SERVIA'S MARTYRDOM.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1919, Page 3

SERVIA'S MARTYRDOM.

losser during war.

half male population.

According to official information from the Servian Ministry for War Servia, from July 2p, 1914, to July 14, 1910, placed 707,343" men in the field.

During the whole of this period Ser-via-maintained a' force of 500,000 effectives. The number of men mobilised amounted to 24 per cent of the entire population within v the old frontiers of Servia. Only about' 100,000 men were from the new provinces l , because in the newly-liberated (Macedonian) territories the military organisation was not yet complete. In the two great Austrian offensives in 1914 the number of men killed in battle was 45,0G1, and the number of deaths from wounds and sicknes? 09,022. In 1915 the number of deaths from sickness was 50,842. At the time of the retreat 139,000 wounded were left behind on the battlefields and in hospitals or sent home disabled or for convalescence, all of whom were taken prisoners by the enemy. During the terrible retreat across Albania there perished in the fighting, and from cold, sickness, and hunger, 150,000 men.

The last call-up (old men) and part of the third call-up amounted together to 100,000 men, who were only employed on garrison duty. They remained in Servia, and were taken prisoner by the enemy The number of men brought to. Corfu, Bizerta, and France, the remnant of the Servian Armies, amounted to 150,000. According to the official returns, the number of those fallen in battle and dead in captivity, _up to the last Servian offensive, amounted to 322,000, which is as much to say that one-half of Servia's male population had perished outright in the European War, The total sum representing the loss in live-stock, war material, and rolling stock; that I'epresented by the destruction of roads, bridges, and objects- of military utility (munition factories, etc.), and the expenses of the war up to the arrival in Corfu, amounts to £96,106,032.

This sum does not include any damage or loss coming under the head of other Ministries, or caused to property, both public and private, throughout the country by the devastation of towns and villages, the driving off .of cattle, the destruction of factories, requisition of foodstuffs, and destruction of forests and orchards; the destruction, moreover, of all libraries, public and private, museums, learned institutions, and hospitals and churches.