hat he found on the drifters--had
no means of stopping the German boats. But after telephoning in vain
to the ex-harbour-master, he fired a shot into one of the boats, which
fortunately found the kitchen, and made such a terrible noise among
the pots and pans that the Germans considered it more prudent to
remain. The Baron succeeded in sending back to Belgrade altogether 39
steamers and 217 loaded drifters, which contained booty, even from the
Ukraine, that was valued at about a milliard crowns; ... but the
Austro-Hungarians managed to get away with a considerable amount of
plunder. The people of Buda-Pest were surprised, on the morning of
November 5, to find the _Sophie_, one of the most luxurious passenger
steamers on the Danube, lying at their quay, with her decks groaning
under such a pile of packing-cases and parcels and furniture and all
kinds of objects heaped upon each other as almost to make the boat
unrecognizable. A lieutenant with a dozen soldiers was sent to
investigate, and the captain showed him an order from the Minister of
War, commanding that the _Sophie_ should take on board the Military
Government in Serbia and transport it to Vienna. But the Buda-Pest
authorities insisted on removing all the articles whose ownership the
passengers were unable to prove; and it took a whole day to unload the
enormous quantities of flour, leather, clothing, poultry, sugar, fats,
etc. General Rhemen, the former military governor of Serbia, related
that on October 5 he received the order to begin the military
evacuation of Serbia. This was carried on day by day, and on October
28 it was completed. "We sent by the railway and by boats," said
Colonel Kerchnaive to the Hungarian journalists, "4000 carloads of
wheat, 10,000 fat oxen, 10,000 transport oxen, 10,000 pigs, 4000
sheep, 15 carloads of wine, 400 carloads of jam, enormous quantities
of wood, of telephone material, of arms, munitions and 16 million
crowns in silver." Such was the "military evacuation" of Serbia....
And at the beginning of the same month, when the whole Austro-Hungarian
monarchy was in a state of collapse, Baron Hussarek stood up in the
Reichsrath and said that "the task will arise for the Government
carefully to prepare and inaugurate the difficult but hopeful work of
reconstructing the monarchy on the basis of national autonomy." The
imperturbable Prime Minister announced that "we shall have to go to
work and set our house in order." But you will say