The Austrians fought manfully, giving them one of the best fights they had yet been through. Instead of merely clinging to their hill intrenchments, they made fierce and determined efforts to pierce the Serbian line. It was in one of these counterattacks, near the central height, where the railroad entered a tunnel, that the resistance of the Austrians was broken. After the Serbian riflemen, with their machine guns, had thrown back the enemy, the Serbian artillery caught the retiring masses of blue and gray clad soldiers of the Dual Empire.
This produced a panic in the densely packed retreating column, whereupon the Serbian infantrymen leaped out of their trenches and dashed forward in pursuit, forming two pursuing columns, one on either flank of the fleeing Austrians, like wolves worrying a wounded buffalo. And as these streams of Serbians ran uphill more rapidly than the blue-gray flood moved, the Austrian rear guards, composed of heavy forces, turned to check the pursuit.
On the morning of December 14, 1914, the Serbians approached the southern defenses of Belgrade, where the Austrians must make their last stand; along a line from Ekmekluk to Banovobrodo. Here General Potiorek had constructed a system of earthworks, consisting of deep trenches with shrapnel cover and well-concealed gun positions, with numerous heavy howitzers and fieldpieces. Evidently he hoped to withstand an indefinite siege on this fragment of Serbian territory, holding Belgrade as a bridgehead for another advance toward the main Morava Valley, when the next effort to invade Serbia should be made. He would, at the same time, preserve at least a semblance of his prestige from all the calamities that had befallen his armies, enabling him to represent the campaign as a reconnaissance in force, similar to Hindenburg's first advance against Warsaw.
But his troops had been so terribly punished that they could not garrison the siege defenses. The Serbians, now drunk with their many victories, and absolutely reckless of death, as they drove on toward their capital, with their old king, grandson of Black George, moving through their foremost ranks, charged up into the ring of hills.
The last fight, on December 14, 1914, which definitely broke the back of the last effort of the Austrians to maintain a footing on Serbian soil, took place on the central height, Torlak. Two battalions of Magyars were defending this point. And just as the sun was setting over in the Matchva swamps in a glow of fiery clouds, the foremost Serbians leaped up to the attack.
Long before the fight was over darkness set in. The Serbians, driven back again and again, came back like bounding rubber balls. Finally they gained the trenches, and one general, horrible mêlée of struggling, shouting, furious combatants set in. The shooting had died down; they were fighting with bayonets and knives now. Finally the tumult died down. But nearly every Austrian on that height died. Few escaped and not very many were taken prisoners. Then, under cover of the night, the Serbians spread over the other heights and captured the whole line of defense works.
No Serbian slept that night. They tugged and dragged at their heavy guns through all the dark hours, up toward the city, and placed them on heights commanding the pontoon bridges that had been thrown over the Save from Semlin.
When dawn broke on December 15, 1914, a heavy mist hung over the river, but the Serbians knew with accuracy the location of the pontoon bridge. All during the previous day and during the night the retreating Austrians had been crowding over this bridge to escape into Austrian territory. At first the retirement had been orderly, but later in the day, as the news from the front became more serious, as the low, distant roar of rifle and machine gun rolled nearer, the movement increased in intensity, and, during the night, developed into a hurried scamper. Cannon were unlimbered and thrown into the river, and troops fought among themselves over the right of way along the narrow plank walk. In the midst of this confusion, while yet thousands of the invaders were still on the Serbian side of the river, just as dawn was breaking, there came a deep report, the hissing of a flying steel missile, and a shell dropped in the middle of one of the pontoon supports, hurling timber and human beings up into the air. The confusion now became a wild panic. Some tried to return to the Serbian shore, others fought on. Dozens of the struggling figures rolled over the side of the bridge into the eddying currents of the waters.
Again came the dull, heavy report, then another and another, followed by the screeching overhead. Shells dropped into the water on all sides. And then another bomb burst on the pontoon where the first shell had landed.
Even the roar of the shouting soldiers could not be heard above the crashing of timbers, the snapping of mooring chains. The bridge swayed, then caved in, where the pontoon had been struck and was sinking. Between the two broken-off ends, still crowded with struggling humanity, rushed the turbid current of the river. The last road to safety had been cut.