New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-10-22
a National Thermopyle.

TIM and again in the present struggle
the thought must come 70 those who are
watching il that the very nearness OF the
thing is obscuring the vision. bewilder-
ing ard benum5ing the senses and making
mankind oblivious to-day 10 the things
that tomorrow and forever will endure
in the minds Of men. And in this order
Of thought the struggle in Serbia natu-
rally holds first place.
What we aye looking out upon in the
Balkans now Is not way as modern his
tor,, knows war. II is not the moderated
barbarity Of the conflict between armies
trained and equipped, composed Of sol
diers. going forward to fight IN the &C
customed manner Of war. Not an army,
but nation. is fighting. Not men, but
men. women and children, whole race
three generations are holding the trenches
defending the smoking villages and dying
in the burning farmhouse
" Serbia falls she does not lose lnde-
pepdence merely. She does not lose prov
inces. economic independence or political
liberties. She loses life So in the older
periods tribes fought against tribes and
the losers did not surrender - they
perished from the face Of the earth. So
the barbarians descending upon Rome
swept before them not cities and palaces,
not walls and arsenals and monuments
but abolished the fraction Of mankind that
could he called Roman.
Such would have been the fate OF
Greece had the Persians prevailed Sucn
was the fate of those races which faced
and fought Ghenghis Khan. It is ami
hiation. not defeat, that overhangs three
million and a half Of men, women and
children who are fighting not 70 win cam
paiqns. not 20 attain power-all that
has vanished-they are not fighting to
hberate the millions Of captive Serbs be
yond the Danube and the Save.
The battle Of Serbia is the simplest,
most primitive Of all struggles. A year
ago, when the Austrian troops crossed the
Save and approached Voievo they killed
AS they advanced. AS they retreated they
left behind them a smoking wilderness.
They came TO destroy race, they retired
defeated. but left behind them an appall-
ing wilderness and for the victorious sur
vivors the browning tragedy Of typhus
epidemic.
Those who invaded Belgium slew the
child and ravished the mother, wherever
there was a military purpose 20 be
achieved But the crimes were committed
in a narrow field, the victims were rela-
lively few. There was no general mas
sacre or widespread prescription. Bel
Qium lost her liberty. she saw many of
her monuments wrecked, not few Of her
women deiled-but, sullen, stricken cap
tive. she survived.
No such fate waits for the Serbs if
German. Austrian and Bulgarian armies
prevail. II is a wa 70 destruction, to the
knfe-it is the ma noqc' Of Serb and
Bulgar alike The spectacle is more ter
rble. more complete, more appalling than
any that modern war has known or the
alleged civilization Of recent centuries per
mtted.
Oddly enough too, it IS the second time
that Serbia has held the gate against the
enemy Five hundred years and more
ago there was p civilized Serbia, with laws
and courts and an the adiuncts of civil
ization. In that time there was every
promise that from the Danube to the
Egean and from the Adretic to the Rho
dopians there would arise a Serb state
which would take its place among the
great powers of Europe and under the
successors Of Dushan complete the work
Of empire building. Even Constantinople
seemed the ultimate prize Of the Serb.
Then came the Turk, and to the Serb
was allotted the duty Of holding back the
flow Of Asia as the Hellenic states had
held it back in other centuries. In the
struggle Serbia persisted On the field OF
koSsovo all that was great and powerful
II the Serb race was blotted out and Tn,
- Osmanl host flowed up the Vardar an,
down the Morava, along the route IN,
KAISER armies are now following.
Yet Serbia's sacrifice was not in vain
The Osmanli host although victorious wa
halted for a precious year by Serbia
Self-immolatiou.
More than that. thousands Of SERBS lef
,heir homes and crossed the save and th
Danube 20 take service with Austrian an,
Hungarian armies whose duty il becam,
to resist the Turk Finally, in the dark
est corner Of the Black Mountain some
hundreds Of Serbs took refuge and kept
ne faith. The Bulgars and the Greeks
ptuiated, the Bulgars forgot their race.
at remnant of Serbia survived.
Then II fell ont that when the French
aoyolution had stirred Europe and Ma
poieon's march had but begun, Serbia. too.
felt the STRINGS Of the old lost liberty and
struck a decade, two decades before the