The German infantry was of miserable quality, men who a year ago would never have passed the doctor, they burst their way through by shell and shrapnel fire.
It was during these attacks that they took hundreds of prisoners, all of them, as I have said, of miserable physique. I saw a youth in the streets of Krusevatz, who could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. His "pickelhauben," much too large for him, came down over his ears. Another I saw was minus a finger on his left hand, and a French surgeon told me he had a German patient who was deaf and dumb. All were pale-faced, narrow-chested, and not the class of men one saw twelve months ago.
Then came the blizzards of snow and inundations which blotted out the road in districts hundreds of kilometers in extent. Add to this fact, all communication with the outside world was completely cut off, there were no letters, telegrams or newspapers, and such vague reports as filtered in were brought by circuitous routes over hundreds of kilometers of the worst roads in Europe.
With every trump card in the hands of her enemies, Serbia's fate was sealed. All she could do was to fight to the last, and this she did.
V—EVERY ROAD WAS FILLED WITH HUMAN MISERY
Every road in Serbia was filled with the flowing tide of human misery. Every town and village was overcrowded. In Kroljevo in ordinary times there are 15,000. When I reached the town it contained 120,000. The same held good of every other center.
The government issued a decree ordering all the male population above fourteen to leave the invaded districts before the arrival of the enemy. This added nearly a million to the number of people the government had to support, and under the strain the civil administration broke down completely. Soon the old Serbia of King Milas was completely in the hands of the Germans, while the Bulgarians drove out the population of Serbian Macedonia.
As a consequence the only refuge left was Novi Bazar. Into this narrow space poured an endless tide of refugees. Gaunt, hollow-eyed men, women and children dragged themselves wearily for hundreds of kilometers, bound they knew not whither. Always behind them they heard the inexorable thunder of the guns, warning them to press on and on. Thousands fell by the wayside, succumbing to cold and hunger.