BEFORE THE FALL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 568, 4 December 1915, Page 9

BEFORE THE FALL.

GALLANT SERBS' LAST STAND. ONLY PRECIPITATE RETREAT SAVES THE ARMY. (Received December 4, 10.10 a.m.) LONDON, December 3. Saloniea telegrams detail the last agony of Monastir. For days the Allied commanders had telegraphed to General Vassiteh, asking if all was Avell, and he invariably replied: "We are still holding out." On Monday afternoon, however, there was an unaccountable delay in the reply, and it was midnight before General Vassiteh ■ telegraphed: "We 'are holding positions on the Tcherna." Other telegrams from the frontier showed that the end had come. The Bulgarians had advanced to the south-east 15 kilometres beyond Monastir, threatening to surround the little army, and General Vassiteh's only chance was a precipitate retreat to Ochrida. Six thousand men from the north arrived at the last moment, and they would have enabled General Vassiteh to prolong the defence but for the fact that they were worn out. They had been without food for 48 hours, and were in rags, having hardly any boots after their 17 days' march on the mountain roads. . They lost 120 men by cold and hunger, who were left to die on the mountains. When they marched in they seemed like haggard spectres, more fit for the hospital than for the firing line, but they were immediately ordered to join in the battle outside the town. They fought like tigers. As the Serbians withdrew, the Bulgarian Comitadjis, under the brigand Paul Kristov, took possession of the town, and placarded it with the following manifesto:— For 500 years ye have been under the Turks, and for three years under the Serbs. Now ye are free. The Comitadjis paraded the town singing and looting the deserted houses and public buildings. There were pathetic scenes during General Vassiteh's retreat. The Serbians trudged, footsore and famished, in a hurricane of snow, the stronger encouraging and helping the weaker men. It was only a ghost of an army, and the wonder was that it still held together. The Bulgarians pressed them hard, but were beaten off, and the retreat to Ochrida was resumed. The civilians at Ochrida have become panic-stricken, and have commenced a general exodus to Albania and Greece. Monastir is 85 miles N.N.W. from Salonica. It is built in a basin "|? formed by lofty mountains, and is intersected by a river crossed by numerous * bridges. It has long been an important military centre. Ochrida is 30 miles west of Monastir, on the north shore of Lake Ochrida and close to the border of Albania.