The Story of the Great War, Volume 2: History of the European War from Official Sources
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 2: History of the European War from Official Sources
World War, 1914-1918
Two hours later the Crown Prince Alexander, accompanied by his brother,
Prince George, a strong cavalry escort, and the British military
attache, approached Belgrade. They were met on the outskirts by a crowd
of women and children who, with a few exceptions, were all of the
inhabitants that remained, the Austrians having carried the others off
with them the day before. They had collected masses of flowers, and with
these they bombarded and decorated the incoming soldiers. The girls
brought the embroidered scarfs and sashes, which they had worked in
preparation for marriage, and these they hung about the cavalrymen's
necks until they looked as though they were celebrating at a village
wedding. Huge tricolor streamers now hung from the houses and buildings,
while bits of dirty bunting fluttered from the cottages.
In the streets of Belgrade the Austrians left 5 cannon, 8 ammunition
wagons, 440 transport wagons, and 1,000 horses. Some 150 junior officers
and 10,000 men also found their retreat suddenly cut off; among them
were few officers of high rank. In one of the officers' headquarters the
evening meal was still spread on the table, the soup half consumed, the
wine half drunk.
So ended the third Austrian invasion of Serbia. Of the army of 300,000
men who had crossed the Drina and Save rivers, not over 200,000
returned. During the last thirteen days of the operations the Serbians
had captured 41,538 prisoners, including 323 officers, and enormous
quantities of war material; 133 cannon, 71 machine guns, 29 gun
carriages, 386 ammunition wagons, 45 portable ovens, 3,350 transport
wagons, 2,243 horses, and 1,078 oxen. The Austrian killed and wounded
numbered not far from 60,000.
The Austrian occupation of Belgrade had lasted just fourteen days. The
invaders had evidently not counted on the disaster that was so soon to
come to them. Under the guidance of their late military attache in
Serbia they had established themselves in the best available buildings,
began to repair the streets, which they themselves had ripped open by
shell fire, and set up the semblance of a city administration. But it
was still evident that no central authority from above had as yet been
able to assert itself. The personality of each commander, was
represented by the marks left behind in his district. The buildings
occupied by one military authority remained cleanly and intact, even the
king's photograph being left undamaged. In others, furniture was
destroyed and the royal image shot and slashed to pieces. Entire
sections of the town escaped pillage. Other quarters were plundered from
end to end. While the cathedral and other churches were not seriously
damaged, the General Post Office was completely wrecked. The furniture
in the Sobranje, the house of the national assembly, was destroyed and
broken, and the Royal Palace was stripped from floor to ceiling, the
contents being carted off to Hungary in furniture vans, brought
especially from Semlin for that purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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