SERVIANS CAPTURE SEMLIN

Crossing the Save River into Hungary, the Servians scored a brilliant stroke in the capture of Semlin, an important Austrian city.  They also reported continued successes in Bosnia.  Reports of wholesale desertions of Slavs from the Austrian army were received daily and probably had considerable foundation in fact.  It was said that the Servians were being received enthusiastically by the people of Hungary.

These Servian triumphs led to the reorganization of the Balkan League, including Servia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece.

On September 20 the Servian Government announced that an Austrian attacking army which attempted to cross the frontier near the Sabatz Mountains had been routed with a loss of 15,000 killed and wounded.  The Servian losses in this and other engagements were claimed to have been small in comparison with those of the enemy.

Continuing their forward movement into Hungary, the Servians inflicted further losses on the Austrians near Noviapazow, while the Montenegrins reported a victory in the mountain slopes over their border.

On October 1 it was reported that the Servians had again repulsed an Austrian attempt at invasion and had driven the Austrians back across the Drina with loss.  They had also checked another Austrian attempt to take Belgrade.  The Servian war office claimed that the combined Servian-Montenegrin armies had made material progress in their invasion of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that they were within striking distance of Serajevo, which they expected to capture.  This, however, was denied by the Vienna ministry of war, which claimed that the Servian situation was entirely satisfactory to Austria.

On October 5 Servian troops were reported to have begun a northeast advance from Semlin, to effect a junction with two Russian columns advancing southward in Hungary.  One of these columns was then assaulting a fortress in Northwest Hungary, sixty-six miles southeast of Olmutz, while the other was descending the valley of the Nagyan against Huszt in the province of Marmaros.  This latter province or county, which the Russians invaded through the Carpathian passes, lies in the northeast of Hungary, bordering on Galicia, Bukowina and Transylvania.  There was a legend that the eastern Carpathians are impregnable, but this legend was destroyed by the Russian invasion.

Before attaining Uzsok pass, in the Carpathians, the Russians successively captured by a wide flanking movement three well-masked positions which were strongly defended by guns.  Each time the Russians charged the enemy fled and the Russians followed up the Austrian retreat with shrapnel and quick fire, inflicting heavy losses.

German troops joined the Austrian forces in Hungary and at some points succeeded in repulsing the invaders, though their general advance was not decisively checked and they continued the endeavor to effect a junction with the Servians to the south.  Advices from Budapest, October 6, declared that the Russians had captured Marmaros-Sziget, capital of the county of Marmaros, necessitating the removal of the government of that department to Huszt, twenty-eight miles west-northwest of Sziget.  A second Russian column was reported to be threatening Huszt and Austro-German reinforcements were being hurried up to check the Russian advance.