During the Bosnian offensive there was launched an expedition over the Save into the goodly land of Syrmia, one of those Yugoslav provinces of which the Austro-Hungarian Empire was to be stripped. This expedition had a varying success, for the assault that was attempted in the neighbourhood of Mitrovica was not skilfully conducted; and the Serbian army, for the first time in the War, was worsted. Then troops in Bosnia, just before the grand attack on Sarajevo, were thrown into confusion by an order from the Montenegrin King who, without vouching any reason, called his army back. The Serbian troops had no other course than to retreat as well; and their enemies delivered, all the rest of September and throughout October, a tremendous thrust against the army that was shielding Valjevo. The Serbs, who were lamentably short of arms, munition, clothing and every sort of hospital equipment, did not care to think of the approach of winter. They hurled themselves against the Austrian swarms--and up to this period they had lost, in dead and seriously wounded, more than 130,000 men. THE TACTICS OF THE MONTENEGRIN KING The co-operation between Serbs and Montenegrins for the Bosnian campaign was the occasion of some of Nikita's usual devious diplomacy. He summoned, as we have seen, a superfluous Skupština, whose resolutions would enable him to go to Francis Joseph, his secret ally, with a tale of _force majeure_. And he telegraphed to his grandson, the Serbian Prince-Regent: "My Montenegrins and myself are already on the frontiers, ready to die in the defence of our national independence." While his ill-equipped warriors pushed on to Budva, arrived before Kotor, seized Foča, Rogatica and other towns, pressing on until they stood before the forts of Sarajevo, the disreputable Royal Family, jealous as ever of Belgrade, were plunging deeper and always deeper into treachery. The Serbian officers, General Janković and Colonel (now General) Pešić, who, mainly at the instance of Russia, had been sent to reorganize the Montenegrin army, saw themselves hampered at every turn by the Court clique at Cetinje. Janković, finding that orders were given without his knowledge, returned to Niš; and later on, after the fall of Lovčen, Nikita tried to foist upon Pešić the odium of a surrender which his own machinations had brought about. THE MAGYARS AND THEIR PRISONERS