lating the stores plenteously filled; in the winter feasting and resting in their own houses. If you should ask any of the Serbian peasants: "To whom does this house belong? or this field? or this harvest?" he would unmistakably reply: "To God and to me!"—so in the mind of our peasants God is the first landlord, and the second they themselves.
Even during the last three years of war in Serbia there was plenty of all the necessaries of life, especially of wheat and cattle, of fruits and hay, of vegetables and wood.
But now—in Serbia all the wealth is in the past; it exists only in the memories of the de-spoiled, plundered, devastated, starved and silent slaves. In the German papers there was published a private letter from a German soldier in Serbia. "We are very well here. We have plenty of food and everything. Much more abundantly than we had on the Western front!" I am sure you understand well what this soldier meant and whence such an abundance in food supply "and everything" for the German invaders in Serbia came. Almost simultaneously a German army commander wrote to a man in a neutral country these words: "Not only I permit you to come into Serbia and help the Serbs, but I pray you come at once. Among the population in Serbia there is the greatest misery
and almost starvation en masse." What happened? The "civilised" subjects of Kaiser William would not kill the civil people in Serbia directly as the stupid Turks did, but indirectly in order to save the faithless honour of "civilisation." They drove away the population—that means the old and sick men, women and children—all other Serbs serving as soldiers and being in retreat; they drove the population away, took food, cattle, copper, warm clothes, carpets, covers, everything, and after this was done, allowed the people graciously to come back "to their homes and their customs," as the Kaiser declared. But to come how and where? Thousands died on the way back, thousands succeeded in coming back to their cold and breadless homes to die there; they are considered as the happier; and thousands fled with the Serbian troops into Albania and to the Mediterranean islands, where they died or are still dying from hunger, but because they died in freedom and not as slaves they are considered as the happiest.
We are beggars now. This is the first year in our history that we must pray to men for bread; until now we prayed only to God for daily bread, and God gave it to us abundantly. But we became beggars for bread only after the German civilisation showed itself to be a beggar, poor in moral, poor in truth and heart.
Now I will try to show you how the Serbian village
BECAME THE FOUNDATION OF THE SERBIAN SPIRIT.
No universities, no schools, no libraries, no written literature and no lectures for five hundred years! Imagine such a people. That is the Serbian people.
The only men who could write—the priests; the only library—the memory; the only education—the mother; the only university—nature; the only historians—the blind bards; the only friend and comforter—God! Imagine such a people and call them—Serbs.