THE HIGH PRICE OF VICTORY
“EXHAUSTION IS GREAT AMONG US ALL, BECAUSE WE MARCH BY NIGHT AND FORTIFY POSITIONS BY DAY”
As October set in, bringing with it chill and cholera, the static trench warfare favoured the better-equipped men of the KuK (Kaiserlich und Königlich, Imperial and Royal Army). They could draw on field kitchens and field hospitals, entrenching tools and winter clothing, and most crucially artillery, which rumbled away at the spluttering Serbian lines. The lack of cannon left Serbian positions so hideously exposed that some trenches were moved within metres of the Habsburg lines to deter bombardment – the risk of small arms fire or raids from their near neighbours was the lesser threat compared with sitting under a waterfall of high explosives.
The cold and rain chose no side. The swollen Drina rose and flooded the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army’s trenches, allowing the Serbs to carve off some of the sodden Macva bridgehead, while high in the mountains many Serbian territorials stood guard in bare feet, the cold and the damp having long disintegrated their flimsy leather opanci. The Serbian Campaign of 1914 was approaching its end, one way or another.
The cold road back
Eventually, with General Stepan ‘Stepa’ Stepanovic offering his resignation in protest at the lack of shells – a heated discussion ending with its rejection and his point made – the Second Army was allowed to withdraw to shorten its line and mount a stronger defence. With the Serbian retreat, commander of the Austro-Hungarian Balkan Army, Oskar Potiorek, finally had breathing space to plan his next move. Replenished and re-armed, the 285,000-strong KuK Balkan Army renewed its offensive on 6 November after a thunderous two-hour bombardment, forcing the weary Serbs into a fighting retreat so severe
