SERVIA'S RECORD.
The magnificent fight Servia has put up against her uuilyiiu* norweiji i-eigiiuor was adaiirubiy sammoa up by tne Times when it said: "The Servians number only four and a half millions, and their resources are scanty, yet they have put nearly half a million men in the held, and have driven superior Austrian armies headlong. Without doctors and nurses, without any help from the wealthy Powers for their sorely-tried women and children, they have boldly faced Goliath ana put him to shame." Time after time the Servians have defeated the Ausans and inflicted tremendous losses; but their own casualties by this time must mount to a terrible total, and their scanty resources have dwindled wofully In the meantime she commands the sympathy and admiration of practically the whole world.
Nor is it on this occasion alone that Servia has earned such admiration. She has certainly, been unfortunate with her rulers^ and has suffered much from the fact, but as a nation she needs must be proud of the part she has always played in the emancipation of the Balkans. Over a century ago she was the first to rise against the Turks, and her fight in 1876 against them, though unsuccessful, paved the way for the intervention of Russia and the liberation of Bulgaria. Thence onward it was not for Turkey that the main threat to her independence came, and we would have to look far for a more discreditable page in history than the alternate exploitation and bullying she suffered at the hands of Austria. Sir Edward Grey spoke the bare truth when ha declared that the Austrian ultimatum to Servia in July last had no parallel among the communications ever addressed .by one independent State to another. Yet, on the advice of Russia, Servia was prepared to drain al.nost to the dregs the bitter cup forced upon her by Austria, and if the sacrifice she was ready to make in the cause of peace did not avert war, it certainly proved that what Austria wanted was war and war alone. Well, she got it, and from that war Servia, though her hour at present ba dark, will win greater strength and prosperity—and the Austrian Empire will be a thing to talk of as something that was.
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Bibliographic details
Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 3 December 1914, Page 3
Word Count
380SERVIA'S RECORD. Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 3 December 1914, Page 3
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