rations with a series of
violent attacks on the eastern front, on the Rivers Tara, Lim, and
Ibar, while at the same time the warships in the Gulf of Cattaro
opened a terrific fire on Mount Lovcen.

For four days the Montenegrin troops offered a determined resistance.
Berane, on the Lim, was captured by the Austrians on the 10th. On the
same day the warships suddenly ceased their bombardment of Mount
Lovcen and Austrian infantry swept up the mountain sides and delivered
a strong attack. The handful of Montenegrins at the top were
completely overwhelmed and Lovcen was captured. Some surprise was
expressed among the Allies at the time that this supposedly powerful
stronghold should so easily succumb, but it soon developed that the
defenders were not only short of food, but they had run out of
ammunition and had practically fired their last cartridges.

With Lovcen in the hands of the enemy Cettinje could no longer be held
by the Montenegrins, and on January 13, 1916, it was occupied by the
Austrians. The back of the Montenegrin resistance had now been broken.

On January 17, 1916, it was announced in the Austrian Parliament by
Count Tisza that the Montenegrin Government had sued for terms of
peace. Montenegro's official version of this sudden surrender was
given in a note by the Montenegrin Consul General in Paris:

"The newspapers announce that unhappy Montenegro has had to submit to
the inevitable after having struggled heroically under particularly
disadvantageous conditions against an enemy much superior in number
and formidably armed. It may be considered as certain that if the king
and the Government have yielded it is because the army had expended
the last of its munitions.

"Even flight was impossible. The enemy was on the frontiers; there was
no escape by the sea; inveterate hostility was to be encountered in
Albania. If the Serbian army was able to escape from Serbia, the weak
contingents of Montenegro, exhausted by the superhuman efforts of
their long and desperate, but effective resistance, and by privations
of all kinds, were not able to seek refuge on friendly territory. It
is possible to discuss _ad infinitum_ the conditions of the suspension
of hostilities, the details of which, it is to be observed, come from
enemy sources; it is even possible to heap insults on the unfortunate
conquered...."

The question immediately raised in the British and French newspapers
was: who opened negotiations with the