To any one who knew and faced the facts the situation had the elements of a Greek tragedy. The Balkan experts had played the part of a Bacchanalian chorus and created a suitable atmosphere. The first act was completed, its stage a little known, romantic land, to many a land of promise. One wondered whether the cast was yet complete, and what new players might be added. Ruthlessly, logically and inevitably the climax would be reached. But where and how? No one could then foresee. CHAPTER V ALBANIA--1912-1913 After the victory at Kumanovo, as already mentioned, the 3rd Servian Army marched westwards into Albania. The northern part of this Turkish province had a special value in Servian eyes. It included the so-called Adriatic ports--Durazzo and San Giovanni di Medua. Colonel G---- P---- had given me some idea of the hatred felt by his countrymen for Albanians generally. The misgivings aroused at Belgrade by his reference to this subject were more than confirmed by the conduct of the Albanian campaign. No detailed narrative of these operations has been obtained, but the fragmentary reports received, both from neutrals and belligerents, left no doubt as to the atrocities which accompanied and stained indelibly the heroism and endurance of the Servian soldiers. Whole villages were wiped out, old men, women and children were either slaughtered in their homes or driven forth to die of cold and famine, the countryside was wasted, an orgy of wanton destruction was permitted, if not encouraged, by the Servian Staff. As the army penetrated more deeply into the mountains, fresh horrors were added; winter set in, the passes became blocked with ice and snow, men and animals fell from slippery tracks into abysses, disease and insanity were rife, a line of corpses marked the passage of the army. Numbers dwindled rapidly; only the strongest survived; stragglers were left to die in awful solitudes. The Albanian peasants, aided by the Turks, defended their mountains step by step; bands of them hovered round the line of march, seeking a chance for grim reprisals. Quarter was neither asked nor given; men fought like barbarians with a veneer of science, which made their actions doubly hideous. Episodes described by competent and impartial observers leave an impression as painful as it is confusing; nothing more terrible has taken place in any part of the world, or in the whole history of war.