ry will stand out in the
early history of the war as one of the most brilliant episodes
of that period of the general struggle. Like a mighty tidal wave
from the ocean the Austrian hosts swept over the Serbian frontier
in three furious successive onslaughts, only to be beaten back
each time. Naturally, there were material and moral causes, aside
from the mere valor of the Serbians, which combined to create this
disaster for the Austrian forces, but enough of the human element
enters into the military activities of these campaigns to make
them easily the most picturesque of the early period of the war.

Before entering into a description of the actual events in 1914,
it is well to consider the forces engaged. From a material point of
view the Serbians entered into these campaigns greatly handicapped.
They had lately been through two wars. In the First Balkan War they
had not, it is true, been severely tested; the weight of the fighting
had been borne by the Bulgarians in Thrace. The real test, and the
great losses, came only with the second war, when the Serbian army
threw every fiber of its strength against the Bulgarians in the
Battle of the Bregalnitza, one of the most stubborn struggles in
military history. The result was a Serbian victory, but it was very
far from being a decisive and conclusive victory. The Bulgarians
were forced back some fifteen miles into their own territory, but
had it not been for the intervention of Rumania there can be no
doubt that the Serbs would have entered Sofia. Here it was that
the Serbians lost 7,000 killed and 30,000 wounded of their best
men, as against 5,000 killed and 18,000 wounded in the whole war
with Turkey; a total loss that was bound to be felt a few months
later when the struggle was to be against so powerful an adversary
as Austria-Hungary. The two previous wars had, without exaggeration,
deprived the Serbian fighting forces of one-tenth their number--a
tenth that was of the very best of first-line troops.

[Illustration: PICTORIAL MAP OF THE BALKANS]

Added to this was another serious handicap, possibly even more
serious. Serbia had, indeed, emerged victorious from the two wars,
with a large stretch of conquered territory at her backdoor. But
this acquired territory, practically all of Macedonia that had
not gone to Greece, was peopled by Serbs. For twenty-five years
these Macedonians had been organized into revolutionary fighting
bands, the "Macedonian Committee" fo