and a
cavalry division was sent him. The result was that the Austrian
column was temporarily driven back into the mountains. Hastily
re-forming, the Austrians now massed along a line extending from
Belikamen to Radlovatz, while the Serbians deployed along a front
running from Slatina through Metkovitch to Gusingrob.

At 11 a. m., August 16, 1914, the two opposing forces opened fire
in earnest, up and down the line. All day the cannon roared and
the rifles and machine guns crackled; now and again the Austrians
would shoot forth from their line a sharp infantry attack, but these
were repulsed, with more and more difficulty as the day advanced,
for the Serbians were much inferior in numbers. Toward evening their
situation became very critical. Yet every part of the line held
out desperately, knowing that reenforcements were being hurried
forward from the rear as fast as men could move.

And just before dark, along the roads from the eastward, came the
distant cheers from the advancing columns. An officer dashed up
on horseback shouting encouragement to the battered men in the
trenches. A cheer arose, which rolled up and down the line. Again
it rose, then, even before it had died out, with wild yells the
Serbians sprang over their breastworks and swept madly across the
intervening space to the Austrian lines; smashing through cornfields,
over rocks, through the tall grass of orchards. At their heels
followed the reenforcing soldiers, though they had that day marched
nearly sixty miles. Over the Austrian breastworks they surged,
like an angry wave from the sea, their bayonets gleaming in the
sunset glow. It was the kind of fighting they knew best; the kind
that both Serbians and Bulgars know best, the kind they had practiced
most.

Small wonder if the inexperienced peasants from the plains of Hungary,
unused till then to any sight more bloody than a brawl in the village
inn, trembled before this onslaught. Their officers shouted
encouragement and oaths, barely audible above the mad yells of
the Serbians. Nevertheless, they gave way before the gleaming line
of bayonet blades before them. Some few rose to fight, stirred by
some long-submerged instinct generated in the days of Genghis Khan.
But the majority turned and fled, helter-skelter, down the sides of
the mountains toward the valleys, leaving behind guns, ammunition,
and cannon. One regiment, the Hundred and Second, stood its ground
and fought. As a result it was al