On the morning of December 14, 1914, the Serbians approached the southern defenses of Belgrade, where the Austrians must make their last stand; along a line from Ekmekluk to Banovobrodo. Here General Potiorek had constructed a system of earthworks, consisting of deep trenches with shrapnel cover and well-concealed gun positions, with numerous heavy howitzers and fieldpieces. Evidently he hoped to withstand an indefinite siege on this fragment of Serbian territory, holding Belgrade as a bridgehead for another advance toward the main Morava Valley, when the next effort to invade Serbia should be made. He would, at the same time, preserve at least a semblance of his prestige from all the calamities that had befallen his armies, enabling him to represent the campaign as a reconnaissance in force, similar to Hindenburg's first advance against Warsaw.
But his troops had been so terribly punished that they could not garrison the siege defenses. The Serbians, now drunk with their many victories, and absolutely reckless of death, as they drove on toward their capital, with their old king, grandson of Black George, moving through their foremost ranks, charged up into the ring of hills.
The last fight, on December 14, 1914, which definitely broke the back of the last effort of the Austrians to maintain a footing on Serbian soil, took place on the central height, Torlak. Two battalions of Magyars were defending this point. And just as the sun was setting over in the Matchva swamps in a glow of fiery clouds, the foremost Serbians leaped up to the attack.
Long before the fight was over darkness set in. The Serbians, driven back again and again, came back like bounding rubber balls. Finally they gained the trenches, and one general, horrible mêlée of struggling, shouting, furious combatants set in. The shooting had died down; they were fighting with bayonets and knives now. Finally the tumult died down. But nearly every Austrian on that height died. Few escaped and not very many were taken prisoners. Then, under cover of the night, the Serbians spread over the other heights and captured the whole line of defense works.
No Serbian slept that night. They tugged and dragged at their heavy guns through all the dark hours, up toward the city, and placed them on heights commanding the pontoon bridges that had been thrown over the Save from Semlin.
When dawn broke on December 15, 1914, a heavy mist hung over the river, but the Serbians knew with accuracy the location of the pontoon bridge. All during the previous day and during the night the retreating Austrians had been crowding over this bridge to escape into Austrian territory. At first the retirement had been orderly, but later in the day, as the news from the front became more serious, as the low, distant roar of rifle and machine gun rolled nearer, the movement increased in intensity, and, during the night, developed into a hurried scamper. Cannon were unlimbered and thrown into the river, and troops fought among themselves over the right of way along the narrow plank walk. In the midst of this confusion, while yet thousands of the invaders were still on the Serbian side of the river, just as dawn was breaking, there came a deep report, the hissing of a flying steel missile, and a shell dropped in the middle of one of the pontoon supports, hurling timber and human beings up into the air. The confusion now became a wild panic. Some tried to return to the Serbian shore, others fought on. Dozens of the struggling figures rolled over the side of the bridge into the eddying currents of the waters.
Again came the dull, heavy report, then another and another, followed by the screeching overhead. Shells dropped into the water on all sides. And then another bomb burst on the pontoon where the first shell had landed.
Even the roar of the shouting soldiers could not be heard above the crashing of timbers, the snapping of mooring chains. The bridge swayed, then caved in, where the pontoon had been struck and was sinking. Between the two broken-off ends, still crowded with struggling humanity, rushed the turbid current of the river. The last road to safety had been cut.
Presently the fog lifted and revealed a long line of retreating Austrians, reaching down the road toward Obrenovatz, still heading desperately for the bridge, as unconscious of its destruction as a line of ants whose hill has been trampled in by a cow's hoof. But they were not long to remain unconscious of the fact that they were now prisoners of war.
CHAPTER LIX
SERBIANS RETAKE THE CITY—END OF THIRD INVASION
As the sun rose on December 15, 1914, the Serbian cavalry, accompanied by King Peter, swept down from the heights of Torlak and entered the streets of the capital. A volley from the remnant of a Hungarian regiment met them. The cavalrymen dismounted and began driving the Magyars down the streets, from one square to another. And while this fight, an armed riot rather than a military action, was going on, finally to end in the practical slaughter of all the Hungarians who would not surrender, the king entered the cathedral of his capital to celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving for the deliverance of his kingdom from the hands of the enemy. And even as the Mass ended, stray shots echoed through the streets of the city still.
Two hours later the Crown Prince Alexander, accompanied by his brother, Prince George, a strong cavalry escort, and the British military attaché, approached Belgrade. They were met on the outskirts by a crowd of women and children who, with a few exceptions, were all of the inhabitants that remained, the Austrians having carried the others off with them the day before. They had collected masses of flowers, and with these they bombarded and decorated the incoming soldiers. The girls brought the embroidered scarfs and sashes, which they had worked in preparation for marriage, and these they hung about the cavalrymen's necks until they looked as though they were celebrating at a village wedding. Huge tricolor streamers now hung from the houses and buildings, while bits of dirty bunting fluttered from the cottages.
In the streets of Belgrade the Austrians left 5 cannon, 8 ammunition wagons, 440 transport wagons, and 1,000 horses. Some 150 junior officers and 10,000 men also found their retreat suddenly cut off; among them were few officers of high rank. In one of the officers' headquarters the evening meal was still spread on the table, the soup half consumed, the wine half drunk.
So ended the third Austrian invasion of Serbia. Of the army of 300,000 men who had crossed the Drina and Save rivers, not over 200,000 returned. During the last thirteen days of the operations the Serbians had captured 41,538 prisoners, including 323 officers, and enormous quantities of war material; 133 cannon, 71 machine guns, 29 gun carriages, 386 ammunition wagons, 45 portable ovens, 3,350 transport wagons, 2,243 horses, and 1,078 oxen. The Austrian killed and wounded numbered not far from 60,000.
The Austrian occupation of Belgrade had lasted just fourteen days. The invaders had evidently not counted on the disaster that was so soon to come to them. Under the guidance of their late military attaché in Serbia they had established themselves in the best available buildings, began to repair the streets, which they themselves had ripped open by shell fire, and set up the semblance of a city administration. But it was still evident that no central authority from above had as yet been able to assert itself. The personality of each commander, was represented by the marks left behind in his district. The buildings occupied by one military authority remained cleanly and intact, even the king's photograph being left undamaged. In others, furniture was destroyed and the royal image shot and slashed to pieces. Entire sections of the town escaped pillage. Other quarters were plundered from end to end. While the cathedral and other churches were not seriously damaged, the General Post Office was completely wrecked. The furniture in the Sobranje, the house of the national assembly, was destroyed and broken, and the Royal Palace was stripped from floor to ceiling, the contents being carted off to Hungary in furniture vans, brought especially from Semlin for that purpose.
With the army of occupation came 800 wounded soldiers from the other theatres of operations. Most of them were immediately turned over to the American Red Cross unit established in Belgrade, already caring for 1,200 wounded Serbians. As the fighting continued in the interior these numbers were constantly augmented, until the American hospital sheltered nearly 3,000 wounded men.
When the evacuation began the Austrians left their own wounded, but took with them the Serbian patients, to swell the number