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The road, as we approached Shabatz, proved to be macadamized in a certain fashion: a deep trench was dug on each side; stakes about a foot and a half high, interlaced with wicker-work, were stuck into the ground within the trench, and the road was then filled up with gravel. Shabatz. A Provincial Chancery. Servian Collector. Description of his House. Country Barber. Turkish Quarter.
Throughout all the fighting this cavalry division rendered notable service by its dismounted action. On the morning of August 17, 1914, the extreme right of the Serbian front now turned toward Shabatz. Though only half the number of the forces they were proceeding to engage, they continued onward.
Even up around Shabatz, where they had been successful the day before, the Austrians, realizing that all was lost to the southward, made only a feeble attack on the Serbians, who were consequently able to recross the Dobrava River and establish themselves on the right bank.
But his good wishes were not destined to be fulfilled; for within a month an abortive attempt at a rising was made by the partisans of the exiled Obrenovich family, a troop of whom, disguised as Austrian hussars, entered Shabatz, and shot the good collector dead as he issued from his house to enquire the cause of the disturbance.
But then came the news that the Austrians had driven back the left wing of the Third Army from that position and had occupied it. The situation in which this division found itself was by no means clear. Nothing had been heard from Shabatz. The division operating along the Tzer ridges had been badly hammered. The Third Army had lost Poporparlok.
They secretly furnished themselves with thirty-four or thirty-five hussar uniforms at Pesth, bought horses, and having bribed the Austrian frontier guard, passed the Save with a trumpeter about a month after this period, and entering Shabatz, stated that a revolution had broken out at Belgrade, that prince Kara Georgevitch was murdered, and Michael proclaimed, with the support of the cabinets of Europe!
Moreover, the Serbians would be in a position to turn immediately toward either of the Austrians' columns, whichever might need most attention. Meanwhile, the Serbian cavalry had made a reconnaissance toward Shabatz. They immediately sent back reports of overwhelming forces occupying the town. It was out of the question to make any attack there for the present.
Spreading out across the Matchva plain, its left wing up against the slopes of the Tzer Mountains, and its right wing within reach of Shabatz, it advanced as far as Dublje in the north. At the same time it was able to assist the column advancing along the Tzer ridges by playing its artillery on the Austrian position in the mountains at Troyan.
During the whole day we toiled upwards, through woods and wilds of a character more rocky than that of the previous day, and on attaining the ridge of the Gutchevo range, I looked down with astonishment on Sokol, which, though lying at our feet, was yet perched on a lone fantastic crag, which exactly suited the description of the collector of Shabatz, "a city and castle built on the capital of a column of rock."
Here the country is a level plain, really the southern limit of the great plain which stretches up to the Danube, past Belgrade and so into Hungary. Here, too, the Austrians screened themselves behind an island in the river, then hurled their forces across, driving the feeble detachment of Third Reserve Serbian troops back across the plain up into the hills lying to the southeast of Shabatz.
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