The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors

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      Later in the day, December 8, 1914, the scenes along the highways took on a different character. The main columns of the pursuing Serbians had passed on, but straggling files of those too tired or too weak to be in the fore of the chase still continued onward. More slowly followed a steady stream of returning refugees, their oxen, in various stages of life and death, yoked up to every conceivable manner of springless vehicle, piled high with odds and ends of furniture and bedding which had been snatched up in the mad hurry of flight. On top of the bundles lay sick and starving children, wan with want and exposure. Beside the wagon walked weary women or old men, urging their animals on with weird cries and curses, returning to the devastated remains of what had once been their homes.

      Later still, from opposite directions, came processions of Austrian prisoners, sometimes thousands of them, guarded by a handful of Third Ban Serbian soldiers, still wearing their peasant costumes. Among the prisoners were smooth-faced youths and old men, some in the uniforms of soldiers, or of Landwehr, or Landsturm. All types of that hodge-podge of nationalities and races which the flag of Austria-Hungary represents were there; Germans, Magyars, Croats, Czechs, Moravians, Slovaks, Rumanians, Lithuanians, and Bosnian Musselmans.

      In between the convoys straggled men of the Serbian army who had fallen out of the chase by the way, most of them Third Ban men, too advanced in years to keep up the pace set by the younger men. Nowhere moved anything but suffering, bleeding humanity.

      On this scene the sun, a glowing disc of copper, finally set, and the struggling figures merged into the deepening dusk, and presently only black, halting shadows were creeping along the dark trails and roads.

CHAPTER LVII

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      THE FATE OF BELGRADE

      During all this time a separate drama was being enacted in and around Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Unfortified and not especially adapted for defense, except for the breadth of the Danube flowing along its low front, it was the cause of a general, world-wide wonder that it should not have fallen almost immediately into Austrian hands. Quite aside from military values, the capture of an enemy's capital always makes a strong, moral impression, on both sides.

       Beginning with the early morning of July 29, 1914, when a detachment of Serbian irregulars beat off a river steamer and two troop laden barges which were attempting to approach the shore just below Belgrade, there followed a period during which the citizens of the city had their full share in experiencing the horrors of warfare. The booming of heavy siege artillery and the screaming of shells at first startled them, then became so commonplace as barely to attract their attention. The attacks and counterattacks on mid-river islands became incidents of daily occurrence. Ruined buildings, wrecked houses and dead bodies in the streets became an unmarked portion of their everyday life.

      For the greater part of this period Austrian cannon, planted across the river, poured shell, shrapnel, and incendiary bombs into the city, with intent to batter down its modern buildings and to terrorize the inhabitants. Over 700 buildings were struck by bombs, shells, or shrapnel, and of these sixty were the property of the state, including the university, the museum, foreign legations, hospitals, and factories. The foundries, bakeries and all the factories along the Serbian shore of the river were razed to the ground. Austrian howitzer shells dropped through the roof of the king's palace and wrecked all of the gorgeous interior. The university was riddled until the building, with its classrooms, laboratories, library, and workshops, was entirely demolished. Even the cellars were destroyed by great shells, which broke down the walls, pierced their way into the very bowels of the earth and there exploded. As the result of a steady fire to destroy the state bank, one street, running up from the water's edge, was ripped up from curb to curb. Missiles pierced the wood paving and its concrete foundations by small holes, passed along underground for some distance, then exploded, throwing particles of the roadway to all sides.

      Many of these shells were fired from the Austrian batteries stationed over near Semlin, but presently there also appeared a fleet of river monitors, so heavily armored that no Serbian shell could pierce their sides. These would parade up and down the river channel with impunity, adding their share to the general destruction.

      Finally, in the beginning of November, 1914, there arrived in Belgrade two big 14-centimeter cannon, sent by the French Government by way of the Adriatic, together with French gunners and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. These were put into position above the city and on November 8, 1914, the French gunners sent their first message over into Hungary. The damage inflicted so impressed the monitors that they did not again venture into range. Moreover, spies, of whom there were probably a number in Belgrade, had doubtless notified the Austrians that measures, were now being taken to mine the river effectively. In fact, many measures for a more effective offensive were being undertaken when the trend of operations in the interior forced the Serbian General Staff to order the evacuation of the capital.

      It will be remembered that the Serbians had been beaten back from their main line of defense and that a rearrangement of the Serbian forces had thereby become necessary, in order that the line might be shortened.

      This included the abandonment of Belgrade on November 29, 1914. The order was carried out during the night. But before retiring, the French gunners, who saw that they were going to lose their two big guns, determined to bid the enemy across the river a hearty good-by. In the early morning they fired off their stock of 240 rounds of ammunition and in a little more than half an hour deposited some twelve tons of melinite on the enemy's forts at Bezania, with such terrifying effect that the garrison abandoned it. Thus it came to pass that the two strongholds, having snarled and barked at each other across the dividing waters for nearly five months, were both evacuated at the same time.

      As will be remembered, the right wing of the Serbian lines, now joined by the garrison of Belgrade, swung back and stretched across the Belgrade-Nish railroad, along the ridges of Varoonitza in the east and Kosmai in the west. The Austrian left, composed of two army corps, immediately covered the ceded territory and, of course, entered Belgrade. Then followed the strong Serbian counterattack against the Austrian center along the Suvobor ridges and the complete demoralization of the Austrian forces from the center south.

      The northern wing of the Austrians, however, which held the country around Belgrade succeeded in holding its own, though it was presently cut off from the rest of the Austrian forces. But this was all according to the plans of General Putnik. Being much outnumbered he could not spare the forces necessary to rout the enemy's strong northern force. Having broken the center of Potiorek's front, the Serbian commander gave his chief attention to capturing the Austrian southern wing, operating in the Western Morava Valley.

      On December 8 and 9, 1914, the Serbian right wing had been hard pressed along the line from Kosmai to Varoonitza, but the completeness of the Austrian defeat in the other theatres enabled General Putnik to rearrange his troops. He therefore dispatched the left wing of the Third Army against Obrenovatz, attached the rest of the Third Army and the cavalry division to the Second Army and placed this new combination of forces, together with the garrison of Belgrade, under the command of Voivode Stepanovitch, he who had made so brilliant a record at the first battle on the Tzer ridges.

CHAPTER LVIII

       Table of Contents

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