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L A X D AND- W A T E R 
The Agony of Serbia 
By Alfred Stead 
April 0, lyiO 
(HUS do they sigh whu are about to weep." 
No more fitting description in few words can be 
found for the present pHght of the Serbian 
nation. The war presents no more complete, 
no more terrible traj^'dy than that which has befallen 
the bra\e peasant people who so lung and su successfully 
defended the pass, barring the road to the Central 
Powers to Bulgaria and the East. 
The welc^ome \-isit of Serbia's exiled rulers, the Crown 
Prince and M. Pashitch should not only afford this country 
an occasion of paying tribute to brave men in evil plight, 
but should also bring to all minds a fuller realisation of 
the enormity of the catastrophe which has overwhelmed 
oiu- .\llies. It is difficult here to imagine the dramatic 
suddenness, the poignant agony of the tidal wa\X' 
which submerged Serbia in a few short weeks. 
The country is not known here. Englishmen have few 
friends in Serbia ; there were no daily steamers to any 
Serbian Ostend to make realisation more easy. But, 
notwithstanding the difficulty it is vitally necessary to 
realise. The Serbians will not speak freely of their 
calamity". They are a proud ))eople, who find in mis- 
fortune rather a reason for renewed effort than for lamen- 
tation on the housetops. While admiring them for their 
stoical endurance, it must be confessed that Serbian 
reticence makes it hard for this country truly to compre- 
hend the real situation. 
On broad lines it is known that after tyvice repelling the 
Austrian invader, after suffering the scourge of typhus 
and the sapping drain of starvation, Serbia, beset on all 
sides but one, fighting gallantly, albeit hopelessly, against 
tremendous odds, .withdrew her righting remnants 
towards the west, leaving her country to the tender mercy 
of the savage Bulgarian, the micivilised Hungarian or the 
kultiir-loving Teuton. But what is known of the true 
horrors, the whole cloth upon which the brief tragic 
story was woven in relief? Since October of last year 
conservative estimates place the losses to the Serbian 
nation at about one million souls — and this out of a small 
population far less than that of London. Killed and 
wounded in battle, died of disease and prisoners form but 
a small portion of this total— the civilians, the women 
and chiklrcn have supplied the greatest the most horrible 
proportion. Manj^ have been borne away into captivit}', 
especially women with male children — the women are 
now working in Hungarian fields, the children are being 
moulded to the best ability of Jesuit schools into subjects 
of the Dual Monarchy. Both Hungarians and Bulgarians 
agree that only by schools can anything be done against 
what they are pleased to call " Serbian chauvinism," 
or what we would recognise and applaud as patriotism 
and love of national ideals. 
It is easy to see how inevitably a national catastrophe 
must follow a national defeat. Even after the second 
Austrian invasion, when by a superb counter-attack the 
Serbian army drove the enemy north of the Danube and 
freed Serbian soil, the conditions were terrible. In 
January, 1915, the Serbian Metropolitan said that there 
were a million destitute old mc'n, women and children, of 
whom a large percentage must die imless relief came. 
The richest provinces of the country had been de- 
vastated ; there was no food ; there were no medicines. 
A visit to these provinces was the most awful experience 
that war has given. Thfe cries of untended wounded on 
the stricken lield are terrible to the ears of those who 
unaxailing hear and see, but the unending moan of 
children which ascended to the skies from the shattered, 
pillaged villages — what were once Serbia's fail est villages, 
cannot be described. To imagine it is a nightmare. 
In each house children were lying and children were 
dying ; there was no milk ; there was little bread : the 
water, like the houses, was polluted and microbe-laden ;' 
doctors there were none ; medicines were not to be had. 
.\nd so in ceaseless moaning hundreds and thousands of 
little lives went out, victims of the war. 
If this was the case when the Serbian Government 
was at Nish, when the railway to Salonika was open, 
and when aid from the .Allies, if dilatory and insuHicicnt, 
was available, who can picture the condition today. 
In place of a Government anxious to help the suffered 
there are military forces whose fundamental belief is 
that the fewer the Serbians who remain ahve the easier 
will be their task. " As long as there are Serbians then- 
will be Serbia," is the Bulgarian view. Nor must it be 
forgotten 'that the recent offensive was prefaced by the 
ra\-ages of typhus in the whole country, the victims 
munbering over a hundred thousand, while many who 
recovered were wi'akened and devitalised, unable to meet 
and live through any unfa\-ourable conditions. 
Till' combined attack on Serbia in last October brought 
into sharp relief the sutferings f)f a retreating nation. J 
In under three months the entire tragedy had been played l 
out. The sacrifice of the Serbian army, although the 
side of the story most in prominence, was but an in- 
finitesimal part, and after all soldiers go to war expecting 
disaster and death. The only unnecessarily horrrb'e 
part of the army's retreat was that the men felt that it 
was because of no fault of their own, or of their nation. 
And yet thcN' bear no grudge and want to fight again. 
The slow retreat, the awful hardships, the deadly silence 
of that sullen long-drawn reluctant march from the 
beloved soil of Serbia to alien lands, will never be fully 
appreciated — even the bards of Serbia will fail to render 
justice to it. To those who shared in it, the retreat 
remains as a slow-moving symphony of crescendo despair 
with, however, ever a leitmotiv of hope and confidence in 
the future. 
The wounded and sick of the army were left hopelessly 
ar.l helplesslv intermingled with the star\ing populace. 
Women and children shared filthy straw-strewn floors 
with soldiers, whose wounds were rank with septic 
poisoning. Later, the civilians with the army sickened 
and died bv scores. How hard was the way may be 
judged by the fact that of the thousands of Austrian 
prisoners ' who set out for the coast only some 12,000 
reached Valona. The retreating soldiers saw the civilians 
die of hunger and exhaustion and could do nothing 
whatsoever to help them. 
In the snowy mountains of Albania, figures could be 
seen, struggling to, their knees in the snow in silent suppli- 
cation for food->~but there was none, agd silently the 
sulferers would sink down soon to be a quiet snow- 
mound by the roadside. As we looked at those unfortu- 
nates, the knowledge that the sufferings of those left 
behind surpassed those we witnessed, added horror to 
existence. For, in the grasp of the enemy there were far 
worse things than kindly, although long-drawn-out 
death in the snow, or the mud. Families saw their mem- 
bers subject to indignities worthy of a drunken Roman 
emperor in full Saturnalia. Mothers were divided from 
children, and dragged out a life of shame and misery, 
knowing that their lost ones were dead in unknown 
graves. I'ood was sent to Germany, given to the soldiers, 
there was little enough, and none for the inhabitants, 
(iold and silver were expropriated, and rich and poor 
alike were driven to beg in the streets. Law and order 
ceased to exist. The whim of the common soldier had 
replaced all codes of law. And with all this there was no 
neutral eye-witness, no Americans to keep the brute 
instincts of the conquerors in check. In Nish, there were 
a few Columbia l'ni\-ersitv giaduates of a Red Cross 
Mission who stayed behind, but the Bulgarians could 
not long tolerate their presence. 
The Serbian nation is condemned to suffer alone, with- 
out anyone to hesu", much less to help. While we wait for 
the fulfilment of our promises to make Serbia greater than 
before, the nation is giving its puund of flesh which cannot 
be replaced. .We can feed Belgium, we cannot feed 
Serbia. Nobody.can help them and nobody will e\er know 
what horrors are going on in where once was happy Serbia. 
It is noble that the Serbian army should wish to begin 
again the struggle, but we must not forget the silent army 
of Serbian civilians, the old men, women and (hildren, 
who are stiffc-ring and dying daily to make an l-Jiiperor's 
holiday. When, we do" arrive again in Serbia, let all 
measures of relief be ready with the army, do not let it be 
necessary to make appeals at the eleventh hour. Much 
has been asked of Serbia and nmcli shall be given her. 
