the
church did not recognize in this old man, bent, haggard and unshaven,
the king who had sat on the throne of Kara-Georgevitch--the grandson
of that famous swineherd.

Before the high altar the old man knelt in prayer while a group of
staff officers stood at a distance, watching him in silence. The crash
of bursting shrapnel came to them from outside and once a window was
shattered and the little church was filled with splinters of flying
glass and still the King of Serbia knelt at his devotions, praying
that at the last moment his kingdom might be saved from destruction.

But in spite of his appeals the end came.

CHAPTER XXXVI

END OF GERMAN OPERATIONS--FLIGHT OF SERB PEOPLE--GREECE

With the fall of Pristina and Mitrovitza on November 23, 1915, ended
the operations against Serbia, so far as Mackensen and his Germans
were concerned. On November 28, 1915, German Headquarters issued an
extraordinary report in which it announced that with the flight of the
scanty remains of the Serbian army into the Albanian Mountains "our
great operations in the Balkans are brought to a close. Our object, to
effect communications with Bulgaria and the Turkish Empire, has been
accomplished." After briefly describing these operations and admitting
the "tough resistance" of the Serbians, who had "fought bravely," this
communique asserted that more than 100,000 of them, almost half their
original force, had been taken prisoners, while their losses from
killed and desertions could not be estimated. The impression left by
this document was that there were very few of the Serbian soldiers
left. On the other hand, the Allies claimed that on the date mentioned
Serbia still had 200,000 fighting men left.

At any rate, it was true that Germany had now opened railroad
communications with the Orient. Her engineers and military railroad
staff had repaired the damage the retreating Serbians had done to the
main trunk line, and early in December through trains were running
from Berlin to Constantinople. Having accomplished this, Germany
withdrew most of her troops from the Balkans, leaving the Bulgarians
to finish Macedonia, and Austria to deal with Montenegro.

It was a nation, rather than an army, that was in flight; not for many
hundreds of years has there been such an instance in history. When
Nish had fallen into the hands of the enemy, the population in general
had realized that the whole land was going to be overrun by the
inv