it was literally defending its native soil. During the first part of
the fighting it had been intrenched in the hills to the north of the
town. The day was wet and dense mists rolled through the mountain
passes down over the hills. The Germans had effectually shelled the
positions of the Shumadians and were under the impression that they
had retired, wherefore they advanced upward to occupy the deserted
trenches.

And then, suddenly, wild yells and shouts burst out from the rolling
mist and the Shumadians fell upon the invaders with set bayonets. The
latter, who had been growing accustomed to the purely defensive
tactics of their enemy, were completely taken by surprise and thrown
into disorder.

The first line of the Teutons wavered, then broke and scattered.
Coming up against reenforcements behind, they re-formed and advanced
again. And again the Shumadians burst down on them and engaged them
hand to hand. Fighting like savages, they drove the invaders before
them for a considerable distance, taking over 3,000 prisoners and
several guns. When finally they retired just as the main body of the
advancing foe was coming up, they left behind them hundreds of enemy
dead, the fallen literally covering the ground in heaps.

The mixed forces of Koevess, keeping in touch with Gallwitz's right
wing, had been advancing more or less in line with the Germans,
marching along the railroad from Belgrade and Obrenovatz toward the
Western Morava. South of Belgrade the Serbians had put up a stout
resistance at Kosmai, but were finally dislodged by the heavy
artillery fire. On October 25, 1915, Koevess arrived at Ratcha, south
of Palanka, on the right side of the Morava. After a hard fought
battle at Gorni Milanovatz, he reached Cacak on November 1, 1915, a
few miles west of Kragujevatz. Here it was that he struck the Western
Morava and the railroad passing along it eastward from Ushitze to its
junction with the main line. Farther to the westward his cavalry, on
October 26, 1915, had occupied Valievo on the Upper Kolubara and one
of his divisions had crossed the Maljen Mountains, where the Austrians
had been so humiliatingly defeated the year before. Farther west, but
more to the south, the Austrians, who had pushed on from Vishegrad,
arrived in Ushitze on November 2, 1915, and presently effected a
junction with the main body.

Meanwhile, a day or two before the end of the month, an incident up in
the northeast foreshadowed the attai