ur days later, after driving
the Serbians from their intrenchments in the Stolovi ranges, he
reached Rashka, which had been the seat of the Serbian Government
after its flight from Kralievo and which was situated on the Ibar,
some distance along the road to Mitrovitza and only a few miles from
Novi Bazar. This place he took on November 20, 1915, and with it a
small arsenal, in which were fifty large mortars and eight guns, which
even the German reports described as of "somewhat ancient pattern."

To the eastward the Austrians had taken possession of Sienitza and
Novi Varosh, up toward the Montenegrin frontier. Being expelled from
Zhochanitza, the Serbians retired to Mitrovitza. By November 22, 1915,
the Austrian lines had followed to within five miles of that point.

Gallwitz and his Germans, in the meanwhile, operating on the left
flank of the Austrians, was pushing southward, his object being to
take Pristina, on the east side of the Kossovo Plain and about twenty
miles southeast of Mitrovitza. But this was a task that could not be
accomplished without much difficulty, for before him towered the
backbone of Serbia's main mountain ridges, each ravine and each ledge
sheltering strong Serbian forces.

As usual, however, the big guns cleared the way before Gallwitz,
though at Jastrebatz the Serbians made him pay a heavy price in the
losses he suffered. On this front the Bulgars were now coming close
enough to the Germans to support them; against the two the Serbians
had not the slightest chance.

By November 8, 1915, Gallwitz was starting out from Krushevatz, after
which he followed the banks of a small branch of the Western Morava in
a southwesterly direction, toward Brus, with one part of his force,
another being sent due south across a range of high hills toward
Kurshumlia. He soon reached Ribari and Ribarska Bania, where the
retreating Serbians gave him what he himself described in his official
report as "very stiff fighting." Next he stormed the pass through the
mountains and thus gained an entrance to the valley of the Toplitza,
through which flows a river westward into the Morava, the main stream
by that name, though in this district it is known as the Southern
Morava.

A week's hard fighting and marching followed before Kurshumlia could
be taken, which the Serbians evacuated without resistance, though not
before they had stripped it of everything that might be of value to
the enemy. Here was located a Serbia