The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1916. THE NEW SERBIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1916. THE NEW SERBIA.

Those who have noted the vigor and dash which the Serbians are putting into their attacks upon the Bulgarians may well wonder if they are the same nation that so recently experienced terrible horrors and ordeals at the hands of the enemy. It seemed almost impossible for an army to undergo, such a series of crushing defeats, to experience so great an epic of terrible sufferings in the course of their retreat, and yet emerge from the ordeal with unbroken spirits and grim determination to avenge their treatment. We cannot but marvel at their heroic stoicism, their hardihood and their practical patriotism. "What strikes ono aliout them chiefly," wrote Mr. Ward Price after visiting their camp, "is their good humor and simplicity—brawny, fifteen-stone men, with the heart and spirits of a child." These strong, simple-living peasants had recovered from the horrors of the retreat, ar.d neither their experiences nor their anxiety for their wives and families could damp their ardor or quell their buoyant spirit. The melancholy thing about the force is "that it should) be all that is left of the manhood and vigor, bodily and intellectually, of so gallant a people." And now they are at grips again with their foes, and we may be sure no soldier of the Allies fights with ft grimmer determination than the Serbian. The spirit of the army is the spirit of its King, who, exiled, old, broken physically, and nearly blind, has never lost hope. "I believe, in the liberty of Serbia as I believe in God," he declared months ago. "It was the dream of my youth. It was for that I fought throughout manhood. It has become the faith of the twilight of my life. I only live to see Serbia free. I pray that God may let me live until the day of redemption of my people, fin that day I am ready to die, if the Lord wills. I have struggled a great deal in my life, and am tired, bruised, and broken from it, but I will see, I shall see, their triumph. T shall not die before the victory of my country." This prophecy seems very likely to be fulfilled, for his brave army is on the high road to victory, helped and encouraged by the Entente Powers—the champions of the small and oppressed nations. We now behold a regenerated Serbia eagerly and successfully attacking the invaders, and we can but marvel at their courage, it. must be n-memlnifed that when the joint attack by the Central Powers and Bulgaria was launched last year the Serbian Army had fought in three campaigns in a few years. It hud played a noble part in the defeat of Turkey by the Balkan League, it had fought in the war against Bulgaria, and for fourteen months it had withstood the might of Austria. To the combined onslaughts oi Germany, Austria and Bulgaria it offered a heroic, but hopeless resistance, and then to all these bufi'ettings of fate was added a retreat the horrors of which have been surpassed in modern times only by those of the retreat from .Moscow. The men who struggled through from Serbia to Scutari had marched day after day by goat tracks over precipitous mountains, in heavy rain and snow, often without food for days together, All along the way the men sank down in the snow to die, and only, the strongest came through. With cold and hunger went anguish of spirit, for their country was in the hands of the invader. At Scutari more disappointment awaited them, and had it not been for the efforts of a mission of British officers and Italian help the whole of the force would probably have collapsed and died. As it was, some of the men had not tasted food for six days. On they went to Durazzo, hundreds falling victims to dysentery. Eventually Corfu was reached, and what was left of the army had to be reorganised, being subsequently transferred to Salonika. There are now some 150,000 Serbian troops in Macedonia, and the spirit which animates these heroes is to be seen in the impetuosity of their attacks on the enemy. They no longer stand alone, for the Allies are with them and the tide of battle has turned in their faver. It is not difficult to understand what their hopes and aspirations are now. They have come through mi. '> suffering and tribulation, but their ho is near at hand, and their future bright with promise. Serbia and Belgium have shown the world that the small and despised nations can win victories more glorious than the battalions of empires.