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We got two beds, but there were no mattresses on the springs. Jan rolled up in his Serbian rug, but it was loosely woven, and not as warm as he had hoped. Just not warm enough, one only dozed. About eleven o'clock, Cutting came in with Owen, Watmough, Hilder, and Elmer. They had come from Vrnjatchka Banja with Dr. Holmes.
The Serbians, of course, were in no position to fight a great power like Austria-Hungary, and yet, weakened as they were, they could not submit to such a demand as this. They agreed to all the Austrian demands except the one concerning the Austrian judges in Serbian courts. They appealed to the other powers to see that justice was done them.
In the first case there was the long route, the difficulty of getting lodgings and of transport, the risk of falling behind the Serbian General Staff, and of finding the country bare, the high passes of Petch and the snow; Willett was only just recovering from a bad chill, West's arm had grown much worse, and had been operated on in the morning by a doctor with a pair of scissors faute de mieux a most agonizing process.
But on closer approach it became apparent that they could do nothing more than hold the Austrians inside the town. So well and so thoroughly had the Austrians fortified themselves that it was hopeless for so small a force to attempt an attack. Thus this section of the Serbian front settled down to wait for reenforcements.
The object of German diplomacy was to avoid offence to British susceptibilities, and the first requisite was to keep behind the scenes. The Kaiser went off on a yachting cruise to Norway, where, however, he was kept in constant touch with affairs, while Austria on 23 July presented her ultimatum to the Serbian Government.
At the end overlooking the water-front were Serbian ladies taking tea; in the centre of the salon at the piano a little Greek girl taking a music lesson; and at the other end, on cots, British officers from the trenches and Serbian officers who had escaped through the snows of Albania, their muddy boots, uniforms, and swords flung on the floor, slept the drugged sleep of exhaustion.
The grade of field marshal was created in the Serbian army during the First Balkan War. With him worked Colonel Pavlovitch, the son of a farmer, who had won a series of scholarships, enabling him to study in Berlin. He had directed the military operations in the field against Turkey and Bulgaria, and he was to do the same thing under his old chief against the Austrians.
The Serbian capital was removed the same day to Ishtib, in the south. When the great army of Germans and Austrians entered Serbia at Belgrade and other points along the Danube and began to drive the Serbian forces to the south, they met with immediate and continued successes.
'Bozhe, Bozhe, bez vino ne se mozhe! . . . Corruption in all branches of the administration Is the essence of Serbian rule." This picture, corroborating as it does the Carnegie Report of the "government within a government," is the more valuable, as it is evident that early in 1914 the writer had heard the plans for a "death-blow to the Austrian Emperor" discussed.
This movement threatened to become a serious obstacle to the Serbian plan of separating the Austrians in Shabatz from those farther south. But the situation was saved by one of those incidents which sometimes stand out above the savagery of warfare and give to it a touch of grandeur.
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