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Show THE HERALD-REPUBLICA- SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 191G N, ox t til g Ineialents COLD AND UJULiL STARVATION DISEASE, TOLL OF 50,000 'MEN TAK--E American Who Served in Austrian Army on Drive Through Serbia and as Prisoner of the Serbs Made the March to the Albanian Border, Describes the- Horrors and Suffering the Army of 200,000 Serbs Encountered While Fleeing Before the Teutonic Advance; Thousands of Men Dropped by the Wayside of Physical Exhaustion and Disease; Relates Incident of Wife of Serbian Soldier Who Fired on Austrian Troops That Stopped at Her Home and for Her Act Was Taken Out and Hung - DOME, Italy, April 1. Henry not because the Austrians or the Bui- garians pursued us, however, with much activity. We died merely be cause of disease, hunger and exhaus tion "The worst part of the journey began at the Albanian frontier. The Albanians have past been badly treated by the Serbs, and they took this chance to square old scores, They shot, killed, robbed and mur- dcred us at every step of the way. For instance, at Linn, some Serb of- t i r' on anui a company ott siraggiers iicers horseback" were met in the middle of the road by a few peasants and ordered to give up their horses and their money. .It was plain highway, robbery and they refused. The peas- ants ran away and within a couple of minutes more than a thousand shots were fired out , of the bushv hillside, killing most of the Serbs. Saved by Beans. "The food problem was terrific even in Albania. A half pound 6f brcaf Avas sol(1 at ten iinar5, about $o AsI had a little money at 1 sturza I bought five pounds of oka i,cans. Had I not been able to get these beans, I would today be a dead man t had just said to mvself, 'I can-- t go any further when I per-s:iaje(i a peasant woman to sellme fhe bens. I ate beans twice a day, making a sort of soup out of them, Hal- - ler, formerly of the Fifth United States cavalry, who was one of the few Americans in the Serbian re- treat, declares that during the jour- nev to Podcoritza in Montenegro in a four-day- s snowstorm more ' than 50,000 men died. "Tliey died so in-time- he said, few fell every yards all "that they alonn- the road. The waon3 and carts went right over their bodies, Nobody thought of tryinS to . turn out ot the "way, outi mere ere u many they could not but drive over them. The roads were full of mud- holes. At one place I saw no less than seventeen horses dying in one immense puddle, unable to fast," ... 1 1 pulL-them- OUt. 8ClV63 saw hundreds and thousands of nicir- r i a""i"" rnceil men wmi il.:too'much to wear shoes or to walk on them, crawling along for miles on their hands and knees through the blinding snow, finally stopping and dving soon afterwards. They never made .anv appeals for. help. It wouldn t have been anj use. ise- sides, they were too far gone to know. what they were about, that they were dving. Their last effort to keep go- ing was merely a mechanical operation. Of course the great mortality all along our route was due to the barren nature of the country we were traversing, with no shelter for but a comparatively few of us. There were even no forests where we mignc have felled trees and built temporary quarters. Our fires for the most part were small, with barely enough wood to heat water. "I i-- f about 4o,000 Astrian prisoners. Npt many more than lo0,000 of the whole lot got over the mountains. It was 111 ,1 i"" " r :L-'.:;V.- :. iiin.uui 111 I 11 .tMaar':, '. --- .11 ' half-nake- d Hl f in. .. ., ft ..m ii nil . ' iu ! . i nun, inn v mw.fairti .q a voice. , is a soldier. I, too, die for Serbia.' She made no appeal. She . jim.n mi ?ot ...... ut m it y m tats.f. nwvnuM. ... diers carrying their beloved General! : . Pntnilc nvfir thp sunwv wasf.' TTinrrt Peter and a guide crossing a mountain pass on the retreat. Bottom, left, Serbian women weeping over the J newly made graves of their f alien JSpilililS:lWli husbands. kww I1 v ' V f . v5X J- vrc jvk -- . - - - ' ' vr"' :" , s, - - '.V. "i'LV.A A ... O ''v 26-- 4 J ......'.."....."........ .... mujhiiwii -- : . . .. . . Top to bottom: Bridge at Belgrade destroyed, by Serbs to block German pursuit; pile of Serbian dead, an in- - r Vt. We.le.ft wind the The there in baby ging wag picketi Up an(j sent to the near- nmn cf nrnj Through tho efforts of Robert "aTcncK' rcPresen ing the United States among the Austrian prisoners, Haller was rescued from starvation at Durazzo and later Ambassador Page in Rome interested himself in the case. "I am, going back home thc best Araerican citizen you ever saw," declared Haller. "I wish I had words to express my feeling for the kind of people that are grown in the United States." ,tlid .iiiMi.. 9 tree m l,sband cr- 1- 1,- ft 1 V T wua a few mi win r.n....niiii IfeliSllill road he pitched regiment also went to get a drink. As he arose from the spring a shot came from the hut. That shot was fired , , 1 u , ' ' in the other. . "One of the captains ordered her hanged. There was nothing else to do but execute her. As a rope wM placed about her neck and she was silns ....ku in 11 i ! tVdri . speak, with barely strength left to stop. near a dying horse and cut a stcak lrom lts flank tnn? straighten up for a moment near one 0f the women's carts and smilingly tender their last mouthful of food to 0" of be Yome?' Tho treatment of the women on ihh drcatlul retrcat was to me the uicst wonderful, the most moving, the most heroic p.irt of the whole retreat, a Serb army of over 200,000 men and tti, aionr ,n-- - fea mother by the Austrian droops befoo I was made a prisoner. We were marching across a rough country near Lochnizter when we stopped -- stn-- 'fin i lyjtii u: forwara ami as l.passei him iater I saw he was stone dead." "Other than that incident there is one otllQr that j11.61" .fyTJmm' tordmg that they wew laml. &nd Jy whatcyer com. forU cre ailable hy solllicrs u;0 wcrc 0y,erwjcc deaj to every feliii" ,, "We were supposed to have started on that retreat," said Haller, "with i. wc a naI" lJU "'"T wrlh t ed - were perhaps not more than 2000 women among the retreat- -' . horde wHh ug and .fc ig a fatf. h men ; c: meat-stripp- "There , y ed "" r. T . , 1 snow-cover- likc sfnages, cating pieces of brown r-re- JiA x ,i.:, putting in a little, salt. At that I far luckier than the" fellow, .ho h,d to boil harness leather for five or gjx hours in order to make the hot AVater taste like soup. I saw men act non' " - Wh8 Was Made Prisoner. Haller, who was on a visit to V.mlinpst when the war began, en- hsted in the Austrian arnn and was serving as a bugler when, six months later, ho was, taken prisoner by the Serbs and then finally was marched Austrian soldiers with 75,000 other, . . across the mountains into ;ioania and "thero turned loose on the shores of the Adriatic to fight for life against cholera, fever and starva- - 1.1 s i f These poor women in their flight froci their homes had in many cases been unable to bring enough clothes to cover them. Often they wore without stockings or underskirts, or hats or shawls or cloaks. I have een time and time again soive frcez 22g soldier take off his overcoat and force t llPon som one of these a. omen, and seem almost nhamed to look upon her shiverin;; boJy ag Ije made the' offer. Then he would search along the road for hours until ne was able to strip soma dead man of his clothes to replace that which he had so rpplv In A Mad Soldier. 3 1 TX'l. as ins most ""t1" TI.I iaiuea remarkable experience-- was the sight nc- n c,.i.i; " Alum fciuru- tion. "Clothed1 ujiu only in a ragged undershirt he was running barefoot "own a Albanian road as an arrow, bellowing as he straight , ,1 , e saiu. ran on ana Jl'on ran, i Anrm vwi. lat iuau,A "lie oti-ii- i iiuiiiiuLr, ves wonderfully avoiding stumbling over the bodies of other dead and d3'ing soldiers and the caN casses of the army horses which blockedthe wa3. Suffering in- tensely as 1 myself was, I turned and . - I ' xTTJ , s A. v ? v n ....!I. ..1... ... .A..-..!r.......f..............- .5 ..... 5 4 (:-.- t. 111 - . 0 'I ' Tir, ', .V.'. . 1 (t 1 ifc V.. ii ii.i a ii. ' ''i . .. r. v. ."''. (..:. J.Sh..'' W':,r a i. .........-- iiim.i.ii mnt'rtwk - |