prising
vigour. A talented young officer, Bendereff, led their right wing, with
bands playing and colours flying, to storm the hillsides that dominated
the Servian position. The hardy peasants scaled the hills and delivered
the final bayonet charge so furiously that there and on all sides the
invaders fled in wild panic, and scarcely halted until they reached
their own frontier.

Thenceforth King Milan had hard work to keep his men together. Many of
them were raw troops; their ammunition was nearly exhausted; and their
_morale_ had vanished utterly. Prince Alexander had little difficulty in
thrusting them forth from Pirot, and seemed to have before him a clear
road to Belgrade, when suddenly he was brought to a halt by a menace
from the north[207].

[Footnote 207: Drandar, _Evenements politiques en Bulgarie_, pp. 89-116;
von Huhn, _op. cit._ chaps. x. xi.]

A special envoy sent by the Hapsburgs, Count Khevenhueller, came in haste
to the headquarters of the Prince on November 28, and in imperious terms
bade him grant an armistice to Servia, otherwise Austrian troops would
forthwith cross the frontier to her assistance. Before this threat
Alexander gave way, and was blamed by some of his people for this act of
complaisance. But assuredly he could not well have acted otherwise. The
three Emperors, of late acting in accord in Balkan questions, had it in
their power to crush him by launching the Turks against Philippopolis,
or their own troops against Sofia. He had satisfied the claims of
honour; he had punished Servia for her peevish and unsisterly jealousy.
Under his lead the Bulgarians had covered themselves with glory, and had
leaped at a bound from political youth to manhood. Why should he risk
their new-found unity merely in order to abase Servia? The Prince never
acted more prudently than when he decided not to bring into the field
the Power which, as he believed, had pushed on Servia to war[208].

[Footnote 208: Drandar, _op. cit._ chap. iii.; Kuhn, _op. cit._ chap.
xviii.]

Had he known that the Russian Chancellor, de Giers, on hearing of
Austria's threat to Bulgaria, informed the Court of Vienna of the Czar's
condign displeasure if that threat were carried into effect, perhaps he
would have played a grand game, advancing on Belgrade, dethroning the
already unpopular King Milan, and offering to the Czar the headship of a
united Servo-Bulgarian State. He might thus have appeased that
sovereign, but at the cost