True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The crowd that had waited three hours to witness the ceremony that was
over in fifteen minutes, surged toward the exit cheering frantically
after the departing Americans and trying to break through a cordon
of police troops. Outside a greater crowd that covered the entire
Esplanade des Invalides took up the cheers as Pershing's men marched
away. The crowd in the Court of Honor tried to follow the soldiers, but
the throng outside was so dense, and the exits so small that it was
half an hour before the people could get out. The Cours de la Reine
from Alexander Bridge to the Place de la Concorde was black with people
all of whom seemed to want to rush up to the men and embrace them as
they marched by. When the last man had passed great crowds surged
from both sides to the middle of the street, breaking through the
police military guards and blocking traffic for a long time behind the
marching column.
More people were massed in the Tuileries Gardens than on the Esplanade
des Invalides. Few of them could get a glimpse of the parade but
all joined in a tremendous outburst of cheering when music from the
Republican Guard Band announced the approach of the troops, and the
cheering did not diminish in volume until the last man in the line had
disappeared from view of the Gardens down the Rue de Rivoli.
WITH THE SERBIAN STOICS IN EXILE--UNDER THE GERMAN YOKE
_Experiences in the Flight to Albania_
_Told by Gordon Gordon-Smith, with the Serbian Army_
Gordon-Smith was with the armies of King Peter in the flight into
Albania. He stood beside the forlorn king as he fled with his people
before the German-Austrian-Bulgarian hordes. His accounts of the
hardships and heroism of the Serbs is the first to reach the world.
He tells about the tragic exodus through the mountain passes--men,
women and children; the babes and the feeble on the procession of
bullock carts; the wolves howling through the night and gnawing at
the bodies of the dead along the road. A few of these stories are
told here by permission of the _New York Tribune_, for whom he acted
as special correspondent in the Balkans.
I--HOW I FLED WITH KING PETER'S TROOPS
The headquarters of the Serbian Army left Krusevatz for Rashka, as
the German advance menaced its retreat from the former town if longer
delayed. With my colleague of the _Petit Parisien_ I determined to push
forward to join the Second Army, which was opposing the enemy's advance
in the valley of the Morava.
The roads were in a frightful condition. They were, for the most part,
mere cart tracks and perfect seas of mud. The carriage half the time
was ploughing through two feet of tenacious clay. Twice it stuck fast
up to the axles in mud, and was only extricated with the friendly aid
of a passing bullock team. Good horses are no longer to be had in
Serbia; they have all been requisitioned for the army.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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