But for famine and disease during their fatal six months Serbia might still be on her feet. Her tragic condition interested the whole world, unwilling to see the women relatives of a million fighters suffering, aye, even dying. The first invasion resulted in taking away from their home the majority of the peasants who had remained behind to provide food. The invaders did not even respect the hospitals--they cut off the water supplies so that the nurses could not even provide for the sick.
During those months of disease the black flag hung over hundreds of houses in every Serbian town. The whole country was demoralized, for many officials had lost their lives. The fever was so virulent that it may be said that no country has ever suffered so severely. The typhus that broke out in the early part of 1915 came from the bad sanitary condition of the Austrian prison camps, and Serbia, weakened by war, was in no condition to resist. Several thousands a day died in the early months of that year. In six of the most fertile districts, more than half of the children died--of hunger, cold, and exposure as well as of disease--and it was not until the Red Cross physicians and others from various countries took hold, that the disease abated.
Meanwhile, men of Serbia were fighting bravely and hopefully until an advancing wave of Teutons swept over the country and the populace fled. It had been wiser, perhaps, if non-combatants had stayed in their homes, but so fearful were the atrocities reported, the atrocities committed by the German armies in Belgium and elsewhere, that retreat seemed wisest. Many Serbian soldiers, however, wished to stay and face the invader until they could fight no longer. But they would have had to fight with three against their one. The hordes rushing on were beyond belief--Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians. The humbler people might with less danger have stayed behind, but the Government, naturally, could not remain in its capital and there were many others upon whom a price was set. When once the retreat began it rolled up by tens of thousands, and this human flood could not be stopped. It was a spectacular flight. All the private vehicles that the Government could get together; all the motor trucks which could be collected; all in one great procession, peasants carrying their household goods in bundles over their shoulders--chiefly old men and women, for the young men were in the army; young women carrying babies in their arms with little children clinging to their skirts were following close behind. Those in motor vehicles did not have a painless journey. Often their cars broke down; they were thrown into the mud from which they were with difficulty rescued. Sometimes a car and its occupants fell from the precipice into the foaming river below. They went over mountains as high as our Alleghanies and as wild as our Rockies. Sometimes they passed feudal castles on steep rocks; sometimes they went through dangerous passes and slept in the open, fearing attacks from the murderous Albanians, who were certainly to be dreaded. For not a few of the poor pilgrims met death at the hands of these cut-throats. For days and days, they moved on in the drenching rain, cold and starving! And it was not only the animals that succumbed to the horror of the march; old men and women, children, and soldiers who once had been strong at last had to give up and lie down in death. Constantly they were in dread of the approaching enemy, whose guns after a while they could hear rumbling in the distance. But they kept moving on toward the sea, where they expected ships to take them to a safer country.