rade were startled by a deep roar, followed
by the whistling shriek of a huge body hurtling through the air,
and a shell burst over the battlements of the old Turkish citadel,
doing no damage. Immediately there came another deep shock; the
Serbian guns were responding. Thence on the cannonading along the
Danube front continued for week after week, with only now and then
a lull.

The Austrian batteries bombarded not only Belgrade, but Semendria,
Gradishte and a number of other points along the river bank. Next
they were seen building a pontoon bridge out to one of the little
islands in the river, opposite the city and barges were towed alongside
the landings on the opposite shore, presently to be crowded with
black masses of Austrian troops. Naturally, the Serbian gunners
made these objects the targets of their fire. But these were mere
bluffs, such feints as the skilled boxer makes when he wants to get
behind the guard of his opponent. If anything, these demonstrations
only served to deepen the conviction of General Putnik that the
real danger was not from this quarter.

But where was the first great blow to strike? Naturally, not only
the General Staff, but the whole army and population waited in
deep anxiety. This tension lasted over the last days of July, into
the first week of August, 1914.

Then, on August 6, 1914, some Bosnian peasants, Serbs, appeared
and reported that they had seen great bodies of soldiers moving
along the mountain roads toward Syrmia, in northeastern Bosnia. Two
days later, early in the morning, two Austrian aeroplanes whirred
over the River Save and circled over Krupani, Shaoatz and Valievo.
The last doubts were then dispelled; the attack was coming from
the east.

And finally, on August 12, 1914, the message flashed over the wires
that the outposts had seen boats in movement, full of soldiers,
behind an island on the Drina, opposite Loznitza. Near that town,
and in fact along the whole lower course of the Drina, the river
has frequently changed its channel, thus cutting out numerous small
islands, which would serve as a screen to the movements of troops
contemplating a crossing. Pontoon bridges could be built on the
farther side of almost any of these islands without being observed
from the other shore. This was exactly what the Austrians were
doing.

Suddenly, on August 12, 1914, there came a burst of rifle fire
and the boom of heavy field guns, and a fleet of barges, under
cover of