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Balkan Front Postcard relief map of the Serbian Front. Although difficult to read, the following landmarks are legible and visible: The plains of Hungary are at the top immediately north of the Danube River and the Serbian capital of Belgrade. The Adriatic Sea is at the bottom left along the coasts of Montenegro and Albania. To the east, south to north, are Bulgaria, Romania, and the Transylvanian Alps. Serbian landmarks include the city of Nisch, and the valleys of the Struma. Text: Reliefkarte vom serbischen Kriegsschauplatze A 352 Mit Genehmigung der Illustrirten Zeitung Leipzig Relief map of the Serbian theater of war A 352 With permission of the Illustrirten Zeitung Leipzig

Balkan Front Postcard relief map of the Serbian Front. Although difficult to read, the following landmarks are legible and visible: The plains of Hungary are at the top immediately north of the Danube River and the Serbian capital of Belgrade. The Adriatic Sea is at the bottom left along the coasts of Montenegro and Albania. To the east, south to north, are Bulgaria, Romania, and the Transylvanian Alps. Serbian landmarks include the city of Nisch, and the valleys of the Struma.

Image text

Reliefkarte vom serbischen Kriegsschauplatze

A 352



Mit Genehmigung der Illustrirten Zeitung Leipzig



Relief map of the Serbian theater of war

A 352



With permission of the Illustrirten Zeitung Leipzig

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Tuesday, October 22, 1918

"Von Kövess's only course was to pull his troops back in as good order as possible to the very frontiers of the Dual Monarchy. He must abandon Serbia and put the broad trench of the rivers Danube and Save between his men and the invaders: surely by now they must have outrun their supplies. A weary army would receive no help in the plains along the river.

With the fall of Niš, the Serbs had indeed come to a halt. They had advanced over 170 miles in three weeks of continuous battle. Now they waited for four days for French support to reach them. Had the Serbs been able to push on, then the Eleventh Army could well have been routed. As it was, the Germans were able to fight a stubborn rear-guard action at Paracin on October 22, but it could not affect the eventual outcome of the campaign."

Quotation Context

In October, 1918, Austro-Hungarian General Hermann Kövess von Kövess Háza commanded occupying forces in Serbia. Faced with the rapid advance of Allied forces under French General Louis Franchet d'Esperey on the Balkan Front, and the surrender of Bulgaria on September 30, 1918, he could do little more than retreat to defend Austria-Hungary. During the Central Power invasion of Serbia in 1915, Niš (Nisch or Nish) had briefly served as the Serbian capital after the fall of Belgrade. Paracin lies in the valley of the Great Morava River between the two cities.

Source

The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 235, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965

Tags

1918-10-22, 1918, October, Serbia relief map, Von Kövess, Kövess, Von Kovess, Kovess