Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

THE OVERRUNNING OF SERBIA. 147

the Serbian centre was slowly driven back, till the peril on the flanks compelled a rapid retreat. Fighting desperately, and taking a heavy toll of the enemy, they retired across the pass to join the retreating Army of the North. But their stand had given Putnik the respite he had sought, and before Mitrovitza was threatened the retreat was moving up the hill roads to the Montenegro plain of Ipek.

The stand at the Babuna Pass was of a different kind. Its primary aim was to bar the way to Monastir, for once the Bulgarians were at Prilep the roads from Monastir northward would be shut to possible supplies. But it had also an offensive purpose. If the Allies could retake Veles, Uskub would be threatened, and the dangerous Bulgarian operations towards Mitrovitza would be checked. The Babuna Pass, a little over 2,000 feet high, is on the road from Uskub to Prilep. Some 5,000 Serbians held the heights commanding the northern approach, where in the first days of November they repulsed the assault of a Bulgarian division, and drove it back as far as Izvor, which is about a dozen miles on the road from Veles. But only an advanced guard of the enemy had been checked. Teodorov’s main force poured down from the Veles front, and presently the Serbian handful had the better part of six divisions before them. For a week and more the crest of the Babuna Pass was still held, but the failure of the Allies farther south, and the Bulgarian capture of the Mitrovitza line, made the position untenable. The Serbians fell back towards the Albanian borders, and the campaign, so far as that valiant army was concerned,