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From Losnitza, where the main column of Austrians crossed the Drina to Valievo, runs the River Jadar, along a level valley, which narrows as it nears Valievo. On the left-hand side of the Jadar Valley rise the southern slopes of the Tzer Mountains, covered with cornfields, prune orchards, with here and there a stretch of thick timber.
Then he fared into the south country, and was minded east for Tunsberg, to find Thorstein Dromond, his brother, and there is nought told of his travels till he came east to Jadar. <i>Of Grettir and Snoekoll</i>.
Both these ranges are largely covered by prune orchards, intersected with some sparse timber. This is a region of natural fortifications. Descending southward again, the foothills of Iverak are lost in a chain of summits, which flank the right bank of the Jadar River, that tributary of the Drina River from which the first big battle takes its name.
Still farther up the valley the foothills of the Iverak ridges are lost in a series of fairly important summits which closely flank the Jadar River. To the south of the Jadar River the valley stretches into a rolling plain, which rises abruptly into the giant Guchevo Mountains.
Though we shall see that they did not reach it at their first attempt, there is no doubt that the main objective of the Austrians was the little town of Valievo, lying some distance back from the Jadar and the field of battle. For at Valievo is the terminus of a light railway which joins with the main line running from Belgrade down to Saloniki.
And here they halted, and the united forces proceeded to dig a trench on a ten-mile front, extending from north to south, through the town and clear across the Jadar Valley. Nor did the Austrians then attempt to follow up this first success. Thus the Serbians were allowed to intrench themselves unmolested until, next day, August 15, 1914, they were joined by the balance of their forces.
But next day the Serbs routed a large Austrian force in the neighbourhood, and the Crown Prince Alexander followed up this victory by another on the 18th against the Austrians on the Jadar, who were seeking, in co-operation with those at Shabatz, to cut the Serbs off from their base.
It was now learned, for the first time, that another of the enemy's columns had crossed the Drina far down in the south, and was marching on Krupanie, just below the Guchevo Mountains and on the way to the upper part of the Jadar Valley.
From the left bank of the Jadar, from its junction with the Drina to Jarebitze, a great rolling level stretches south until the high Guchevo Mountains, stretching in southeasterly direction, rise abruptly and hide the Bosnian hills from view.
Even as the first shots were being fired across the Drina at Losnitza, the Serbian forces were on the move, westward. Two army corps were at once rushed toward the Valley of the Jadar; part of a third was sent to block the advance of the Austrians from Shabatz. Meanwhile the Austrians took their time. For two days they busied themselves fortifying the bridge at Losnitza.
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