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

PILLAGE 169

the destruction of what could not be carried away. During their short stay in Belgrade, the AustroHungarians likewise began to loot. Thus, it is estimated, that in Belgrade itself 745 houses were pillaged, and 516 houses in Topchider and Tchukaritza.

The shutters of the shops are smashed, and I noticed that in Shabatz the smashing must have been done with wire-cutters, possibly with the tools used for cutting barbed wire.

I also observed that the fury of the invaders always vented itself on patriotic pictures and portraits. Everywhere the portraits of King Peter and the Princes Alexander and George have been disfigured, and it was a favourite sport of the soldiers to gouge out the eyes of these portraits.

I have, in addition, observed a feature which strikes me as being almost pathological. The soldiers have defaced the walls with paint or ink, wherever they could. Thus, the walls of the Bishop's palace in Shabatz are covered with inkstains. Finally, both men and officers, instead of making use of closets, deposited their feces all over the place—in the beds, in the china, in the baths, on the floor, ete., and often the rooms were so full of fcal matter that the prevailing stench rendered them uninhabitable. I observed this phenomenon particularly in the house of Mr. Dragomir Petrovitch, which was occupied by the three Hungarian officers already referred to.

This particular mania for soiling with fecal matter seems to me to constitute one of the manifestations of a kind of collective Sadic frenzy which had seized upon the army of invasion.