The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

private property could be equalled only by the action of a band of madmen. It is a sad story, and together with the atrocities committed by Teutonic hordes in Belgium, France and Poland, bears a terrible testimony against the insufficiencies of the present materialistic civilisation. A Swiss scientist, Dr. Reiss, has published in the Revue de Paris many of the documents concerning the atrocities committed in Serbia during this first invasion of Austro-Hungarian troops, but we prefer to spare the reader the harrowing details involved! Fortunately for humanity it was not all the Austro-Hungarian troops who behaved so disgustingly, and many of their men and officers were really disgusted and ashamed to belong to such an army. But it is necessary to say, as Sir Oliver Lodge has pointed out in his book The War and After, that beastliness is the twin sister of cowardice. After the capture of Sabac the Austrian troops and officers proved their worth by killing and outraging girls and women, seeing in every one of them a disguised Serbian comitadji. An Austro-Hungarian official communiqué in referring to these atrocities tried to excuse them by the necessity felt by the troops to protect themselves against the “ dastardly ” attacks from the houses. Is this not the most authentic testimony to the dastardly nature of the Austrian troops and their masters ?

1 This book of Dr. Reiss, The Austro-Hungarian Atrocities in Serbia, has recently been published in English.

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