The Kingdom of serbia : report upon the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the first invasion of Serbia

166 AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ATROCITIES

statements I had occasion to obtain. These peasants, as witness No. 80 said, threw themselves upon the houses, howling, and altogether like savages. Thus they set the example to the soldiers, who had perhaps up to then been restrained by a sense of decency. It is idle to insist on the illegal and inhuman character of this measure adopted by the Austro-Hungarian high command, but it is one more proof of the system of extermination practised by the enemy.

I would also draw attention to the deposition of Maria Svitzevitch, of Shabatz, housekeeper in the household of M7. Dragomir Petrovitch, with reference to the description of the looting of this wealthy house by three Hungarian officers. She tells us incidentally, that in the evening these extraordinary people dressed themselves up in Mrs. Petrovitch's clothes. This is a detail which was certainly not invented by Maria, because in relating it to me, she clearly showed that she could not understand this, to her, most singular proceeding. To anyone accustomed to dealing with criminality and sexual perversion there is nothing amazing in the incident reported. These officer-thieves were also sexual perverts and their persistent demand for Mr. Petrovitch, junr., whose photograph they had seen and who is a handsome youth, proves that they were sodomites as well.

This deposition, like many others, and incidentally that of Persida Simonovitch, of Krupanj, for instance, proves that not only the privates were guilty of looting and pillaging, but also, and, indeed, sometimes principally the officers. In saying this