There, on higher ground, which
offered more effective shelter, they made a determined stand and
continued their fire on the Austrian masses.
Having crossed the river, the Austrians threw up defensive breastworks
and dug elaborate trenches, thus fortifying their crossing. Next
they built a pontoon bridge, and then the main Austrian army poured
across; a whole army corps and two divisions of a second.
Meanwhile, on the same day, August 12, 1914, a similar event was
happening at Shabatz, on the Save, where that river takes a sharp
southward turn and then swings up again before joining the Danube
at Belgrade. Here the country is a level plain, really the southern
limit of the great plain which stretches up to the Danube, past
Belgrade and so into Hungary. Here, too, the Austrians screened
themselves behind an island in the river, then hurled their forces
across, driving the feeble detachment of Third Reserve Serbian troops
back across the plain up into the hills lying to the southeast
of Shabatz. Then the advance guard of the Austrian Fourth Army
occupied the town, strongly fortified it and built a pontoon bridge
across the river from their railroad terminus at Klenak.
Further passages of a similar nature were forced that day, August
12, 1914, at other points by smaller forces; one at Zvornik and
another at Liubovia. In addition the Austrians also threw bridges
across the river at Amajlia and Branjevo.
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