Batum to Kars at the other end to which military steamers
can bring troops and supplies from Odessa and Novorossik in the Black
Sea.

The most important city in this region is Tiflis, the "city of seventy
languages." It may, indeed, be called the modern Babel. As seen from the
mountains, it lies at the bottom of a brown, treeless valley, between
steep hills, on either side of the River Kura.

It is a point of great importance to modern Russia. It forms, to begin
with, the end of the great military road across the mountains which, in
spite of the railways, is still the quickest way to Europe for an army
as well as for travelers, and all the mails come over it by express
coaches. From Tiflis a railway runs to Kars, a strong frontier on the
Persian frontier.

Tiflis has been much developed under the Russian Government. In the
modern section of the city the streets are wide and paved and lighted by
electricity and the stores are large and handsome while electric
railways run in all directions. In the older parts of the city, however,
the houses remain as they were built centuries ago, divided out into the
many quarters devoted to the residences of the many races and
nationalities that compose the population of Tiflis. Between most of
them is bitter enmity and prejudice, even among those of the two great
religious faiths, Christians and Mohammedans. It is this diversity of
interests, which extends throughout all the section down into Persia,
which has so complicated the situation on this front. For not only are
the two military forces fighting here, but wherever governmental
authority is momentarily relaxed, there these mutual animosities flare
up into active expression and the most barbarous features of warfare
take place, such as the massacres of the Armenians by the Mohammedans.
Neither Turkey nor Russia has been especially eager to suppress these
bitter feuds, even in time of peace. In time of war there is nothing to
restrain them, and the whole region is swept by carnage infinitely more
hideous than legitimate warfare.

We have now passed over the entire theatre of the battles on the Eastern
frontiers of the war in Europe. The battle grounds are familiar to us.
In the succeeding chapters we will follow the armies over this
war-ridden dominion and watch the battle lines as they move through the
war to its decisive conclusion.

PART IV--THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER XLVI

SERBIA'S SITUATION AND