United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Serbians struggled on, but the same day on which Kövess came within striking distance of Mitrovitza, Gallwitz was threatening Pristina from the north end of the Lab Valley. Thus the Serbians were finally driven out of the last corner of their native land, on November 20, 1915.
The colonel advised Jan to get his party out by the best route possible, and we took a grateful farewell. Coming back to the camp Jan had a nasty half-hour. Should we go by Mitrovitza, or should we go by Berane?
"But," we said, "Sir Ralph suggests that we go to Mitrovitza, because the Serbs say that Uskub will fall in a few days." "I should get out of the country as soon as you can," said one. "It is exceedingly unlikely that Uskub can fall," said the other.
Near Mitrovitza, on the north of the plain, near Pristina on the east of it, and at Katshanik at its southern extremity, the Austro-Germans and the Bulgarians had, by the beginning of the fourth week of November, 1915, absolutely rounded up and hemmed in all the larger forces of the Serbians.
The effect of the collapse of this effort was immediately seen in the withdrawal from Mitrovitza of the Serbian staff, such members of the Serbian Government as had remained there and the diplomatic representatives of the Entente nations.
By November 22, 1915, the Austrian lines had followed to within five miles of that point. Gallwitz and his Germans, in the meanwhile, operating on the left flank of the Austrians, was pushing southward, his object being to take Pristina, on the east side of the Kossovo Plain and about twenty miles southeast of Mitrovitza.
They looked forward to the arrival of Russian armies that should exterminate all that was not Serb. Shtcherbina to them was a Christ-like man who had died to save them, and they treasured his portrait. Russia, only the year before, had insisted on planting a Consul at Mitrovitza against the wish of the Turkish Government. Serb hopes had been raised.
The priest was carrying food to his carriage, and we discovered that a woman was within, stowed away at the back like the widow's luggage, and carefully protected by two curtains, so that no eye should behold her. Her sufferings between Rudnik and Mitrovitza can be imagined when you have heard ours.
They crossed the Serbian border at Mitrovitza, about fifty miles northwest of Belgrade, driving the Serbians before them. The first real hostilities of the war opened with the bombardment of Belgrade by the Austrians on July 29, 1914 six days before the beginning of the campaigns on the western battle fields.
In the north-west the Austrians were pressing on from Ushitza down by the Montenegrin frontier towards Mitrovitza, threatening to crush the Serbians on the Kossovo plateau between them and the Bulgars. To save the main Serbian force and keep open a retreat through Albania, a stand had to be made at Katchanik against the Bulgars advancing north from Uskub.
Word Of The Day