HE KINGDOM OF SERBIA INFRINGEMENTS >F THE RULES AND LAWS OF WAR :OMMITTED BY THE AUSTRO- ULGARO-GERMANS :: LETTERS OF CRIMINOLOGIST ON THE SERBIAN [ACEDONIAN FRONT By R. A. REISS LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN fi? UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM ST., W.C 1 THrtt Shillings and Sixpence net THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA INFRINGEMENTS OF THE RULES AND LAWS OF WAR COMMITTED by the AUSTRO- BULGARO-GERMANS :: LETTERS OF A CRIMINOLOGIST ON THE SERBIAN MACEDONIAN FRONT By R. A. REISS LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UN WIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. I F/r.s/ published in (All rights reserved) PREFACE NEVER has a conflict been so fierce or so cruel as the present world war. As a matter of fact, one of the belligerent groups, not content with fighting the armies of its enemies, has considered it necessary besides to use every possible means of terrorizing the enemy civil population, which nevertheless ought to have been protected by the laws and conventions signed by the Central Powers and their Allies. But the Germans and their friends have snapped their fingers at these laws and conventions. They look upon them as so many scraps of paper. " Necessity knows no law! " said the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Bulgars, and Turks, and without scruple they have massacred their prisoners and the civil population of the countries invaded by them, pillaged, bled, and devastated occupied countries and deported their inhabitants without regard to age or sex ; they have bombarded open towns, employed projectiles and other means of destruction condemned as barbarous and strictly forbidden by all conventions, and so have rendered themselves guilty of the violation of all that we had deemed sacred. At the request of the Royal Serbian Government, and since the beginning of the world war I have been engaged in recording, as far as possible, all the infringements of the laws and conventions of war and of humanity com- mitted by the enemies of the countries of the venerable King Peter. I have embodied the results of my inquiry 203G5S7 6 PREFACE during the first phase of the war in a report which has since been made public. When the heroic Serbian Army, reconstituted by the help of its faithful Allies, returned to the fight against the common enemy, I rejoined it at the Salonica front in order to resume my mission of inquiry, as the citizen of a neutral country, one who endeavours to be as im- partial as possible, but does not fear to denounce acts of injustice and atrocities when these are committed, and to stigmatize them as they deserve. A new, detailed report will contain all my observations and notes. In the meantime I have made public the most salient facts characteristic of the manner of waging war and behaving in an invaded country adopted by the Central Powers and their vassals in my letters to those two important neutral papers, the Gazette de Lausanne and the Amsterdam Telegraaf, and to the great French daily, Le Petit Parisien, of Paris. At the request of the Royal Serbian Government, I have collected these letters in book form, and have added, by way of supplement, certain interesting documents, the absolute authenticity of which I can vouch for. A series of photographs, largely taken by myself, will serve to illustrate my text. I have preserved the typical character of these letters because it seemed to me that this would facilitate their perusal by the public ; because in the case of facts published in the form of a report, the reader is apt to become fastidious. Obviously, by choosing this procedure, I have not been able to avoid repetitions here and there, but this slight incon- venience will be made up for by the lighter and more attractive form of the matter. As this book is being pub- lished during the war, 1 I have in certain cases felt bound 1 The French edition was published in 1918. PREFACE 7 to suppress the names of places and persons because, knowing the methods of the enemies of the Entente, I was afraid of reprisals against the persons referred to them- selves, or against their relations left behind in occupied Serbia. This book, which puts forward no pretensions to being a literary work, is intended to enlighten the world at large as to the methods employed by the enemies of the Entente. R. A. REISS. SALONICA, October 1917. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ....... 5 A VISIT TO THE LIBERATED VILLAGES . . - J 5 BULGARIAN' CRIMES IN INVADED MACEDONIA . . IQ THE BULGARS IN BITOLJ-MONASTIR . . .22 IN A BOMBARDED TOWN. . . . .26 A RECENT VISIT TO BOMBARDED MONASTIR . . 29 IN MONASTIR-BITOLJ . . . . -33 WHAT THE GERMANO-BULGARS HAVE DONE TO AN OPEN TOWN . . . . .35 WHAT THE INHABITANTS OF THE INVADED REGIONS THINK OF THE BULGARS . . . -38 WHAT THE BULGARIAN PRISONERS HAVE TO TELL . 4! THE BULGARIAN MANNER OF FIGHTING THE ENEMY . 44 THE BULGARS AND SERBIAN PRISONERS OF WAR . 47 9 10 CONTENTS PAGE LATEST INFRINGEMENTS OF THE LAWS OF HUMANITY BY THE BULGARO-GERMANS . . -5 BULGARIAN MENTALITY . . . . -53 A BULGARIAN DOCUMENT . . . . 56 A DOCUMENT . . . , . . 60 THE BULGARS IN OCCUPIED SERBIA . . -63 BEHAVIOUR OF THE BULGARS IN INVADED SERBIA . 66 THE BULGARS IN OCCUPIED SERBIA . -7 AN ACCUSATORY DOCUMENT . . . . J2 THE AUSTRO-BULGARO-GERMANS IN INVADED SERBIA . 74 THE MANIA FOR EXECUTION PICTURE POSTCARDS . 78 FRESH PROOFS OF INFRACTIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ON THE PART OF SERBIA'S ENEMIES . . . .81 THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIANS AND THE SERBIAN REFUGEES IN SWITZERLAND . . . . . 84 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE SERBS . . .86 DEPORTATIONS IN INVADED SERBIA . . .88 CONTENTS 11 PAGE THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIANS CAUSE THEIR PRISONERS TO BE KILLED BY THEIR ENEMIES . . .91 THE SUFFERINGS OF SERBIA . . . -94 APPENDIX A FEW DOCUMENTS: ENEMY AND SERBIAN MASSACRES OF WOUNDED . . . . -97 BULGARIAN ATROCITIES COMMITTED IN THE NEIGH- BOURHOOD OF FLORINA IN AUGUST 1916 . TOO LOOTING . . . ., . IO2 EXPERT REPORT ON THE BOMBARDMENT OF THE BRITISH HOSPITAL, NO. 37, BY ENEMY AERO- PLANES ON MARCH 12, 1917 . . . 103 REPORT OF OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE BOM- BARDMENT OF THE TOWN OF VODENA, ON APRIL 30, 1917, BY HOSTILE AEROPLANES . Io8 DENATIONALIZATION . . . . -1*5 SUPPLEMENT LIST OF PERSONS KILLED IN MONASTIR- BITOLJ DURING THE BULGARO-GERMAN OCCU- PATION . . . . . .Il6 RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AMONG CIVILIANS AND MATERIAL DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE BOMBARD- MENT OF THE OPEN TOWN OF MONASTIR- BITOIJ .Il8 ILLUSTRATIONS BETWEEN PAGES PAVLE HRISTOV, BULGARIAN COMITADJI LEADER . . 24-25 KRSTA LEONDA, CALLED LONDEV, THE PRIEST-COMITADJI . SERBIAN* ORPHANS AT BROD (MACEDONIA) . . DJURLUKOV'S COMITADJI BAND, "THE PEST OF THE VARDAR '' ..'.... HOUSES IN MONASTIR BURNT DOWN BY THE BULGARIAN BOMBARDMENT . . . . . . SHOPS IN MONASTIR AFTER THE BULGARO-GERMAN RETREAT . . . . . A STREET IN MONASTIR AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT WITH INCENDIARY SHELLS . . . . MONASTIR. HOUSES DESTROYED BY INCENDIARY SHELLS . MONASTIR. EFFECT OF THE FIRE CAUSED BY INCEN- DIARY SHELLS ...... 40-41 EFFECT OF THE BULGARIAN BOMBARDMENT A RUINED STREET IN MONASTIR . . . . WAITING FOR SOUP. SERBIAN CHILDREN IN MONASTIR WAITING FOR FOOD DISTRIBUTED BY THE SERBIAN RELIEF FUND ....... A VICTIM OF THE BOMBARDMENT OF MONASTIR, IVAN ANDRIJASEVIC, AGED 8, KILLED DEC. 23, 1916, WITH 10 OTHER CHILDREN, WHILE PLAYING IN THE STREET CAPTAIN BOJADJIEV, BULGARIAN PREFECT OF MONASTIR . PANDIL SlSKOV, BULGARIAN POLICE-SUPERINTENDENT IN MONASTIR ....., 13 14 ILLUSTRATIONS BETWEEN PAGES MONASTJR. EFFECT OF THE FIRE CAUSED BY IN'CENDIARY SHELLS . . . . . . . 40-41 A GROUP OF GERMAN AND BULGARIAN OFFICERS IN- FRONT OF THE TOWN HALL OF MONASTIR . . VICTIMS OF POISON GAS BOMBARDMENT OF MONASTIR (2). 72-73 EXECUTION POST-CARDS (AFTOVAc). CONDEMNED MEN, PRECEDED BY THE PRIEST, BEING TAKEN TO THE PLACE OF EXECUTION . FACSIMILE OF ORDER ISSUED BY THE BULGARIAN MINISTRY FOR WAR . . . . EXECUTION POST-CARDS (AFTOVAC). PROCESSION OF CONDEMNED MEN . . . . EXECUTION POST-CARDS (AFTOYAC). THE READING OF THE SENTENCE ....... AFTER THE EXECUTION (AFTOVAC) .... 88-89 AFTER THE EXECUTION. THE VICTIMS (AFTOVAC) . AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN PROPAGANDA. PEACEFUL SERB1AN PEASANTS CAPTURED AND DEPORTED AS DANGEROUS BRIGANDS ........ (Photograph found at the Austro-Huiigarian Consulate-General in Salonica) SERBIAN CIVILIANS HANGED AT KRUSEVAC . . SERBIAN CIVILIANS HANGED AT JAGODINA . . ,, SERBIAN CIVILIANS HANGED AT JAGODINA. PART OF THE POST-CARD RETOUCHED . . . . EXECUTION POST-CARDS (AFTOVAC). THE GALLOWS. COLONEL MARINIC . . . . TWO SERBIAN SOLDIERS (ONE DISABLED) AND THEIR MOTHER, SUSPECTED OF CONCEALING ARMS, AWAIT- ING EXECUTION . THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA A VISIT TO THE LIBERATED VILLAGES SALONICA, January 13, 1917. THE Bulgars were in the habit of proclaiming everywhere that Macedonia was essentially Bulgarian, that its inhabi- tants were nearly all Bulgars, and that, consequently, the land was theirs by right. So when the Government of Ferdinand of Coburg, with the powerful help of Germany and Austria-Hungary, succeeded in laying hands upon the whole of Macedonia, it was to be expected that it would leave no stone unturned to bring happiness at last to this population, which, according to the Bulgars, had suffered so cruelly under foreign domination and especially under that of the Serbs. At the present moment more than fifty villages and one town in Southern Macedonia have been reconquered by the Serbs. I have already visited the greater number and made an inquiry touching the manner in which the Bulgars have behaved in these " completely Bulgarized " boroughs. I will give a brief summary of the results of this inquiry, merely stating in advance that I possess unimpeachable proofs of all I am putting forward. In one of my forthcoming letters I will relate what I learnt in Monastir. When the Bulgars arrived in the villages, the first thing they did was to depose the " kmets, " or mayors, who had held office under the Serbian regime. These were replaced, either by cowed villagers who would never dare to protest 16 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA against the excesses committed by the soldiery, or by comitadjis, or perhaps by men who had long been affiliated to the Bulgarian Revolutionary Organization. As the villages in this part of Macedonia are not very large, several of them together form one "commune" which, as such, has a president. This president was invariably a member of the Bulgarian Macedonian Organization and had come straight from Bulgaria. Thus the commune consisting of the villages of Brod, Bac, Dobroveni and Slivica was ruled by a certain Vilip Indov, who had as his very active coadjutor one Delo Talev, the famous "kmet" of Bac. The posts of " pandur " (police agent) and rural policeman were also almost always in the hands of Bulgarian comitadjis who had been sent specially from the centres of Bulgarian revolutionary activity in Greek territory from Banica, Neokazi, Lerina, etc. All these people, including the presidents, acted in blind obedience to a Committee, whose headquarters were in Monastir and which consisted of three delegates of the Central Mace- donian Organization in Sofia, the so-called " Makedonska Odrinska," and of four of its agents selected locally. Numerous comitadji leaders, or " vojvodas," among whom I must mention the brigand pope Krsta Leonda, called Londev who always wore the arms and uniform of a comitadji underneath his priest's cassock Rizov, George Popov, Dorev, Altiparmakov, Panta Siskov, Pavle Hris- tov, etc., who prowled about the country to keep a watch on the population and their own subordinates as well. As to what the peasants had to suffer from this comitadji regime, I was able to obtain ample proof of it on the spot. They were robbed of almost all they possessed. All who were known to entertain feelings of loyalty towards Serbia or who tried to oppose the pillage of their property, were cruelly maltreated. Thus, Delo Vragovic, of Bac, was so severely beaten that he succumbed two days later; Aleksa Kostovic, of the same village, received so many blows " that he had to kill a sheep and apply the bleeding skin to his back to ease the pain." He had to lie up for THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA IT six weeks. Osman Mehmed, an old man of Kenali, was laid up in bed for four weeks by the wounds caused by being beaten with a stick. Spase Stanojlovic', aged 80, who tried to defend his pigs his sole property from the plundering Bulgarian soldiers, received a shot througli the right arm, causing a wound of which I verified the scar. The comitadji officials and their understrappers profited by their all-powerful position to extort money from the peasants by the following means. They went to them and said : " You are a suspect. Your case is serious ; because you are to be arrested and sent to Sofia, and who knows, something even more serious may happen to you. But you can ransom yourself by giving us a sum of money which will be assessed in proportion to your possessions." Sometimes they even arrested their men and then made them pay for their release. As a rule they would only accept gold and refused Bulgarian notes. Thus, Omer Rasid, of the village of Kenali, paid 5 louis d'or, Mustafa Rusan, of Medzidli, T68 in gold ; Stojco Ristic, of Skocivir, 30 louis d'or, etc. In acting thus, by the way, the comitadjis merely followed the example of the Bulgarian officials in Monastir. Nor were the military any kinder to the unfortunate population of Southern Macedonia. During the earlier days of the occupation they still occasionally paid for the provisions, cereals, and cattle they requisitioned. The prices, however, were so low as to be ridiculous. For instance, Rista Gacevic, of Sovic, was paid 180 francs for 180 sheep. Sheep at a franc a head are not dear ! Cows were valued at from 5 to 12 francs. Later on, the peasants were paid in requisition tickets" raspiske," as they are called here. Only, these raspiske were never redeemed, and I possess a fine collection of them in my dossier. Finally, since last spring, the soldiers ceased to stand on any ceremony and simply helped themselves to all they wanted. When the fighting began in this region, the inhabitants were evacuated from the villages, and when they returned 2 18 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA they found absolutely nothing. The Bulgars had cleared out everything ! The countryside, once prosperous, has been ruined for many years to come. The peasants were forced to work without pay for the Bulgarian army. They had to make roads, cart provi- sions and munitions and dig trenches. In some villages even the women were compelled to work upon the fortifi- cations. Thus Visa Boskovic, of Gruniste, was forced to work at the Bulgarian defences although she was ill. There is, however, a paragraph in the Hague Convention signed, if I am not mistaken, by Bulgaria just the same as by her allies Germany and Austria-Hungary which expressly forbids the employment of the civil population of invaded regions upon military works ! The men and lads of Macedonia were temporarily re- cruited under the tyranny of the rulers of Sofia and, more especially, under that of the Revolutionary Committee of that city, although this, too, is a flagrant contravention of international law. In several villages the Bulgars not only requisitioned almost everything, but the villagers were compelled with the little that was left to them to feed the soldiers billeted in the place. " You are Serbs, we will be the death of you," they would say to the inhabitants of Bistrica and 2abjani, while robbing them of all they possessed. " You will die before us, and then, as we shall have nothing left when we have eaten what we are taking from you, we shall die too." In many places the soldiers assaulted the women. The peasants of 2abjani, for instance, were obliged to send their wives and daughters to Monastir to protect them from these assaults. Executions of peasants were fairly rare in this part of Macedonia. This paucity in the matter of executions is explained by the fact that the Bulgars could not very well give themselves the lie direct by killing too many of those whom they had always proclaimed to be "their brothers." According to the information I possess, execu- tions were far more frequent in certain essentially Serbian districts which have not yet been liberated. In conclusion THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 19 I will quote literally what was said to me by an old Mussul- man of the Albanian village of Ostrec : " We are a flock of sheep and must follow him who comes to lead us. You (the Serbs) have never done us any harm, and they (the Bulgars) have taken all we had. Of course, we are glad that you have come back." BULGARIAN CRIMES IN INVADED MACEDONIA SALONICA, February 3, 1917. In a recent letter I told you that the Bulgars had killed comparatively few peasants in the Bitolj-Monastir district, which is to-day delivered from their yoke. But at the same time I stated that in other localities they had been less moderate as regards executions. To-day I am in possession of absolutely reliable information concerning what the subjects of Ferdinand the Felon have done in the districts of Veles, Prilep and Porec. I will summarize it quite briefly, and the reader will be able to convince himself that the vassals of William of Hohenzollern have been in no way inferior to their German Allies. When the Bulgars arrived in the districts aforesaid, they massacred everybody they met by the way or in the fields. They formed Commissions constituted by comi- tadjis and directed by the subprefects. These Com- missions went from village to village and imprisoned the notabilities, many of whom were killed, once they were in prison. The latest massacres were committed on January 20, 1916 (o.s.). The total number of persons massacred in these three districts exceeds 2,000, the greater number of whom were women and children. By way of example, I will specify the numbers of the killed for several villages, as follows. In the village of Omorani, 18 persons were killed ; in the village of Teovo, 8 persons, two of them women, Maria NikuS Stojanovic and Sofia 20 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA Pane Arsi6 ; in the village of Mokreni, 12 persons ; in the village of Bogomil, 95 persons, 20 of whom were men, the rest women and children ; in the village of Gostirazna, 65 persons, 55 of them women and children ; in the village of Strovic, 80 persons, 65 of whom were women and children (in one house alone that of pope Ilija Dimic 9 persons were massacred) ; in the village of Dolgavac, 280 persons, 20 of whom were men over 50 years of age, the rest being women and children ; in the village of Margari, 5 men, 45 women, and children ; in the village of Brod, in the subprefecture of Porec, 105 persons were executed in the municipal buildings during the night of December 12/25, 1915 ; on the following day another 100 persons from the same village were killed on the road from Brod to Debres. Most of the massacred women were violated before they were killed, and the soldiers and comitadjis did not even respect little girls of ten. In December 1915 (o.s.) the entire male population of these villages what part of it had escaped the massacre was assembled and sent oft' towards Sofia. One of the first batches arrived at the fortress of Nish on January 6/19, 1916. Then the Bulgarian Bishop of Kievo tele- graphed to King Ferdinand, begging him to put a stop to these deportations, because " to treat the population in this way was to prove to the world that the people were Serbs and not Bulgars." The King acceded to this request, and the unhappy men were sent back to their homes, some from Nish, the rest from Vranja, Kumanovo, Veles, and Prilep. Still, from among these " reprieved ones " the Bulgars chose 500 hostages, priests and other nota- bilities, who were sent to Sofia. Some of them were detained there, others were sent to various villages in Bulgaria. " You are free," they were told by the subjects of Ferdinand of Coburg, " work and earn your living or die ! " In June 1916 such of these hostages as were able to pay 700 leva received permission to return to their homes. But they did not enjoy their liberty very long. About ten days after their return to their native THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 21 country they were re-arrested and sent once more to Sofia. In July 1916 began the wholesale deportations of families from Old and New Serbia. From that date and up to December 25, 1916 (o.s.), more than 10,000 families were deported in this fashion from the three districts concerning which I possess detailed information. I will again be precise and quote the figures for several villages. From the village of Bogomil, 50 families were deported; from Kupinovo, 14 families; from Papradiste, 12 families ; from the village of Omorani, 12 families ; from Belica, 25 families ; from Breznica, 6 families ; from Dunja, 8 families ; from Nebregovo, 3 families ; from the town of Prilep, 170 families ; from Krusevo, 70 families, etc. The families from the district of Porec were deported in the month of November amid the cold and the snow. Gendarmes, with fixed bayonets, drove these unfortunate people along with every conceivable brutality. A very large number of these deportees is housed in hutments on the marshy plain between Sofia and Knezevo. The rest were sent to the interior of Bulgaria. The property of the deported families was confiscated by the Bulgarian Government. The entire male population of the districts of Porec, Veles, and Prilep has been recruited and drafted into the Bulgarian Army. The Austro-Hungarians sent all Serbian soldiers who were natives of New Serbia and whom they happened to take prisoner to the Bulgars for incor- poration in the Bulgarian Army, and that in spite of the pro tests, of these men, who declared that they were Serbs and preferred the horrors of captivity to service in the ranks of the enemy. This is another violation of the rules and laws of war on the part of the Austro-Hungarians and their worthy Bulgarian accomplices ! I want to add that all these Bulgarian outrages were supervised and directed by the following " vojvodas " or comitadji leaders. In the district of Prilep by Vojvoda Jordan Trenko, who was at the same time subprefect of the 22 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA district ; in the district of Veles by Vojvoda Jo van Latovac ; Milan Djurlukov, who resided in Prilep, assisted the three of them. Will the Bulgarophils in Entente countries for we must repeat it, there still are some pardon the spurious Slavs who are called Bulgars for all these exactions ? THE BULGARS IN BITOLJ-MONASTIR SALONICA, January 22, 1917. In a recent letter I promised to send you a brief descrip- tion of how the Bulgars behaved in Monastir during their temporary occupation. To-day I will keep my promise, and merely add that just as in my letters describing the behaviour of the Bulgars in the Macedonian villages I shall say nothing that cannot be substantiated by un- impeachable witnesses or by my own personal observations. The first care of the Bulgars on arriving in the city was to institute a Central Committee in control of Monastir and the whole countryside. This Committee was composed of three members of the " Makedonska Odrinska," which is a branch of the Macedonian Revolu- tionary Organization in Sofia, and of four local men who had long been affiliated to the central committee. The Prefect of the district of Bitolj was Alexander Bojadjiev, a son of the general of that name, an unscrupulous and brutal young man and profligate with women. The mayor of the town was a certain Naum Vladov, a native of Resna, but who had for many years been established in Sofia as a small manufacturer of aerated waters. Vladov was a sot, and moreover a sot who was also a dishonest man. Thus, in his capacity of mayor he was also president of the Government Food Commission, and kept back for his own benefit the greater part of the already utterly insufficient relief consignments. For instance, of a con- THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 28 signment of 3,000 kg. of salt lie appropriated 2,000 kg. and had them sold by his own creatures. He had two worthy satellites in Petro Robev and Aza Dorev, with old reputations as active comitadjis. These higher officials had at their disposal a large body of comitadjis, who blindly obeyed the orders of the Central Committee and held the posts of policemen, gendarmes, etc. They were supervised by a certain number of vojvodas, i.e. leaders. I will only mention the names of the most notorious of these comitadjis, who for almost an entire year terrorized the population of the capital of Southern Macedonia, viz. Rizov, Popov, Boris Grabcev, Nikolas Altiparmakov (Commissioner of Police), Pa vie Hristov, and Krsta Leonda, the brigand pope, called Londev. Sofia took a warm interest in its delegates in Bitolj. The " Makedonska " repeatedly sent down its famous professor-comitadji- leader, Dr. Pencev. In order to know what this comitadji regime was like, one has only to listen to the citizens of the hapless town, even those who were most pro-Bulgarian before the war. The comitadji officials abused their practically all-powerful position in order to enrich themselves. Under the pretext that they were suspects, Serbian notabilities, Kucovlachs (Roumanians), and even Greeks, were imprisoned and deported to Bulgaria. The wives of Serbian officials and soldiers were likewise deported. Bojadjiev tried to coerce some of these women into marrying Bulgars. One of them, Danka, wife of the Serbian gendarme Svetozar Stojkovic, only escaped this compulsory bigamy by the entry of the Allies into the town, and even so, the Bulgars wanted to kill her before leaving. Both officers and officials brutally attempted to abuse the women left without their husbands. Thus the wife of a Serbian lieutenant was violated by a Bulgarian officer and, in spite of ill-health, forcibly taken to Prilep. The number of citizens of Monastir who were imprisoned and subsequently deported is very considerable more than three hundred from the district prison alone, not 24 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA counting those who were accommodated at the police stations. But there were others who were likewise in- carcerated without remaining so, however, because they succeeded in buying their liberty from the officials. Nikolas Plasi^ bought his release from the Governor of the district prison after almost a year's detention, and for a con- sideration of 2,000 francs received from the latter the following document, which I give verbatim. BULGARIAN EMPIRE. DISTRICT PRISON OF MONASTIR, No. 898. i7/xi/iyi6. MONASTIR. To the Commandant of the Garrison of Monastir. Local. SIR, In accordance with telegram No. 3378, i6/xi/i9i6, from the President of the Military Court at Prespa, I am releasing the said Nikolas Plasic, of Debra. The Governor of the Prison, IVAN HRISTOV.' On the day when the Bulgars evacuated Monastir, this worthy Governor made a good haul. Heraklia Sarcevic, a Monastir merchant, paid him 150 louis d'or for his freedom ; Naum Kocas, a man of independent means, aged 60, paid him 400 francs ; Demir Hussein, former director of the Serbian Tobacco Regie, paid 2,000 francs ; Petar Nikolic, bailiff, 300 francs, etc. . . . There were other citizens who were not imprisoned and from whom the comitadji officials contrived nevertheless to extort money by the following means. The citizens were sum- moned to the police station, and there they were told that they were on the list of persons to be deported. Still, for a pecuniary consideration, the matter might be arranged. The usual fee demanded for " this service " ranged from 350 to 500 francs, payable in gold and not in Bulgarian paper currency. Both Jovan Comandrovic and Take Zarovic went through this experience. Nor did the officials hesitate to apply corporal punishment to persons who happened to displease them. Thus Petar Bojadji, a * Signature not very legible. iKKHIAN OKI-HANS AT KROI) (MACEDONIA). DJURLUKOV'S COMITADJI BAND, "THE PEST OF THE VARDAR." HOUSES IN MONASTIR BURNT DOWN BY THE BULGARIAN BOMBARDMENT. SHOPS IN MONASTIR AFTER THE BULGARO-GERMAN RETREAT. A STHKKT IN MONASTIK AFTER 'I UK KOMIiARD.M KN1 WITH INCENDIARY SHELLS. MONASTIR. HOUSES DESTROYED BY INCENDIARY SHELLS. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 25 prominent citizen of Monastir, aged 64, was cruelly beaten by two of the Committee's agents, Nikolas Dimev Smolancov and Take Ilov Jonakioski. Monastir-Bitolj used to be a rich and prosperous town. During less than a year's occupation the Bulgars have succeeded in ruining it completely. Everything was re- quisitioned ; the Government only sent absolutely insuffi- cient relief to a population deprived of all resources, and even of this relief, as I have stated before, the greater part was stolen by Naum Vladov and his confederates. Provisions rose to fabulous prices. A scrap of bad black bread fetched from 4 to 6 francs. What the poor had to suffer during this regime passes belief. A certain number died of starvation. A notability of the town, Sotir Sekulovic", a former Bulgarophil, said to me : "If the Allies had been even a fortnight longer in coming they would have found the streets strewn with the dead bodies of those who had died of hunger." When the battles around Monastir began, the inhabitants no longer dared to leave their houses, because of the patrols prowling about the streets to seize all passers-by and compel them to work on the routes of communication. Mortality, especially infant mortality, was very high, and there was scarcely a doctor left in the town. All medical men had been imprisoned or deported to Bulgaria under the pretext that there was a lack of doctors in the kingdom of Ferdinand of Coburg. Thus the Greek doctor Asdari, who belonged to the Greek hospital in Monastir, was deported together with four others under an escort with fixed bayonets. He was. only given two hours to prepare for his departure. His wife has had no news of him. The Bulgars did not do much killing in Monastir or its vicinity, and that for the reasons I have explained in one of my previous letters. To-day I know that in the districts of Porec", Veles, and Prilep they indulged in unheard-of massacres. In Monastir they only executed one man, 1 1 I have learnt since that there were several executions. See Supplement. 26 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA a certain Vanko Gligorovic. But the way in which he was executed is altogether typical. Gligorovic, being a Serbian patriot, gave information to the allies of his country. His wife makes no secret of it. From their point of view, therefore, the Bulgars had a right to eliminate him. But they might have done it in a decent way. They assembled all their prisoners, handcuffed, in the courtyard of the prefecture, and compelled them to assist at the execution of the condemned man. Not content with this, his wife and two little daughters were likewise forced to watch the death of their husband and father. Little Krisula threw herself at the feet of Bojadjiev, the Prefect, and implored him to spare them the sight. The Prefect struck her brutally with his riding-whip and caused her, as well as her mother and sister, to be held fast in such a way that the poor creatures could not help witnessing Vanko's dying agonies. Meantime the numerous Bulgarian and German officers, who had come as if to a show at the theatre, laughed till the tears ran down their faces, and made sport of the grief of the mother and her children. IN A BOMBARDED TOWN MONASTIR-BlTOLJ, December 12, 1916. I am in Bitolj-Monastir, which the Allies have retaken from the Bulgaro-Germans on November igth. It is an open town, in no way fortified, and all military positions lie well outside its radius. Yet, since they have lost this town, the Bulgaro-Germans have not ceased to bombard it with guns and from aeroplanes. It is true that they have aimed specially at the outskirts and entrances of the town, where they might assume the presence of en- campments or artillery positions. A few days ago, how- ever, they changed their tactics. They have taken to sending their shrapnel full into the town, and since yesterday THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 27 they have bombarded the centre of the town with large 210 shells. All the same, there is a paragraph in the Hague Convention of 1907, signed by the Central Empires, which formally forbids the bombardment of open towns. But this Hague Convention is a scrap of paper which has been torn up by them like every other similar treaty. I was roused this morning in my private house in the heart of Monastir, and far from every military establish- ment, by an appalling noise. A large enemy shell had wrecked a house quite close to mine. This first shell was followed by a dozen others which fell all round my house, causing a perfect hail of stones and shards of metal to descend upon our roof and walls. After this, the shells fell further off and finally, after a bombardment of about an hour, there came comparative silence, broken only from time to time by the " dry " sound of shrapnel ex- ploding in the streets and public squares. The inhabitants had " gone to earth " in their cellars, or rather, in what they call cellars, i.e. ordinary basements, not vaulted, but merely provided with a ceiling of boards. A large 210 shell, such as those employed by the Bulgaro-Germans in bom- barding Bitolj, penetrates them like a pat of butter after having cut through the whole of that flimsy construction which goes by the name of a stone house in the East. But in the meantime these " cellars " give at least a sem- blance of safety to this terrified population of old men, women, and children, and that is worth much in itself. Many of the inhabitants of Monastir have taken shelter in the churches, which they believe to be safe from enemy projectiles, and day and night these places of worship are crowded with people who fancy they can escape death by making themselves as small as possible. I am profiting by the first lull to go out and make note of the damage. Only soldiers inured to " marmites " are walking calmly about the streets. Every now and again we meet a stretcher borne by two men. Upon it lies the body of some woman or child, all covered with blood and followed by a small knot of disconsolate relations. 28 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA These are the victims of Bulgaro-German disregard of the conventions and laws of war, and they are being taken to the Greek hospital. Here is a handsome building pierced from roof to cellar by a shell and with every window broken. I go in, and in the cellar, I find a great pool of blood. A mother had taken refuge here with her three children. She had an infant at her breast, and her two bigger babies had timidly hidden in her skirts. She was comforting them, telling them that they were safe in the cellar, when a great 210 shell came and wiped out four innocent lives. I am now in front of the French hospital. I find them removing in haste. The shell-bursts had disturbed the surgeons in the middle of their work in the operating theatre. They are going to take up their abode in the cellars of the Greek hospital proper cellars, these, with vaulted ceilings. The entrance to the last-named hospital is packed with people, and some of them are weeping distractedly. A tall youth, a college student, timidly asks one of the male nurses who happens to be passing : " Those two young giils, are they very seriously injured ? " Greatly em- barrassed, the kindly nurse-Tommy replies : " I'm afraid they won't live." But his voice betrays the fact that they have already passed away. " They were my sisters," says the college student sadly, and he goes away, sobbing. The bombardment begins again. The few people who had ventured out into the street precipitately return to their " cellars." As for me, I resume my occupation of " keeping tally at the targets " from my window, which overlooks a large part of the town. Again our house seems to attract the projectiles. Houses are being hit all round us. One shell falls within ten yards of me, and I take the opportunity to photograph the burst. It is now noon ; I must go out to lunch near by, at the Serbian officers' mess. I go down the deserted street, where I meet nobody but a small boy who, in the midst of shell- bursts, offers Serbian papers to non-existent passers-by. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 29 " Pravda," " Velika Srbija ! " l cries the urchin, who braves the shells for the sake of bringing home a few coppers to his mother, who has fallen ill from the privations she has undergone. The second phase of the bombardment has ceased. A pope, followed by a man carrying a white coffin, has come to give a hasty burial to the old woman who has been killed next door to our house. He, too, is daring death in the pursuit of his calling, for a shrapnel shell, bursting just above him, sends down a bullet which pierces the empty casket intended for the dead woman. Thus, all day and all night, the enemies of the Serbs continued their work of destruction upon an open town which used to be fairly wealthy, but is to-day in a miserable plight owing to the Bulgarian occupation and the bom- bardment. The results of the day were : one Italian soldier, killed ; one Serbian soldier, injured ; some twenty women and children killed. Neutral and all, one cannot help rinding all this abominable. War is not made to exterminate harmless people, but to fight armies. The neutral States ought to abandon their reticence and protest against these massacres, because the judgment of history will be strict, and that not only upon those who have committed the crimes, but also upon those who allowed them to be committed without protesting. A RECENT VISIT TO BOMBARDED MONASTIR MONASTIR-BlTOLJ, April 4, 1917. I am once more in Monastir-Bitolj . Since my last visit the Bulgaro-Germans have merely intensified their bom- bardment of this open town. The Allied troops have made some progress. They have occupied Snegovo and Kjeramari^a, two important enemy positions. So, in order to revenge themselves for these set-backs and because 1 Names of newspapers. 30 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA they realize that the capital of South Macedonia is definitely lost to them, they are trying to destroy the town and exterminate its inhabitants. My entry into the town was attended by no obstacles. Since the artillery of Ferdinand of Coburg has been forced to confine itself to an indirect aim in consequence of the capture of the heights north of Monastir by the French the bridge near the railway-station is less exposed to bombardment. On turning into King Peter Street, the main street of the town, I observe that the number of buildings damaged by projectiles has greatly increased. In this street there is scarcely a house which has not been struck by at least one shell. Not a window-pane is left, and you walk on powdered glass. The private house, where I used to lodge during my previous visits, has been wrecked by three 210 shells. But this street is not the only one that has suffered from the bombardment. All the rest, including side-streets, have had a great number of buildings either damaged or completely destroyed by the fury of the Bulgaro-Germans. At the Prefecture I learned that about 2,500 houses have been destroyed or badly damaged by the bombardment. As my former quarters were no longer habitable, I accepted the hospitality very kindly proffered me by Dr. van Djik, of the Dutch Red Cross, in the School of the Sisters of St. Joseph, which had been transformed into a hospital for civilians. For four months and under a rain of shells, Dr van Djik and his six Dutch sisters of mercy have nursed the hapless population of Monastir. The Dutch Mission has done excellent work and shown heroic devotion. The Serbs have recognized this officially by conferring the Gold Medal for Gallantry upon Dr. van Djik and the Silver Medal upon each of the six nurses. This distinction is only in rare cases bestowed upon the Serbian medical staff, and had never before been given to foreigners. In the hospital the doctor showed me several victims of Bulgaro-Teuton gas shells. They are still very weak, THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 31 and their faces show cyanosis. They complain of sore throat, of inability to breathe freely, and of nausea. Some aver that the gas tasted slightly of bitter almonds. This might lead one to believe that these projectiles contained prnssic acid. But this gas kills almost instantaneously, whereas the Monastir victims of the savagery of the Central Powers and their vassals suffer from thirty to thirty-five minutes before expiring. Judging by what I have seen actually in the places that have been bom- barded and by my investigations of the debris of the shells, the gas employed must have been carbon dioxide or some similar gas. The bombardment with gas shells is carried out princi- pally during the night, when people are asleep in their cellars, or what they call their cellars. These shells make comparatively very little noise in exploding. The ex- plosion liberates a tube encased in strips. This tube acts as radiator and contains the materials which generate the gas. The latter is very heavy and sinks down into the cellars, where it poisons every living creature that happens to be there. Most of the victims were thus surprised in their sleep. In the palace of the Serbian Metropolitan alone a hand- some building with a spacious basement 37 persons were killed during the first gas bombardment in the night from the i6th to the I7th of March. This building, which lies far from any route of communication, seems to provide a special target for the Bulgarian guns. Almost every night two or three gas shells fall somewhere near it. It is true that the Serbian church and the Serbian school, which are next door to it, have suffered even more. Evi- dently the subjects of Ferdinand the Felon want to vent their fury upon all that is Serbian. Since the liberation of Monastir-Bitolj by the Allied forces the official returns of the Serbian authorities have accounted for 764 casualties among the civil population, viz. 399 killed and 365 injured. Killed : 81 men, 92 women, 115 children. Injured : 75 men, 88 women, 32 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA and no children. Besides these there were in killed and 92 injured, no indication of the sex being given. I am certain these returns are by no means complete, because, in spite of all self-denial and courage on the part of the civil authorities, competent authorities cannot be every- where all at once and draw up authentic returns in a town which has, up to the end of March, received 5,285 pro- jectiles of heavy calibre, not to mention any quantity of shrapnel, aeroplane bombs, etc. I must add that recently the Bulgaro-Germans have sought to destroy the town by fire as well. A considerable number of incendiary shells has been sent over. The conflagrations arising from this cause constituted a grave danger to what remains of this once prosperous town, which is almost entirely unprovided with fire- escapes. Finally, I must draw attention to the fact that all parts of Monastic, without distinction, have been bombarded. Hospitals are not spared by the destructive rage of the gunners of Ferdinand of Coburg and William of Hohen- zollern. The former Greek hospital, which was trans- formed into a Frencli ambulance, has been almost entirely destroyed. The hospital of the Dutch Mission has been shelled, and during the time that I stayed there numerous " marmites " exploded quite near it. In any case it must be admitted that, in view of their behaviour during the occupation and their continuous destructive bombardment, the Bulgars have a queer way of proving to the world that Monastir is peopled by " brothers of their race." I am inwardly convinced that not one of these " brothers of their race " wishes to have any more to do with them. The good folk of Monastir have had a taste of the Bulgar and that is quite enough for them for good. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA IN MONASTIR-BITOLJ MONASTIR, April 5, 1917- After this war two towns will stand out as typical martyr cities against which the fury of the enemy was especially directed Rheims in the west and Monastir-Bitolj in the east. Obviously, Rheims is much larger and far better known than the capital of South Macedonia, but this has not prevented the latter from being subjected to the same martyrdom as the proud French city. I even believe that the number of civilian victims is greater in Monastir than in Rheims. I am once more in Monastir. It is a lovely summer's day. I walk down the streets and I note that there is no longer a house in Bitolj that has not been touched by the bombardment. If comparatively few houses are laid entirely in ruins, this is only due to the flimsiness of their construction. Many of the projectiles pass through these thin walls without exploding, and when the explosion occurs the effect is not so great. The inhabitants go about their business. Housewives go out to buy up the few vegetables brought to town by peasant women. People wash their linen in the Dragor, while the children play in the streets. Some of the shops are open. You can buy old trash, which escaped the plundering Bulgars, or possibly tobacco or the little filigree trinkets which are made in this place. The shutters of all these shops are only half drawn up, so that they may be lowered all the quicker when the bombardment begins again. Small boys sell French and Serbian newspapers in the streets. Little " lustros " shoeblacks make a few coppers out of the soldiers who have their dusty boots " shined." But all this population there are still from twenty to twenty-five thousand inhabitants in the town is depressed and nervous. Even the children have forgotten how to 3 34 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA laugh. There is too much mourning, too much wreckage, too much suffering. For more than 1,000 civilians have fallen victims to the bombardment. The prolonged sojourn of the people of Monastir in basements without any sanitary appliances has led to an appalling increase of tubercular diseases, such as phthisis. Moreover, the promiscuity in these cellars has also resulted in the propagation of certain contagious diseases. It is true that the Serbian and French civil and military authorities are doing what they can to alleviate the situation, but their resources are very limited in this Oriental town cut off from the world by the bom- bardment of an enemy who does not respect the laws of war. Why was Monastir not evacuated of its civil popu- lation ? First of all, because it is very difficult to find a place where to put this twenty thousand or so of hapless beings. The Macedonian towns and even the villages occupied by the Allies are already filled to overflowing with Serb, Macedonian, and Greek refugees from Bulgaria and Asia Minor. And then these poor creatures are attached to their last remaining possession, their house, which is often a mere ruin riddled with shells. They prefer being killed at home to an exodus. It is not un- natural, it is the mentality of the poor, to whom fate has never been very kind. As I am walking about the streets and questioning people, the Bulgaro-Germans are bombarding the out- skirts of the town. But even now they are beginning to send shells of every calibre full into the heart of the town. The projectiles go whistling over our heads on their way to demolish yet some more dwellings and to wipe out yet some more innocent lives. As by magic, the streets are cleared and the inhabitants precipitately take to their cellars, where the asphyxiating gases will seek them out. Pom ! Fifty yeards in front of me a handsome, well-built edifice collapses. A 150 has caught it squarely. Already there are some casualties. Small boys are reduced to gobbets of bleeding flesh. What have these poor children done to Wilhelm of Hohenzollern or Ferdinand THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 35 of Coburg ? Let these two beware lest history bestow upon them the sobriquet of " the baby-killers." Whatever is the good of this bombardment of an open town ? I have myself several times ascertained that the town of Monastir does not harbour a single gun. Is it simply the pleasure of giving pain that prompts the enemy gunners to exterminate a hapless civil population which had already suffered sufficiently from the war ? WHAT THE GERMANO-BULGARS HAVE DONE TO AN OPEN TOWN MONASTIR, October g, 1917. In these beautiful autumn days I have once more returned to Monastir. It is almost impossible to recognize this town, which was once such a pleasant sight in the smiling valley of the Dragor. There are practically no houses left untouched by the shells of a barbarous enemy. Why do the Bulgaro-Germans rage so furiously against an open town which is, as such, protected by the laws and con- ventions of war ? Why do they kill its unfortuate inhabi- tants by hundreds ? (So far there have been more than 1,500 civilians killed and wounded.) The reply is easy. The invaders, having seen their valuable prey definitely snatched from them last November, want to be revenged and, as they cannot get at their enemies to hurt them, they are inflicting as much suffering as they can upon an inoffensive population which will never be Bulgarian. They have tried to explain their conduct to the neutrals and to the Pope, who is so indulgent where they are con- cerned, and in this way have tried to avoid the universal obloquy which they feel is weighing upon them, by pre- tending that their enemies compel them to fire upon an open town by placing guns in the city. This is only one more lie to their account, and they are perfectly well aware 36 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA of it, because their spy system has been exceptionally enterprising and accurate in Monastir. I have been some ten times in the bombarded town, and I have traversed it in every direction. Never has there been an allied gun in the centre of the city, the quarter singled out by the gunners of William of Hohenzollern and Ferdinand of Coburg, whom history will speak of as the " baby- killers." In order to be able to reply to the enemy shells, the Allies have been compelled to place batteries in the outskirts of the town. The Germano-Bulgars know this and could perfectly well send their projectiles there without touching the town itself, with its children, its women, and its old men. How are they going to explain the massacre of these innocents in the cellars by asphyxiating gas ? Do they pretend that by hurling these engines which are forbidden by conventions which the} 7 themselves have signed full into the heart of the town, they will hit the Allied gunners, who are several thousand yards away from the place aimed at ? And how can they clear them- selves of the shame of the conflagration of Monastir, which they set on fire on August 17, 1917 ? On that date, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, they began to bombard the central part of the town with shrapnel. At five o'clock all their batteries opened fire upon the town without interruption until ten o'clock at night. More than 2,000 shells of every calibre and kind were sent, and among them many incendiary shells. Fires started everywhere, and the high wind which was blowing that day caused the conflagration to spread with great rapidity. No assistance was possible in spite of the fire- engines which the Serbs had provided in anticipation of this kind of calamity, because the Bulgaro-Germans hindered all assistance by copiously " watering " the burning zone with shrapnel and destroying the telegraphic and telephonic connections by means of which help might have been summoned from neighbouring units. Everybody had to take refuge in the cellars. It goes without saying that there were casualties. Eight people were burnt to THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 37 death, 66 injured by the flames, and 22 killed by shells. Among all these victims there were only four soldiers, who were burnt in attempts to rescue children. In one house the aged mother of the Roumanian Professor Georgi and his little daughter were buried beneath the wreckage of their home, which had collapsed. Seven hundred houses fell a prey to the flames in this way. They were all in the central part of the town, to the right of King Peter Street (going towards the Dragor), and I can vouch for it that there was not an allied gun anywhere near them. But the destruction of guns was not the object of this barbarous act. It was again revenge. The Allied aviators had been to Prilep, and in that town, which had been cleared of its civil population, they had copiously bombarded military establishments, and it appears that a general was killed. And in order to revenge themselves for this purely military act the Bulgaro-Teutons sought to chastise the innocent civil population of Monastir. I am no partisan of reprisals which strike at non-combatants, but when I look upon these horrors I ask myself, What are the Allies waiting for before repaying the German and Bulgarian towns in kind ? In spite of all their sufferings, about 25,000 of the inhabi- tants of Monastir refused to leave their town. A few thousands, however, have left because the fire left them without a roof over their heads. The others go on living, or rather vegetating, in their daily bombarded city. Ten months of suffering has made them philosophers. They have arranged their lives as well as they can in their un- sanitary cellars, where phthisis and contagious diseases lie in wait for them. The boldest have even resumed their modest trade, and it seems odd to see the little shops, half demolished by shell-fire or the plundering Bulgars, with their twisted iron shutters only half -raised, so that they may be lowered all the more quickly whenever the bombardment begins. The children play in the streets, but silently. They have lost their natural gaiety since so many of their little 38 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA friends are being killed day by day by the murderous engines of those who pretended to be in the vanguard of " Kultur." A friend accosts me. He is a Serb of Serbia whose family, consisting of a wife and a delightful little boy of eight, had settled in Monastir when they fled from the bombardment of Belgrade. I ask how they are. The little boy, killed by a shell with ten of his little playmates as all unconscious of danger they were playing at soldiers in the street. The wife, dead of grief. While we are talking a well-known whirring sound approaches, swiftly followed by the bursting of shells from our anti-aircraft guns. These are the Bulgaro-German aviators on their usual death-round over the martyr city. Some of their bombs burst quite near us, and a few minutes later the bleeding body of a woman is brought in, a mother struck down on her way to fetch milk for her little one from the canteen of the British Serbian Relief Fund. Will the Pope and certain neutrals still dare to plead the cause of these murderers of the innocent ? WHAT THE INHABITANTS OF THE INVADED REGIONS THINK OF THE BULGARS SALONICA, January 16, 1917. Who does not remember the frenzied propaganda by the Bulgars in favour of an altogether Bulgarian Macedonia ? According to them there could be no population more entirely Bulgarian than that inhabiting the valleys of the Vardar. the Cerna Reka, the district round Ohrida, etc. In order to assist this propaganda, or at least to "give it moral support," the rulers of Sofia sent down the comitadjis of the " Makedonska Odrinska " the Macedonian Revolu- tionary Organization and founded Bulgarian churches and schools all over the country. These masters in the art of advertising did not fail to remember that the European THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 39 public, being but ill-informed as regards Balkan affairs, regards religion as the criterion of nationality in the East, which is a perfectly mistaken view. Aided and abetted by Austria-Hungary ; and it must be admitted thanks to the errors of the Entente, Bulgaria has succeeded in temporarily seizing the whole of Macedonia. Now that by the valour of the troops of the Eastern Army, and the heroism of the Serbian soldiers, an appreciable part of Macedonia is once more delivered from the yoke of Ferdinand the Felon and his partisans, it is interesting to sound the inhabitants as to what they think of Bulgarian rule to-day, now that they have had a taste of it for nearly a year. As a matter of fact, the intense Bulgarian pro- paganda had greatly affected a certain number of Mace- donians. The latter, after numerous and divers occupations, and after suffering oppressions and persecutions untold, have only one aspiration, viz. at last to be allowed to earn their living in peace. Whoever had brought them that benefit would have been welcome and would easily have succeeded within ten years in assimilating this population where, side by side with Macedonians of Slav race, you meet with many Turks, Kucovlachs (i.e. Roumanians), pure Serbs, a few genuine Bulgars (near the Bulgarian frontier), and Greeks (in the littoral). The great mass of the inhabitants of Macedonia is still amorphous ; in other words, nationality matters very little to them, so long as they are permitted to till their fields in peace. In order to discover the sentiment entertained at present by this heterogeneous population towards the Bulgars, I applied to the inhabitants of Monastir-Bitolj and of the villages reconquered by the Serbs. It might be objected that these people, being accustomed to a change of rulers, might out of prudence withhold their true sentiments from me. To them I would reply that the declarations collected by me were made spontaneously, and that the tone in which they were made could not deceive one accustomed of old to judicial inquiries, as I am. In all that both peasants and townspeople have said to me there is only 40 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA one thing which is not sincere about most of them, and that is the form they give to their names. Almost all of these end in " ic," e.g. Ristic, Djordjevic, Popovic, Atanaso- vi, Talevic, etc. I know very well that, only yesterday they styled themselves Ristov, Georgiev, Popov. Atana- sov, Talev, etc., and that to-morrow, if by some impossible chance the Turks or the Greeks were to become masters of Macedonia, they would style themselves Georgiades, Popassoglu, etc. I was particularly struck by the fact that the Serbian soldiers found no difficulty in conversing with the Macedonian peasants, whereas our prisoners could scarcely make themselves understood. Is this not proof conclusive that the Macedonians are nearer to the Serbs than to the Bulgars ? Need I still point to the celebration of the Slava in Macedonia, this essentially Serbian custom ? And what of the physiognomy of the natives of these regions, a physiognomy which is often typically Serbian and has nothing in common with the Asiatic physiognomy of the Bulgars ? The latter have themselves proclaimed during this war that they are not Slavs, but Turanians, brothers of the Turks and Magyars. Here, then, are a few declarations taken at random from the dozens I have in my dossier. Vasil Djordjevic, of 2ivonja, aged 56, replied to my question whether the popu- lation had been better off under the Bulgars or under the Serbs : " How do you imagine we could have been better off under the Bulgars when they robbed us of all we possessed, while the Serbs touched nothing ? " Djelib Ibrahim, a Mussulman aged 60, who lives in the same village, said to me : " They took my oxen and my corn, what greater harm would you have the Bulgars do to me ? " Sotir Sekulovic, a leading citizen of Monastir and well known as a Bulgarophil before the Bulgarian occupation, told me that when the Serbs were on the point of retiring, they distributed a notice bidding every citizen to remain quietly at home and go about his business. Moreover, they gave the population all the provisions they could not take away, " If I compare this with the Bulgarian MONASTIK. EFFECT OK THE KIKE CAUSED BY INCENDIARY SHELLS. EFFECT OF THE BULGARIAN BOMBARDMENT. A RUINED STREET IN MON ASTIR. II II MONASTIK. EFFECT OK THE FIRE CAUSED [IV INCENDIARY SHELLS. A GROUP OF GERMAN AND BULGARIA* OFFICERS IN FRONT OF THE TOWN HALL OF MON ASTIR. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 41 retreat, I know what conclusion one is bound to come to ! " Salim Hassan, a Mussulman Albanian of the village of Ostrec, said : " They (the Bulgars) ruined us. They left us nothing but our bare lives " (lit. " our souls "j. Risvan Redjeb, aged 72, of the same village, declared : "We are a flock of sheep and are obliged to follow him who comes to lead us. You (the Serbs) have never done us any harm, and they (the Bulgars) have robbed us of all we had. Naturally we are glad that you have come back." These sentiments as expressed by the few witnesses I have just quoted are shared by the entire population of that part of Macedonia which has been liberated so far. The Bulgars have forfeited all sympathies that ever existed for them there in certain parts of the country. To-day they are hated, and all the more so as they had no sooner taken possession of the country than they made haste to close the village schools and most of the churches, while in their propaganda they had always insisted upon the importance of the Bulgarian church and school ! How well one sees now that all this was only a screen to conceal their lust for domination and plunder ! WHAT THE BULGARIAN PRISONERS HAVE TO TELL ON THE SERBIAN FRONT, May 14, 1917. SHORT notices in the papers have told you that a revolt had broken out in Serbia. The Bulgars denied the fact. It was interesting to question the Bulgarian soldiers made prisoner on this side of the front, as to what they knew about this business and whether the revolt was genuine. With perfect unanimity all our prisoners confirmed the truth of the event. I have already telegraphed you briefly the substance of their depositions. To-day I will be more explicit and add a few further details. 43 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA The revolt in Serbia took place round about Leskovac, Soko Banja, and Vranja. Some prisoners speak of 25,000 insurgents, others of 20,000, and others of 15,000. In any case their number must have, been considerable, because the Bulgars sent the whole of the First Division down from Sofia to suppress the insurrection. Our witnesses declare that the insurgents succeeded in pro- curing rifles and even machine-guns. Sanguinary en- counters are said to have taken place with considerable losses on both sides. The revolt lasted two months, and even to-day the Bulgars are afraid of its breaking out afresh and are constantly sending troops to the regions I have just men- tioned. The revolt was suppressed with pitiless cruelty. Our prisoners say that on this occasion their troops com- mitted nameless barbarities. Every Serb of the insurgent districts capable of shouldering a rifle has been deported to Asia Minor. The fact of placing Christians with Mussulmans is said to have displeased the Bulgarian people because, after all, the Serbs are Orthodox, like the Bulgars. But the Sofia Government gave its support to the measure, declaring that the Serbs would be " better maltreated " among the Turks. Some of the prisoners say that it was General Mackensen himself who ordered the deportation of the Serbs to Asia Minor. They also add that at first German troops were sent to suppress the revolt, but that these were almost wiped out by the insurgents. It was only after their defeat that the First Division was sent from Sofia. As regards the mutiny of the ist Bulgarian Infantry Regiment, this according to the reports of prisoner witnesses took place in March 1917. This regiment had fought before Gruniste and sustained heavy losses. In spite of this, the Bulgaro-German Supreme Command wanted to keep it in the first line. But the men had had enough of the war. They mutinied, killed their officers, and then dispersed. Bulgarian and German troops were immediately dispatched in pursuit and 400 of the mutineers THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 43 were captured at once. The rest were taken gradually and in different places. A certain number succeeded in joining the Serbian insurgents in Serbia. This mutiny was put down with great severity. One hundred and fifty soldiers were shot, and 800 received sentences of penal servitude ranging from twelve to twenty years. In my previous letters I have told you of the result of my inquiry concerning the treatment of the Macedonian population by the Bulgars. I also wanted to know what the Bulgarian prisoners had to say on the subject. Their depositions fully corroborated my own observations, and prove that in spite of the violent denials opposed by them to my asseverations at the time, the subjects of Coburg have in no way mended their ways, but continue to behave most barbarously towards a peasant population which asks nothing but to be left to live in peace. All my witnesses are agreed on the point that the villagers are in dire distress. They have been robbed of everything. Sometimes they were given requisition tickets, but these vouchers are never honoured. Thus, in the village of Dunje the death-rate among infants and old people is appalling, because these poor creatures are literally dying of hunger. The German troops, in particular, were accused of maltreating the natives physically and of assaulting the women. All along the Bulgarian Cerna front women and children are employed in trench-works in the second line, which is full under the fire of the Allied artillery. Often they are not even given enough to eat. From time to time they are relieved by fresh " companies " of women and children. German specialist commanders are in charge of this labour, which is expressly forbidden by the Hague Convention. Within the last few days an Allied shell, falling right in the midst of the women and children working in the trenches at BeSiste, killed two women and wounded three others. Aeroplane bombs have likewise caused casualties among the civil population impressed for this labour, which is illegal and reveals a standard of 44 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA morality which is to say the least surprising on the part of those who have ordered it. In Nish large numbers of lads from sixteen to seventeen years of age are at present being trained, so that they may be flung into the great shambles by Ferdinand of Coburg, upon whom history will pass most rigorous judgment. The Bulgarian prisoners likewise admit that there are at this moment many deported persons from Serbia in Bulgaria. They have a wretched time of it and are clothed in rags. They are made to do the heaviest work in factories and on the railway. And it is not only upon men and youths that the ignoble revenge of the " Prussians of the Balkans " has fallen. There are women amongst their number. These, however, add my witnesses, find some pity among the populace. This is what the Bulgarian prisoners have to say. As I said before, it is a corroboration of all that has been published hitherto on the subject. Are the neutral States really unable to interfere to prevent such crimes ? THE BULGARIAN MANNER OF FIGHTING THE ENEMY ON THE SERBIAN FRONT, March 4, 1917. The further we advance, the more proofs do we find of the barbarous fashion in which the Bulgars are waging war upon the Serbs who, barely four years ago, gave them such valiant assistance in fighting the Turks who are to- day the allies of the land of Ferdinand of Coburg, called the Felon. The records of the various Serbian divisions are full of authentic documentary evidence attesting the complete contempt of the Bulgars for the laws and rules of war. I will publish two, which were communi- cated to me at one of the Serbian headquarters. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 45 i. Examination at the Headquarters of the Drina Division, October 17, 1916. Ad. No. 3625. Private Velimir Ivanovid, of the trench battery, Drina Division, born in the village of Sinosevic, district of Potserje, county of Podrinje, aged 25, single, declares that on September 12, 1916, he was with the officer commanding his battery, the late Vladimir Yovanovic", Artillery Com- mander, in an infantry trench situated on the highest point of Kaimakcalan. At 3 o'clock in the morning the Bulgars began to shout " Hurrah ! " from a trench about fifty yards distant from that of the Serbs without moving, however. The commander gave the order to open fire upon the Bulgars, who shortly afterwards attacked our trench with bombs and got past it. I remained in it with my two comrades, Zvejo Dimitrijevic and Bratislav. At dawn our troops launched a counter-attack against the Bulgars, who retired precipitately, passing over the top of our trench, where we lay hidden underneath the dead bodies. From time to time we hitched ourselves up to see what was happening, and in this way we were witnesses of a horrible scene. The Bulgars simply flung themselves upon our wounded with savage yells of "Money, Serbs! " Our wounded implored them not to kill them " Spare our lives, and take everything ! " they said, while the Bulgars thrust them through with bayonets, still repeating their cries of " Money, Serbs ! " or perhaps : "Is the French milk sweet ? " or yet again: " Oh no, Serb ! You're not going home that way ; go by the road by which you left your country ! " When the Bulgars were completely driven out on September I5th (o.s.) we found gourds full of brandy upon their dead. Many of the Bulgarian wounded were difficult to remove because they were dead drunk. In the trench to the right of ours we found our com- manding officer bearing several bayonet wounds and with his body ripped open. The intestines were protruding. Round him were another eleven soldiers horribly mutilated. (Signed) VELIMIR 46 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 2. Deposition made at the headquarters of the 3rd Battn., i4th Regiment, on January 22 (o.s.), 1917, re 0/No. 373. Deposition by Sergeant Mata M. Ratkovic, of the village of Bresovica, district of Dejevo, county of Raska ; and by Private Stojan T. Markovic, of the village of Srnje, district of Razina, county of Krusevac, both of the ist Co., 3rd Battn., i-4th Regiment. They declare : That on October 4th of last year they were on patrol duty together with Private Andjelko Viktorovic to find out whether there were any Bulgars at Kamenica Cuka, and if so, how many. When they had arrived at the summit of the Cuka, they found a Serbian soldier lying on the ground, with a mattock, point uppermost, rammed into his chest. The soldier had been previously wounded in the left shoulder. Not far from there they found a second Serbian soldier with a Serbian bayonet rammed into his skull behind the left ear. As the body was all covered with blood they could not see any other wounds, but from the position of the hands they concluded that the unhappy man was still alive when the bayonet was thrust into his head. When they reached the biggest rock on the summit they found a Serbian soldier sitting, with his rifle as if on guard. - He had been killed, and then his rifle had been attached to him in this way. They were not able to ascertain how the soldier had come by his death, because the Bulgars caught sight of them and attacked them and they were compelled to take to their defence. (Signed) MATA RATKOVid and STOJAN MARKOVIC. " Money, Serbs ! " This cry sums up the entire men- tality of this Slavicized Turanian people without any feelings. It is the gold of the Central Powers which has attached them to the responsible authors of this horrible war. For material advantages they betrayed their allies of 1912. For the sake of rifling the few coppers THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 47 which the wretched Serbian wounded have in their pockets they callously slaughter men whose lives are sacred according to the rules and laws of war no less than by the ordinary canons of humanity. What a difference between the behaviour of these barbarous hordes and that of the Serbs, who receive their prisoners by calling them " brothers" and share their bread with them ! There are still a few good folk among the Entente Allies who have secretly remained Bulgarophils and would like to discriminate between the Bulgarian Government and the people. What I have just made public shows quite plainly that the Bulgarian people is no better than its Government, and that it has the Government it deserves ! THE BULGARS AND SERBIAN PRISONERS OF WAR SALONICA, November 8, 1917 I have told you in my previous letters of the crimes committed by the Bulgars against the civil population of Macedonia. To-day I will tell you of another form of violation of international law and the usages of war on the part of the Sofia Government. I mean the employ- ment of Serbian soldiers as combatants against their own country. This is an outrage which, as regards its odious nature, is not a whit inferior to massacres and deportations ; because, though the latter are terrible, the moral agony of the man who is compelled against his will, and while remaining true to his country, to fight against his brother, is no less great. Moreover, the deposition of my witnesses will lay bare, far better than any words of mine, the crime perpetrated by Ferdinand of Coburg and the people com- mitted to his charge. Private Andjelko Dj. Cvetkovi6, a native of Draj&ka, district of Prizrend, in Serbia, deserted lately from the 48 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 45th Bulgarian Regiment. He was taken prisoner near Giljane at the time of the Serbian retreat. As chance would have it, he surrendered to the officer commanding the very Serbian Regiment to which he used to belong. His declaration runs as follows : ' Being a native of Old Serbia, I served in the 24th Kosovo Regiment. At the time of the Austrian declaration of war, I was drafted into the ist Regiment and so took part in the battles of the Cer, the Drina, and Belgrade, where I was wounded. When the Bulgars attacked us, my regiment was operating in the direction of Caribrod, while keeping in touch with the Timok Division by the Pirot-Caribrod Railway. In the battle of Giljane I was taken prisoner, together with 800 of my comrades. We were escorted by Albanians to Prehovo, and thence to Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka, Djucevo, and Custendil. My blood runs cold when I so much as think of the scenes of brutality and savagery to which we were constantly ex- posed in those dark days when our country's fate hung in the balance. Our Albanian guards subjected us to all kinds of torture. They struck us down with the butt- ends of their rifles or they fired into the crowd of us simply for the fun of seeing human blood flow. On a hillock just outside Giljane, the Bulgars and Albanians executed eighty Serbian prisoners from Old Serbia. Moreover, all the villages were sacked and set on fire, while the endless processions of old men, women, and children, hunted and harried by the Bulgaro-Albanian hordes, fled in all directions, worn out with hunger and perished with cold and fatigue. " Last March, the Bulgars segregated all the prisoners from New Serbia from those of Old Serbia, and drilled them. I was one of this batch. Our training lasted two months. To our moral and physical sufferings, which never ceased to torture us during the whole time of our odious captivity, a fresh torment was added. W T e were forbidden to speak Serbian. For every contravention of this humiliating prohibition we were visited with THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 49 penalties of incredibly refined cruelty. ' You are not Serbs,' we were told. ' There are no Serbs left. They are wiped off the face of the earth.' " When our training was finished we were sent on garrison duty to various towns, and shortly afterwards to the regiments at the front, where I simply watched for the first opportunity to surrender. While I was in the front lines one hideous thought never left me day or night the thought that by ill-fate I might kill my brother, of whom I knew that he was in the ranks of our army, or that I might be killed by him. But God in His goodness has preserved us from this ; I shall see him again, because the only joy which is left to me at this moment is to find my brother and to take my place at once beneath our glorious flag to fight the vilest foe that ever breathed ! " Djordje Jovanovic", of Gostirazna, district of Prilep, late private in the ist Co. of the ist Battn., 5th Serbian Regiment, taken prisoner by the Germans on or about November 8/21, 1915, between Kraljevo and Raska, and subsequently drafted into the Bulgarian Army, gives an account similar to that of Cvetkovic. He, however, adds some details concerning the life of the prisoners in the camps. Notably in the camp at Heinrichsgrun. there were four subdivisions surrounded with barbed wire. All told, there were 66,000 prisoners in 300 huts. The prisoners were employed in various kinds of labour potato-planting, working in the neighbourhood at road-repairing. For food, they were given a loaf of i kg. every other day. This bread, which was very bitter, was made of potatoes and sawdust. The}' were also given salt fish and, once a fortnight sometimes only once a month a little meat. The usual bill of fare was thin soup and some sort of puree. At the end of July 1916 all the Macedonians, 880 in all, were sent to Bulgaria. In Sevljevo they were given Bulgarian uniforms, and the officer commanding told them that " now that the Bulgars had liberated them, the Macedonians would have to contribute their help to 4 50 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA the common cause." About a dozen men acclaimed these words with enthusiasm ; the rest, the vast majority, kept silent. They knew the value of " liberation by the Bulgars," and if they had not been Serbs already before the misfortune to the kingdom of King Peter, then this " liberation " had turned them from mere pro-Serbians into good Serbian patriots. At the very first opportunity all those who were able to do so rejoined the Serbian Army and became reincorporated with their old units. I have sundry more depositions of similar nature in my possession, but the two examples I have quoted will suffice to enlighten the opinion of the reader as to Bulgarian methods of pro- cedure. In the meantime it would be well to keep an account from now on of all the violations of international law committed by the subjects of Ferdinand the Felon. LATEST INFRINGEMENTS OF THE LAWS OF HUMANITY BY THE BULGARO-GERMANS SALONICA, March 24, 1917. The recent great successes of the Allies on the Western front, no less than those in Mesopotamia, arid the fine advance of the French troops before Monastir. have exasperated the savage fury of the armies of Ferdinand the Felon and William of Hohenzollern which are opposed to the Allied Eastern Army. Long ago one might almost say. since the beginning of the war they have ceased to respect the sacred emblem of the Red Cross. But their premeditated outrages were cloaked by ostensible strategic necessity so plausibly invented that even the Allied public could not but be impressed by it. To-day they are too wild with rage to remember these precautions. They bomb hospitals in such a barefaced manner that no doubt as to the real objective of these bombardments is any longer permissible, THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 51 even to those neutrals who are most inclined to make excuses for their crimes. Thus, on March 12, 1917, a complete squadron of German aeroplanes first bombarded the station at Vertekop, and then some of these aircraft went off specially by them- selves to drop bombs on the British and French hospitals, which were at least 2 km. distant from the station. Most certainly, when the hour of reckoning strikes, and perhaps even earlier, when the opinion of certain neutrals whose sympathies they value will have been tried too far, the Bulgaro-Germans will try to prevaricate. They will try to explain their dastardly attack by the presence of a train which was passing at a few hundred yards' distance from the hospitals that were hit. " It was the train we meant to hit, and we are not responsible if our aviators aimed their bombs badly," they will say in exculpation. They will also plead ignorance as to their whereabouts and of the nature of the encampment above which their aeroplanes were soaring. The Serbian Army wished to get at the truth concerning the validity of these excuses, and sent me down to make an inquiry on the spot. This inquiry yielded the following results. 1. The bombardment of Vertekop station was altogether distinct from that of the hospitals, which were at least 2 km. removed from the station. 2. The latter bombardment was carried out by four separate aeroplanes, which had detached themselves from the squadron which flew over Vertekop station. 3. The aviators dropped their bombs in batches of five and six bombs, which they released all in a bunch together, after having made sure of the spot where they would fall by first dropping a trial bomb. 4. The bombs were not of the large kind used for the destruction of massive objects, but the small kind used in attacking live targets. If the destruction of a train had been the object of the raid, projectiles of large calibre would have been used. 52 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 5. The distances between the bombarded places and the railway are too great to be due to bad marksmanship ; because the air was very still at the time of the attack, as is proved by the close proximity to each other of the holes caused by the bombs which were released together. 6. The aviators knew that they were above hospitals, by the presence of the twelve Red Crosses which surround the said hospitals and are perfectly visible to the naked eye from the height of 3,000 metres at which the aeroplanes were flying. I verified this fact by making a flight over the hospital at the same height myself. Moreover, the enemy also knew the nature of this camp from his two raids on August ist and I4th, against which the Entente lodged a protest with the International Red Cross. I must add that we know that the bombing aviators belonged to a " flying squadron " which is directly attached to the Berlin G.H.O., and dispatched by the latter by special train to the various fronts to execute the tasks assigned to it. They were therefore highly skilled aviators who could not have made so great a mistake in the matter of bomb-dropping, especially in calm weather, and still less so as they had only to wait until the train, the latter being in motion, was clear of the hospital zone if the destruction of the train was indeed their object. This has been incontrovertibly proved by expert evidence. The Bulgaro-Germans have again, quite recently, com- mitted an act of savagery which greatly exceeds in bar- barity even their bombing of the hospitals. In the night from the i6th to the I7th of March they dropped asphyxiat- ing gas shells on the open town of Monastir. They surely know that there is not one military fortification or establish- ment in the town itself, and yet they have carried their cruelty so far this time as to assassinate women and children with asphyxiating gas ! This is the first time that any belligerent has descended so low in the scale of morality ; 62 persons were, killed by gas, among them 25 women and 31 children ! Further 61 victims of this unspeakable barbarity are in a desperate condition. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 53 Ah ! you should have seen those poor little innocents, their mouths wide open as if to call upon their mothers and sisters for help, their eyes upturned in agony, and their limbs convulsed with suffering. They were visions of horror which ought to cause sleepless nights to those responsible for this war and these barbarities. Let the Bulgarian butchers still dare to pretend after this war that Macedonia is Bulgarian, and they will be shown these photographs of their " brothers and sisters " so abominably murdered by them ! For crimes like these, in which they are the accomplices of their German masters, there is neither palliation nor forgiveness. They must expiate them by suffering even more than these hapless and innocent victims of their nameless barbarity. On March iqth the Bulgars repeated their offence ; 3 men, 2 women, and 5 children fell victims to their asphyxiating gas shells. BULGARIAN MENTALITY SALONICA, March g, 1917. In certain Entente quarters there is still a tendency to try to differentiate between the Bulgarian Government and people. While the former is being justly condemned, greatly extenuating circumstances are brought forward on behalf of the latter. " The Bulgarian people is not bad. It has excellent qualities, but it has been misled by unscrupulous persons," say those who, in spite of all, have secretly remained pro-Bulgarian. In the meantime there has never been a truer word than that which says that every people has the Government it deserves, and the events of the present Balkan war ought to have opened the eyes of those impenitent Bulgaro- phils who still believe in the generous instincts of the subjects of Ferdinand of Coburg, called the Felon. The entire conduct of the Bulgars, ever since the autumn of 54 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 1914, has clearly shown that the people of the country are in complete accord with the intentions of their Govern- ment. The Bulgarian people had only to impose its will for the acceptance of Serbia's conciliatory propositions made in the autumn of 1914, viz. the offer proposing the cession of Macedonia pretty well as far as the boundaries of the peace of 1912, on condition that Bulgaria should make common cause with the Allies of the Entente and fight against the Turks. These conditions were rejected by the Sofia Government under the pretext that the neutrality of the country would not even permit of their discussion. And in reply to this attempt at conciliation the subjects of Coburg made an attack upon the bridge across the Vardar near Strumica station, causing the deaths of a large number of Serbian soldiers at a most critical moment for their country. At that time Bulgaria was not yet at war with Serbia, and if the people had really not been in agreement with their Government, some one would surely have got up and protested against this manifest breach of neutrality to the detriment of the Serbs. But not one voice made itself heard in the Press throughout the kingdom ; on the contrary, all were agreed in congratulating themselves upon the stab in the back inflicted upon their old ally. The same manoeuvre, only with even considerably larger forces, was repeated in April 1915, without incurring any reprobation in the country, where both the Government and the Opposition Press continued to attack the Serbs and their Allies in the most violent way. The truth is that already at that moment the whole of Bulgaria, Government and people, had been bought with Berlin gold, and that officers of William of Hohenzollern were already at work in Sofia at the General Headquarters, which was only awaiting the propitious moment in order to fall upon those who were considered inferior in strength to the Teutons and their vassals. The Bulgarian Government, in agreement with the people, has not allowed itself to be swayed by any noble sentiments ; THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 55 it has merely pursued the " best-paying " policy. As a matter of fact, these people are incapable of letting them- selves be led by sentiment. Their German Allies know this well, and the great Berlin daily, the Vossische Zeitung, of January 7th of this year (1917) admits as much in the following terms : " Already for several years past, and on the eve of the present war the statesmen of Bulgaria have taken sundry opportunities to declare that the Bulgar with his ardent patriotism is subject to no sentiment and that he only pursues a practical policy. A great Bulgarian statesman, drawing a comparison between Petrogard and Vienna, expressed himself as follows : ' For us, she is the best aunt who gives us the biggest cake.' This fact has in no way altered since then. After the war we shall see even more clearly that the Bulgar is made only for practical politics and that he does not encumber himself with any kind of sentimentality." The Berlin paper is correct in its judgment. The Bulgar, whether of the Government or of the people, will always be on the look-out for the good aunt who will give him the biggest cake. But he will not be grateful to her ; he will throw her over the moment he has found another, who will provide him with a still bigger piece. It is the desire for gain by which this Slavicized Turanian is urged on. He is led by avarice, by the lust of possession. Thus the peasant of that country likes his term of military service, not because he is thereby contributing to the defence of his native land, but because while he is with his regiment he saves his civilian clothes. During the course of the present war I have repeatedly had occasion to note this greed of gain which kills all better sentiments in the ordinary Bulgar. For instance, the prisoners who were brought in to us during the course of the fighting around Monastir almost all expressed the desire to be sent to France. Questioned as to the reason for this desire, they naively replied that they hoped to make money in France. On Kajmakcalan, the Bulgars killed the Serbian wounded 56 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA to the cry of : " Money, Serbs ! " For the sake of rifling the few coppers of those unfortunate Serbs, whom their treason had deprived of their country, these barbarians infringed the most sacred laws of Humanity ! No, the mass of the Bulgarian people is no better than its Government. Of course, there is no rule without exception. There must be some Bulgars with lofty feelings, who are probably at this very moment bitterly regretting the huge mistake nay, more the unpardonable crime of their nation. But they have not raised their voices or, if they have done so, they have not done it with sufficient vigour to prevent the crime from being con- summated. It behoves the Allies in their perspicacity to discriminate after the war between the few lambs and the pack of ravening wolves. In the meantime the Bulgarian people, being equally guilty with its Government, ought to receive exemplary chastisement. People should drop this false theory of a distinction between the Bulgarian Government and people, and remember that if both are not remorse- lessly punished there is no longer any justice in the world. Let them also remember that this "people without senti- mentality " will merely repay with ingratitude any one who would generously pardon its faults. A BULGARIAN DOCUMENT SALONICA, July 2, 1917. The following document, which I have copied verbatim, has fallen into the hands of the Allies. GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, 17 R.I. DOROSTOLSKI, NO. 10585. i/vi/igi? (Kalatepe). TO O.C. OF THE I5TH Co. POSITIONS. In accordance with the rescript of the Commander of the ist Brigade, gth Division, No. 6275 of 1917, and in THE KINGDOM OF SERVIA 57 conformity with the rescript No. 11744 f I 9 I 7 from the Headquarters of the gth Division, I forward to you, Lieutenant, the copy of the summary of a letter from the Ministry for War, No. 463 of 1917, for your personal guidance and to be communicated to all the men in the Company under your command. Copy enclosed. The Commander of the Regiment, LIEUTENANT-COLONEL (signed) FILIPOV. Aide-de-camp SECOND- LIEUT, (illegible). Very Urgent. CHANCELLERY OF THE MINISTRY FOR WAR, SOFIA. May 20, 1917. To G.H.Q., FIELD CHANCELLERY, CUSTENDIL. (In reply to No. 28012 of May 13, 1917.) By order of His Excellency the Minister for War, we beg to inform G.H.Q. that the rumours which have reached the men in the ranks, to the effect that the prisoners and workmen of the Morava region have molested the peaceful population while at work in the fields, are incorrect. This false news has been circulated in the kingdom, but an inquiry has revealed the fact that matters have been greatly exaggerated. Up to the present we understand that there have been only a few regrettable incidents, viz. (i) near Karlovo ; (2) in the district of Orhanja, near Novaceni ; (3) between Orhanja and Mezdra, in the neighbourhood of Bekarel and Pobiti Kamik (all these localities are in Bulgaria). The Ministry for War and the Ministry of the Interior have heard of no cases besides these ; all the rest is inven- tion. As a matter of fact, before the arrival of the labour recruits from the Morava region, escapes on the part of Serbian prisoners were very rare and unpremeditated. They only occurred where supervision was insufficient 58 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA e.g. at the Commission for Requisitions, at the depots of the Intendance of the Reserve, and from private houses. But since the arrival of the men from the Morava region, escapes have become more frequent. Previously, the Ministry for War had given orders to the Military Inspec- tion authorities in the Morava region to pursue and arrest all deserters. They were then sent to Pasmakli and Siroka Luka, where they were given corporal punishment and then employed in forced labour upon the roads ; now the order has been telegraphed to notify all Serbian prisoners, interned civilians, and recruits from the Morava region, that all who would escape will be shot, their homes burnt, their property confiscated, and their families sent to the Krdjali region ; the comrades of would-be fugitives will likewise be punished if they have failed to give timely information of the projected evasion. The Ministry for War, moreover, has the intention of transferring all Serbian prisoners and others from the sixth and first Divisional regions to the third and fourth, re- placing them as far as possible by Russians and Roumanians. Likewise the order has been given for all Serbs who have been placed with private persons to be sent back to the depots, and that, during the harvest and the mowing, all Serbs are to be employed at the docks, on the roads and on light railways. Moreover, orders have been given for the Bulgarian civil population living along the former Serbo-Bulgarian frontier to be armed, likewise the civil population of the interior, wherever there are prisoners. Similar measures will be taken along the routes where escapes are likely to occur. In view of the foregoing the Ministry for War begs the G.H.Q. to inform the men at the front that the disquieting news touching this matter is without foundation. (Signed) : The Chief of the Chancellery of the Ministry for War : MAJOR-GENERAL BRADISTILOV. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 59 The Chief of the Inspection Dept. of the Ministry for War : LIEUTENANT-COLONEL DIMITRIEV. The Chief Operative Dept. of the Field Chancellery, G.H.Q. : LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ANGELOV. The Liaison Officer for the gth Division : LIEUTENANT POPOV. The Aide-de-Camp of the 1st Brigade of the 9th Division : LIEUTENANT MANDJUKOV." This Bulgarian official document, which cannot be denied by the gentlemen of Sofia, as they are in the habit of doing with all publications which they find inconvenient, is interesting since it proves : 1. That the Serbian prisoners and interned civilians in Bulgaria are disposed to mutiny ; 2. That the Bulgarian soldiers at the front are disquieted by this state of affairs ; 3. That " regrettable incidents " have occurred near Karlovo, in the district of Orhanja, near Novaceni, between Orhanja and Mezdra, in the neighbourhood of Bekarel and Pobiti Kamih ; 4. That these " regrettable incidents " have occurred chiefly after the arrival of the labour recruits from the Morava region ; 5. That Serbs of the Morava region have been recruited by force ; 6. That escapes are of frequent occurrence among these recruits ; 7. That deserters are sent to Pasmakli and Siroka Luka, where the penalties imposed are forced labour and corporal punishment ; 60 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 8. That the relations of these poor wretches are punished by measures so inhuman that they betray the intention of exterminating the Serbian people ; 9. That compulsory denunciation is resorted to 10. That the Bulgars are doing everything to make life as trying as possible for the Serbian prisoners and interned ci vilians ; 11. That they are arming their civil population, so that it may assist in the work of extermination. There is no need for us to add further comment. This document from the Bulgarian Ministry for War constitutes in itself a sufficiently eloquent indictment of those who framed it. A DOCUMENT SALONICA, August 8, 1917. About a month ago, Private Petar Ilic was on out- post duty. Towards morning, a Bulgarian soldier emerged from the trenches and signed to him to approach. Ilic distrusted the man, but the Bulgar shouted that he had a letter to deliver, a letter which he had sworn to a Serbian soldier to transmit to its destination. The Serbian, still distrustful, waited till the other had thrown down his missive and returned to his trench before picking up the letter. In this way we have obtained possession of an authentic document embodying a terrible indictment of the Bulgars. Before making it public leaving certain names and place-names blank for reasons which will be readily understood I must say that I instituted an inquiry on the spot in order to ascertain whether the letter had really reached us through the Bulgarian soldier. I am therefore in a position to assert that what you are about to read was indeed delivered by a soldier of the Coburg to Peter Ilic, Serbian private. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 61 MOUNTAIN, May 10, 1917. MY DEAR CEDO, Here I am in this mountain which is at present my dismal habitation. On April 28th I succeeded in escaping from the Bulgarian prison where I was confined after having been taken and made prisoner in the revolt near Kurvingrad where we there were 25,000 of us insurgents first had an encounter with a German Division, which we defeated and put to flight. After this we were attacked by two Bulgarian divisions provided with many guns and machine guns. It was then, in a sanguinary battle, that I was taken prisoner with several of my comrades, put at once in prison and condemned to be hanged. But during the night, X attacked Prokuplje, killed the guards and set us free, with the result that we are once more in the mountains. The Bulgars called up all the men from 17 to 65 years of age and enrolled them in their army. They send them at once to the western front. They sent all the children from 12 to 16 years of age to Constantinople. These barbarous actions of the cruel Mongols provoked the revolt. The mothers, hearing the despairing cries of their children, attacked the Bulgarian soldiers with stones. The revolt began at once, and the Bulgars erected gallows at all the cross-roads and hanged many women and children, which exasperated the people. Everybody flew to attack the Bulgarian depdts and in this way the women and children procured arms, first in Prokuplje, then in Leskovac, Lebane, Vranja, Vlasotince, Zajecar, Kniazevac, Pozarevac, and in every village occupied by the Bulgars. We were first attacked by a German division, which was defeated and lost 800 men. There was fighting around Lebane, Leskovac and Prokuplje, and we took the road to Nish, where we seized the depots, but where we also encountered two Bulgarian divisions. There was sanguinary fighting, in which we at first had the upper hand, but the Bulgars drove our women and children before them, so that we 62 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA would have had to fire upon them. We then retired to the mountains as far as Kurvingrad, where there was murderous fighting, during the course of which Magyar reinforcements arrived, which attacked us in the rear. It was then that I was made prisoner with some ten of my comrades, because I was exhausted. We were con- demned to be hanged, but while they were setting up the gallows, a battalion of the insurgents made a raid on Pro- kuplje, killed the guards and set us free. Perhaps I shall be dead by the time you read this letter, but the revolt will not come to an end. because the Bulgars are trying systematically to destroy our race. On April 25th they entrained 8,000 children, from 12 to 15 years old, for Constantinople. Many of these children leaped from the train and perished. They gave the order for the whole population to come in to be vaccinated against smallpox ; but instead of vaccinating, they inoculated the people with diseases. When this was made known by a Czech doctor, people refused to attend any more and everybody took to the hills with their children. Then the Bulgars began to hang people on the bridge at Leskovac, at Vlasotince, at Lebane, and in Nish, and compelled every- body to come and witness these barbarities. They hanged Jordan the notary by the tongue actually on Easter Sunday and the wretched man suffered atrociously before he died. It was horrible when they hanged twelve Serbian soldiers who had been taken prisoner on the Macedonian front. Their sentence was read out to them : " You have betrayed your brothers' flag ; you cannot be loyal Bulgarian citizens." Tell our soldiers to kill themselves if they are obliged to surrender. That is better than to be tortured by these Tcherkesses ; * because they have tortured and hanged all whom they captured down there. This, my dear Cedo, is a faint picture of what is going on in Serbia. The revolt cannot be put down by any power in the world and it is constantly spreading. There are even some Bulgarian insurgents among us from the * " Circassians," in the sense of " savages." TEffi KINGDOM OF SERBIA 68 districts of Vidin and Sredac, who have deserted from the army. This letter will be transmitted to you by a Bulgar whom we made prisoner and released, because he swore to convey it to the Salonica front. He was wounded and we dressed his wounds. He recovered, and his children are in X - And now, goodbye, my dear Cedo. I am sure we shall never meet again ; let this letter remind you of the fair life we used to lead and which is now over. . . . Days of sorrow, cruel fate, our poor country ! My hand trembles, and my heart grows cold as I hear the ceaseless wailing of the children who have been taken for safety to the hills. Good-bye, Cedo, good-bye, my brother. Your The papers announce that the Bulgarian prelate Stephane has been sent to us on a mission to obtain the support of the Swiss Government for the Bulgarian claims. Let our Federal Council reply by submitting to him this letter, which is the most poignant indictment of his countrymen. THE BULGARS IN INVADED SERBIA ON THE SERBIAN FRONT. October 15, 1917. The Bulgars have averred before the whole world that the Timok region as well as that of the Morava in invaded Serbia are, ethnographically speaking, Bulgarian. It is idle to dwell further upon the madness of this allegation. Still, they have exploited it in order to explain their crime against humanity before the world their crime of forcibly recruiting for their own army the unfortunate Serbs of those regions and of sending these Serbs presently to fight their own brothers on the Salonica front. We have now learnt from the mouths of the Bulgars 64 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA themselves how this robber people treats its alleged " brothers in race " in the invaded country. I have, in fact, just interrogated two Bulgarian soldiers taken prisoners on our front, who had spent over a year in the region of Negotin and Zajecar. These men are not ignorant peasants, but men who in civil life were persons of position. This is what they have to say : " The Governor of invaded Serbia was General Protogerov, a tyrannical and cruel man. To all military commanders he gave the order to shoot, without further form of trial, all persons whom they should consider suspect, and to deport all relations of the executed persons to Asia Minor. Moreover, he called upon all subordinates to give the names of such persons as were not content with this regime, so that they, too, might be deported at once. This measure gave him a chance of depopulating the country, because it goes without saying that the Serbs could not be content with the reign of terror imposed by their invaders." Thus the General placed the entire population at the mercy of the soldiers and the latter profited by this to kill very many people and to loot wherever they could. They massacred men, women, and children indiscriminately. In Rudna Glava, in the district of Donje Milanovac, one of my witnesses saw soldiers kill some fifteen women and children gathered round a house. He asked them the reason for this butchery, and the men replied that they had orders to kill everybody they met on their way. This incident occurred in May 1917, and the soldier assassins belonged to the 9th Infantry Regiment. They were commanded by Captain Peter Musakov and Second- Lieutenant Hristo Vasiliev. After the massacre the village was set on fire. It was in Boljevac and in Bor, in March 1917, that the greatest number of persons was killed. The officer who ordered these atrocities was Lieutenant Kojcev, of the gth Infamtry Regiment. In order to stimulate the zeal of his THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 65 men, this officer promised to distribute among them 20,000 leva out of the loot obtained from the villages. But instead of keeping his promise, he only gave them quite small sums. The disappointed soldiers then repeated everywhere what had happened, and incidentally revealed the fact that Kojcev had sent his people in Plevna the sum of 150,000 leva which he had amassed in his looting expeditions. Moreover, the military authorities in general employed all possible means to make money and to get rich personally. They resorted to blackmail, extortion, pillage arid massacre. Requisitions were never paid for. Sometimes, indeed, the mayor of the village was given " raspiske," i.e. requisition tickets, which were never honoured. In order to provide themselves with more frequent opportunities for enriching themselves by plunder, the soldiers would put on civilian clothes and go out at night to steal and kill in the villages. Then they would accuse imaginary bands of Serbian comitadjis of having committed these crimes. The military authorities made these accusa- tions a pretext for organizing massacres on the strength of alleged revolts. Thus in the districts of Kucevo and Donje Milanovac, the Bulgarian soldiers simulated an invasion of Serbian cornitadjis and the authorities at once carried out massacres to " stifle the revolt . ' ' The murderers belonged to the gth, nth and I2th Infantry Regiments, the last-named being commanded by Colonel Rostov. Their method of procedure was usually as follows. The soldiers collected the inhabitants of the " insurgent village," telling them to bring their money along with them, because they were to be deported to Bulgaria. When all were ready to start, the soldiers killed them and robbed the dead bodies of all the valuables upon them. Often they would then set the village on fire. It should also be noted that the Bulgarian State confiscates for its own benefit all the property of persons deported or killed by the soldiers. Thus State and Army are going hand in hand in the system- atic pillage of the invaded country, besides the intentional 5 06 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA extermination of the inhabitants. To-day's deposition by my Bulgarian witnesses is a fresh confirmation of this fact, which I have already reported long ago. In July, General Protogerov was replaced by Colonel Tasov. The Bulgars recruited all men from 18 to 32 years of age for their army. Thus in the district of Kladovo, where one of my witnesses spent some time, 170 men were incorporated in the army of Ferdinand the Felon. One battalion of Serbs was sent to Djumuljena ; others were sent to Bulgaria. Here is authentic information which squares badly with what the Government of Sofia would like the world to believe. On the other hand it agrees perfectly with what we have heard here concerning the manner in which the Bulgars behave towards the unfortunate population they hold temporarily beneath their yoke. This conduct of the " Prussians of the Balkans," as the Bulgars like to style themselves, is a disgrace to humanity and ought to provoke the condemnation of the whole world. But there ! this long war has made the neutrals forget how to be roused. Coal, flour, sugar, etc., matter more to them than the unspeakable sufferings of a whole people. And yet I am certain that a vigorous act of protest on the part of the neutrals would compel these barbarians to pay a little more attention to the rules of modern civilization, since one cannot speak of even the most elementary rules of humanity to these soulless creatures. History will pass judgment upon this lack of courage. BEHAVIOUR OF THE BULGARS IN INVADED SERBIA SALONICA, August 25, 1917. Every day brings fresh authentic evidence regarding the behaviour of Serbia's invaders. To-day I will give the THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 67 deposition of a Greek medical man in Serbian service, a Dr. Atanasiades, district physician near Gracanica. It is the dispassionate and impersonal deposition of a man of science who does not go in for dramatic effects, but quietly relates liis experiences. "I am a Greek subject but, by contract, a Serbian doctor in the district of Gracanica, my residence being in Pristina. When the Serbian army withdrew from Pristina I remained there, counting upon it that the enemy would not ill-use me, Greece not being at that time in a state of war with the Central Empires. On the loth or nth of November, 1915, towards two o'clock in the afternoon, the Bulgarian cavalry entered Pristina, followed by the Austrian and German infantry. On the first day they abstained from violence, but on the second, the shops being shut, the soldiers gave themselves up to looting, breaking open the shops and carrying off everything they could lay hands on, in so thorough a fashion that not so much as a pin was left. The Germans bore the greatest share in this pillage. They not only looted the shops, but also private houses, especially any that contained provisions. They took away all the wood from the houses for fuel. On the first day the Germans demanded a small quantity of pro- visions from the town. They were given all they asked, except 500 kg. of cocoa, 500 kg. of coffee, and 1,000 kg. of sugar. They at once raised their demands, and, these being again satisfied, they demanded more than 100,000 kg. of maize belonging to the country and began to requisition by force. In exchange they only gave requisition tickets, sometimes proper ones ; but very often these tickets bore the legend, written in German : ' When King Peter comes back he will pay you.' They gave these tickets to people who did not know one word of German. It was always the Germans who behaved in this way. The members of the Municipal Council were at once interned. The Officer Commanding, Hartmann, threatened to have them killed if the desired provisions were not forthcoming. The Germans took aU the beds from the hospital, and even 68 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA turned out severely wounded soldiers. These beds were sent to Austria. As for myself, they took my horse and five or six cartloads of hay, for which they gave me a requisition ticket. The town of Pristina was at once divided into a Bulgarian and an Austro-German quarter, the river which runs through the town forming the boundary. Then began the internment of the population, especially the priests, not one of whom was left. The Turks who, before the arrival of the Bulgaro-Germans, had been delighted to see them approaching the town, because they were the allies of Turkey, now regretted the Serbs, because they could never have believed that Germans and Bulgars would have behaved like this. X , a prominent Turk, told me that he regretted the Serbian authorities, because with them it had never happened that they were called upon to suffer such treatment as that inflicted upon them by the Germans and Bulgars. What exasperated the Turks was that both officers and men abused their women. In some cases they locked themselves up with the women in one room and left the husbands in the adjoining room. Then they compelled the women to ' serve ' them while the husbands were able to overhear everything. Because of this the Turks killed several German officers and non-commissioned officers." Dr. Atanasiades left Pristina, went to Krusevac and Svilajnac and thence to Belgrade. " I spent thirteen days in Belgrade and obtained permission to practise. There, too, I saw large numbers of troops. Most of the houses had been looted and countless trains filled with a miscellaneous assortment of goods had been sent to Austria- Hungary and Germany. ' ' The doctor returned to Svilaj nac, whence the temporary Officer Commanding, Lieutenant Pan- tev, had him taken to Nish. In this town Dr. Atanasiades met with Bulgarian colleagues. "Dr. Yeridas, regimental surgeon, told me that Lieutenant Pantev caused twenty- four Serbian prisoners of war to be taken to an orchard and that he killed them himself with the butt-end of a rifle." " I was taken to Nish, where I was put in prison THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 69 pending the arrival of orders from the Government. Below my window stood a sentry, with whom I had some talk. This man was from Macedonia, and he told me he was a Serb and that many people had been killed who were to have been interned in Bulgaria. He knew for certain that the Bulgars had killed two priests and two schoolmasters. I heard that the Germans had killed thirty-four persons in Svilajnac and that in Krusevac they caused a great number of peasants and women to be hanged under the pretext that they had attacked German soldiers. The Bulgars had all Serbian books destroyed. They deported the priests and schoolmasters, and established Bulgarian schools with compulsory classes in Bulgarian. Simul- taneously, wholesale deportations have been begun with a view to exterminating what is left of the population." The doctor was then sent to Veliko Trnovo in Bulgaria as hospital surgeon. The Bulgars first treated him as a prisoner ; afterwards they paid him a small salary. " There was a prisoners' camp near Trnovo where there were between fifty and sixty Serbian officers. There were also some men, but I don't know how many. There were also some Roumanian officers. The officers were very badly fed ; they were given nothing but haricot beans, without meat and without fat, and maize bread. They live in huts 1*50 metres high, which are very damp and always full of water the moment it rains or snows. That was why they were all of them ill. They were only given 75 leva a month, no matter what their rank. Their uniforms were very shabby. They were also compelled to pay the hospital, and in this way their pay was docked. One day a second-lieutenant who was in my hospital asked leave to go to the dentist to have a tooth stopped. When he arrived at the dentist's, the latter flew into a rage because he was wearing a badge in his cap. The officer refused to take it out, and the dentist first dealt him a blow and then gave orders to the soldiers to take him, after dark, along a road outside the town. When the soldiers arrived that night at the appointed place, the dentist, who had 70 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA concealed himself there together with a Bulgarian officer, suddenly rose behind them, and before anybody could stop him, thrust his knife into the back of the second- lieutenant, and fled. The blow penetrated as far as the lungs. The soldiers, amazed at this dastardly outrage, conveyed the wounded man to the hospital and informed the Officer Commanding, but the latter took no steps against the dentist." Atanasiades spent fifteen months in Bulgaria, where he observed the general discontent of the people and the high price of food-stuffs. Finally it was proposed to release him and he was sent back to Nish, where he was imprisoned afresh. " I was confined in the same cell with Mr. X , a tradesman of Nish, and another Serb, who appeared to be a well-to-do peasant. They told me that the Bulgars were giving themselves up to systematic pillage, and that they were all the time threatening the inhabitants with deportation, and that for the sole purpose of extorting money from them. The people are shut up in prison and not allowed to go until they have paid the ransom demanded. X had been held to ransom five or six times in this way, and this last time he had been in prison for twenty-three days by the time I left Nish. In this way the Bulgars squeezed 600,000 francs alone out of one village near Nish. This fact was confirmed to me by a woman who was likewise in prison and whose husband was incarcerated elsewhere." This is how the Bulgars behave, those same Bulgars who send their pro- pagandists to us to win us over to their evil cause ! THE BULGARS IN OCCUPIED SERBIA SALONICA, March 17, 1917. Article 23 of the Hague Convention says : " It is likewise forbidden to a belligerent to force the nationals of the THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 71 opposing party to take part in operations of war directed against their own country." The Bulgars, in imitation of their Central Allies, are naturally eager to disregard this rule of war, which is nevertheless one of the most natural for any man possessed even of a modicum of conscience. We have long known that the Government of Ferdinand of Coburg had ordered recruiting in occupied Macedonia. The inhabitants of the villages delivered from the Bulgarian yoke have told us so. Fortunately for them, in most of these villages the Bulgars had not the necessary time to finish their recruiting operations. The Allied troops arrived too soon. We also know this fact from the admis- sions in the Press of the enemies of the Entente. Thus the Magyarorszag (Hungarian) of April 28, 1916, said, " The Ikdam (Constantinople paper) announces that the Bulgarian Minister in Constantinople, KoluSev, has gone to Sofia on a mission of supreme importance. His journey is in connection with the recruiting of Macedonian subjects, which has been recently ordered by the Bulgars. As there is a fairly large Turko-Mussulman population in Macedonia, the Turkish and Bulgarian Governments are endeavouring to arrive at an agreement upon the subject." The Sofia paper Mir of August 31, 1916, announces : " All young men of the 4th Dojran ' nabor ' (in Serbian Macedonia) must comply with the appeal of the 5th instant at Valandrovo. In the other counties of the occupied territories, the young men will assemble at the chief towns of their respective districts." The recruiting in Macedonia was already entirely illegal and directly opposed to the Convention of the Hague. But by using or rather abusing the staunch friendships they possess to this day even in Entente circles, the Bulgars were able to plead extenuating circumstances. Macedonia had only belonged to Serbia for two years and, according to the Sofia version, its population was almost entirely Bulgarian. These arguments are sure to carry weight with those people who, despite all the treachery of these 72 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA Slavicized Turanians, still keep a soft spot in their hearts for Coburg's subjects. But will these obdurate Bulgarophils also pardon their favoured ones in the Balkans for recruiting youths and able-bodied men in Old Serbia ? Yes, we know to-day for certain that the Bulgars have ordered recruiting in the Morava region. These barbarians are preparing to oppose fathers to sons, brothers to brothers, in armed conflict. Can any one imagine anything more diabolical than this crime ? To be sure, the Sofia Government will meet with very determined resistance on the part of the unfortunate Serbs who are at present groaning under its yoke. The youths and old men of the Morava will never consent to fire upon their brothers who will soon come to deliver them. But this refusal to obey, which has surely already been discounted in Sofia, will only furnish a further pretext for exterminating these proud democrats of peasants whom the greedy and soulless Bulgar detests. By a wretched travesty of justice all who desert or refuse to comply will be sentenced to death. Is this abomination to be consummated without let or hindrance ? Will the neutrals not realize that it is a crime to witness these infamies without raising one's voice in energetic protest ? A crime such as that which the Bulgars are on their way to perpetrate in Serbia deserves that its authors should be put outside the pale of humanity. It is the bounden duty of the neutrals to say so to the butchers of Serbia. AN ACCUSATORY DOCUMENT SALONICA, December 27, 1917. On several occasions both Allied and neutral Press have accused the Austro-Hungarian Government of employing II? -x 5 P d XI? 44 *tl*., in want rrj| S **-.;, ' Tar" mt i*i? rejpii AO *4a M5CTI AKU nojicK< J^^^M > r.K B O i FACSIMILE OF ORDER ISSUED BY THE BULGARIAN MINISTRY FOR WAR (see p. 56). EXECUTION I'OST-CAKDS (AFTOVAC). PROCESSION OK CONDEMNED MEN. EXECUTION POST-CARDS (AFTOVAC). THE READING OF THE SENTENCE THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 73 methods which are scarcely humanitarian in the process of introducing Austro-German Kultur in invaded Serbia. Personally, basing my assertions upon information from reliable sources and upon what the Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian papers themselves admit, I have raised my voice in protest against the methods of subjuga- tion employed by these temporary victors. The reply from Vienna and Budapest was invariably the same. " These accusations are infamies invented by dishonest enemies ; we treat the population of Serbia humanely, and for this it is grateful to us." Nay, more. We were given to understand through the official organ Beogradske Novine that if these attacks did not cease immediately, that of which the victors of the hour are accused would indeed be done, viz. the innocent population would be punished, thus rendering it responsible for the accusations levelled by Allied and neutral journalists against the Austro-Hungarian Government. To-day I have a document before my eyes which shows that we were not wrong in speaking of the unprecedented cruelty of the Austro-Hungarians. In the pocket of a German officer killed on the Monastir front, we found a most compromising document, which by itself alone con- stitutes the most formidable indictment that could be drawn up against the Government of His Most Catholic Majesty. It is a postcard representing the execution, by hanging, of six peasants of Krusevc in Old Serbia. Six gallows are set up in a row and from each of them is sus- pended an unfortunate Serbian peasant with his hands tied behind his back. On either side of these loathsome appliances, German, and especially Austro-Hungarian officers and men stand contemplating this spectacle, which is usually reserved for the silence and privacy of the prison yard. But what is most damning is the expression worn by the spectators. Their features betray their satisfaction and pleasure in this disgusting act. What can be said of the fancy of these butchers to have this perpetuated on a postcard ? Is it Sadism, or brute cruelty at a loss 74 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA how further to gratify its thirst for blood ? In any case we dare assert that such displays will for ever dishonour the men who were guilty of them. I don't know what these peasants of Krusevac had done, so as to be executed in that fashion last March. They were most probably patriots who would not submit to the yoke of the invader. But does not true culture not that spelt with a " K " teach respect in the presence of death, even that of one's worst enemy ? It has been said that Austria-Hungary would disappear by her own fault. This document found upon a German officer proves that this prediction is well-founded. THE AUSTRO-BULGARO-GERMANS IN INVADED SERBIA SALONICA, February 20, 1917. The Serbian Government has just published a Blue book addressed to all the signatories of the Hague Convention, with an account of all the violations of International Law committed by the German, Austrian, and Bulgarian authorities in occupied Serbian territory. Although opera- tions of war are still proceeding, the Serbian Government has been able to collect a certain number of documents revealing proceedings contrary to law and humanity, as committed by the invader against the population in occupied Serbia. In these no folio pages, Serbia appeals to the sense of justice and humanity of the civilized world and protests again to the Governments who were signa- tories of the Fourth Convention of the Hague, October 18, 1907, against the violations of Articles 4, 6, 7, 18, 22, 23, 27, 28, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, and 56 of the ruling of The Hague. As a matter of fact, this Blue book represents only a short summary of all the exactions committed by the Central Powers and their vassals in the hapless country THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 75 of the aged King Peter. Personal inquiry furnishes me every day with even more crushing documentary evidence than the extracts from enemy papers and the short deposi- tions of eye-witnesses, Serbian or neutral, collected in the official Government publication which already con- stitutes a formidable indictment of those who have not respected their signatures appended to an international humanitarian Convention. To-day I will only make two of these public. Article 23 of the Hague Convention says : " It is like- wise forbidden to a belligerent to compel nationals of the opposite party to take part in military operations directed against their own country." How have the Central Powers and their friends treated this paragraph ? Private Andjelko Cvetkovic, native of Drajcika, district of Prizrend, who was made prisoner near Giljane at the time of the Serbian retreat and then enrolled in the Bulgarian Army, provides the answer to my question : 1 " A native of Old Serbia, I served my term of military service in the 24th Kosovo Regiment. At the time of the Austrian declaration of war I was drafted into the ist Regiment and took part in the battles of the Cer, the Drina, and Belgrade, where I was wounded. When the Bulgars attacked us, my regiment was operating in the direction of Caribrod while keeping in touch with the Timok Division by the Pirot-Caribrod Railway. During the battle of Giljane I was made prisoner together with eight hundred of my comrades. We were escorted by Albanians to Prehovo and thence to Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka, Djucevo, and Custendil. My blood runs cold when I so much as think of the scenes of brutality and savagery to which we were constantly exposed in those dark days while our country's fate was hanging in the balance. Our Albanian escort subjected us to all manner of tortures. They knocked us down with blows from the * This deposition is already quoted in my article " The Bulgars and Serbian Prisoners of War," but it seems ad visable to repeat it hert. 76 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA butt-ends of their rifles, or they would fire into the crowd of us simply for the pleasure of seeing human blood flow. On a hillock just outside Gil jane, Bulgars and Germans executed eighty prisoners from Old Serbia. Besides this, all the villages were sacked and given over to the flames, while endless processions of old men, women, and children, persecuted, hunted, harried by Bulgaro-Albanian hordes, were flying in all directions, worn out with hunger and perished with cold and fatigue. " Last March the Bulgars segregated all the prisoners of New Serbia from those of Old Serbia, and drilled them. I was one of this lot. Our training lasted for two months. A fresh torment was added to our moral and physical sufferings, which never ceased to torture us during the whole time of our odious captivity : we were forbidden to speak Serbian. For every contravention of this humiliating prohibition we were given punishments of incredibly refined cruelty. ' You are not Serbs,' we were told. ' There are no Serbs left. They are wiped off the face of the earth ! ' " When our training was finished, we were sent on garri- son duty to various towns and, shortly afterwards, to the regiments at the front, where I simply awaited the first opportunity to surrender. While I was in the front line, I was haunted day and night by the horrible thought that misfortune might have it that I should kill my brother, whom I knew to be in the ranks of our Army ; or that I might be killed by him. God in his goodness has pre- served us from this ; I shall see him, because the only joy that remains to me at this moment is to find my brother and to range myself at once beneath our glorious banner to fight the vilest foe that ever breathed ! " This is the deposition of the Serbian private Cvetkovic", enrolled in the Bulgarian Army in contravention of every law. I might add others, because my dossier contains dozens of similar ones. But this is sufficiently typical for the readers of the Telegraaf to draw their own logical conclusions. The second document is a postcard representing the THE KINGDOM OF SP^RBIA 77 hanging of civilians at Jagodina, Old Serbia, by Austro- Hungarians very similar to the postcard about which I told the readers of the Telegraaf last December and upon which figured the scene of a hanging of civilians at Krusevac. This new card was found by the Serbian Private Dusan Vidojkovic on the body of Second- Lieutenant Bernhard Wewerintsch, in command of the 6th Co., 2nd Battn., of the nth Prussian Grenadiers, killed on November 8/21 on hill 1050 in the Cukas. Private Vidojkovic did not attach much importance to this postcard found on a dead enemy and stuck it into his notebook, where it got rather spoilt. But in spite of all creases, clippings, etc., the subject is still perfectly recognizable. And it is an abominable one ! Eight peasants and citizens are suspended from as many Austrian gallows carefully set up in a row. The faces of the victims are covered with handkerchiefs and their hands and feet are bound with stout cords. Two very youthful Austrian soldiers are standing " in a photographic pose " beside the foremost victim, a well-to-do citizen, judging by his clothes, while a third is still upon the ladder which has been used in stringing up the unfortunate man. The smile on the face of this man reveals all the savage glee afforded to him by this despicable act. Before the array of gallows, a group of officers and men assembled within a few yards of the instruments of exe- cution are contemplating the scene. Among them is a civilian in light clothes and straw hat, who seems to take a lively interest in the disgusting spectacle. All the same, it is most imprudent of the Austro-Hun- garians to perpetuate their crimes on postcards ! Do they not realize that these documents constitute a most for- midable indictment against them ? And what vindication for us who have for a long time past proclaimed our indignation against the barbarous attitude of these people in invaded Serbia and have for this been called liars, traducers, venal, and what not not only by the Austro- Bulgaro-German Press, but also by certain neutral pro- 78 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA German papers ! Photography does not lie and the butchers of King Peter's hapless country can no longer deny their abominable crimes. They will certainly try to explain that the executed persons were spies and that they had to get rid of them for their own safety's sake. But what are Serbian spies, if not brave men who have remained faithful to their exiled King ? We admit they are dangerous to the enemy ; but do self-respecting people perpetuate on picture postcards the execution of patriots to which they have been compelled by the exigencies of their own safety ? No, a thousand times no ! These Austrian postcards, while furnishing the enemies of the Central Powers with a terrible weapon, are at the same time a damning indictment of the mentality of those who pretended to the monopoly of Kultur spelt with a " K." THE MANIA FOR EXECUTION PICTURE POSTCARDS SALONICA, March 15, 1917. THE picture postcard industry has developed greatly within the last fivc-and-twenty years. Bad chromo- lithographic designs have given place to good repro- ductions in phototype or even photogravures or actual photographs on bromide cards. A picture postcard is so convenient ! It provides so excellent a record of happy incidents and so true a picture of pleasant places ! No more need to wear out the brain by the composition of a long letter ! You put your name on a pretty picture postcard, add the usual greeting, and the person for whom your missive is destined will be quite satisfied. The Austro-Hungarians seem to be as fervent adepts in picture postcards as anybody else, but their choice of subject is singular, not to say morbid. They make use of the picture postcard to immortalize the hangings they THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 79 carry out. We possess by this time a whole series of Austro-Hungarian postcards, carefully printed on bromide cards and representing executions. And lest anybody should believe that these cards are the performance of one individual with a mania for morbid scenes, let me hasten to add that they were found on three different persons and that the trade-marks prove that they are of different origins. The first which fell into our hands represents the hanging of six citizens of Krusevac in invaded Serbia, and was found upon a German officer who fell before Monastir. The second was picked up by the soldier Dusan Vidojkovic on the body of Second-Lieutenant Bernhard Wewerintsch, officer in command of the 6th Co., 2nd Battn. of the nth Prussian Grenadiers, killed on hill 1050 in the Cukas. This represents the hanging of eight Serbian citizens at Jagodina in invaded Serbia. Finally, the last trove, made on the person of an Austrian officer captured beside Lake Ochrida, is even more important, consisting as it does of ten postcards representing the hanging of peasants and a pope (orthodox priest) at Aftovac in Herzegovina, i.e. on territory which is politically Austrian, but inhabited by Serbs. On these cards, which date from March or April of 1916, you see this abominable form of execution depicted in all its phases. One shows the departure from the village. The condemned men exhibit indifference. The second shows us the execution platoon preceded by two officers. Then, through the medium of the photographic image, we assist at all the details of the execution itself. The dismal ceremony over, we see Colonel Marinic (the owner of the card was imprudent enough to fill in the name of this thug Colonel upon it) engaged in conversation with his officers in front of the gallows, from which the victims are still suspended. And the conversation must have been of a cheerful nature, because all of them are laughing with obvious satisfaction. Yet another card shows us the executed men laid out on a bank like game after a day's sport. Finally, one last 80 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA view, taken with true artistic feeling, shows the scene of the execution. The eight gibbets, from which the victims are still hanging, stand out sharply against the sky, where the sun is just setting behind the clouds. This mania for picture postcards is really very com- promising for Austria-Hungary. We have already for a long time, and on the strength of absolutely reliable information in our possession, denounced the inhuman treatment inflicted by the Dual Monarchy upon the natives of Serbia and of the Serb provinces still at this moment under its domination. The Press of the Central Powers and their vassals and a certain pro-German neutral Press as well have called us traducers, liars, and venal. To-day the Austro-Hungarians have themselves furnished us with documentary evidence proving in incon- testable fashion that we were right in pointing out to the world that they were butchering in Serbia and exterminat- ing the Serb race in all the lands still in the grip of the Austro-Hungarians. The latter will object that these postcards represent executions of persons dangerous to the State. " These people who are being hanged are spies, men condemned for high treason, etc." That is what the advocates of brute force will sav, to which we shall reply : "In other words, these are Serbs who have tried to work for the country they consider theirs. That these people are dangerous to you we will not deny for one moment. We live in time of war and you have the right to rid your- selves of them. But you must admit that these men whom you allege to be spies an allegation which we, remembering certain trials such as, e.g., the Friedjung Case, can only accept with reservation have not committed any dis- honouring crime, that on the contrary they have acted as patriots towards their own country. Why, then, perpetuate their execution by these ribald postcards ? Why inflict upon them this unmerited indignity ? Did they not teach you in your schools to respect death, even in the worst of criminals ? THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 81 Moreover, on all these cards there is never a single gibbet ; but there are six, seven, and eight all in a row in three different localities. But to require so many gallows in one place means that they must be employed very often, or the authorities would be content with just one of these machines for execution, which in all other countries, according to custom, are carefully kept out of sight in discreet places. The number of gallows depicted on these postcards clearly reveal what kind of regime prevails in Serbia and in Herzegovina, which is still to this day annexed to the sceptre of the Habsburgs. These dismal appliances, which arise everywhere where there are Serbs, have become the emblem of Austro-Hungarian domination, and these postcards which reproduce them constitute a damning indictment of this domination. FRESH PROOFS OF INFRACTIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ON THE PART OF SERBIA'S ENEMIES SALONICA, September 12, 1917. I have both written and telegraphed to you about the line of action one altogether illegal and contrary to our neutrality pursued by the Austro-Hungarian Consulate in Geneva. But it is not only in Geneva that the enemies of the Serbs commit illegalities. In invaded Serbia and at home in their own country these people daily pile up infractions of the laws of war and International Law, and many of these infractions are the most abominable crimes against humanity. They probably think that the world will not know, but they are mistaken ; the world will get to know of them through the neutral Press which, acting with more courage than the neutral Governments have done, has placed itself at the service of the defence of justice and liberty. Here are the latest crimes of the 6 82 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA Austro-Hungarians and Bulgars which have come to our knowledge here, and of which it is important that the world should know of them. Milid-Bodid is a native of the village of Goraci<5, in the district of Dragacevo, well within Old Serbia. In civil life he was a waiter ; in the army, since May i, 1910, he was first a private in the gth Regiment ; then, during the wars of 1912-1913, private in the 2nd Co. of the ist Battn. of the loth Regiment, First Call-up, and finally, since the outbreak of the European war, he acted as waiter at the officers' mess of the Serbian G.H.Q. That is where I used to see him every day, first in Valjevo and then in Kragujevac. During the retreat of 1915 Bodic fell ill at Kragujevac and was captured there by the Bulgars. A few days ago he turned up here as a Bulgarian deserter. The subjects of Ferdinand of Coburg had enrolled this Serbian soldier of pure Serb race in their army to fight against his brothers ! Mr. Stevan Nesid is an employe in the Serbian postal service, at present in Salonica. He has a son Milan, born on August 29, 1906, in Belgrade. Nesic's last post in Serbia was at the post office in Zajecar. His son remained behind in the town, which was occupied by the Bulgars. The boy attended the third class of the school opened by the Bulgars in Zajecar, and at the end of the school year he was given a school report, dated June 17, 1917, and signed by the headmaster, P. V. Iliev, and the form mistress, V. Todorova. In this report this Serbian boy has become a " Bulgarian subject," and his name, Milan Nesic, appears transformed into Milan Nesev \ Examination of three Serbian soldiers who fell into the hands of the Austro-Hungarians and succeeded in escaping : Krsta Simic, electrician, born September 8, 1890, in Belgrade, private in the Engineers, relates : "In Paracin and its vicinity the Germans collected a thousand persons and took us all to Dubarica, and then, by boat, to Kovin. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 88 The soldiers who escorted us compelled us to walk very quickly. On the way they killed a sick man who could not keep pace. Between Paracin and Kovin we were only given one ration of soup." He was taken to Hein- richsgrun. " We were treated as badly as possible. Such as were sick and unable to work were deprived of food. Those who were exhausted were beaten without mercy, so that many died of it." Simic was sent to Bozen, where he was set to work in a smithy, and afterwards on the Sulden positions. " On the positions we were made to transport barbed wire, guns, and other war material and munitions. We worked within the Italian zone of fire. Very many of our prisoners were killed by Italian shells," Miloje 2ivanovic", of Bo2idarevci, county of Belgrade, agriculturist, born in 1889, private in the 7th Regiment, of the First Call-up, was taken prisoner at Strubica and sent to the Tyrol front in autumn, 1915. " There I was employed, together with other prisoners, on the transport of munitions and timber framework for hutments. I was for eleven months in the localities of Tovdimlai, Cevedale, and Cerni Nerina. From there I was moved to Bozen, and then to the Sulden position. At the last-named place I was again employed upon the transport of infantry and artillery munitions, upon electric installations, and the fitting up of hutments." Vitez Bradilovid, tax-collector at Ganica, second-lieuten- ant in the 2nd Co., 4th Battn., of the nth Regiment, First Call-up, made prisoner on the Yuhor Pass, relates : " From there we were taken to Jagodina and thence to Saraorce. During the four days it took us to get there, we were given nothing to eat, and as many of us were exhausted and had to fall out, the guards killed them before our eyes with their knives or lances. " In the villages the peasant women wanted to give us bread, but the guards prevented them and struck them. " On the way, near Mala Krsna, a lad whom we happened to meet was compelled by our guards to follow us. As he did not want to come and offered to escape, a soldier 84 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA gave chase and first wounded him with his lance, then dismounted and cut his throat with a knife. I was told by the peasants that the enemy was destroying all agri- cultural implements and machines and even the mills. He tried everywhere to do as much damage as possible and commandeered all the food-stuffs and cattle. Besides this, all men and boys whom we fell in with were immedi- ately added to our party as prisoners. " In Heinrichsgrun we were treated very brutally, and we never received the food that was sent us from home. " I was sent with five hundred others to Bozen, where we were put on to the most trying kinds of work. Many of our soldiers were compelled to dig trenches, to remove guns, and transport munitions from one position to another. All this was done within the zone of fire, and many of our soldiers were killed. A large number of these unfortunate men died of the ill-treatment inflicted upon them. Every- body treated us with the utmost brutality. We were always among Magyar troops." The employment of prisoners of war in the zone of fire or on military works is strictly forbidden by the Hague Convention. But the Austro-Hungarians and their allies have cast to the winds the " scraps of paper " they have signed, even while they mutually exchange dithyrambic telegrams on " unalterable fidelity to treaties." THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIANS AND THE SERBIAN REFUGEES IN SWITZERLAND SALONICA, August 2, 1917. The Central Powers recognize neither International Law nor conventions between civilized States, etc. . . . They have shown that for a long time. But they might at least respect the neutral countries where their consulates are established and not behave there as if they were at home THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 85 or in some unfortunate invaded country. The Austro- Hungarians, however, think they can go on in Switzerland as they do in hapless Serbia. The following document is proof of it. POSTKARTE. AN HERRN FRAU X . RUE X, IN GENEVE. K. UNO K. OESTERREICHISCH-UNGARISCHES KONSULAT. C.S. E.S.K. OSTRAK-MAGYAR KONSULATUS. No. . . . Genf, 6 Juli, 1917. Sie werden eingeladen sich wegen einer Sie betreffenden Dienstsache Montag den 9 Juli 1917 zwichen 10 und 12 Uhr in der hieramtlichen Kanzlei einzufmden. K. UND K. OESTERR.-UNGAR. KONSULAT. Diese Vorladung ist mitzubringen. POSTCARD. MR. AND MRS. X . RUE X, IN GENEVA. I. AND R. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN CONSULATE. No. . . . Geneva, July 6, 1917. You are hereby summoned to call at this office on Monday, July gth, in a matter of official duty concerning yourselves. I. AND R. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN CONSULATE. Bring this summons with you. [Trans.] This document proves that the I. and R. Austro- Hungarian Consulate in Geneva wants to consider the Serbian refugees in our country as Austrian subjects and 86 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA refuses to recognize the axiom that the population of an invaded country retains the status it had before the invasion until some regular peace treaty shall decide its allegiance. The I. and R. Consulate has no business to give orders in connection with any " Dienstsache " (matter of official duty) to Serbs living in our country, and to this day citizens of their own country which will be gloriously liberated ere long. But will our Swiss authorities tolerate that such humilia- tions should be inflicted upon these unhappy people who have sought refuge with us ? Because this card is an insult to a Serb. Will they not make these gentlemen of the I. and R. Consulate understand that Switzerland is not Austria-Hungary ? Will they continue to tolerate that the Austro-Hungarian Consulate as I myself have had occasion to note makes use of the correspondence between these refugees and their relations who have remained in Serbia (which correspondence ought to be consigned to the post and delivered by it), to bring the Serbs within their sphere and to try in this way to obtain information about the Serbian colony, army, and Government ? AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE SERBS SALONICA, September 7, 1917. I have already repeatedly told you how the Austro- Hungarians are behaving to the Serbs, whose country they and their worthy allies, the Bulgars for the time being hold in their grip. Like the Bulgars and the Germans, they have squeezed the country which was already ex- hausted by three consecutive wars ; they have plundered and robbed private individuals of every valuable they possessed ; they have despoiled ancient monasteries of their wealth, the art treasures and pride of a valorous people ; their deportations of women, children, and o!4 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 87 men are beyond number, and we know what these victims are made to suffer. Throughout the unhappy country they have set up gallows upon which Serbian patriots pay with their lives for their unflinching loyalty to their king and their nation. In the meantime they had not yet dared, like the Bulgarian felons, to enrol the citizens of the country they had occupied in their own army. Were the ruling powers of Austria-Hungary persuaded to this consideration by some last scruples of humanity or by the fear of the scandal such a line of action would inevitably occasion in every country where International Law is still respected ? I don't know, but what I do know is that at the present moment, judging by an authentic document which has just reached us from Geneva, these scruples have dis- appeared. As a matter of fact, a young Serbian official, bora in Serbia, and a Serbian subject, living as a refugee in Geneva, has received the following notice from the Austro-Hungarian consulate in that city : " You are summoned to present yourself on August nth of this year, between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon, at the office of the I. and R. Consulate (Rue Toepffer 19) for military inspection (Musterung), bringing with you your identification papers, and two unmounted photographs. Non-compliance with this summons entails the penalty provided by the law. P.p. the I. and R. Consul-General : LEITNER." This is clear and unmistakable ! Austria-Hungary has the intention of recruiting Serbs for her army and sending them to fight against their own brothers who arc coming to deliver them ! And she is even aggravating her crime by violating in cold blood the hospitality and neutrality of Switzerland. I am sure that the responsible authorities of Switzerland will do their duty as soon as this scandalous fact is made known. They will expel this Leitner with all his staff of the " K. & K. Generalkonsulat," 88 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA and they will call upon the Austro-Hungarian Government at once to put a stop to these practices, which are incom- patible with the sovereignty of the Confederation and the most elementary conceptions of International Law. From this quarter martyred Serbia and, I would add, offended humanity, will have every satisfaction. But does not the fact in itself prove something besides a flagrant violation of every conception of law ? Does it not prove afresh the absolute necessity for the disappearance of this mediaeval, police-ridden State which goes by the name of Austria-Hungary, and does it not show up most glaringly the imprudence and supineness of those among the neutrals and even among members of the Entente who would save the Dual Monarchy from the final downfall ? Is not a State which is capable of committing a crime like that attempted in Geneva a danger to all countries whose public life is still based on law and liberty ? The Pope may do his best to preserve the " Most Catholic " House of Habsburg by a peace suggested by him because there is no mistake about it, and the Pope's demarche was undertaken solely for the sake of saving Austria the crimes committed by the Governments of Vienna and Budapest must be expiated by the disruption of the territories in great part usurped and stolen by them. Ill-gotten gains never prosper, says the proverb. Austria- Hungary is already beginning to realize the truth of this. She will perish by her own fault, and her death will call forth no mourning, but be hailed with a deep sigh of relief. DEPORTATIONS IN INVADED SERBIA SALONICA, September 12, 1917. Following upon a whole series of publications by other writers, the Belgian Minister of State, Monsieur J. van den Heuvel, published in the Revue Generate de Droit AFTER THE EXECUTION (AKTOVAC). AFTER THE EXECUTION. THE VICTIMS (AFTOVAC). i. Uidfe AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN PROPAGANDA. PEACEFUL SERBIAN PEASANTS CAPTURED AND DEPORTED AS DANGEROUS BRIGANDS. (Photograph found at the Austro-Huiigarian Consulate-General in Salonica.) SERBIAN CIVILIANS HANGED AT KRUSEVAC. SERBIAN CIVILIANS HANGED AT JAGODINA. SERBIAN CIVILIANS HA NT. En AT JAGODINA. PART OK THE POST-CARD RETOUCHED. EXEC I" J'lON (AKTOVAC). M A KIM THE GALI.OW! TWO SERBIAN SOLDIERS (ONE DISABLED) AND THEIR MOTHER, SUSPECTED OK CONCEALING ARMS, AWAITING EXECUTION. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 89 International Public an eloquent and well-authenticated indictment of the deportations of the Belgians by the Germans. The work has since appeared in pamphlet form (/I. Pedone, editeur, Paris), and its perusal is especially incumbent upon neutrals. There they will see how William of Hohenzollern and his clique hold nothing sacred, and how the Germans continuously violate their plighted word. Indeed, apart from the international laws and conventions signed by them, two of the best qualified German military authorities, Marshal von der Goltz and Baron von Huene, had solemnly promised that " no young men, let alone men of riper age, would at any moment of the duration of the occupation be either im- prisoned or employed upon forced labour and that there was no question of transferring Belgian youths to Germany or of incorporating them by force in the Army." And yet, over and above all other violations of law, the Berlin Government has been guilty of the supreme infamy of deporting Belgians wholesale to Germany in order to compel them by force to work upon armaments against their own country. Does not a State which is capable of acting thus constitute a great danger not only to the countries with whom it is actually at war, but also to neutrals, who will certainly suffer the same fate at its hands to-morrow, should it emerge victorious from this struggle ? The whole world rose in indignation when it learnt of the Belgian deportations and those from the North of France. The Governments of sundry neutral countries, who had so far never dared to address remonstrances to powerful and barbarous Germany, protested at last, being compelled thereto by the voice of their peoples. Even the Pope, this Sovereign Pontiff, who permits himself to be guided more by diplomacy than by true Christianity, added his words to the words of Holland, Spain, Switzer- land, and the United States. Arrogant and contemptuous Germany was impressed by this universal reprobation of her methods. She has begun to send back these guiltless 90 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA galley-slaves to their families, most of them, alas ! in but a sorry plight ! But if the Belgian and French deportations have pro- voked a chorus of general indignation, a similar action has taken place at the other end of Europe, about which very little has been said, and against which, to our know- ledge, no neutral country has protested. The Austro- Hungarians, and especially the " Prussians of the Balkans," the Bulgars, have copied to the letter the example of their German masters. They have deported the population of hapless, invaded Serbia wholesale. And these Serbian deportations are even far more terrible than those from Belgium or even from Northern France. In Belgium the Germans have only torn the men from their homes to send them to forced labour. In France they have taken indiscriminately men, women, and young girls. It is the shortage of labour that has driven them to commit this unspeakable barbarity. In Serbia, men, women, and children down to those of most tender age were carried away by the invaders. Did they commit this crime because of labour shortage ? Perhaps, to a very small extent. But most of these poor creatures we know that some hundreds of thousands of Serbs have been deported have been torn from their country for quite other reasons. Indeed, can any one pretend to have labour carried out by children of I, 2, 3, and 4 years of age ? The true motives for the Serbian deportations are the following : i. The Austro-Hungarians, and especially the Bulgars, want to exterminate the Serbian nation. That is why they deprive the deported Serbs, so to say, of every care and compel them to the hardest labour. That is also why the Bulgars herd them together in the most unwhole- some regions of their country or send them to Asia Minor because, according to their own admission, the Turks " maltreat better." That is, finally, why these criminals have exported 8,000 young girls between 10 and 14 years THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 91 of age to be distributed among the harems of the Turkish beys and pashas. 2. The Bulgars, who are the keenest money -grabbers in the world, look to make money by these means. A law passed by their Parliament permits them to confiscate the entire property of deported persons. Each deported Serb, therefore, is a source of gain to these soulless people, and it is for this reason that the deportations are made as extensive as possible. So far the number of Serbs deported amounts to something very near 200,000 i.e. at least one-tenth of the population. Is it not true that these Serbian deportations exceed in horror even those of the Belgians and the French ? How is it that not one neutral country has raised an official protest on their behalf ? Why does not the Pope intervene ? Are these unfortunate wretches not Christians ? True, they are Orthodox, and the Pope only concerns himself with Catholics, the rest being heretics for him. He doesn't interfere ! Certainly Christ's view of Christianity differed from that of His representative in Rome. Do the neutral Powers not realize the responsibility that will weigh upon them upon them, who can do so with success, as has been proved in the matter of the Belgian and French deportations if they fail to employ every means to prevent these abominations from being consummated ? THE AUSTRO - HUNGARIANS CAUSE THEIR PRISONERS TO BE KILLED BY THEIR ENEMIES SALONICA, October 2, 1917. In a previous letter of mine I have already informed you of the fact that the Austro-Hungarians were employing their prisoners of war on the Italian front to carry out military works within the zone of fire. Krsta Simid says with regard to this : " Very many of our (Serbian) prisoners 92 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA were killed by Italian shells." Miloje 2ivanovic adds : " All this was done within the zone of fire, and many of our soldiers were killed there." I fancied that these escaped Serbs exaggerated somewhat and that, even if the officers of Charles I-IV employed their prisoners upon military works which is already a very serious offence against the Hague Convention yet the deaths from enemy fire were exceptional cases, due to accident. To-day I am in possession of fresh evidence absolutely corroborating that which I have already reported to you. These fresh depositions reveal an even graver circumstance. It appears that the Austro-Hungarians put their prisoners to work on military works with the object of getting them killed by the fire of their enemies. From this utterly inexcusable proceeding they expect to reap a double advantage. They economize the lives of their own men, while having sufficient labour, and they get rid of a large number of prisoners in this way, whom they no longer need to feed. This enters into their scheme of extermina- tion which they have adopted with regard to the un- fortunate Serbs. These are the new depositions I mentioned : Isajlo Milosavljevic, aged 23, in civil life a cafe-keeper in Bucje, private in the I2th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battn., 4th Co., was taken prisoner at the village of Drajimirovci, near Cuprija, in October 1915. After having been in the prisoners' camp at Heinrichsgrun he was sent first to Bozen and then to the village of Sulden near the Italo-Austro-Swiss frontier. " There the Austrians simply employed us as their own soldiers. They made us transport munitions to the positions, as well as timber, provisions, and other material. Each of us Serbs there were 100 of us had to carry a shell weighing 45 kg. We also worked at trench-digging. " Many of our Serbian soldiers were killed by the Italian artillery. Austrian officers said, talking among themselves, THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 98 that more than 500 Serbs and more than 1,000 Russians had perished in this way in this sector of the Austro- Hungarian positions. I myself saw many of our men, and many Russians too, who had been wounded. We were terribly ill-treated, and three Serbs were killed by the Austrians because they were exhausted and could not work any more." Aleksander Jovanovid, aged 24, farmer, of Milo&evac, private in the 8th Infantry Regiment, of the First Call-up, 2nd Battn., ist Co., taken prisoner by the Germans on October 20, 1915, in the neighbourhood of Bagrdan, deposes : " From Smederevo we were sent to Panevo, and then to Heinrichsgriin. where I remained for two months. We were very badly fed, and very many of our soldiers died from inanition. From Heinrichsgriin I was sent to Bozen, where I spent nine months. There we were put on to the hardest work, while being given food that was less than insufficient in quantity. From Bozen I was sent with forty other Serbs to Monte Celo, on the Italian front. I was there for more than a year, right up to the time when I succeeded in escaping. " We were employed on all kinds of work ; we dug trenches, transported guns and munitions to the positions, etc. The effect of the Italian artillery was very powerful, and as there was a great number of Serbian and Russian prisoners in the positions, they suffered as much under it as did the Austrians. Twelve Russians were even killed by rifle bullets." What can the Austro-Hungarians say in reply to these depositions, which constitute so damning a charge against their methods of waging a war of barbarians ? Will they try to justify themselves by quoting Bethmann-Hollweg's famous dictum, " Necessity knows no law " ? Or will the Vienna " Military Press Bureau " try once more to 94 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA deny the facts, as it is in the habit of doing with everything it finds inconvenient ? But I would advise it that from this time forward that would be mere waste of time. We are in possession of plenty of material in the way of reliable evidence, permitting us most emphatically to vouch for the absolute authenticity of what we have just now put forward. I understand perfectly that it must be very annoying for a State which, with Germany, prided itself on being in the vanguard of Kultur, to find its methods of making war upon its enemies denounced before the world as being contrary to all the laws of humanity. But honourable Austro-Hungarians who feel alarm at the grave accusations levelled against their country, have only their own rulers to blame. THE SUFFERINGS OF SERBIA SALONICA, August 31, 1917. The sufferings of Belgium are great, but they are far less than what poor Serbia is called upon to endure under the yoke of her invaders. As a matter of fact, Belgium is supplied with food by the " Belgian Relief," and, in spite of all, the Germans do not dare to dispose quite so deliberately of Belgian soil as their worthy Allies are doing with that of Serbia. Belgium is too near to France, to England, and to neutral countries like Holland to render all control impossible. King Peter's unhappy country is very differently placed. Isolated, surrounded by its enemies, it is at the mercy of those who have sworn to compass its undoing. Already at the time of the invasion, Serbia was in a far worse plight than Belgium. The latter, bordering upon France and Holland, and near to England, could easily send her refugees to these countries ; Serbia, on the contrary, was surrounded by hostile countries and one false ally, Greece, THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 05 whose sovereign had sold himself to the Central Powers and where the reception accorded to her fugitives was anything but encouraging. Did not the Greeks, false to their plighted word, propose to disarm the few thousand Serbian soldiers who, having escaped the Bulgars, had retreated into Hellenic territory ? Once the country was invaded, the unhappy residue of the population was delivered, bound hand and foot, to Germano-Austro-Bulgarian barbarism. The Central Powers began by rearing a veritable Chinese Wall all round Serbia, so that the distressful cries of the ill-used and starving population might not reach the ears of the Entente and, above all, not those of the neutrals. All food, everything of value, was rifled by the temporary conquerors. But in spite of all precautions, sinister rumours of famine filtered through to the outer world, and Americans and Swiss undertook relief work, which was thwarted by the hostile attitude of the occupying Powers. The relief provided was insufficient, still it alleviated the distress a little. But America entered the war. Switzerland, strictly rationed to a minimum, can no longer send anything. By buying elsewhere, she might still continue her relief work, but the Entente will not permit her. They fear that the food-stuffs will be seized by the Central Powers. Thus Serbia, despoiled of her own produce by the invaders, is to-day in the grip of famine the land where, before the war, 2 Ib. of meat cost less than tenpence and eggs, in the country, were threepence a dozen ! But it is not only famine which Serbia is enduring. Her enemies are inflicting far greater sufferings upon her, suffer- ings of which we have absolute proof, and which are plainly calculated to bring about the extermination of her people. Without exaggeration it may be asserted that the war and its attendant epidemics have cost the Serbs at least one-fourth of their population. The Austro-Bulgars find this proportion insufficient and are augmenting it in a horrible way by the deportation t of men, women, children, and old folk to marshy and deadly districts. These deported 96 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA people, compelled to the hardest labour, and scarcely fed at all, die like flies. The same principle of extermination is practised with regard to the prisoners of war, who represent the male youth of the nation. Deeming the fate of these poor wretches too kind, the Bulgars, acting apparently upon the advice of the Germans, are sending them to the Turks in Asia Minor, so that they may be " better maltreated." And what is to be said to the fact, recently denounced by the aged and venerable Premier Pasic, that 8,000 Serbian girls between 10 and 16 years of age were handed over by the Bulgars to the Turks to serve in the harems of Constantinople and elsewhere ? Shall I recall once more that series of robberies and thefts carried out by the invaders, whereby the population was bereft of all it pos- sessed ? And the infamous recruiting of Serbs by the Bulgars and the wholesale murders committed by the latter? And the Austro-Hungarian gibbets set up eight at a time a fact corroborated by the postcards of which I have told my readers ? Do people also realize, I wonder, that the whole generation of children which has endured this regime and has survived, has suffered serious detriment to health and power of resistance ? It is truly time that both Allies and neutrals should deal with this unprecedented situation ; the Allies by per- mitting reliable and willing neutrals to supply the country with food ; and the neutrals, by making the Central Powers and their vassals understand by energetic and efficacious protests that such behaviour is putting them outside the pale of humanity. Must it be said that the neutrals have lacked dignity and courage even to the very end of the war ? APPENDIX A FEW DOCUMENTS: ENEMY AND SERBIAN MASSACRES OF WOUNDED DEPOSITION MADE AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE THIRD BATTALION OF THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT, JANUARY 22, 1917. AT THE FRONT. Ad. O. No. 373. Examination of Sergeant Mata M. Ratkovid, of the village of Bresovica, Dejevo district, county of Raska, and of Private Stojan T. Markovic of the village of Srnje, Razina district, county of Krusevac, both of the ist Co. of the 3rd Battn. of the I4th Regiment. They have declared : That on October 4th of last year (1916) they being on patrol duty together with Private Andjelko Viktorovic, went to see whether there were any Bulgars on Kamenita Cuka and if so, how many. When they came to the very summit of the Cuka they found a Serbian soldier lying on the ground with a mattock rammed point uppermost into his chest. This soldier had previously been wounded in the left shoulder. Not far from him they discovered another Serbian soldier with a Serbian bayonet rammed into his skull above the left ear. The body was weltering in blood. They failed to discover other wounds, but, 7 97 98 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA judging by the position of his hands, they concluded that the unfortunate man must have been alive at the moment when the bayonet was rammed into his skull. As they approached the biggest rock of the summit they per- ceived a Serbian soldier in a sitting posture, his rifle as if on guard. He had been killed and his rifle attached to him in this way. They could not see how this soldier had come by his death because the Bulgars attacked them and they were obliged to take to their defence. (Signed) MAT A RATKOVIC AND STOJAX MARKOVIC. Certified copy. The Commandant : (Signed) M. MIJATOVIC. EXAMINATION AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE DRINA DIVISION, OCTOBER 17, 1916. Ad. (). No. 3025. Prix ate Velimir Jovanovic of the trench battery, Drina Division, born in the village of Sinosevic, district of Potserje, county of Podrinje, aged 28, single, declares that he was on September 12, 1916, with the officer in command of his battery, the late Vladimir Jovanovic, Artillery com- mander, in an infantry trench situated on the highest point of Kajmakcalan. At 3 o'clock the Bulgars began to shout " Hurrah " from their trench, which was fifty yards in front of the Serbs, but without leaving it. The commander gave the order to open fire upon the Bulgars, who shortly afterwards attacked our trench and passed it. I remained there with my comrades Zvejo Dirmtrijevic and Bratislav. At dawn our troops counter-attacked the Bulgars, who retired precipitately, passing over our trench, where we lay hidden under the dead bodies. From time to time we hitched ourselves up to see what was going on, and in this way we witnessed most horrible scenes. As a matter of fact, the Bulgars flung themselves upon our wounded soldiers with savage THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 99 yells of " Money, Serbs ! " Our wounded men begged them not to kill them, saying, " Take everything, but spare our lives ! " (lit. " leave us our souls "), while the Bulgars bayoneted them, still with cries of " Money, Serbs ! " or perhaps, " Is the French milk sweet ? " or again, " Ah, no, Serb, you are not going home this way. Go by the way by which you left home ! " When the Bulgars were driven out on September I5th, we found gourds full of brandy on their dead. We had great trouble in bringing in some of the Bulgarian wounded, because they were dead drunk. In the trench to the right of ours we found our commander with several bayonet wounds upon him, and his body ripped open with the intestines protruding. Around him were another eleven soldiers, horribly mutilated. Certified copy by the Chief of the General Staff : (Signed) MILAN ZAVACIL. THE COMMANDANT OF THE SECOND ARMY. Ad. O. No. 4420. August 17, 1916. The examination of Bulgarian prisoners belonging to the 46th Infantry Regiment before our General Staff on Pozarska Kosa has revealed the fact that on the dates of October 26th and 28th of last year this regiment took a hundred prisoners in the position of Velja Glava and Kopiljak, including a commander and a lieutenant. Most of the prisoners declare having heard it said that the officer in command of the 46th Regiment, Colonel Abatijev, gave orders that fifteen Serbs from the new provinces were to be sent to Kumanovo and that then he sent for such of the men as felt disposed to kill Serbian prisoners and soldiers. Some of the prisoners declare that the number of soldiers killed in this way amounts to two hundred. This execution was witnessed by the regimental Com mander, Colonel Abatijev, Captain Milko, in command of 100 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA the 3rd Battn., and Lieutenant Dobrov, in command of the nth Co. of the 3rd Battn. of the 46th Regiment. I have the honour . . . By order of the Chief of the General Staff : (Signed) COLONEL Pssid. BULGARIAN ATROCITIES COiMMITTED IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF FLORINA IN AUGUST 1916 MEMORANDUM OF THE G.H.Q. OF THE SERBIAN ARMY. 1. A Serbian machine-gun section was at the village of Sakulevo on August 4th/i7th. Bulgarian cavalry (state- ment by a Serbian soldier who succeeded in escaping) sur- rounded the section and sabred almost all the men belonging to it. One of them who escaped was hit in the head by an enemy bullet and fell from his horse. The Bulgars wanted to finish him off and dealt him several blows on the neck with their sabres. He feigned death and eventu- ally succeeded in rejoining his unit. 2. On August 5th/i8th, during the retreat of the Volunteer Detachment from Kastoria, five Serbian soldiers were taken prisoner by Bulgarian cavalry on the road between Smrdes and Bresnica. All of them were sabred. Their comrades as well as the peasants of the neighbourhood have seen the mutilated corpses. 3. A reliable person who left Fiorina before the Bulgarian advance on August 4th/i7th declares : " On August 7th/20th, flying from Fiorina, I arrived at the village of Blac. I was told by the inhabitants of the village that the Bulgars had entered the village of Neveska. Eighteen wounded Serbian soldiers had hidden there in Greek houses. The Bulgars discovered them and massacred them before the eyes of the villagers." THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 101 4. Luka Lukic", Private in the Volunteer Detachment, of Trnova, County of Tuzla, who was overtaken in his flight by the Bulgarian cavalry, was first clubbed with the butt-ends of rifles, then wounded by sabre-cuts in sixty places and left for dead. Some peasants and a Greek priest found him and carried him to a mill. They then informed the Greek police in Krupiste. The chief of police sent two gendarmes along to transport the wounded man to Krupiste. He is at this moment being nursed there, and it is hoped that he will recover. 5. Radomir Maricic", of Ameri6, Private in the 3rd Co. of the ist Battn., 2ist Regiment, was left on August i3th/24th, 1916, with two wounded comrades in front of our trenches. During the night the Bulgars came up to where they were and compelled them to call their comrades who were in the neighbouring trench to come and dress their wounds. At their appeal the Serbian soldiers came out of their trenches and towards them. But the Bulgars opened fire upon them, throwing bombs and compelling the soldiers to return to their trenches. This occurred again a second time a little later ; after this the Serbian soldiers refused to leave their trenches any more. Exasperated because the Serbian soldiers failed to show themselves again, the Bulgars stabbed the three wounded men with their knives so that two of them, Vladimir Radivojevic and Radomir Milic, died of these wounds. As for the third, Radomir Maricic", who was wounded in eight different places, the Bulgars bade him go to the Serbian trench so that his comrades might see him. The soldier obeyed this injunction and managed to crawl away. 102 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA LOOTING SECOND THRACIAN INFANTRY DIVISION. INTENDANCE No. 2228. STRUMICA. November 27, 1915. To the Officer Commanding the 2 is/ Srednjagora Regiment, Nevrokop. On the strength of a dispatch received from the Second Army (Command of the Sendee behind the lines), sub. No. 355, the Divisional Commander has directed me to inform you, Colonel, that in Voles, Stip, and the neigh- bourhood, numerous cases have been proved in which our units or men have not conformed to the prescribed orders for requisition, but have given themselves up to plundering the population, especially the rural population. Irregular requisition tickets have been issued ; things necessary as well as superfluous have been seized, with the effect that the confidence of the population in the Bulgarian authorities is suffering from it and is on the point of being destroyed altogether. Please take the most prompt and rigorous measures to cause this procedure to be stopped as quickly as possible. The Intendant : COLONEL BEAREV. (This is an admission of looting by the Bulgars them- selves. It is true that Colonel Becarev refuses to tolerate looting, for which we give him all credit, but how many of his colleagues, both subordinates and superiors, have failed to follow his example ?) THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 103 EXPERT REPORT ON THE BOMBARDMENT OF THE BRITISH HOSPITAL, NO. 37, BY ENEMY AEROPLANES, ON MARCH 12, 1917 The undersigned, R. A. Reiss, D.Sc., Professor at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), Expert Consultant to the Courts, has been commissioned by the G.H.Q. of the Serbian Army to proceed to Vertekop and there conduct an expert inquiry concerning the bombardment of the British Hospital, No. 37, by enemy aeroplanes on March 12, 1917. The expert carried out the inquiry on March igth. He first proceeded to Vertekop station, about 2 kilo- metres distant from Hospital No. 37, where part of the ammunition dump had been destroyed by a cast of incendiary bombs dropped from the enemy aeroplanes. The undersigned observed that almost all the munitions which had exploded had burst on the spot. Comparatively very few fragments were hurled beyond the ignited dump. Not one fragment was found at a distance exceeding 500 metres from the spot where the fire started. Thus Vertekop station, which h between 100 and 150 metres away from the depot, shows practically not a scratch caused by pro- jectiles hurled by the successive explosions. Only the tiles on the roof and the window-panes suffered in conse- quence of the displacement of the air caused by the explosion and especially of that of a stock of melinite. This explosion caused a deep circular crater with a diameter of about 50 yards. A considerable number of shells, ground' s, etc., did not even explode. The fact that the fragments of the munitions were not blown farther than 500 yards from the site of the explosion will not in any way surprise people who have studied explosives. For the projection of a shell, bullet, etc., it is essential that the case containing the projectile and filled with the explosive providing the propelling force 104 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA should itself be precluded from exploding. In other words, it must be enclosed in a tube which reinforces it. If the explosive matter in the case were to explode without the latter being protected by a resisting tube, such as, e.g., the barrel of a rifle, the case would burst and the projectile fall without momentum. Moreover, even if the case cannot burst, yet in order to ensure that the projectile be carried to any considerable distance, it is necessary that the gas liberated by the explosion of the powder, etc., should act upon it for a comparatively lengthy space of time, which is not possible except within a closed tube (the bore of a gun, rifle, revolver, etc.). Without this the propelling gas would escape, and the projectile fall to earth after a more or less short trajectory. At Vertekop station, shells, powder enclosed in cartridge- cases, rifle-cartridges, etc., all burst, so to say, in the open air. Only the fragments of these projectiles exploding in situ could be blown any distance, and their trajectory, did not exceed 500 yards. In any case, no fragments could hit Hospital No. 37, which is situated about 2 kilo- metres distant from the station. After examining the ammunition dump, the expert proceeded to Hospital No. 37, where he was received by the Colonel Commanding the hospital. The Colonel informed him that the bombardment of the hospital took place on March I2th between 8.15 and 8.30 in the morning. Two English nurses and four hospital orderlies were killed ; six Serbian hospital orderlies and three Serbian patients were injured. At the moment of the bombardment a train was passing on the line east of the hospital. The first bomb fell 2 yards in front of the operating theatre and there killed one nurse and one orderly. From this spot to the railway the distance is at least 200 yards. Several witnesses say that at this moment the train was at a level with the operating theatre ; others aver that it was still a little behind it. All are agreed on the point that the aeroplanes came from Vertekop station following the railway-line. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 105 The second bomb fell in the X-ray tent beside the operating theatre. The third struck the road 3 yards off the rear end of the tent. The distance between the first bomb and the second was 14-60 metres ; that between the second and third 7-30 metres. The fourth and fifth bombs fell one within and the other beside a hospital tent which happened to be empty at the moment of the attack. Finally, the sixth entered the tent beside the one just referred to and killed a nurse. The distances were as follows : from the third to the fourth bomb, 730 metres ; from the fourth to the fifth, 4-60 metres ; from the fifth to the sixth, 14-60 metres. The chart of the series of spots where the bombs fell represents a broken line. The relatively minute distances between the holes caused by the shell bursts show clearly that the bombs were released simultaneously and that the air was still at the time that they were dropped, or the distances that separated them would have been greater. The direction of the line of shell-holes also indicates the direction in which the bombing aviator was flying, viz. S.W.-N.E. The seventh bomb fell about 2 yards north of a tent used as a ward and standing straight in front of the operating theatre. Here an orderly was killed. On the football field we noted a fresh series of six bombs, the respective distances between them being : 6-40 metres ; ig'$o metres ; 5-79 metres ; i6'i5 metres ; 9'44 metres. The general direction of this cast of bombs is at right angles to the general direction of the first series of bombs. This indicates that these bombs were dropped simultaneously from a second aero- plane flying in a direction at right angles with that of the first. South-east of this second series of bombs and 7071 metres distant from it is a hole caused by the explosion of an isolated bomb. The hole lies in the direction of the six preceding bombs, and was prob- ably caused by a trial bomb. Assuming that the aeroplane was flying at a speed of 140 km. an hour, 10G THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA the trial bomb would have preceded the release of the series of projectiles by an interval of two seconds. Right and left of the approach, but already within the grounds of Hospital No. 37, we noted yet another series of five bombs, with their general line of direction proving that they were dropped from a third aeroplane. Finally, an isolated bomb had fallen just beside one of the canvases showing the distinguishing Red Cross. Hospital No. 36, which stands in front of Hospital No. 37 and is an annexe of it, received three bombs fairly near the railway-line. Three men were injured there and one killed. Hospitals No. 36 and 37 are surrounded by twelve distinguishing canvases displaying the Red Cross. The dimensions of these canvases are 11/88 metres by 9-41 metres. The arms of the Red Crosses measure 10-05 metres and 7-62 metres. In some of the Crosses the red is faded, but in most cases it is still very vivid. The expert wished to ascertain whether the said Red Crosses were visible from the height at which the enemy aeroplanes were flying (3,000 metres). He therefore went up in an aeroplane belonging to the Vertekop squadron and flew over the bombed hospitals at a height of 3,000 metres. Although there was a slight haze, the twelve Red Crosses were perfectly visible to the naked eye. It must be added that on the day of the bombardment their visibility must have been very much greater, because it was a glorious bright day. Flying at this height, the undersigned was also in a position to realize how considerable is the distance separat- ing the hospitals from Vertekop station. The photographs appended to this report and taken by the photographic staff of the Vertekop squadron from a height of 2,000 metres shows the visibility of the distinguishing Crosses very plainly. The expert ascertained a final and important fact. The excavations produced by the shell-bursts are very THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 107 shallow and of small dimensions. This indicates that the projectiles dropped were not large bombs intended for the destruction of massive objects, but bombs employed for attacking live targets. The observations made by the undersigned therefore go to show that Hospital No. 37 was attacked by three aeroplanes and Hospital No. 36 by one aeroplane. Only the bombs on No. 36 and one of those on No. 37 fell near the railway. In spite of the presence of the train near the hospitals, is it possible to pretend that the former was the target aimed at by the aviators ? In order to reply to this question it must first be proved whether the Bulgaro-German aviators knew that they were above hospitals. They did know it by the presence of the Red Crosses, which were plainly visible, and from their former raids, an enumeration of which is appended to the present report. And then ! If they knew that they were above hospitals, and if they really had no intention except to attack the train, they had only to wait until the latter, being in motion, had quitted the zone of the hospitals. But an attack upon the train was not their object ; they wanted to hit the hospitals. This is proved : (i) by the very nature of the bombs, which would have been bombs such as are used for wrecking if they had contemplated serious damage to the train ; (2) by the dropping of a series of bombs falling very close to one another, which shows that the air was still. Under these conditions the distance between the spots where the projectiles burst and the railway is too great to be due to an error in marksmanship ; (3) by the fact that the three aeroplanes dropped their bombs in the middle of Hospital No. 37 ; (4) by the dropping of a trial bomb followed at once by that of a cast of six bombs. The airmen must have seen where the trial bomb fell, and if they immediately dropped six other bombs simultaneously it was because they wanted them to fall in the same place as the first. 108 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA All the foregoing authorizes the undersigned expert to draw the following conclusions : (1) That the explosion of the ammunition dump at Vertekop station had nothing to do with the bombard- ment of Hospitals No. 36 and 37. (2) That the bombardment of Hospital No. 37 at least was carried out by three distinct enemy aeroplanes. (3) That as the visibility of the distinguishing Crosses was perfect at the height of 3,000 metres, the enemy airmen knew that they were above hospitals. (4) That the bombs employed were not the large bombs usually employed for the destruction of massive objects, but bombs intended for attacking human beings. (5) That the bombardment was aimed at the Hospitals No. 36 and 37 and not at the train which was passing at the time. R. A. REISS. SALOXICA, March 22, 1917. Hospital No. 37 was struck by projectiles dropped by enemy aeroplanes. On August 10, 1916, at 7.30 a.m. by two bombs falling in the hospital grounds, a large tent was destroyed and two men were injured. On August 19, 1916, at 5.15, twenty-four bombs were dropped on the hospital, and two officers and one man were seriously injured. Six of these bombs were incendiary bombs. Two large tents were destroyed, and several others, large, round, and small, were perforated. REPORT OF OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE BOMBARDMENT OF THE TOWN OF VODENA, ON APRIL 30, 1917, BY HOSTILE AEROPLANES THE undersigned, R. A. Reiss, D.Sc., Professor at the University of Lausanne, Expert Consultant to the Courts, THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 109 proceeded at the request of the G.H.Q. of the Serbian Army on May i, 1917, to Vodena to conduct an inquiry there concerning the bombardment of this town by enemy aeroplanes on April 30, 1917. During the course of his inquiry the expert ascertained the following facts : " On April soth, between 9.30 and 10 a.m., seven enemy aeroplanes flew over the open town of Vodena and bom- barded it with projectiles of various calibre. These aero- planes came from Vertekop. Commander V of the Franco- Serbian Air Service was at the last-named place at the time and saw fourteen enemy aeroplanes coming from the direction of Dragomanci. One of the aeroplanes flew over Vertekop station and dropped four bombs there. Another detached itself from the group and flew over the field belonging to the Franco-Serbian Air Service near the Vertekop hospitals. These two aeroplanes did not go to Vodena. The Franco-Serbian aviators, twelve in number, having gone up in chase of the Bulgaro-Germans, five of the aeroplanes belonging to the latter went off in the direction of Gumendje, while seven others went out of their way to fly over Vodena, going off subsequently in the direction of the first group. Exactly seven aeroplanes were correctly observed by the greater number of the witnesses I interrogated. These aeroplanes dropped a certain number of bombs on Vodena. The undersigned was not able to ascertain exactly how many, but he himself saw some twenty shell- holes caused by the explosions of projectiles. Bombs fell in the following places : Near the barracks, in the market-place, at the station, in the orchards beside the station, near the American Mission, near the large mosque, near the Turkish cemetery on the way out of town (in the direction of Ostrovo), and in the valley below Vodena hill. The station is 450 metres distant from the centre of the town. It was struck by one solitary bomb of heavy calibre (50 kg.). This bomb fell beside the lavatory and there 110 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA produced a deep cavity without causing appreciable damage to the buildings. A second bomb of the same calibre fell, without exploding, upon the hill to the north of the station at a distance of about 150 metres from the main building. It was at the station that the Serbian and French soldiers were killed and injured, including Sior, the French Lieutenant, who had just gone to the lavatory. The enemy aeroplanes also dropped bombs of large and small calibre upon the orchards immediately in front of the station. The undersigned himself observed the two shell-holes produced by small bombs and in close proximity to one another and one caused by a large bomb. Several civilians were killed and injured at these spots. The Franco-Serbian Air Service had five tents near the cemetery, and the American Red Cross Mission also has several tents quite near, to shelter the refugees from Monastir. Moreover, on that day the Turkish women had spread out linen in the cemetery, so that the enemy aviators may have thought that there was "some important military encampment on that spot. They dropped a cluster of five bombs there which fell simultaneously, according to the depositions received by the under- signed. The other bombs were dropped at random on various quarters of the town. In the market-place, for instance, two projectiles killed and injured a number of civilians. The distances between the points where the bombs fell in the town and the hits scored on the station range from 450 to at least 800 metres, and are therefore too great to be put down to errors in marksmanship. One also wonders what the enemy was looking for in the valley beside Vodena hill. One isolated bomb fell close to the Monastery, the rest were scattered over a distance of at least one kilometre. The bombs dropped on the town are of two calibres, viz. small projectiles such as are used for attacking troops, and large destructive bombs weighing 50 kg. Several THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 111 houses were hit and badly damaged. Nevertheless, the material damage is relatively small compared to the large number of human victims claimed by the bombardment. It should also be noted that the bombs dropped on the town were isolated bombs, i.e. bombs dropped separately, one after the other. As regards the casualties, their number is fairly great, viz. 17 killed and 26 injured. According to the mayor of Vodena, some persons were so slightly injured that they did not consider it necessary to inform the authorities. These cases are not included in the total just quoted. The number of killed includes 3 erbian soldiers and 14 civilians ; in all 9 men, 2 women, and 6 children. The number of the injured includes 3 soldiers, i French lieutenant, 2 French privates, and 20 civilians ; in all 13 men, 6 women, 7 children. Sior, the French Lieutenant, was in a dying condition when the undersigned saw him. He must therefore be added to the list of the killed. The names of the civilians killed and injured are as follows : KILLED. Bogumir Milanovic, cafe-keeper, aged 40. Lazar Nusi, aged 40. Maria Finci, aged 8, little girl. Atanas Rodavni, aged 13. Atanas Korona, aged n. Dimitri Zlatane, aged 45. Gabriel Kupusinac, aged 49, priest, chaplain of the hospital. Nadir Alin Mahmoud, aged 7. Aise Abdullah, aged 20 (pregnant woman). Ekce Mustafa, aged 5. Fatima Dango Alipe, aged 38 (woman). Dimitri Vuce, aged 30. A hairdresser, aged 40. 112 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA INJURED. Dorothy Vaveri, aged 38 (woman). Zera Beci, aged 50 (woman). Nikola Sane, aged 21. Alls Dji Osman, aged 19. Hadji Osman, aged 60. Petro Tarpane, aged 36. Djeorje Djiger, aged 10. Leporli Mehmed, aged 25. Goci Demison, aged n. Jovan Valtadom, aged 35. Mid Trifun, aged 35 (woman). Cukri Besin, aged 14. Zivojin Vukcevic, aged 45. Djordje Belo, aged n. Kosta Vadralesca, aged 17. Kristo Tresince, aged 16. Panaja Cokala, aged 30 (woman). Marie Laso RMo, aged 30 (woman). Petra Djordje Mihali, aged 25 (woman) Laza Hadji-Andonovic, aged 8 (little girl). The undersigned visited most of the injured and con- versed with them. Almost all of them were injured while pursuing their ordinary avocations. Several sustained injuries within doors. The bombs which fell in the market- place claimed many victims. The undersigned was also at pains to discover what was the object pursued by the Germano-Bulgar airmen in attacking Vodena, which is an open town containing neither artillery positions nor military establishments, the destruction of which might be useful to the enemy. Even the station at Vodena is small and unimportant for the supply of food and munitions. In his search for a reply to this question, the under- signed was proffered two explanations, which in his opinion ought to be embodied in this report. The first THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 113 was given him by the Greek mayor of the town. The mayor declares that even at this moment, the Bulgaro- Germans are maintaining a very active spy service in the town, carried on by persons whom this magistrate calls " Bulgars," but who are really Macedonian Slavs affiliated to the Bulgarian propaganda. Now during the last few days there has been a rumour in Vodena, that the G.H.O. of the Serbian Army was about to be established there and that the Prince Regent Alexander himself would come. The enemy is supposed to have been informed of this by his spies and bombarded the town in the belief that the military authorities were already installed there. The mayor added that he had that very morning proceeded to the arrest of a Bulgarian spy. The second explanation was furnished by Flight Com- mander V . The enemy squadron of fourteen aeroplanes arrived over Vertekop in battle formation. Twelve chasers of the Franco-Serbian squadron immediately went up to attack them. This upset the plans of the enemy aircraft, who then scattered without being able to carry out their preconceived plan. Seeing their errand frustrated, seven of the aeroplanes those which flew over Vodena dropped their cargo of bombs on this town without any definite object and solely for the sake of doing damage to their enemies. This second explanation appears an altogether plausible one. It is certain that the bombardment of Vodena was carried out at random, without any definite plan. Only two places were bombed, the bombardment of which might have been explained by considerations of a military order, viz. the station and the Turkish cemetery, where the aviators' tents, those of the American Mission, and, possibly, the linen spread by the Turkish women may have given the impression of an encampment of troops. Moreover, the aviator who bombed the cemetery was the only one who released a cluster of bombs, as is done in the case of an attack upon a camp. The dropping of bombs on the station might also, at a 8 li4 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA pinch, be explained by the desire to destroy an establish- ment of strategic utility. The three bombs dropped in the orchards were probably meant for the railway-station, so that, in all, three large bombs and two small ones were dropped upon it, which is not much for the seven aeroplanes which flew over the town. Still, the destruction of the station must be attributed to the spontaneous idea of one or, at the most, two enemy aviators. Because, if it had been planned beforehand, one fails to understand why the other aeroplanes should have absolutely wasted their munitions militarily speak- ing, be it understood upon the town, instead of helping their comrades who had failed to achieve their object. It is precisely these points which prove that the bom- bardment of Vodena was carried out without plan, solely for the sake of injuring the enemy and without regard for the civil population, which is protected by the laws and rules of war. It would, in fact, be puerile to assume that the bombs dropped on the town were meant for the station, and that the discrepancies were due merely to miscalculation. A bombing aviator even an unskilled one does not make misses of 450 to 800 metres. Still less the members of the highly skilled German squadron who are at present on this front and have repeatedly given proof of their skill. All these considerations warrant the undersigned in coming to the conclusion that the bombardment of the town of Vodena itself was merely an act of vandalism committed with the object of terrorizing the civil popu- lation, perhaps even out of revenge because the Allied aviators had prevented the enemy squadron from carrying out destructive work of real military value. R. A. REISS. SALONICA, May 2, 1917. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 115 DENATIONALIZATION MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR OF THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA. No. 1396. THE Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Serbia has within the last few days received from Zajecar a school report which was issued by the Bulgarian school authorities to Milan, the son of Stevan Nesic", post office employe in Zajecar, and refers to his studies in the third class of the Bulgarian school in Zajecar. The report is drawn up in Bulgarian and signed by the headmaster, P. V. Ilijev, and the form mistress, V. Todorova. The report is dated June 17, 1917, Zajecar. It incidentally states that Milan NeSev as the name of the pupil now appears was born in Belgrade on August 29, 1906, and that he is a Bulgarian subject. The original was forwarded to the Ministry of Public Instruction. Mr. Stevan Nesic, in the postal service, is at present in Salonica. SUPPLEMENT LIST OF PERSONS KILLED IN MONASTIR-BITOLJ ORDER NAME AND No. SURNAME. PLACE OF DATE OF DOMICILE. ; EXECU- PLACE OF THE EXECUTION. i Jovan Vanko Bitolj Gligorovic Sept. 20, Hanged in the 1916 courtyard of the Central prison 2 TaSko Nonevic Bitolj 3 Riza Tanasovic Bitolj (a woman) 4 i Vandjel Van- Bitolj cevic Nov. 25 : Arrested, then or 26, handed over to 1916 the comitadjis to be killed Nov. 5, Killed at the 1916 door of her house Nov. 27, At home 1915 5 Stojan Ristic Former! Nov. 27, , In his garden Mitrevic mayor of 1915 the village \ of Novak 6 Koce Jonevic ', Rural con- i Nov. 26, .Beside the stable in! 1915 slaughter- Novak house 7 j Metodije Ristic '' School- | August Near the village master at 1916 of D. Orizar Sleptebe THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 117 DURING THE BULGARO-GERMAN OCCUPATION. MOTIVE AUTHOR OF THE MURDER. OBSERVATIONS. Espionage on be- half of Serbia Because a Serb For kneading be- fore her house Because a Serb Because a Serb Because a Serb Arrested by com- itadjis and killed that very night outside the town Sentenced by the Bul- garian war council Petar Lazarevic Lazar, Bulgarian comitadji Bulgarian soldiers in re- treat The Bulgarian comitadji chiefs Naum Orijanac and Pande Stojanovic Nasto TaSevic, rural police- man of PojaSevo, and Petar Lazarevic, of Dobromir Nasto TaSevic, rural policeman of Pojasevo, and Cvatane Jankovic, of Klepace. Left with the Bulgars Unknown Bulgarian comit- adjis Hanged in the presence of his wife and children as re- lated in the depositions Lived at No. 6 Optitcar Street in the St. Ne- dela quarter Su perficially buried after the murder. One arm pro- truded from the grave and was eaten by dogs THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AMONG CIVILIANS AND MATERIAL DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE BOMBARDMENT OF THE OPEN TOWN OF MONASTIR-BITOLJ. Compiled from the Official Reports of the Prefecture of Bilolj. Killed. Injured. Sex not Specified. |S 1 Date of the fl s" Bombardment. i 1 g 1 i 2 i 1 sS H 1 3 1 111 3 a ; 3 ! SQ 1916 November 19 4 i - i - j 2 i - i - 164 15 ,, 20 3 I - - ' - 87 4 21 - - I - - 85 4 23 _ _ i _ _ . . 24 _ _ - 4 i 78 -5 - - - 1 - i - - - ' - 2 4 27 - - ' - - - - : - 54 29 - - - . - - - 20 15 200 * 30 - _ _ _ - 7 8 134 December i _ - - : - - 2 56 .. - i _ ; _ , _ - I 33 3 - i - ~ 49 8 4 i I ; - 52 9 5 - i - ~ - - - 57 f> - - - - | 2 2 - - 30 7 7 '- I i - 4 t 13 8 - - I ' I I ~~ ~ 9 9 - - - ' - - - - - 20 i > i i - | - | - - - - 150 15 i 2 4 4 9 - 22 17 - ; - - j - - , - - - 45 18 - ' - I 2 2 j I - - 75 J 19 - I 2 - , - 3 20 - i - ~ i ~ ~ i - - - 12 7 21 ! i ~ ~ ~ - - i - 39 16 23 i j " 2 1 3 4 - ! - 53 10 j 1 ! * The church of the Blessed Virgin destroyed. More than 100 houses destroyed or damaged. f A considerable number of shells dropped in the town. J Large number of houses destroyed or damaged. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 119 RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE continued. Killed. Injured. II g Date of the Bombardment. Is 1 8 I | i li g>1 I 1 I 1 1 II II December 24 4 3 4 I I i 60 6 25 - - - - - 9 26 3 i - 8 2 i 117 20 27 - - - - - i 28 2 - - - - 123 9 29 - - - - - - 69 7 30 - - - - 3i 4 i 5 5 5 4 7 21 9 1917 January i _ - - - 74 3 3 _ _ . _ - - - 80 5 4 - - - - - - 8 5 i 2 i - i i 103 21 ,, 10 - - - - 24 3 ii - 2 - 2 3 i 51 5 ., 12 - - - - - 39* 2 13 i - - 2 - 30 3 15 - - | 40 16 - I - - 2 15 3 17 - 8 18 - 3 - 19 13 19 - ~ 1 ~ - - - 20 - ~ 1 ~ - - 21 - _ I _ - - ,, 22 i - i - 95 9 23 4 i 2 I 2 5 36 13 24 - I - - - 58 II 25 - - 27 3 27 - - 4 February i - - - - - - 4 ,, 2 1 2 Four aeroplane bombs. 120 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE- continued. Killed. Injured. J | fH "2 Date of the 1 | Bombardment. L' I Women 1 1 I i ! i! i! II February 3 i _ _ 34 4 - - - - 19 4 6 - - - - 1 73 8 - - - i i i 5i 13 9 - - - - 35 ii - - - - 10 12 13 _ _ _ _ 1 1 99 5 >. J 4 t - - 2 28 8 15 - - - - 8 . 16 - I - - 2 19 2 17 - - - - 8 18 - 2 - - i 43 II ., V I9 - I I - 3 3 24 II >, 21 - 3 5 I ii ! 8 186 4 6 ,, 22 - 2* - - i 33 20 23 - - - - 9 I 25 - - - - - ! - 32 2 26 2 - - - 27 27 - I - - 1 | 2 28 - I i 2 2 ' II 282 50 March i I - - - 91 13 2 - - - I 3 23 14 3 t - - - _ . _ _ ~~ 4 1 ! " * Mrs. Harley killed. f Bombardment for 6 hours with asphj^xiating gas shells. The hospitals are full of corpses, among them those of many women and children. The exact number is not determined. I Renewed bombardment with asphyxiating shells. A great number of houses has been destroyed. Nineteen persons lulled (9 women, 5 children and 5 men). Four injured (2 men, 2 women). Killed by gas : 62 (6 men, 25 women, 31 children). Dying of the effects of the gas hopeless cases : 61 persons. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 121 RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE continued. Killed. Injured. 11 b f'N Date of the I Bombardment. gg d-d g 1 6 1 II *S ^ 1 1 1 1 1 if fc-3 II March 5 2 I i i 3 .1 148 _ 6 .. I - i 2 4 6 97* 48 8 .. 5 3 2 9 4 3 30of 80 Q . . - 4 I 2 3 7 172 73 10 .. i i - - 2 i 36o 73 ir - I 5 - 4 156 40 i, 12 2 i 3 4 5 10 40 *9i 13 I - i i 2 i 107 3i 14 - - - - - - 36 7 15 I - - - 4 50 22 16 .. i 3 i - 3 4 IOO 38 17 i 2 - 2 - 138 25 i3 .. 10 4 12 12 2 17 322 44 1911 I 2 4 7 2 5 76 8* 20 .. - - - - I - 26 5 21 .. - - - - - 122 21 i> 22 I - - 2 - - 55 32 23 .. - - - - 2 4 15 9 24 .. - - - I - - 6 6 25 .. - - - - - - 5 4 26 .. - - - - - 2 7 2 7 .. - - - - - - IOI 28 .. - i - 3 50 21 29 .. I 2 i 2 2 4 105 36 ... 3 I - 2 I 2 - 138 28 31 19 8 19 II 4 20 362 58 April i . . ~" " " ~ 135 5 * One bomb. f Nineteen bombs. * Two fires caused by incendiary shells. Twenty-one persons asphyxiated by gas; 13 in hospital in serious condition. || Renewed gas bombardment. Seven persons asphyxiated ; 14 in serious condition. 122 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE- continued. 1 Killed. Injured. II 1 Date of the (5 f Bombardment. "o o j . a g c g fc^ rf S 2 i ! 2 III 3 1 1 ! S 1! April 2 .. 13 4 i 72 6 3 i 1 06 24 4 .. i i 245 8 5 i ; 3 1 06 7 6 .. II 83 6 7 -. 19 4 8 . . ! 27 9 98 10 19 2 II . . i 36 12 . . i - II I 2 202 23 ,,13 97 14 1 08 15 5 2 16 .. 6 ,,I7 263 9 18 .. - 1 60 18 ,. 19 158 2 20 2 I ! 14 I 21 . . - J - - 5 2 22 ..:-'- - - ! - 1 - 14 6 ,,2 3 .. ,,2 4 .. - ! - | - j 2 i 2 81 10 78 ',', 26 !] | _ I - _ ! _ _ _ 81 ii ,,27 ,,28 .. 105 3 29 ; I I j 32 2 3P .. - 2 31 132 16 May i . . 23 4 2 .. I I I I I ?3 24 ,, 3** * One old man of eighty. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 123 RETURNS OF CASUALTIES ANp MATERIAL DAMAGE continued. Killed. Injured II I* t) Date of the Bombardment. I ! | 1 j j Number of Pro dropped on the 1 May 4 . . _ _ _ _ _ 2 8 5 - - - 15 6 _ _ - - _ - 7 - 3 - 6 5 IO 500 3 8 - - I '- 133 12 \, 9 - - I i - 135 I ,, 10 - I i I 202 24 ii - - - 2 - - 95 2 ,, 12 - - - - - 164 I ,,13 - - - i I 298 4 ,,14 - - - 2 - 296 M ,,15 f - - - - - 16 I - - 4 - 20 20 I? - - - - 21 I IS .. - - - - 18 13 19 - - - - - 94 I 20 - - 5 - 4 7 2 .,21 - _ - - - - 135 I ,,22 - - - - - - ,,23 - - - - - - ,,24 - - - - - - 29 ,,25 - - - 19 ,,26 - - 79 14 ,,27 - - 7 - ,,28 .. - - - - - 12 ,,29 . . - - - - - i 97 8 ,,30 - - * - 4i ? f? - - - - i 53 i June r - - - - 14 3 - - - - - - 4 " 30 * One old man of eighty-five. 124 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE- continued. Killed. Injured. II 8 Date of the ii I Bombardment. i _ 03 L i & 1 Childrei I | i i j! U June 5 _ _ _ y 6 - - - - 15 7 - 1 i : 83 8 - - | - 20 i 9 - - ! - - I I 10 .. i 1 - - - t I ii - I - - - ' - 34 12 . . i - - - 49 5 ,,13 I 65* l ,,14 - - - - ; ~ 8 ; 1.5 - i - 10 16 - ' - - _ ! - i? - - - 23 7 18 - 113 3 ,, J 9 i i 17 3 ,,20 . . - - - i - 118 i ,, 21 .. | - - - - - I ~ ,,22 _ _ _ _ _ 118 15 23 .. I - i i i - 223 2 ,,24 2 . I i 3 2 270 29 ,,25 - : - - - ! 73 ! - ,,20 - - - - - 15 ,,27 - - - - - ,,28 .. - i - - 37 I 29 . . _ - - 108 ,,30 - i - 1 I July i .. 4 2 i 5 50 3 ,, 2 . . - - - 2 ! 2 45 4 3 - - - - - 128 4 - - - - 18 5 - - - 1 29 6 1 - i I i 3 - 30 10 i 1 * Three bombs. f Twenty-one bombs. J One bomb. One old man of eighty-eight. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 1.25 RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE continued. Killed. ' njureil. ll H | Date of the Bombardment. 1 Women. Children. i j 1 Number of Pro dropped on the I July 7 . _ _ i . * 4 8 8 '.'. - - - I - 22 6 9 - - - - - - 10 ,, 10 - - - - 2 -^ 15 6 ,, II - - - - - 7 ,, 12 13 7 2 i 7 IO 136 IO 14 - - - - - ,. 15 - . - 2 I M3 i 16 .. - - I - 6 5 17 - - - - - _ 16 18 .. - - - - 41 19 -. - - - i 4 4 49 5 ,, 20 * - - - i - 30 4 21 i - - - - i 229 2 >, 22 - I - - - i 121 3 23 . . i - - - i 71 5 24 .. - - - - 25 .. - - - - - 26 .. - - _ _ _ I - 27 .. - - - - _ ,, 28 .. ~ - - - - - 29t i 29 . . 22 30 .. _ - - '2 5 2 120 30 31 - - - - - 4 6 August i . . - - - - - - ,, 2 - - - - - 3 - - - - - - 4 2 I - 2 2 3 119 24 5 - - - - - - 7.. - i I - 2 2 - 19 7 * One old man. f One aeroplane bomb. 123 THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE- contimted. Killed Injured. II 1 Date of the Bombardment. g i i\i ll &i 8 s 2 ' a' B i 2 8 * 1 : 3 if ll August 8 . . i 1 I 26 I 9 ' - I 187 14 10 .. ; - : - - ! - 6 4 ii .. - j _ _ _ _ 12 .. ~ - -'-!-- ! 13 ~ i " 14 - i j 4 15 l - i i 3 4 16 .. i - ! - i - - 17 .. 8 ii 10 9 j 55 14 2,000 677 18 .. _ _ _ _ 19 -(-i ;- 4 ,, o . . _ _ j _ _ . : i - : - ! 2 2 2* 2 . . - j - j - i - 35 3 ~ , ~ i "" ; ~ 4 _ : _ ' _ ' _ 2 5 - I ; I 7 i 6 .. i II Mt 7 ~ ! ~~ I i 8 . . I I I 373 3t -9 - - - , - . . 3 _ _ _ _ . 3 1 - Sept. i . . i ; i I 80 25 2 . . - : - - i 2 "3 3 3 I ! I | I i 3 57 i (> 4 _ 1 _ i _ _ 4 * Ten aeroplane bombs. f Six aeroplane bombs. 1 One windmill destroyed. THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA 127 RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE continued. Date of the ombardment. Killed. Injured. Number of Projectiles dropped on the Town. Houses Destroyed or Damaged. i Women. i 1 1 1 Sept. 8 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 9 *~ ~ ~ " ~ ,, II _ _ - - - _ 270 . 12 - - 2 - 3 I 15 15 13 i 2 * - - 59 * 48 15 - - - - - - 16 - - - - - - 17 - - - - - - 18 - - - - - - 70 19 - - - - j - - 75 ,, 20 - - - - - 24 - ,, 21 - I ~ ~ 200 34 23 - - - - - - 24 - - - - - 25 - - - - - 26 - - - - - 27 - - - - - - 28 - - - - - - 29 - - - - - - .,, 30 Dctober i - ~ ~ 131 2 _ _ _ _ _ _ ii 3 - - - I - - 80 15 4 - - - - - - 26 2 5 - - 6 - - - 8 7 - - - i ~ 2 8 - I - 4t 9 - - - - - 10 - - ~ - .. ii - _ i _ 2 1 35 * Five bombs. | Six aeroplane bombs. 12S THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA RETURNS OF CASUALTIES AND MATERIAL DAMAGE- continued. Date of the Bombardment. October : i Injured. P 1 ; ! ! 1 - i - ! - i - - 1 06 4 I 3 j i 4 i 255 24 ! i i _ 193 268 2 1.5 - ! i - 132 i 17 " 3 i I 12 i 45 i 66 27 1 ! I 22 | i 77 3 i 1 These returns are incomplete. Many of the injured did not report their case to the civil authorities, and the latter under the prevailing circumstances were likewise unable to ascertain all the deaths. The following returns therefore represent a minimum, greatly exceeded by the actual number of casualties. Killed : Men 124 Women . . . . . .140 Children . . . . . .150 Sex not specified . . . . . 92 In-'ured : Men . Women Children Sex not specified 506 129 229 254 32 644 Total number of civilian victims . . . .1,150 Total number of houses destroyed or damaged . 2,797 Number of projectiles dropped on the town proper of Monastir-Bitolj ..... 20,724 Printed in Great Britain by CN'WIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON llllllilillill A 000030657 1