e flowing along its low
front, it was the cause of a general, world-wide wonder that it should
not have fallen almost immediately into Austrian hands. Quite aside from
military values, the capture of an enemy's capital always makes a
strong, moral impression, on both sides.

Beginning with the early morning of July 29, 1914, when a detachment of
Serbian irregulars beat off a river steamer and two troop laden barges
which were attempting to approach the shore just below Belgrade, there
followed a period during which the citizens of the city had their full
share in experiencing the horrors of warfare. The booming of heavy siege
artillery and the screaming of shells at first startled them, then
became so commonplace as barely to attract their attention. The attacks
and counterattacks on mid-river islands became incidents of daily
occurrence. Ruined buildings, wrecked houses and dead bodies in the
streets became an unmarked portion of their everyday life.

For the greater part of this period Austrian cannon, planted across the
river, poured shell, shrapnel, and incendiary bombs into the city, with
intent to batter down its modern buildings and to terrorize the
inhabitants. Over 700 buildings were struck by bombs, shells, or
shrapnel, and of these sixty were the property of the state, including
the university, the museum, foreign legations, hospitals, and factories.
The foundries, bakeries and all the factories along the Serbian shore of
the river were razed to the ground. Austrian howitzer shells dropped
through the roof of the king's palace and wrecked all of the gorgeous
interior. The university was riddled until the building, with its
classrooms, laboratories, library, and workshops, was entirely
demolished. Even the cellars were destroyed by great shells, which broke
down the walls, pierced their way into the very bowels of the earth and
there exploded. As the result of a steady fire to destroy the state
bank, one street, running up from the water's edge, was ripped up from
curb to curb. Missiles pierced the wood paving and its concrete
foundations by small holes, passed along underground for some distance,
then exploded, throwing particles of the roadway to all sides.

Many of these shells were fired from the Austrian batteries stationed
over near Semlin, but presently there also appeared a fleet of river
monitors, so heavily armored that no Serbian shell could pierce their
sides. These would parade up and down the r