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A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.
Text:
Il Cammino della Civiltà
The Path of Civilization

A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.

Image text

Il Cammino della Civiltà



The Path of Civilization

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Sunday, October 24, 1915

"Since the beginning of the war Jagodina has been full of refugees, especially from Belgrade. Now, when the enemy has started to infiltrate from all sides, refugees have been arriving constantly, night and day, in trains, carts and on foot, and then going on. . . . Many are homeless, without food, and the poor, barefoot and in tatters, are unable to withstand the cold October weather."

Quotation Context

Description by Serbian Socialist leader Dragiša Lapčević writing in October, 1915 of Serbian refugees in Jagodina, a town midway between the Serbian capital of Belgrade and its wartime capital of Nish. Serbia's Army and citizens were retreating before the combined invasion forces of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria.

Source

Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 146, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007

Tags

1915-10-24, 1915, refugee, Serbia, October