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

PILLAGE 171

one of the resources of the country for many years to come.

As has already been stated, I inspected a great number of houses that had been devastated by the Austrians. I will merely quote one typical instance. The house of Jakob Albala, in the Potzerska Ulitza in Shabatz, was visited by the enemy. Everything of value was carried off. The safe was plundered. Mattresses and upholstered chairs were torn, and so were the pictures. Clothes had been pulled out of the wardrobes, torn and scattered about the floor. Cupboards were battered in, chairs, sofas, and other furniture smashed, mirrors and glazed cupboards broken. The china was smashed to atoms, and the stock-pot turned upside down. The proprietor, who had fled, died of an apoplectic shock when he heard what had been done in his house. Lying on the floor, I found the will of the unfortunate man. He possessed a fortune of more than 150,000 frs., which, by this will, he bequeathed to the poor of Shabatz, regardless of religious distinction.

In short, from the depositions I have obtained, and from what I myself have observed, it looks as if the pillage and theft of articles of value had been systematically organised by the army of invasion.

The answer given to Persida Simonovitch by the officers, that the money sent from the civil population was to partially pay for the war, may have been in so far true, as part of it may have been sent to the treasury, while the rest went into the pocket of the thief.

In any case, pillage was one of the methods