RETREAT FROM PRIZREND

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2649, 21 December 1915, Page 7

RETREAT FROM PRIZREND

SERBIANS' TERRIBLE TRIALS (Rec. December 21, 0.5 a.m.) ; ■, New York, December 20. TJie correspondent of the Chicago' /. "Daily News" reports that after a five days' bloody battle at Prizrend the Serbians fired t heir last shell, spiked- their , guns, and fled in disorder towards Albania. Three thousand retreated through the Ipek passes, which tha Austrians quickly closed,' and the Bulbars closed the Dibra route. Seventy thousand out of eighty thousand Serbians engaged : at - Prizrend struggled to enter the Lunikulus Pass by a narrow gorge.. One-half entered, and then tho JBulgarS got tie range and closed the entrance, and all attempting to enter were killed, tha artillery for five hours wreaking terrific slaughter on tho non-resisting Serbians. Finally the ' Bulgars carried off 46,000 prisoners. Tho first contingent of those traver&c • ing the Lumkulus Pass consisted'mainly of men infected with wounds and blistered feet, and though faced_ with .starvation, reached Scutari in" thirteen. days from Prizrend. They started with only three days' supply of bread, and when a horse fell exhausted the:-sol-diers skinned and ate the raw meat torn by their bayonets from the carcass. The road, was tnow-eovcred and shelterless. They waded nine streams up to their armpits, and their clothing ■ ■was frozen, but they dared not stop to light fires. They plunged'on day and night, fearing death and hunger. Subsequent contingents killeddl. the horses --for food.. Genoral ■ Putnik,- ? tho Comm'ahder-in ; Chief,' was so' feeble' that the men carried-him across, the. : mouiw tains to Scutari. ! J. •<J SERBIAN REFUGEES ' • PREFER DEATH TO CAPTURE (Rec. December 21, 1.10 a.m.) ... London, December 20. 'A Salonika message states that 750,000 Serbian refugees gathered on the plains of Kossovo. A quarter of a million submitted to the Austro-Germans, but the remainder fled westward, pre- ■ ferring tho horrors of the snow-clad mountains of Montenegro. Thousands must have perished. „ Correspondents state that it ever the story is told it will surpass the horror ■ of the Napoleonic retreat from Moscow.