So, wherever our sympathies
may lie, considering the war as a whole, there can be no doubt
that the defense which the Serbians made against the first efforts
of the Austrians to invade their country will stand out in the
early history of the war as one of the most brilliant episodes
of that period of the general struggle. Like a mighty tidal wave
from the ocean the Austrian hosts swept over the Serbian frontier
in three furious successive onslaughts, only to be beaten back
each time. Naturally, there were material and moral causes, aside
from the mere valor of the Serbians, which combined to create this
disaster for the Austrian forces, but enough of the human element
enters into the military activities of these campaigns to make
them easily the most picturesque of the early period of the war.
Before entering into a description of the actual events in 1914,
it is well to consider the forces engaged. From a material point of
view the Serbians entered into these campaigns greatly handicapped.
They had lately been through two wars. In the First Balkan War they
had not, it is true, been severely tested; the weight of the fighting
had been borne by the Bulgarians in Thrace. The real test, and the
great losses, came only with the second war, when the Serbian army
threw every fiber of its strength against the Bulgarians in the
Battle of the Bregalnitza, one of the most stubborn struggles in
military history.
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