrians immediately advanced in overwhelming numbers, and five columns totaling 250 battalions of infantry with their artillery and cavalry streamed into the northwestern territory. After fierce fighting they gained command of the Suvobor Mountains, the key to the whole district; this catastrophe made it impossible to

ordnance is of French manufacture, and the French were themselves too hard pressed to make regular delivery of these. Whole batteries of guns were reduced to six rounds apiece, which were held in reserve against an extreme emergency. At the same time the retreat was in part deliberate and carefully planned, for when later Voyvoda Putnik was asked how he had effected the crushing defeat of the Austro-Hungarian troops, he answered laconically: "All my strategy consisted in placing between the enemy's fighting line and their impedimenta the Serbian national mud."

By the end of November new guns and large supplies of ammunition from the British ordnance factories had been landed and were being conveyed into Serbia with all possible dispatch. At some points of the line of battle the position was almost desperate, and it may not be without interest to repeat here an incident which occurred at this time and which was related to the present writer by King Peter's cousin, Price Alexis Karageorgevitch, on the occasion of the latter's recent visit to London. The aged ruler of Serbia mounted his charger and rode up to the trenches, where his brave peasants crouched with bayonets fixed to empty rifles, and exclaimed: "My dear brothers, you have sworn allegiance to your country and to your King: from this latter oath I release you. You are at liberty to return to your homes; your aged King has come to take your place, for you must be more than worn out." With these words he dashed forward, his drawn sword in his right hand and a Browning pistol in his left. His peasants followed with a cheer and made a bayonet charge which caused a panic in the enemy's lines.

The Austrian Debacle

In the meantime the long-expected ammunition had arrived, and on Dec. 3, to the Austrians' amazement, the whole of their front was subjected to a sudden and violent offensive. On the 4th Suvobor was stormed, the Austrian centre was pierced, and the right wing scattered in headlong flight along the road to Val

yevo. By the 7th the Serbians were back on a line extending from Lazarevats to Valyevo, and thence to Uzhitse, and the enemy fleeing toward the Drina, which they crossed in disorder two days later. The Austrians' right clung to their positions for a few days to the north and west of Maldenovats, and on the 7th and 8th made determined efforts to break through. They were repulsed with fearful losses and compelled to give ground, though they fought with the greatest obstinacy at every step of their retreat; on the 12th they were compelled to fall back upon Belgrade. The heights to the south of the capital had been fortified with extensive earthworks and gun emplacements and formed positions of great strength, but the Austrian troops were by now too demoralized to hold them and gave way on the 14th. They were still fleeing across the Save when, on the morning of the 15th, some Serbian batteries unlimbered on the surrounding heights and shelled the pontoon bridge, rendering further escape impossible.

The Austrians left behind them over 40,000 prisoners and hundreds of guns, with the transport and stores of a vast

army.

So extraordinary was the Serbian rally, and so overwhelming the catastrophe that had befallen the Austrian arms, that for some days Europe refused to credit the news from Belgrade. As its full import was grasped, the Allies also realized their indebtedness to their Balkan ally; nor, we may well believe, will it, on the day of reckoning, be forgotten.

Crucifixion of a People

Almost a whole year passed in relative quiet; the Austro-Hungarians had obviously enough of their chastising of Serbia. Count Tisza, then Prime Minister of the Monarchy, declared that the Hapsburg forces were "not a match" for the Serbian experienced warriors. Simultaneously with his admission the oldest and most patriotic German newspaper, Die Vossische Zeitung, in its editorial columns, suggested that a separate peace should be made with Serbia, guaranteeing the absolute integrity of

her kingdom and granting her, as compensation, the "nobody's land" of Albania, from which its comical 'mpret had fled long since.

But Serbia continued her preparations for an eventual new foe, who, on the east and south of the kingdom, was sharpening his sword and fortifying his frontiers. The credulous Sir Edward Grey and his "wait and see" colleague were too deaf to the voice of the Serbian sage, Mr. Pashitch, who, in early June, 1915, informed the British Government that Prince Bülow had brought to Sofia a draft of the Treaty of Alliance and a military convention between the Central Powers and the Kingdom of Bulgaria.

What Mr. Pashitch required was a sanction, on the part of the Allies, of Serbia's timely action against isolated Bulgaria, in order to prevent the latter's intervention at a moment when the troops of King Peter would be too busily engaged in resisting a fresh attempt from the north. But the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs was still nursing the hope that a Balkan league could be renewed. This futile course of action-or, to be less incorrect, inaction-gave ample opportunity for Bulgaria to make good the wastage suffered in her disaster in the battle of Bregalnitsa in July of the previous year. According to her well-established tradition she awaited the moment when the fourth punitive expedition-this time composed chiefly of the best German Imperial Armies and of what was still left of the Austro-Hungarian forcesunder the ingenious leadership of General Mackensen, penetrated far into the desolated Serbian land, to stab in the back the heroically resisting Serbian armies.

It is impossible to ascertain at this juncture the exact strength of the Teutonic forces advancing through Serbia. Certain writers assert that the Serbian armies or what was still left of themwere outnumbered as ten to one by the combined forces of General Mackensen and those of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The Serbians fought desperately on both fronts, and, while the army officers were renewing their oath at Stalatch (in Cen

tral Serbia) either to stop the invaders or to perish to the last man, suddenly came from France and Great Britain, not the long expected and officially promised help, but the wise advice: "Sauve qui peut!" The advice was good indeed, for, had the Serbians not followed it, they would have lost not only their land but also every one of their men. And after almost three years of continuous triumph of the Serbian arms over the Turks, the treacherous Bulgarians and the Babellike Austro-Hungarian " punitive expeditions," a proud people, not a defeated army, had to retreat! But where? Surely not to Greece, Serbia's ally!

Horrors of the Exodus

Before the general exodus of the Serbian people had begun, the German Imperial Government, in chivalrous recognition of Serbian bravery, offered to the Nish Government a comparatively liberal peace, by which, so we are informed, the integrity of the Serbian territory was guaranteed. Moreover, if the Serbian armies would only simulate a resistance, but in truth leave a free passage to Salonki for the combined Austro-German forces, not only Albania but also so much of the Serbian-populated provinces in Austria-Hungary would be yielded as the dignity of the Dual Monarchy would permit. Although the Serbian Government had no specific treaties of alliance with either of the Entente Powers-the only one that had been concluded being that with Greece—and despite the imminent cataclysm which threatened from all the cardinal points, the Serbian Skupshtina, after a spirited and memorable speech delivered by Mr. Pashitch in which he accentuated that "it were better to die in beauty than to live in shame," unanimously decided to offer a stubborn resistance to the invaders, while the noncombatants were ordered to retreat through the rocky fastnesses of Albania to Durazzo, where British ships waited to transport them further.

More than one volume could be written on the horrors of that exodus, which stands unique in the history of mankind. The scenes from Dante's "Inferno" are but pallid shadows in comparison with