The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-17
ASPIRATIONS OF
 TIE NEW SERVIA The New Spirit Making
 Great Changes
CITIES A BIG SURPRISE
Belgrade Streets Being Widened and All Traces of Turk Being Done Away With-Crowds Eager
 for War News

From the London Daily Chronicle.
 The war goes on with victories for the Serb-vietories told in the most pleasant way. in telegrams without lists of killed and wounded. The newsboy of Belgrade, who. the police say, must not shout in the streets, can be heard all over the city with his Nov telegraml Nov tele- gram" He sells a single sheet. printed on one side only, upon which the most meagre messages are set out in huge type, and even he who runs may read of Servia's victories.
 There is little need to buy those sheets, for they are something like newspaper contents bills. Yet edition after edition is rapidly bought up. With those slips of paper in their hands, people rush up to shop windows in which are displayed huge war maps. They note with evident joy how far their army has penetrated into the enemy's territory. These maps are Interesting, for Oil item s5ervia s boundaries have already been widely ex- tended. They include Old Servia and a large piece of Macedonia. Some map makers, bolder than others, have thrown the frontier round the Sanjak of Novi- Razar and Bosnia Herzegovina And, the maps tell us, all that is "The New Servia's Aspirations. Servia may be very small, but she is very bold
 New Spirit of Seryia
 The city wears holiday aspect Every other shop Is shut because people have had to go to the war Theatres and music halls have closed; there is little or no business doing. So people talk in knots at the street corners, discuss with anima- ton the latest news in the cafes or saun- ter, with contented, relieved air, down the Corso. But they look at things sen- sibly. They are not carried away by first gains; they know this is serious. a iife-and-death business, and that the task is but begun. There can. however be no mistake about their determination.
 And this is not the Belgrade, nor Is this the Servia which in western Europe one sees with western eyes, and reads but little of, No one can be long in the realm of the Serb before he discovers that there is something here which rohs "The New Servia's Aspirations" of what at first blush would be called it's colossal mpertnence. II is the new spirit of Ser via today, and Belgrade Is startlingly plain evidence of the existence of that spirit of which the west is unaware.
 Dragasehevitch. the Servian writer, called Belgrade ''the bloodiest stone upon the European battlefield" and certainly Europe naS flOl dnOlneT Sucn Wdf-Tackeu city to boast of. Austria, Hungarian, Turk and Serb long waged hardest battle for it. Century after century had noth- ing but war to bequeath to it. It is not yet 50 years since the Osmanli left Bell grade for the last time. Forty years ago the Serylan capital looked a very good specimen of Turkish town, with it's mar row, twisted, dirty streets and it's low. badly built, unpieturesque houses.
 But 40 years and the new spirit of the Servlan have wrought n marvellous change. Belgrade today is q surprise. The last traces of Turkish domination are rapidly disappearing; the city has been almost entirely transformed. The prlnci- pal streets have been, or are being. wid- ened. and the rough paving of huge stone setts is giving place to wood sur faces Handsome new buildings are ap- bearing everywhere. The city, once little better than an ugly cluster of Turkish dwellings crouching behind it's towering fortifcations is, with it's fine public buildings, palaces, hotels, arcades, res .taurants and shops, rapidly becoming little Paris of the near east.