It is
this range, converging with the Tzer and Iverak Mountains toward
Valievo, and forming the plain of the Jadar Valley, which was presently
to become the center of the first great battle between the Serbians
and Austrians.
A military movement against Valievo, therefore, demanded complete
possession of these two ridges, which overlooked the line of march.
This the Austrians knew well enough, even before the first of their
troops had crossed the Drina. As is well known, the best maps, not
only of Serbia but of all the Balkan countries, have been made by
Austrian engineers. There was probably not a spur, not a fissure,
certainly not a trail, of these mountains that had not been carefully
surveyed and measured by engineers of the Austrian staff.
The Austrians knew the country they were invading quite as well
as did the native Serbians. All through it may be said that it was
not through want of accurate knowledge that the Austrians finally
met disaster. Rather was it because they misjudged the relative
values of their facts. And one of their first mistakes was in
overestimating the effects of the two Balkan Wars on the efficiency of
the Serbian army. First of all, as was obvious from the leisureliness
with which they proceeded to occupy the two mountain chains in
question, that they vastly misjudged the capacity of the Serbian
troops to make rapid movements. Even as the first shots were being
fired across the Drina at Losnitza, the Serbian forces were on
the move, westward.
Pages:
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422