St. Clair Stobart
Photo of "The Flaming Sword" courtesy
of Milana "Mim" Bizic
...THE situation was growing more and more serious.
We had retreated forty miles in the last two days,
evidently not without reason, as the Germans had
entered Jagodina, at noon, on the day we had passed
through at 2.30 a.m. and, as there were other columns
behind us, that did not leave a large margin of safety.
I was always aware that delay caused by mistake in
taking the wrong road, or by dalliance with accidents,
would be fatal; but neither in our column, nor in
any column that I saw during three months of
retreat, was there ever anything but calmness and
apparent unconcern. Had there at any time been
panic, the narrow defiles would have been catacombed
with dead, in addition to the thousands who perished
from other causes.
But remarkable indeed was the dignity and order-
liness with which, from start to finish, the retreat of
the Serbian Army was conducted. And the silence!
Hour after hour, day and night after day and night,
week after week, thousands upon thousands of
soldiers, trudging wearily beside their slow-paced
oxen, or with their regiments of infantry, or driving
their gun-carriages, or, as cavalry, riding their horses
in silence. No laughter, no singing, no talking;
the silence of a funeral procession, which indeed it
was; a silence only broken by the cries of the drivers
to their oxen: "Svetko! Belia! Napred! Desno!
Levo! " ("Svetko! Belia! Forward! To the right!
To the left!") and the ceaseless rumbling of wagon
wheels, which sounded like the breaking of an angry
sea on a distant pebble beach. I have, since my
return, re-read accounts of the retreat of Napoleon's
army from Moscow, and though we were spared
some of the horrors they endured, there were two
features in our Serbian retreat, which were happily
absent in the other. For the retreat in which we
took part was the retreat, not only of the Serbian
Army, but of the Serbian nation. This meant that
thousands of women, children, and old men, driven
from their homes by the advancing enemy, were, in
ever-increasing numbers, as we progressed southwards,
adding to the difficulties of the safe retreat of the
Army, by mixing with the columns of artillery,
cavalry, infantry, engineers, field hospitals, and
swelling the procession.
Wagons filled with household treasures, beds,
blankets, chairs, frying-pans, even geese, slung head
downwards at the back of the cart, or balancing
themselves with curious dignity, upon the uneven
surfaces of indiscriminate luggage; a look of pained
astonishment on their faces, at their rude removal
from their own comfortable pastures.
Or, more frequent and more painful still, wagons
filled with little children; the oxen, weary and
hungry, led by women, also weary, hungry, and foot-
sore. I saw one woman, dragging by the rope, two
tired oxen drawing a wagon, in which were eight
small children. I saw a tiny boy leading two tiny
calves, which were drawing a tiny cart containing a
tiny baby, who was strapped to the cart. I saw a
woman, evidently not wealthy enough to possess a
cart and oxen of her own, carrying her two babies,
one on her back, and one in front ; and, in one of the
crushes which frequently occurred, the baby on her
back, was knocked off by the horns of a passing ox.
We wondered, at Shabatz, why we were on that
side of the river, with no bridge near us, when all
the other columns were travelling towards Krushevatz
on the other side. We received no orders all that day,
and I wondered more and more, for there was always
the possibility that the order might have gone astray.
But at 3 a.m. on Saturday, November 6th, the order
came to start at once for Kupgi, beyond Krushevatz,
via the pontoon bridge, which we had left on our
way here.
It was still dark when we reached the bridge. A
lengthy convoy of artillery was crossing, and behind
them again were endless other convoys. We halted,
and it seemed likely that hours would pass before
we should get a chance of butting in. But, to my joy,
I found that the artillery column was under the com-
mand of my Varvarin Major. He saw us, and at once
came up and said that he would arrange for us to
cross the bridge immediately after his guns. We
had not more than an hour to wait. A short, steep
bank of mud, and we were up on the approach road
to the bridge. I was told to dismount, and, following
close upon the guns, and followed by our own Red
Cross wagons, I led my horse across the pontoon.
Dawn was breaking, and I was glad, for my eyes
would surely never again see such a sight. Purple
mountains, wrapped in white mists, and crowned
with soft pink clouds; the broad grey river, rushing
wildly to its fate; and a bridge of boats. Upon the
bridge, dimly visible in the growing light, soldiers,
leading wagons which were carrying cannons and
heavy guns motives of murder and destruction
dominant closely followed by women leading Red
Cross wagons the cross of Christianity waving in the
breeze.
On the other side of the bridge, refugees, streaming
along the road from Stalatz to Krushevatz, converged
with the stream of columns and refugees who crossed
the bridge, and made confusion even more confounded
than before. But I found my friend, the Major,
waiting for me on the other side. He had seen his
column safely across, and now he would, he said,
ride with us to Krushevatz, to show us the road out
of the town. He did this, and then rode off to place
his battery for a rearguard action.
The town was a solid mass of convoys and fugitives,
and it was anxious work steering the column safely
through, intact. The road leading through the town
was broader than usual, and the wagons of refugees
and of columns were jammed together three abreast
in hopeless tangle. "Many oxen were come about
us; lean bulls of Basan closed us in on every side."
Later, the Headquarters Staff overtook us, and I rode
for a while beside our Divisional Commander. He told
me quietly, as though he were talking of the death of
a distant relative, that Nish had been taken by the
Bulgars; those flags of welcome which we had seen, were
now welcoming our enemies. Where, we asked each
other, were the French and the English ? But not a word
of bitterness passed his lips; "there was doubtless some
good reason," was his only comment. And I could only
say what I always said, "Never mind, we shall get it
all back one day," but I sometimes almost wished,
for the first time in my life, that I was not English.
Mabel Annie Stobart
("St. Clair Stobart")
"The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere"
1916
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From http://www.herstoria.com/
Mrs (Mabel Anne St Clair) Stobart (1862-1954)
Although with some anti-war sympathies, at the outset of WW1 Mrs Stobart founded the Women’s National Service League to facilitate women’s war service both at home and abroad. She set up all-women staffed hospitals in Belgium, Antwerp and Northern France and, in 1915, created an innovative tented hospital in Serbia, and a series of emergency dispensaries to which thousands of Serbian civilians turned to for help. In 1915 the Serbian Army Medical Services sent her to the front in command of a mobile hospital unit. Stobart led her group on horseback for over eighty days through harsh terrain, arriving in Scutari (Albania) without any loss of personnel.
http://www.herstoria.com/discover/WW1Hospital.html
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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com
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