Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1916-03-31
ASSOCIATED Press Correspondence

Rome. Italy, March 15.-Henry Hal
Ter. formerly Of the Fifth United States
Cavalry. who was one Of the few Am
orleans in the Serbian retreat, declares
that during the journey to Podgoritza
in Montenegro in a four-days snow
storm more than $4,000 men died.
"They died so fast" he said, that
they fell every few yards all along the
road. The wagons and carts went
right over their bodies. Nobody
thought of trying to turn out Of the
way, but there were so many they
could not but drive over them. The
roads were full Of mudholes. At one
place I saw no less than II horses
dying in one immense puddle. unable
to pull themselves out.
Il saw hundreds and thousands of
ragged men, with their feet swollen
too much to wear shoes or to walk
on them, crawling along for miles on
their hands and knees through the
binding snow, finally stopping and dy-
ing soon afterwards. They never made
any appeals for help. 1t wouldn't have
been any use. Besides, they were too
far gone, to know what they were
about, that they were dying. Their
last effort to keep going was merely
mechanical operation. OF course the
great mortality all along our route
was due to the barren nature Of the
country we were traversing, with no
shelter for but a comparatively few
of us. There were even no forests
where we might have felled trees and
built temporary quarters. Our fires for
the most part were small. with barely
enough wood to heat water"
Halter. who was on visit to@Bud-
apest when the war began, enlisted in
the Austrian army and was serving as
bugler when, six months later, he
was taken prisoner by the Serbs and
then finally was marched with $4,000
other Austrian soldiers across the
mountains into Albania and there
turned loose on the shores of the Adri-
attic to fight for life against cholera,
fever and starvation"
1--WE were supposed to have started
on that retreat" said Halter, with
Serb army Of over 100000 men and
about $4,000 Austrian prisoners. Not
many more than a hundred and fifty
thousand of the whole lot got over the
mountains. 1t was not because the
Austrians or the Bulgarians pursued
u.s. however, with much activity. We
died merely because Of disease, hunger
and exhaustion.
1.-THE worst part Of the journey began
at the Albanian frontier. The Alba
mans have in times past been badly
treated by the Serbs. and they took
this chance to square old scores. They
shot, killed. robbed and murdered us
at every step of the way. For instance,
at Linn, some serb officers and COM
pany of stragglers on horseback were
met in the middle Of the road by few
peasants and ordered to give up their
horses and their money. 1t was plain
highway robbery and they refused.
The peasants ran away and within a
couple of minutes more than a thous-
and shots were fired out of the bushy
hillside, killing most of the Serbs.
1.-THE food problem was terrific even
in Albania. A half pound OF bread
was sold at ten dinars, about two dol
lars. AS had little money at Sturza
I bought five pounds of Okla beans. Had
I not been able to get these beans,
would today be a dead man. mao
inst said to myself: I can't go any
further when I persuaded peasant
woman to sell me the beans. l ate
beans twice a day, making sort OF
SOUP out of them, putting in little
salt. At that I was far luck1er than
the fellows who had to boil harness
leather for five or six hours in order
to make the hot water taste like soup
saw men act like savages, eating
pieces of brown paper.
There were perhaps not more than
1000 women among the retreatlns
horde with us and it is a fact worth re-
cording that they were kindly treated
and given whatever comforts were
available by soldiers who were other
wise dead to every feeling. nave
seen such men, gaunt, staggering along
half-naked, with a few pieces OF cloth
for shoes. unable to speak, with barely
strength left to stop near dying morse
and cut a stringy steak from It's nanN
straighten up for a moment near one
of the women's carts and smilingly ten
der their last monthful Of food to some
Of the women.
"The treatment of the women on this
dreadful retreat was to me the mos,
wonderful, the most moving. the most
heroic part of the whole retreat. These
moor women in their flight from thell
homes had in many cases been unable
to bring enough clothes to cover them
Often they were without stockings OF
underskirts, or hats or shawls OF
cloaks. 1 have seen time and time
again some freezing soldier take or his
oyercoat and force it upon some one OF
these women. and seem almost asham'
ed to look upon her shivering body
as he made the offer. Then he would
search along the road for hours unit
he was able to strip some dead man OF
his clothes to replace that which ne
had so freely given"
| What Halter regarded as his most
remarkable experience was the sight Of
a. mad soldier dying from starvation
Clothed only in a ragged undershir'
he was running barefoot down a snow
covered Albanian road straight as an
ararow, believing as he ran." he said
"He ran on and on down that road
seeing nothing yet wonderfully avoid
ing stumbling over the bodies OF other
dead and dying soldiers and the meat
striped carcasses Of the army horses
which blocked the way. Suffering in
tensely as myself was. turned and