A few kilometres from Hasan Oba we pass the Græco-Bulgarian frontier, but without noticing it because it is war time, and this is the _Zone des Armées_, where only the writ of the inter-Allied Command runs. The Serbs, however, clung to this, the first tract of their fatherland to be reconquered, and although the civilian population was still very scanty--the area was too near the front--the Serbian Government had instituted prefects, sub-prefects and mayors, and even a military-agricultural commission to introduce scientific improvements in local farming. The first Serbian village is Batch, where the Crown Prince often stayed, his H.Q. being the local school. Close by was our aviation camp, with a flight commanded by Captain Aimone, a very gallant officer, many times decorated for valour and a perfect fanatic of flying, who, together with other Italian airmen, had occasion to distinguish themselves several times during the campaign. Here, too, but on the Greek side of the frontier, was one of the Scottish Women’s hospitals, where, I believe, occurred the celebrated incident of the Russian soldier, knocked down and injured by an Italian lorry, conveyed in a French ambulance to a Scotch hospital in Greek territory which looked after the Serbian wounded; there he was attended to by a Canadian doctor, and the only language in which the two could converse was German! This gives one some idea of the mixed conditions of the Macedonian campaign. After leaving Batch we reach Brod on the Cerna, where the décauville divides into two branches, one going to the front of the I Serbian Army and the other to the Italian lines. The Cerna, which is crossed here by several military bridges, is a slow, muddy, winding river; it makes a vast loop in the Monastir plain and amid the mountains west of the Vardar, within which the whole of the Italian sector, as well as those of the 16th and 17th French Colonial Divisions were comprised. A good road, built by Italian soldiers, leads to Tepavci, which for twenty-two months was our H.Q. [Illustration: AREA OF THE ITALIAN FORCE. To face p. 104. ]