Part 21
The great retreat of the Serbian army across the mountains had now begun. With their 300,000 bayonets, in spite of the fact that the Teutons were, as far as physique went, the most miserable material it was ever my lot to see, they continually outflanked the 150,000 men the Serbians were able to oppose to them.
The Serbian armies, except the division which was opposing the Bulgarians in the south, were forced back on the mountain range, which at this point runs transversely across Serbia, and behind which lies the old Turkish province, the Sandpak of Novi Bazar, and the Plain of Kossovo.
The operation of conducting the retreat of the Serbian armies through the mountain passes was like filtering a fifty-gallon cask through the neck of a pint bottle. The transport of 20,000 ox-drawn army service wagons, whose best gait is about two miles an hour, alone constituted a formidable problem.
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In view of the terrible nature of the roads, we had to add a third horse to the team of our carriage. A mile from the town we found ourselves in a mass of wagons, which every instant became more congested. The passage of tens of thousands of guns and wagons had churned the roads into a huge quagmire.
IV--"I WATCHED THE TERRIFYING SPECTACLE"
As darkness fell the scene became a sinister one. To the left, behind the railway station, one building after another burst into flame; the employees were firing the storehouses and blowing up the wagons on the siding. A few minutes later the whole town was shaken by a series of explosions. The accumulated stocks in the Obelitchavo powder magazine were being blown up.
From the eminence on which I stood the spectacle was terrifying. Krusevatz was blazing at half a dozen points, the whole sky was covered with a crimson glare, while below us the river, like red blood in the flames, could be followed to the horizon, where the flashes of Serb guns delaying the German advance could be seen.
On the line of retreat confusion was becoming worse. The whole road was filled with a triple line of bullock wagons, their panting teams straining to tear them through the tenacious mud.
Suddenly there came an explosion like an earthquake. An immense column of yellow flame shot heavenward. The heavy girder bridge over the river had been dynamited. At the same instant three immense German shells came screaming overhead and burst with tremendous explosions, one near the town hall and two near the railway station. These nerve-shaking explosions caused a wild panic, the first I had seen in Siberia. The terrified oxen broke into a run and poured in a surging mass, with my carriage in their midst, down the road.
Suddenly they came on a narrow bridge spanning a small ravine. Those on the outside were forced against the parapet. I saw the carriage balance for an instant and then with the three horses roll into the ditch thirty feet below. There was a sound of smashing glass, and it was all over with our vehicle.
The only thing was to extricate the kicking horses and salve such baggage as had escaped. This was a long and difficult process in torrents of rain, but after an hour and a half of hard work we finally got our belongings ranged alongside the road.
The next difficulty was a means of transport, but an obliging non-commissioned officer to the Reserve Munition Column of the Timok Division stopped a half-empty ox wagon and our belongings were hoisted in. We in turn found shelter under the tilt of another wagon and made ourselves as comfortable as the munition boxes would allow.
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The German infantry was of miserable quality, men who a year ago would never have passed the doctor, they burst their way through by shell and shrapnel fire.
It was during these attacks that they took hundreds of prisoners, all of them, as I have said, of miserable physique. I saw a youth in the streets of Krusevatz, who could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. His "pickelhauben," much too large for him, came down over his ears. Another I saw was minus a finger on his left hand, and a French surgeon told me he had a German patient who was deaf and dumb. All were pale-faced, narrow-chested, and not the class of men one saw twelve months ago.
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Then came the blizzards of snow and inundations which blotted out the road in districts hundreds of kilometers in extent. Add to this fact, all communication with the outside world was completely cut off, there were no letters, telegrams or newspapers, and such vague reports as filtered in were brought by circuitous routes over hundreds of kilometers of the worst roads in Europe.
With every trump card in the hands of her enemies, Serbia's fate was sealed. All she could do was to fight to the last, and this she did.
V--EVERY ROAD WAS FILLED WITH HUMAN MISERY
Every road in Serbia was filled with the flowing tide of human misery. Every town and village was overcrowded. In Kroljevo in ordinary times there are 15,000. When I reached the town it contained 120,000. The same held good of every other center.
The government issued a decree ordering all the male population above fourteen to leave the invaded districts before the arrival of the enemy. This added nearly a million to the number of people the government had to support, and under the strain the civil administration broke down completely. Soon the old Serbia of King Milas was completely in the hands of the Germans, while the Bulgarians drove out the population of Serbian Macedonia.
As a consequence the only refuge left was Novi Bazar. Into this narrow space poured an endless tide of refugees. Gaunt, hollow-eyed men, women and children dragged themselves wearily for hundreds of kilometers, bound they knew not whither. Always behind them they heard the inexorable thunder of the guns, warning them to press on and on. Thousands fell by the wayside, succumbing to cold and hunger.
Probably not since the crossing of the Alps by Napoleon has such a military expedition been undertaken as the traversing of the Albanian Mountains by the headquarters staff and the remains of the Serbian army.
The sight presented by Lium Koula on the eve of departure was unique. On the mountain side for miles nothing could be seen but endless fires. They were made by thousands of ox wagons, unable to go further, as the road for vehicles ceases there. Fortunately the snowstorm ended and was followed by brilliant sunshine.
Next day at 9 o'clock the headquarters staff set out. It included 300 persons and 400 pack animals. The road wound along the banks of the Drin, which had to be crossed twice by means of picturesque old single-span Turkish bridges, since destroyed to impede the Bulgarian advance.
The first mistake was that of transporting the sedan chair of Field Marshal Putnik at the head of the procession. Every time it halted to change bearers, which was every fifteen minutes, the whole two-mile-long procession, following in single file, had to stop also. As a result, instead of reaching Spas before sundown, we only reached the base of the mountain after darkness had fallen.
Here a long council was held as to whether we should bivouac in the village below or undertake the mountain climb in the dark. The latter course was decided upon. It was one of the most extraordinary adventures ever undertaken. A narrow path, about four feet across, covered with ice and snow, winds corkscrew fashion up the face of the cliff. On one hand is a rocky wall and on the other a sheer drop into the Drin.
VI--OVER THE MOUNTAIN SIDE WITH GENERAL PUTNIK
This road winds and twists in all sorts of angles, and it was up this that we started in the black darkness, with the sedan chair of General Putnik still heading the procession. Every time it reached a corner it was a matter of endless difficulty to manoeuver it around.
On one occasion we stood for thirty-five minutes in an icy wind listening to the roar of the Drin, invisible in the black gulf 500 feet below. Horses slipped and fell at every instant, and every now and then one would go crashing into the gulf below.
It was 10 o'clock when, tired, hungry and half frozen, we reached bivouac at Spas. Here we found that though dinner had been ready since 3 o'clock it could not be served because all the plates and spoons were on the pack animals, which remained in the village below. Neither had the tents arrived, and as Spas contains only five or six peasant houses accommodation was at a premium. Colonel Mitrovitz, head of the mess, told me I would find room in a farmhouse a quarter of a mile away.
The house really was two hours distant, over fields deep in snow. When I got there at midnight I discovered that there were already nearly a score of occupants; but at least I was able to sleep in some straw near the fireside, instead of in the snow outside.
Next morning I set out at 6 to get ahead of the main body of the headquarters staff. The day was magnificent and we slowly climbed foot by foot to the cloud-capped summits of the mountains. Up and up we went, thousands and thousands of feet.
Every few hundred yards we came on bodies of men frozen or starved to death. At one point there were four in a heap. They were convicts from Prisrend penitentiary, who had been sent in chains across the mountains. They had been shot either for insubordination or because they were unable to proceed. Two other nearly naked bodies were evidently those of Serbian soldiers murdered by Albanians.
VII--"I OVERTOOK KING PETER"
Soon after midday I overtook King Peter and his staff. Despite his seventy-six years, he marched on foot with vigor younger men might have envied.
During all the four hours I marched with the royal staff he never once mounted his horse, which a soldier was leading behind him. When we stopped for the night at Bredeti King Peter had a ten hours' march to his credit.
It was at this point I came across the first of Essad Pacha's gendarmes. They had been sent out by that heavy-handed ruler to protect the King and his staff. They were a picturesque lot, many of them barefooted, but there was no doubt about the first class quality of their rifles and revolvers. They wore the Serbian gendarme's uniform--that is, they wore any uniform--of which the Nish government had some months before made them a present of several thousand.
The attitude of the population could not be described as friendly to the Serbians, but at the same time there were no outward signs of hostility. They rarely saluted and showed no desire whatever to offer hospitality. In the case of the royal household and headquarters staff Essad Pacha had requisitioned accommodations, but any one not belonging to one of these units had every chance of faring badly. All they had to depend on were wayside caravanserai.
These huge, barnlike structures consist of nothing but four walls and a roof, the latter generally doubtfully water-tight. Here men and horses were all quartered pell-mell. Everybody annexes as much space as he can get and lights a fire for warmth and cooking. As they have no chimneys, the smoke is left to find its way out through the open doors or the thatched roof. The state of the atmosphere may be imagined.
As my colleague, Paul Dubochet, of the "Petit Parisien," and I had pushed on ahead of the headquarters staff, we had naturally lost the advantage of being billeted by Essad's gendarmes. When we finished the day's march we took our share of floor space, but the atmosphere in an hour generally proved too much for us.
We were therefore compelled to surrender, and, despite the freezing cold and the driving snow, we determined to put up a small tent I received at the time of the destruction of the military stores at Kraguyevatz Arsenal. It was only three feet high and open at the end; hence it was only an indifferent shelter against the blizzard. However, I ordered my man to build an immense fire near the open end, and we went to sleep.
Three hours later we awoke, to find the wretched tent ablaze. We struggled out with difficulty and managed to save most of our belongings, but the tent and the sleeping rugs were gone. There was nothing to do but remain at our camp fire until dawn.
VIII--A THOUSAND MEN AND HORSES OVER A ROCKY GORGE
On the next march a new experience awaited us. The road ran for miles through a rocky gorge, and nothing else. The bed of the river was the only means of travel. There is nothing so nerve-racking as to keep one's eyes constantly glued to the ground, when each step presents a new problem. Of course, every now and then one of the stones would turn under our feet, and this meant a plunge up to the knees in icy water.
So far as the eye could see there was nothing but this rocky bed, winding between towering basaltic cliffs. The task of transporting a thousand men and horses under such conditions was almost superhuman. If the Albanians had been openly hostile not one man would have come out alive.
The Albanian, like most peasants, is grasping and fond of money, but once you cross his threshold your person and property are sacred. I never had the slightest fear once I entered an Albanian house.
On the road everything is possible. The tribes live at war with one another and respect for human life is non-existent. It would have been as much as our lives were worth to travel an hour after darkness. But during the daylight an armed party inspires a certain respect.
The men physically are probably the handsomest in Europe. I have never seen anywhere such beautiful children as those of the Albanians. Not one in a hundred knows how to read or write or has even been more than twenty miles from home.
It was through such a country the Serbians had to transport soldiers, and that with the Germans and the Bulgarians in close pursuit.
The last stages of the march were probably the hardest, as fodder for the animals and food for the men was practically unprocurable. Money difficulties also increased daily, the Albanians refusing to accept Serbian script at any rate of exchange. They would, however, give food and lodgings for articles of clothing, shirts, underwear, socks and boots. On the last stage we had, therefore, to resort to the primitive system of barter, buying a night's lodging with a shirt and a meal with a pair of socks.
IX--WOLVES LIVING ON CARCASSES IN MOUNTAIN PASSES
In the mountains just before Puka I discovered the first trace of wolves. The carcasses of dead horses, which were now numbered by scores, showed signs of having been torn by them. A part of the French aviation corps, which was preceding us, got lost in the snow and darkness, and had to spend the night in the open without protection. A dozen were frostbitten, but no fatal casualties. After six days we finally reached the Drina again, a swiftly flowing stream.
Thence the march to Scutari may be summed up in the word mud--mud of the deepest and most tenacious kind, sometimes only reaching to the ankles, sometimes to the knees, but it was always there.
The twenty-five miles between the Drina ferry and Scutari represents physical effort of no mean order. It was the finish for scores of unfortunate pack horses. During the last two days they got practically no food. On these days we found dead horses every hundred yards. When at last, at 4 in the afternoon, we came in sight of the towers and minarets of Scutaria every one heaved a sigh of relief. The streets presented a wonderful sight, being thronged with Serbian soldiers, mixed with French aviators, men of the French and Serbian medical staff and scores of the Red Cross unit--British, French, Russian and Greek.
Scutari's normal population of 40,000 had been increased by 100,000 Serbian and other refugees. Food was running scarce, and there were practically no accommodations. The unfortunate diplomatic corps was scattered all over in such lodgings as could be found for it. The headquarters staff took possession of the Hotel De la Ville. I learned the Danube division, which had entered Albania by Montenegro, had performed the miracle of saving part of its field artillery.
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The fate of Serbia was worse than that of Belgium, for to King Albert's subjects there always remained France, England and Holland as havens of refuge. For King Peter's people there was none. On the one hand, the inhospitable mountains of Montenegro offered a barrier which the starving people were powerless to cross. On the other was the desolation of the snow-capped peaks of Albania, with a population sullenly hostile to Serbia and everything Serbian.
But even if they had been willing to welcome them with open arms they could not have helped them, as the mountaineers of Albania live themselves all their lives on the ragged edge of starvation. The catastrophe, therefore, was beyond human aid, and Serbia had to drink the cup of bitterness to the dregs and witness the foundering of all that was left of her manhood and national wealth. It was the death agony of one of the bravest nations in Europe, of a people who had for five long years fought four victorious wars for its national existence, and at last succumbed to a combination of forces three times stronger than itself.
TALES OF THE TANKS--WITH THE ARMORED MONSTERS IN BATTLE
_Adventures as Romantic as Mediaeval Legends_
_Told by the Men in the Tanks_
Here are four tales as strange as "Arabian Nights" direct from the great battles of the Somme. It was on these battlegrounds that armored monsters plunged into the enemies' ranks, spitting flame and death, and creating consternation among the German soldiers. These armored tractors are an American invention. While the huge death-machines were constructed in England, they were built on plans from the United States. It was for divulging secrets about these tractors that Mlle. Mata Hari, the Dutch-Javanese dancer, was arrested in Paris as a spy and sentenced to execution.
I--STORY OF A YOUNG AUSTRALIAN IN A TANK ON THE BATTLEFIELD
Monday.--Out for first time. Strange sensation. Worse than being in a submarine. At first unable to see anything but imagined a lot. Bullets began to rain like hailstones on a galvanized roof at first, then like a series of hammer blows. We passed through it all unscathed.
Suddenly we gave a terrible lurch. I thought we were booked through. Lookout said we were astride an enemy trench. "Give them hell!" was the order. We gave them it. Our guns raked and swept trenches right and left.
Got a peep at frightened Huns. It was grimly humorous. They tried to bolt like scared rabbits, but were shot down in bunches before getting to their burrows. Machine guns brought forward. Started vicious rattle on our "hide." Not the least impression was made. Shells began to burst. We moved on and overtook some more frightened Huns. Cut their ranks to ribbons with our fire.
They ran like men possessed. Officer tried to rally them. They awaited our coming for a while. As soon as our guns began to spit at them they were off once more. Infantry rounded them up and survivors surrendered. Very curious about us. Stood open mouthed and wide eyed watching, but weren't much the wiser.
Experience was not altogether pleasant at first. Tank sickness is as bad as sea sickness until you get used to it.
Tuesday.--Off for another cruise. Peppering begun at once. Thought old thing was going to be drowned in shower of bullets. Things quiet down quickly. Silly blighters thought they could rush the tank like they would a fort. Dashed up from all sides. We fired at them point blank. Devilish plucky chaps some of them, for all their madness. The survivors had another try. We spat at them venomously. More of them went down.
The blessed old tub gave a sudden jerk. God in heaven, thought I, it's goodby to earth; but it wasn't. Only some Hun dead and wounded we had skidded into. The rain of bullets resumed. It was like as if hundreds of rivets were being hammered into the hide of the tank. We rushed through. Soon the music had charms, and we got to like the regular rhythm of it.
Suddenly a jolt, and our hearts jolted in our mouths in sympathy. Nothing doing in the mishap line. Only some unwonted obstacle. Heavier "strumming" on our keyboard outside, and more regular. Machine guns at it now. Straddled on as though we like it. A tremendous thud. The whole outfit seemed done for. Nearly jumped out of my skin. Looked at each other and wondered what it was. Still a roof over our heads, thank God.
Wednesday.--Early start. Roughest voyage yet. Waves of fire seemed to break over us. Tremendous crash. Then another, and several others at intervals. Silence for a time. Party of Huns came to meet us outside the village. Very stout old gentleman in front. Thought it was the Mayor and village bigpots to give us a civic welcome. Mistaken. They meant to give warm reception, but not as we understood the word. Let fly with machine guns. Then tried silly boarding tactics. We laughed. Our guns answered theirs.
Tank reception committee dispersed in a cloud of smoke and flame; no trailing clouds of glory. Fat old gentleman only visible member of deputation. Stood openmouthed. Purple with rage. Tank bore down. Old gent started to run. Funnier than a sack race. Old gent flung himself to earth with many signs to surrender.
Thursday.--Got into the village, and passed down between two irregular rows of wrecked houses. Hundreds of Huns came rushing up from cellars and from behind ruins to see us. Some had eyes staring out of head. Looked surprised and even frightened.
One blighter made a rush at us with a clubbed rifle. Made a terrible swipe at the tank. Smashed his rifle, and made a nasty noise on our roof. Hurt himself more than he hurt us. Off for a joy ride after some nice Huns who took to flight as we came up.
Friday.--Early afloat. Usual showers of bullets and a few shells on the way. Got right across a trench. Made the sparks fly. Went along parapet routing out Huns everywhere. Enemy terrified. Tried to run, but couldn't keep it up under our fire. Threw up the sponge and surrendered in batches.
One cheeky chap said he didn't think it was fair to fight with such things. We said that was our affair, and we could stand the racket Germany cared to make over it. Asked one chap if the thought we should have got permission from the Kaiser before using them. Didn't see the joke. Took about two hundred prisoners. Killed and wounded as many more. Tired out when through.