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Show H -- POOH SERBIA. H Senator Myers recently read to the U. S. Senate an B , cuticle from a newspaper on Serbia, that depicts one of B 3ue saddest chapters that has been written during the H xs.r. In fact it is one of the saddest annals of warfare in B tfccMstory of all the world. It is as follows: H The condition of the Serbian army, after nearly B three years of the bitterest experience undergone B Jjyany of the entente allied forces, is discribed by B , Jfsrbert Corey, the war correspondent, in a graphic B communication to the National Geographic Society, B a part of which is issued as the following war geo- B -graphy bulletin from the society's Washington B headquarters: B "The Serbs are the poor relations of the allies. B They are armed with the old St.. Etienne rifles B nvhich the French discarded. The artillery in sup- B port has been cast from other fronts. Their sur- B jjeons are borrowed surgeons, for the most part. B They are uniformed and fed by the French, and B - 'Great Britain loans them money. They never have B - enough cars, even for staff use. Sometimes they B have not enought food. But they always have B I --enough ammunition and they find enough fighting B for themselves. B 1 "The Serbian army began the great retreat of M . 1915, 250,000 strong. Not more than 150,000 B ireached asylum on the island of Corfu after the H ' -winter's fight through the snow-filled passes of Al- H ' foania and Montenegro. In the confusion of those H days some one had forgotten. There was not suf- H flclent food or clothing or medicines or nursing H -awaiting them. Men who had struggled through H 'the winter died on the open beaches of the Island B -at Vido. H '"Dying men dug their own graves and then dug H . xhe graves of the men already dead. Not more than H rialf were fit to serve again when the fall campaign fl ! 1916 began. H h "It was a sad army bitter army but not a de- H -spairing army that I accompanied last winter. Many H of these men were 'cheechas' in the Serb phrase. H IrYhen u man reaches the age of 40 he becomes H ''uncle' to his neighbors. Some of these men were H .sn the fourth line before the war. B "Serbia to the Serb peasant means the little H . -white cottage, the plum orchard, the 10 acres of H . ;ground. Few of them had been 50 miles away from H "home when war began five years ago in the Balk- H sins.. Fewer have seen their homes since. They H " i- liave received no news from their wives and f amil- H Tes, lor the Austro-Bulgarian censorship had been H extremely sever. They have seen comrades die. H IVIost of them three men out of five in some units H have been wounded at some time during the war. H ' ' "There were no songs upon the march except H daring those vivid days when the Bulgarians were H Ibeing forced out of Monastir. There waa no light- H "hearted talk about the campfires. There was no H .-amslc except that now and then one heard the weird H --anil complaining tones of a one-stringed fiddle H which some patient soldier had made out of the H material at hand. They kept to themselves or in H little gi'oups of twos and threes. At night scores H of tiny fires would sparkle in the open land on A -either side of the monastir road, where the paired B comrades were cooking their evening meal. They m marched badly, slowly, slouching, their old shoul- H lers "bowed under their packs, their grizzled faces H deeply lined. Yet these men were the cutting edge H -voE the weapon that bent back the Bulgarian lines. H "One division the Morava remained in the H -aggressive for 95 days without rest. Dui'ing that H Twriod they had but one trench the front trench. H 'They had one second line, no reserve, no rest camp. B "One regiment of the Choumadia division 'lost M l 1000 out of 1400 men in taking Vetternik Mountain, B -and then held that mountain under fire from the B Roc of Blood, which dominated the summit, for H ; 20 days until relief came. Even then the men of the H . ; veguncnt which had been so nearly wiped out did m -not go to rest. They stayed on Vetternik. H I In the taking of Kaymakchlan half of some of BH.. tUAu.'.amartaa5.r.- .n i miwi i ' -- - --r -l ' r organizations were killed outright. "The Serbs were enabled to do these things' partly because of the experience gained in five years of almost continuous fighting. Another factor was the spirit of the men. They no longer hoped for anything for themselves. They expected to die. Those who still remain expect to be killed in action. But they intend that the bill of Serbia shall be paid." o |