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It was clear to both these men that the hand of Zellerndorf was plainly in evidence in both the important moves that had occurred in Lutha within the past twenty-four hours the luring of the king to Blentz and the entrance of Austrian soldiery into Lutha. Following his interview with the Serbian minister Von der Tann rode toward Blentz with only his staff in attendance.
With adequate forces they could have pushed beyond Veles to Uskub, broken the wedge which the Bulgarians had driven in between them and the Serbians, restored the line of the Vardar, and secured the Serbian retreat. It was this Bulgarian stab in the back which made havoc of the Serbian defence.
Lots of running about, but at last all were bedded. A Serbian comitaj girl came in in the afternoon, looking for a lady doctor. She was a fine upstanding creature with a strong, almost fierce, face. There had been six of her, she said, but one had been killed. The bombardment of Varna turned out to be a lie, but they said that all the Bulgars at Vrnja had been surrounded.
But he who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and who rules to-day over a great portion of the former dominions of the Hapsburgs, instead of being a scion of the Imperial House of Austria, is the great-grandson of a Serbian blacksmith. Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of King Peter of Serbia, his second son, Alexander, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
General Jecoff announced: "After fierce and sanguinary fighting the fortress of Nish has been conquered by our brave victorious troops and the Bulgarian flag has been hoisted to remain forever." The Serbian army continued steadily to retreat, until on November 8th, advancing Franco-British troops almost joined with them, presenting a line from Prilep to Dorolovo on the Bulgarian frontier.
But the most important assistance the Czechs rendered to the Allies was their refusal to fight for Austria. Out of 70,000 prisoners taken by Serbia during the first months of the war, 35,000 were Czechs. Of these, 24,000 perished during the Serbian retreat, and 8000 died of typhoid fever and cholera at Asinara.
The Serbian Premier, for instance, whose shrewdness is proverbial, exclaimed to an Italian journalist, in the second half of June: "Roumania cannot but follow the example set her by Italy. Indeed, you may telegraph to your journal that Roumania's entry into the arena is a question of days and it may be only of hours. Of this many foretokens have come to our knowledge."
All was part of a prearranged Great Serbian plan. "The Serbs," I overheard two Montenegrins say in the inn at Rijeka, "are right. As the Black Hand was a "government within a government," and unofficial, Belgrade could always pretend to be ignorant of its doings.
Thus ended the day of August 18, 1914, the third day of the battle. Early next morning, on August 19, 1914, the Austrians in Shabatz renewed their efforts to penetrate the Serbian lines to the southward. So determined was their effort that finally the Serbians in this sector were driven back over on to the right bank of the River Dobrava.
The number of centres of national life, Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and Montenegro, to take them in the chronological order of their conquest by the Turks, had been notoriously a source of weakness to the Serbian state, as is still the case to-day, but at the same time made it more difficult for the Turks to stamp out the national consciousness.
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