The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915Various
History
The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
The most pitiful and heartrending aspect of these scenes was presented
by the long procession of Servian survivors from the neighboring
villages, consisting of old men, women, and children, bringing in the
heavy toll of mutilated human beings. At Valievo, the nearest town to
the field of battle, large masses of Servian and Austrian wounded kept
pouring in incessantly. About 10,000 have already arrived. All had to be
examined, all had to have their wounds dressed, and at Valievo there are
only six doctors.
In spite of this appalling shortage of medical aid, I witnessed
yesterday a most touching spectacle. A car drawn by oxen brought to the
hospital at Valievo its load of mutilated soldiers. In the first portion
of the car were three wounded Austrians and in the second two wounded
Servians and two more Austrians. The convoys wanted to carry the
Austrian wounded to the dressing room before their own wounded. A
Servian doctor stopped them.
"Bring the wounded in in the order in which they come," he commanded,
and, without any regard for the nationality of his patients, the doctor
and his colleagues commenced their humanitarian work.
What are the Red Crosses of the neutral countries waiting for? Why do
they not come here? In the name of gallant little Servia, in the name of
a humane and pitiful people, I make urgent appeal to the Red Crosses to
send a portion of their staff here. There are thousands of lives to be
saved.
Now I must begin a chapter of sorrows. I wanted to witness the
Austro-Hungarian excesses a second time before speaking of them, so that
I could give an exact and genuine account of actual facts. Courage
failed me to see all, but what I have seen can be summed up in one
phrase. In the environs of Shabatz the vanquished put the finishing
touch to their acts of fearful savagery by butchering their Servian
prisoners, whose corpses were found heaped up in the town.
Yesterday and the day before I ran across country through Valievo toward
Drina. Further north, barely forty miles from Valievo, at Seablatcha,
the poor refugees who had fled from their houses before the onslaught of
the Austrians showed me eight young people, tied one to another, who
were all pierced by bayonets.
Five miles from there, at Bella Tserka, fugitives of the village with
indescribable despair were burying the mutilated, bodies of fourteen
little girls. Six peasants were found hanging in an orchard.
At Lychnitsa, on the Drina, about a hundred old men, inoffensive
civilians, were massacred before the eyes of their wives and children.
All the women and children were led over on the other side of the bank
of the Drina in order to compel the Servians to stop their fire.
It is not war that Austria-Hungary tried to make on Servia. That great
nation wanted to exterminate the Servian people. She thought she would
succeed before Servia had time to defend herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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