ON THE MONASTIR ROAD 



385 



the sea end of the road is Saloniki, the 

 Allied base, where Cicero lived for a time 

 and St. Paul shook the dust from off 

 his feet as a testimony against the Thes- 

 salonians of his day, and where Suleiman 

 the Magnificent built the White Tower, 

 in whose oubliettes bones still moulder 

 of the victims of 500 years of Turkish 

 rule. 



At right angles to that road, as though 

 they were the bent bow of which the road 

 is the arrow, are half a million fighting 

 men of the Allied forces. Not many in 

 this conflict, perhaps. Macedonia is rare- 

 ly mentioned in the communiques. Yet 

 the British did not employ so many men 

 in South Africa during the whole Boer 

 War. In one day I have counted the uni- 

 forms of twenty fighting peoples on the 

 road. 



Campaigning in Macedonia differs for 

 the correspondent from campaigning else- 

 where. In the greater armies in the 

 greater fields a correspondent is cared 

 for, guarded, watched, night herded. 

 Everything is provided for him except 

 his uniform and his wrist watch. He 

 rides out in fast cars ; he is taken to high 

 hills from which to watch the distant ac- 

 tion ; he sleeps in hotels of differing de- 

 grees of excellence. 



In Macedonia he first secures creden- 

 tials permitting him to visit the Allied 

 armies ; then he buys an outfit — tent, 

 cooking pots, blankets, water bucket — all 

 complete ; headquarters gives him an or- 

 derly, and he takes to the road. Things 

 begin to happen. 



WANDERING IN MACEDONIA HAS A 

 SPORTING FLAVOR 



I found myself occupying a position 

 somewhere between that of an honored 

 guest and a hobo. Although permission 

 was given me to visit the other units, I 

 was formally attached to the Serbian 

 army. The Serbs would be the most 

 generous hosts in the world if they could 

 be, but they have so little. They are the 

 poor relations of the Allies. They are 

 armed with the old St. Etienne rifle 

 which the French discarded. The artil- 

 lery in support has been cast from other 

 fronts. Their surgeons are borrowed 

 surgeons, for the most part. 



They are uniformed and fed by the 

 French and Great Britain loans them 

 money. They never have enough cars, 

 even for staff use. Sometimes they have 

 not enough food. But they always have 

 enough ammunition and they find enough 

 fighting for themselves. Doubtless I am 

 influenced by my affection for the Serbs. 

 Later I shall tell why I think this army 

 is today— what little there is left of it — 

 the most efficient fighting force in the 

 war. 



There were moments when I found 

 myself at the right hand of a general, 

 dazed by the earnestness with which 

 some officer was responding to the toast 

 "America." That same night I might be 

 traveling by freight train to another 

 point of the front. If I was very lucky 

 the orderly found an empty box car. In 

 it he would erect the camp cot and pro- 

 vide canned food and candles and read- 

 ing matter and then go away to tell his 

 mates in the next car of the eccentrici- 

 ties of the foreign Guspodin. 



HEROISM OE SERBS IN 1916 CAMPAIGN 



If it was raining — it usually was rain- 

 ing — it ordinarily fell to my lot to ride 

 on a flat car. Sometimes I crouched 

 under a canvassed gun on its way to the 

 front. It was no drier under that gun. 

 It did not even seem drier. But the silent 

 guardsmen gave me the place as the place 

 of honor. It was the one courtesy in 

 their power to show. 



Last winter's campaign of the Serbian 

 army was one of the most heroic on any 

 front in this war. I do not mean to com- 

 pare the Serb with his allies to the dis- 

 advantage of the latter. He was at all 

 times loyally supported. If it was the 

 generalship of Voivode Mischitch and 

 the incomparable courage and endurance 

 of his men that directly resulted in the 

 capture of Monastir, this could not have 

 been accomplished except for the frontal 

 attack by the French through the plains 

 of Monastir or the bulldogging by the 

 British of Turk and Bulgarian in the 

 swamps of the Struma and the wet 

 trenches of the Yardar. But it is only 

 fitting that what the Serb has done 

 should be made known. Let us go back 

 a little. 



