And just before dark, along the roads from the eastward, came the distant cheers from the advancing columns.  An officer dashed up on horseback shouting encouragement to the battered men in the trenches.  A cheer arose, which rolled up and down the line.  Again it rose, then, even before it had died out, with wild yells the Serbians sprang over their breastworks and swept madly across the intervening space to the Austrian lines; smashing through cornfields, over rocks, through the tall grass of orchards.  At their heels followed the reenforcing soldiers, though they had that day marched nearly sixty miles.  Over the Austrian breastworks they surged, like an angry wave from the sea, their bayonets gleaming in the sunset glow.  It was the kind of fighting they knew best; the kind that both Serbians and Bulgars know best, the kind they had practiced most.

Small wonder if the inexperienced peasants from the plains of Hungary, unused till then to any sight more bloody than a brawl in the village inn, trembled before this onslaught.  Their officers shouted encouragement and oaths, barely audible above the mad yells of the Serbians.  Nevertheless, they gave way before the gleaming line of bayonet blades before them.  Some few rose to fight, stirred by some long-submerged instinct generated in the days of Genghis Khan.  But the majority turned and fled, helter-skelter, down the sides of the mountains toward the valleys, leaving behind guns, ammunition, and cannon.  One regiment, the Hundred and Second, stood its ground and fought.  As a result it was almost completely annihilated.  The same fate befell the Ninety-fourth Regiment.  But the majority sought and found safety in flight.  By dark the whole Austrian center was beaten back, leaving behind great quantities of war material.

* * * * *

CHAPTER L

FIRST VICTORY OF THE SERBIANS

The Serbians had made their first move successfully on that day of August 16, 1914.  More important than this mere preliminary defeat of the enemy was the fact that the Austrians in Shabatz were now definitely cut off from any possible juncture with the Austrians in the south.  For the present they were debarred from entering the main field of operations.  This freed the Serbian cavalry for action elsewhere.  Meanwhile a portion of the right wing of the Serbian line was detached to keep the Austrians inside Shabatz.

Farther to the south the Serbians were not so decidedly successful.  The center of the Serbian Second Army, that directed against the southern slopes of the Tzer Mountains and the Iverak ridges, had arrived at Tekerish at midnight.

As dawn broke on August 16, 1914, they perceived a strong Austrian column descending from above, coming in the same direction.  Unfortunately the Serbians were in the midst of bald, rolling foothills, while the Austrians were up among the tall timber which clothes the mountain slopes at this point.  The Serbians deployed, extending their line from Bornololye through Parlok to Lisena, centering their artillery at Kik.  The Austrians made the best of their superior position.