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On the 2d the Serbians reported that they had not only consolidated the positions they had taken on the important heights of Kaimakcalan but they had advanced beyond this point three kilometers and taken Kotchovie. At the end of the week Jermani, a village at the base of a high ridge on the lower shore of Little Prespa Lake, was taken by the French.
This was barely a fourth of the distance; nevertheless they were advancing toward Lake Ochrida, west of the Prespa Lakes, against which the Bulgarians rested their right wing. It was evident that they had driven back the Austrians who were supposed to hold this section.
Altogether they numbered about 7,000, while the pursuing Bulgarians were at least 30,000 strong. At Resen, where the roughness of the country enabled them to make some resistance, they fought the last battle, or skirmish rather, that was to take place between the Serbians and the invaders, then retired down along the eastern shore of Lake Prespa and so over into Greece.
Especially impressive is that section around Monastir, toward the frontier of Albania and away from the main line of the railroad. Here, not more than a day's walk from the city of Monastir, or Bitolia, as its Slavic inhabitants call it, is Lake Prespa, a small sheet of crystal-clear water in which are reflected the peaks and the rugged crags of the surrounding mountains.
The French, too, made some advance along the eastern shore of Lake Prespa, while the Serbians took five villages in the foothills at the head of the plain. The main forces of the Bulgarians and Germans were making their stand about twelve miles north of the city, well up in the hills and crossing the Prilep highway.
Some miles north of the town rise the naked crags and precipices of an extremely difficult range of mountains; here the Bulgarians stood and succeeded in preventing the Russians from making any further progress, their right flank being protected by the two Prespa lakes. For almost a week the battle raged furiously back and forth along this section of the front.
Therefore, the problem of an invading force is to take the mountain outside the city, rather than the city itself. Beyond this lofty eminence, to the westward, rise thickly wooded ridges, rugged mountain fastnesses, through which, along the bottom of a winding defile, runs the road to Resen and Ochrida and three large lakes: Ochrida, Prespa, and Little Prespa.
But, as was later indicated by the reports, the Italians had by this time advanced above Koritza and were not only in touch with the Russians operating around Kastoria and the lower part of the Prespa and Ochrida lakes, but they were skirting the western shore of Ochrida and threatening to advance on Monastir by this very highway.
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