ported that the Servians had again repulsed an
Austrian attempt at invasion and had driven the Austrians back across
the Drina with loss. They had also checked another Austrian attempt
to take Belgrade. The Servian war office claimed that the combined
Servian-Montenegrin armies had made material progress in their invasion
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that they were within striking distance of
Serajevo, which they expected to capture. This, however, was denied by
the Vienna ministry of war, which claimed that the Servian situation was
entirely satisfactory to Austria.

On October 5 Servian troops were reported to have begun a northeast
advance from Semlin, to effect a junction with two Russian columns
advancing southward in Hungary. One of these columns was then assaulting
a fortress in Northwest Hungary, sixty-six miles southeast of Olmutz,
while the other was descending the valley of the Nagyan against Huszt
in the province of Marmaros. This latter province or county, which the
Russians invaded through the Carpathian passes, lies in the northeast of
Hungary, bordering on Galicia, Bukowina and Transylvania. There was a
legend that the eastern Carpathians are impregnable, but this legend was
destroyed by the Russian invasion.

Before attaining Uzsok pass, in the Carpathians, the Russians
successively captured by a wide flanking movement three well-masked
positions which were strongly defended by guns. Each time the Russians
charged the enemy fled and the Russians followed up the Austrian retreat
with shrapnel and quick fire, inflicting heavy losses.

German troops joined the Austrian forces in Hungary and at some points
succeeded in repulsing the invaders, though their general advance was
not decisively checked and they continued the endeavor to effect a
junction with the Servians to the south. Advices from Budapest, October
6, declared that the Russians had captured Marmaros-Sziget, capital of
the county of Marmaros, necessitating the removal of the government of
that department to Huszt, twenty-eight miles west-northwest of Sziget.
A second Russian column was reported to be threatening Huszt and
Austro-German reinforcements were being hurried up to check the Russian
advance.

[Illustration: "BY ALLAH, I MAY HAVE TO INTERFERE IN THE NAME OF
HUMANITY"
--Kessler in the New York _Evening Sun_.]

CHAPTER XIV

STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD

_Thrilling Incidents of the Great War Told by Actual Combatants
--Pe