his soldiers to such a pitch
that they would make a hard fight, for by this time they had
undoubtedly lost a good deal of their morale.

Von Gallwitz had passed through Nish and was now driving back the
Serbian advance posts in the Toplitza Valley, while the Austrians, on
his right, were pressing on toward Novi Bazar. As will be seen by a
glance at the map, the Serbians were therefore bearing the
concentrated attack of four armies; that which operated from
Vishegrad, the mixed forces under Koevess, Gallwitz's army and the main
Bulgarian forces. The pressure was incessant. Reenforcements had been
hurried through from Germany to make good the heavy losses which had
been sustained during the campaign. Communication between the main
Serbian armies and the Serbians in the south had now been cut
completely and only Prisrend and Monastir remained to be taken before
the whole of Serbia and Serbian Macedonia would be cleared of the
Serbian fighting forces.

The fight in the region of Pristina was to be the last grand battle of
the retreat. Here what remained of the Serbian main forces took battle
formation, finally to dispute the enemy's advance. To this end the
remaining stock of gun ammunition and rifle cartridges had been
carefully saved and a store of war material gathered at Mitrovitza in
readiness for such a stand. The weary bullocks were turned loose from
the gun carriages they hauled, for there could be no taking them along
up among the crags of the mountain country. The guns themselves were
brought into position on the surrounding hills, trenches were dug
wherever possible. Machine guns were located to cover the mountain
paths and valley roads, and strong redoubts, which had been thrown up
with civilian labor before the army had arrived, were manned. And then
there remained a brief period during which the weary soldiers could
take some much needed rest.

There was something tragically significant that this last stand should
be made on the plains of Kossovo, or the "Field of the Ravens," as it
is sometimes called by the natives, on account of the great flocks of
those birds that frequent it. For on this same field it was that
Lazar, the last of the ancient Serbian czars, whose empire included
the whole of Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, northern Greece, and
Bulgaria, had fought just such a last desperate battle against the
Turks in 1389, and had gone down before the Moslem hordes, and with
him the Serbian nation. Each