The wildest reports were current. But it is no use arguing with panic-stricken people. In spite of my assurances, they went on loading carts and wagons in feverish haste and, in spite of the pouring rain, went off in the darkness. The curious thing is that not one in ten knew where they were going. The Germans were coming from the north, therefore they fled south.
III—"I MET HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF REFUGEES"
For a month past I have met hundreds of thousands of such refugees, who wander on aimlessly from town to town, driving flocks and herds before them, always trying to keep a couple of days march in advance of the invader.
It goes without saying that they add enormously to the difficulties of the military situation. They block the roads and overcrowd towns and villages. When their food supplies run down they are face to face with starvation. And when one remembers that a similar exodus is going on from the south before the Bulgarian invader the horror of the situation may be imagined....
The whole of Old Serbia, the Serbia of King Milan, is in the hands of the Germans, while the Bulgarians are masters of nearly the whole of Serbian Macedonia.
I had hardly been asleep half an hour when I was aroused by a tremendous explosion, followed a quarter of an hour later by a succession of minor explosions. These were caused by the blowing up of the ammunition wagons. The crimson glare announced that the scores of cars on the railway siding were ablaze.
At the same time an engine just opposite my windows began whistling stridently. Downstairs in the courtyard I found the whole population, male and female, old and young, busy looting the carriages and trucks not yet a prey to the flames.
Half a dozen wagons filled with boots for the Rumanian army, which had been lying in the siding for three months, were being plundered. Two other wagons filled with 50,000 francs' worth of cigarette papers, wagons filled with Serbian wine, French champagne, liqueurs and perfumery, were also given over to plunder. Thousands of bags of flour, boxes of biscuits, tinned meats and sardines covered the ground on all sides, while the inhabitants of the village were loading carts and handbarrows.