Jan. 8.
Servia is piling up a big debt of gratitude towards France. Not only was it France who insisted that troops should be sent to try to rescue the Servian army, but had previously despatched a medical mission to fight against epidemics prevailing in King Peter's unfortunate country, and she is now providing homes for considerable numbers of Servian children and youths, who are continuing their education in French schools. No doubt the necessity of preventing the enemy from taking possession of Salonika was a good reason for France's military intervention in Servis, but this seems hardly sufficient to explain the liberal outpouring of French treasure and lives on behalf of a country which, only a few years ago, was certainly not popular in western Europe. Perhaps history, when viewing facts in their true perspective, will te able to say that this is one of the Not only did the French doctors have to slave night and day to stamp out disease, but, when the time came for the great retreat to Scutari, they had to endure sufferings for which they were certainly not prepared. Dr. Joubert, the head of the mission, who has just reached Paris, says it was a retreat, not merely of an army but of a nation, through roadless mountain passes in a temperature which sometimes fell as low as forty degrees (Fahr.) below freez~ ing point. " The fugitives had to drag themselves painfully through the mud and snow. They had to cross torrents by walking over plank, knowing that the slightest slip would be the end of them, and make their way slowly along primi tive paths on the sides of ravi into which many of the fugitive fell and were never seen again. There was the constant fear of being overtaken by the Germans or Bulgarians, and the Albanian tribesmen were ever on the lookout to pillage the few carts and cut off stragglers in the hope of plunder.
In Northern Albania, The inhabitants of the towns in Northern Albania, however, were friendly enough. At night the wanderers were only too glad to find any shelter in which they could huddle together for warmth. "Anyone who fell by the wayside was doomed, and had to be left to his fate. The French doctors were obliged to abandon all their medical stores and baggage. They were constantly tortured by hunger and had to go whole days without eating. One of them, who had been without food for three days, died immediately after reaching Scutari. French, Servians, soldiers and civilians, German and Austrian prisoners, all suffered alike.
Joubert relates by Austrian rush at a dying force its mouth open and eat tongue.
It is @ wonder that any of the French doctors survived, for most of them were, middle-aged men. Out of 98 who left Franct, 76 came back. The retreat from Krajevo began on November @ and ended at Scutari on December 10. In these 38 days the fugitives tramped over 300 miles, without guides and without maps, moving in small groups so that they would have a chance of getting something to eat at the wretched Albanian villages on their way.
Even after they reached Scutari, their troubles were not over, for Austrian aeroplanes bombarded the mission-house in which they took sheltct, The greatest irony of fate yet produced by the war is that France, in saving Servia from disease, opened the door to the Ger-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.