SERBIA'S DEVOTED SONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1916, Page 2

SERBIA'S DEVOTED SONS.

The well-known novelists, Alice and Claude Askew, contribute to tha November Windsor Magazine a moving account of the sojourn of the Serbian Army in Corfu, with many interesting details gathered from the authors' experiences in the course; of; their hospital work in Serbia and Corfu. Major and Mrs. Askew say:— "We found the second army encamped among the olive trees of Bcnizze, and it 'was good to meet old friends again. Here, as in Corfu, we saw immediate evidence of the change that had come over the general aspect of the army, both ae regards body and spirit. We had grown so accustomed to those terrible months of last year to look upon the face of hunger, and weariness, and despair, to watch a grey aritiy, clad in rags that scarcely held together, trailing hopelessly up and down grey streets, that it came almost as a shock to see the same men spruce, upright, well-clad, and looking as if' they thoroughly enjoyed life. "But' so it was with "these brave sons of Serbia, and so it is with them to-day. No newly-formed army at present in the field can equal in bodily vigor, in sheer toughness, the reconstituted regiments that are now safely on Macedonian soil, for none have been so highly proved. Think oHt! Four years of almost incessant war, and then the horrors of thp great retreat ! Men who have lived through that, and who are yet burning to fight again, are men of iron •indeed. And; the Bulgars know this. They are conscious of the great, the overwhelming spirit of revenge that they have created against themselves, and which is even now crying out at theii gates, and, boast as they may, there h the fear of it upon them. "What greater proof can he required of the Serbian eagerness for battle than this? There were, those among them—many—who threw themselves down and kissed the earth as soon as they had set foot upon the soil of Macedonia."