The First Invasion of Servia

[By a Correspondent of The London Standard.]

NISH, Servia, Aug. 31.—­After the butcheries and atrocities which I witnessed during preceding battles I thought I would get accustomed and insensible to these scenes of blood, but from my last visit to the slaughter house I have brought such visions of horror that their very thought makes me shudder.  The object of the Austrian Army seems to have been complete devastation.

The fierce battle which the Servians gave them incessantly for more than a week may be divided into two conflicts of equal intensity which raged along the ridge of the heights of Tser.  Each of the two slopes, descending one to the Save and the town of Shabatz and the other to the Drina, is now nothing but a charnel house.

I could not say which of these two conflicts was more murderous, but this admirably fertile region, with its countless fruit trees, is now sheltering the last remains of hundreds of butchered men, women, and children.

When after three days and three nights of truceless fighting the Servians succeeded in surprising the enemy in the middle of the night at Tser, the toll of dead was so colossal that the Servian troops were constrained for the time being to abandon burying the corpses.

Everywhere the fighting was of the fiercest conceivable nature, for to resist the invaders was to the Servians a question of life and death.  At several points they fought right up to the last man, succumbing but never falling back.

The volunteer corps of Capt.  Tankositch, the famous leader whose head Austria is so anxious to gain, was charged to defend Kroupage, situated south of the battle front, between Losnitza and Lionbovia.  Considerable Austrian forces attempted to advance with the view of driving the Captain back.

For two days and three nights Tankositch and 236 volunteers held their position.  At last three whole Austrian regiments surrounded them, but rather than yield to the enemy Tankositch and his gallant miniature army resolved to fight to the last.  In the dead of night he sent out a small group to meet the Austrians.  This group, consisting of a mere handful of soldiers, hurled a shower of bombs at the enemy, cutting up his ranks, and secured a free pass.

[Illustration:  The Battlefield in Servia.]

At the first break of day, when Tankositch counted his men, only forty-six answered the call.  They surrounded more than a hundred prisoners.

It will be realized that in the course of such sharp fighting the Servian losses must have been considerable, although they were much smaller than those of the enemy.

The most pitiful and heartrending aspect of these scenes was presented by the long procession of Servian survivors from the neighboring villages, consisting of old men, women, and children, bringing in the heavy toll of mutilated human beings.  At Valievo, the nearest town to the field of battle, large masses of Servian and Austrian wounded kept pouring in incessantly.  About 10,000 have already arrived.  All had to be examined, all had to have their wounds dressed, and at Valievo there are only six doctors.