The collapse of Austria-Hungary was being hastened by the fine work of
the Allies' Macedonian army. France and Great Britain had provided for
the re-equipment of the Serbs. And of the variegated forces that were
based on Salonica none did more magnificently than this resurrected
army. A weather-beaten sergeant of the French Infanterie Coloniale
told me that he had never seen an exploit such as that of
Kaimat[vc]alan, where the Serbs set themselves the task of climbing to
the summit, which towers 8000 feet high, and from there dislodging the
Bulgarian artillery. Over and over again the Serbs were thrown back,
and with terrific losses, for the mountain-side was strewn with rocks
not large enough to shelter more than a man or two. But as the
Infanterie Coloniale is habitually chosen for the roughest work, so
the Serbs asked for nothing better than to climb the wall that shut
them out from their own country. The labyrinth of trenches on the
mountain-top was taken and retaken many times, until the
Bulgars--inadequately supported by their Allies--had to retreat; and
this, after further ferocious fighting, enabled the Serbs and the
French to liberate Monastir. The complicated story of Greek
manoeuvres need not detain us, nor need we ask whether Mr. Leland
Buxton[103] is justified in saying that the majority of that people
were pro-German, "but were subsequently compelled by the Allied
blockade ... to declare themselves supporters of Venizelos, on whose
behalf, indeed, the British Admiralty and War Office had to carry on a
sort of election campaign (by Eastern European methods) until the
numerous waverers wisely decided that it was better to be a well-fed
Venizelist than a hungry Royalist." Sufficient that after months of
delaying, in the course of which the Russian troops had to be turned
into labour battalions, Marshal Mi[vs]i['c]--whose plan of campaign
had fortunately been adopted--had the satisfaction of seeing his own
countrymen and their Allies racing up at last through Macedonia and
Serbia to the Danube and beyond it.... What did they find? Bridges
hastily blown up, tunnels rendered impassable by two locomotives laden
with dynamite being made to collide in the middle of them--but the
Serbs went rushing on. The supply columns could not keep pace with the
troops--during the first eight days of the offensive the men of the
2nd Army received but two days' rations--they continued their advance
across the Vardar, though but little bread and practically no other
food was obtainable. In three days they had covered sixty miles. There
was only time for them to greet the women and old men--and even if
they had then been told of the 130,000 horses, the 6,000,000 sheep and
goats, the 2,000,000 pigs, 1,300,000 cattle and over 8,000,000 poultry
which the enemy had taken; if they had learned that the losses
sustained by Serbia--exclusive of her own expenses and of the war
loans from her Allies--amounted to some 10,000,000,000 frs. on a
pre-war valuation, what did all this matter in that joyous time?