Naturally in such a country roads are of prime importance in military operations. A few built and maintained by the state are in excellent condition and practicable in all sorts of weather. But for the rest communications consist of bridle paths and trails over the mountains.
As has been stated, the great highway from Belgrade to Saloniki is the key to all military operations in the Balkans; nor is this case any exception. A study of the map will show how this big, underlying fact entered into the plans of the first three attempts at invading Serbia. Naturally, had facilities been convenient at Belgrade, that would have been the point from which to advance. The next possible point was over the Drina, because it was not so wide or so deep.
Bosnia and Herzegovina at the beginning of the war were sparsely served by railroads. But for the purpose of an invasion of Serbia the lines running to Tuzla in the north and to Vishegrade and Uvatz in the south were of much strategic importance. Moreover, unlike the Hungarian plain opposite Belgrade, the country is so mountainous and well wooded that great bodies of troops could be moved about without being observed. We now come to the main reason why this point was chosen, next to Belgrade. Though we shall see that they did not reach it at their first attempt, there is no doubt that the main objective of the Austrians was the little town of Valievo, lying some distance back from the Jadar and the field of battle. For at Valievo is the terminus of a light railway which joins with the main line running from Belgrade down to Saloniki. The Teutons were in a hurry to open this highway, for it meant opening a means of communication with the Turks, who were to become, and later did become, their active allies. These are political matters of significance here insomuch as they explain the special importance of the railway from Belgrade south along the ancient highway of the Crusaders.
Before following this route farther south, a few words should be devoted to Montenegro. Between Serbia and Montenegro lies the Sanjak of Novibazar. This small territory nominally belonged to Turkey before the Balkan War, but it was in fact garrisoned by Austrian troops, the civil administration being left to the Turks. Austria had gone to special trouble to establish this arrangement, so that it might have a wedge between the territories of the two little Serb nations. Anticipating this war long ago, Austria had counted on having a large enough force in Novibazar to prevent a union of the two armies. But, when it actually came, she was in no position to prevent it, so much of her strength being required to meet the Russians.
Montenegro is the natural refuge of the Serbs. Whenever in the past they were especially hard pressed by the Turks, they would flee to the mountain fastnesses of Tzherna Gora, the Black Mountain, for here military operations, even in this day of modern artillery, are absolutely impossible, and when it came to mountain guerrilla fighting, the Turks were no match for the Serbs. Thus it was that the Serbs were able to preserve their old traditions, their language and the best blood of their race. And it may be said that to a slightly lesser extent Ragusa served the same purpose.
The Montenegrins are born fighters and die fighters. From one end to the other Montenegro is one wilderness of mountain crags and towering precipices, traversed only by foot trails. Here and there a shelf of level soil may be found, just enough to enable people to grow their own necessities. The capital of this rocky domain, high up among the crags and overlooking the Adriatic, is Cettinje, which was to be stormed and conquered by the Teutons. The main street, about 150 yards long, comprising two-thirds of the town, is so broad that three or four carriages may be driven abreast down the length of it. It is composed entirely of one and two story cottages. A few short streets branch off at right angles, and in these is all of Cettinje that is not comprised in the main street. The king inhabited a modest-looking, brown edifice with a small garden attached. Overlooking the capital is Mt. Lovcen, on top of which the Montenegrins planted guns to defend any attack that might be made against them.
South of Montenegro and north of Greece lies another country of instinctive fighters. It is similar in physical aspect, but very different in its population. This is the land of the Albanians, whom the Turks conquered by force of arms, like all the rest of the Balkan peninsula. They are a distinct race by themselves; it is supposed that they are the descendants of the ancient Illyrians, those wild tribes of whom the ancient Greeks wrote. Nor is this unlikely, for in such a country as theirs the inhabitants are most likely to remain pure from generation to generation.
Returning for a few moments to Belgrade, we now may resume our course down the ancient highway toward Saloniki. Down the Morava Valley passes the railroad, after which it passes within a few miles of the Bulgarian frontier, near Kustendil; dangerously near the frontier of a possible enemy, but especially perilous in this war in which the Serbians would naturally endeavor to retreat toward her ally, Greece.
Just below Vranya the railroad enters what was, before the two Balkan Wars, the Turkish territory of Macedonia. This region down to within sixty miles of Saloniki was reconquered from the Turks by the Serbs, having been Serb inhabited since early in the Christian era as shown by historical record. As early as 950 Constantin Porphyrogenitus writes of its inhabitants as Serbs, from whom, he says, the town of Serbia on the Bistritza River near Saloniki took its name. Throughout this region there are so many mountain ranges that it would be impossible to name them all. Nowhere has blood been more continuously shed than here, and nowhere in Europe is the scenery more beautiful.
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. Through a subterranean passage the waters of this mountain lake pass under the range that separates it from the much larger lake, Ochrida, the source of the bloody Drina.
The people of these mountains are Serbs, almost to Saloniki. Uskub, whose ancient Serb name is Skoplya, was the old Serb capital, and there the Serb ruler Doushan was crowned emperor in 1346.
For the past five hundred years these Macedonians have been used to all the ways of guerrilla fighting. Roaming through their mountains in small bands they have harassed the Turkish soldiers continuously.
The Bulgarian ruler Ferdinand had through many years by means of committees and church jugglery striven to Bulgarize this population, preparatory to the contemplated seizure of the territory which he has now been able with the help of the Germanic powers to accomplish. But in reality the Bulgar population in what was European Turkey was found only eastward of the Struma in Thracia including Adrianople. Those regions formed the ample and legitimate field of ambition for the unification of the Bulgars.
When hostilities broke out in 1914, when Serbia was defending herself against the Austrians, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the secret ally by treaty of Austria, did everything possible to forward his designs against the Serbs and sent armed Bulgar bands into Serb Macedonia.
Shortly below the city of Monastir in the west begins the Greek frontier, running over eastward to Doiran, where it touches the Bulgarian frontier. Here the railroad, coming down along the Vardar River, emerges into the swamp lands and over them passes into the city of Saloniki.
Here is the old territory of Philip of Macedon, the father of the conqueror. For some forty or fifty miles these swamps stretch out from Saloniki, overshadowed by Mt. Olympus on their southern edge. While not quite so extensive as the Pinsk Swamps, they are quite as impassable, from a military point of view. In the center of this region of bulrushes and stunted forests is an open sheet of shallow water, Lake Enedjee.
Nearly all this swamp land is submerged, but here and there are small islands. For some years the Turkish soldiers garrisoned these islands during the mild winter months, living on them in rush huts. In the summer they would withdraw into the near-by foothills. But one summer several hundred Comitajis descended into the swamps and took possession.
The stunted forests and the bulrushes here are traversed by a maze of narrow waterways, just wide enough for a punt to pass along. When the soldiers returned in the fall, they started out for their islands