Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1916-01-08
"Christo George of Fort Worth,
Texas" in Serbian Trenches

ing from house to house, shooting ant
killingi Was this massacrei i ask
ed the colonel. He didn't know; i
might be. A column of smoke rose from
the village. Through our glasses we saw
house burning
We couldn't find out what happened
in the little village of Lau that morn
ing. Other buildings were afire wher
we left No one could 60 over there. A
thousand men, perhaps, might have
fought their way there, but that would
have caused the resumption of the bat
tie of Halinci, which Colonel Vassich
was not quite ready to resume.
! 1t was lunch time when we got back
to the main road and our auto.
I On bale Of hay soldier stretched
tableeloth and placed tin plates, tin
cups, wine, bread and cheese. Other
bales of hay were our chairs. Behind
us stood a caisson | noticed soldiers
leading six huge oxen up to it. They
hitched them to it and the wheels
touched the back of my ''chair" as the
caisson rolled away.
: A hundred feet off stood a cannon in
a crude, cellar like hole. A dozen sol
diers hause it out on level ground.
Other oxen were hitched to it. Within
few moments the caisson and the can
non were drawn from the field to the
main road, and guarded by score of
soldiers, the procession started slowly
back toward Monastir.
That was all part of the Servian re-
treat before overwhelming odds, that
began at the Danube river last Octo-
ber.
There were two regiments on the part
of the Servian line that we had seen.
asked Colonel Vassicn if he knew what
Bulgarian forces were opposing him.
Yes" " he said, and he watched me
carefully as / put the figures down in
my note book, ''They have the Second
Fifth, Twentieth, Fiftieth, Fiftysecond
and Fifty-third regiments of infantry
and the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth
regiments Of cavalry. The Fourth cav
airy" he added proudly, sis the regi-
mont Of Crown Prince Cyril of Bulgar-
ia" II was the first trace of sol
dier's vanity that | had seen through
the long day in Colonel Vassich Here
were his lines, holding Monastir that
he might have been proud of; here was
the swamp where, three years ago he
and his men standing waist deep in wa
ter had fought the Turks for three days
and saved the city. He didn't seem
proud of these things. But that he and
his two tattered, tired regiments should
be honored by having royal regiment
Of cavalry sent against them, was
distinction he valued.
"It's fine work for Bulgarians to
burn a village like they burned Lau
today" said member of our party.
They're bad people sometimes, -
said Colonel Cassich. "Many times in
the last weeks they have crept upon a
battlefield during the night before we
have been able to pick up our wounded,
and have killed the wounded with
knives" Back in Monastir that night
we heard the Bulgarian guns They
were feeling out the trenches we had
visited that day. How did it fare, we
wondered, with the old man whose son
Ind given him the knnpsack' Or the
other old peasant who was using n gun
and ammunition he had taken from
Bulgarf And were there more dead
Servians lying about that monument
which marked the spot where 1000 Ser.
vians died defending Monastir from the
Turks three years agof