flank of this position, the Serbian gunners had suddenly covered it
with a terrible enfilading fire and men, horses, carts, and wagons lay
in a mangled heap. There were dead horses in the shafts of the carts,
whose bridles were still clutched by the hands of dead men. Some few had
tried to escape the avalanche of flying steel and as they ran they
hurled from them caps, ammunition, haversacks and rifles only to be
raked down before they could reach the shelter of a neighboring ravine.
And this was merely one little corner of the general scene. All along
the road to Valievo the ground was strewn with material, even to the
rations of the soldiers, jolted out of the knapsacks as they were cast
down by their fleeing owners.

During that first day of fighting the First Army captured twelve
officers, 1,500 men, five mountain howitzers and four machine guns, then
advanced, until by nightfall it was able to take up a position along a
line from Kostuniche to Vranovicha. During this time the Uzitsha Army
was fiercely attacked in its position on both sides of the Western
Morava Valley, but it succeeded in driving back the assaults. The Third
Army had also advanced slowly toward Lipet, taking over 500 prisoners
and two machine guns. The Second Army met desperate opposition, but
finally began surging ahead and soon sent in its share of captured war
material and prisoners.

In the north an important force of the Austrians was making toward
Belgrade, to lead a triumphal entry. Reconnoitering parties, sent out
from the flank of this body, were seen in the direction of Slatina and
Popovitch.

The decided successes of this first day's fighting acted as a powerful
stimulant on the previously depressed Serbian rank and file, though they
still realized that there was many a hard fought attack to be driven
into the vitals of the ponderous body of the enemy before he could be
finally hurled back across the frontier. The Austrians still remained in
possession of mountain positions of great natural strength, which could
only be taken at the point of the bayonet. But the Serbians had
recovered their _morale_; again they were fighting with that energy and
vigor which had characterized their assaults during the first and second
invasions. And they were amply rewarded.

By December 5, 1914, the First Army had retaken the dominating heights
of the Suvobor Mountains and the summit of Rajatz. The Third Army, after
buckling back a stubborn resistanc