ussia, she was to
win a victory in the military sense which was beyond cavil, but she
was this time to lose the political profit she had hoped, because
she had mistaken the importance in the minds of her enemies of the
Balkan field and fatally overestimated the war weariness of the
peoples that opposed her. At the Golden Horn she was to find not
peace, but the necessity for new campaigns.

THE SERBIAN PHASE

On the military side the Serbian campaign was the simplest of
operations. For many months the Serbian forces had been posted south
of the Danube and the Save and east of the Drin, looking over their
frontiers into Hungary and Bosnia. Behind them from the Danube at
Belgrade to the Aegean at Saloniki ran the Orient railroad, by which
they were munitioned. At Nish halfway to the sea, the line drew near
to the Bulgarian frontier and sent a branch off, which passed
through Bulgaria and reached Constantinople.

The Saloniki railway was the life line of Serbia, it was also the
natural route for a retreat, if the Austro-German attack became too
heavy. But it was fatally exposed, should Bulgaria enter the war
against Serbia. In the Treaty of Bucharest, Greece and Rumania had
undertaken to join Serbia should she be attacked by Bulgaria, and
the mission of Greece was to cover the Saloniki railroad as far
north as it was necessary to join hands with the Serbians.

Now, while the Bulgarians were beginning to mobilize and the
Austro-German hosts were gathering to the north, Serbia appealed to
her former allies to keep their agreement. Both declined, and their
refusal was fatal. The Allies had relied upon Greek promises, and
had failed to collect any considerable force at Saloniki. They had
trusted Bulgaria and refused to let Serbia attack her neighbor
before Bulgarian mobilization was complete. Once Bulgaria had
mobilized the doom of Serbia was settled.

What happened was this: The Germans forced the passage of the Danube
north and east of Belgrade and came south along the broad Morava
River Valley, driving the Serbs before them. Thanks to the heavy
artillery of the invaders Serbian resistance was impotent. The
Austrians, meantime, crossed the Drin and came east from Bosnia.
Think of Serbia as a rectangle and you can visualize two sides of
the figure as closing in on the center, which was the heart of
Serbia.

At the appointed moment the Bulgarians struck west from a third side
of the rectangle, speedily crossed the Be