The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe, str. 148

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

to be conserved: ‘‘ Heroes, you have taken two oaths: one to me, your King, and one to your country. From the first I release you, but from the second no man can release you. But if you decide to return to your home, and if we should be victorious you shall not be made to suffer. But I and my sons remain here.”” Not one man left his post, King Peter kept his word, he did not leave the front, and entered Belgrade when fighting with the enemy was still proceeding in the streets. But the real and everlasting glory belongs to the Serbian peasant soldiers, who, after a war that had lasted for twenty-seven months, after trials and hardships unheard of among other European armies, after sustaining great losses of men and material, still found the strength to rise from the depths of despair and to shatter the overwhelming forces of a wellequipped and disciplined enemy. Only the passing of two or three centuries are needed to make the glorious heroism of the Serbian soldiers stand out as a legend to the generations that are to come. They will scarce be able to believe what we all have witnessed.

III.—The Crushing of Serbia

After the German success in Russia during the summer of 1915, Germany, realising the full importance of the Balkan front, turned her attention to the South and decided upon an

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