A contingent of the Serbian Army in the firing line facing Widin, Bulgaria. Widin is the primary city in the salient in northwest Bulgaria between Serbia and Romania. The card was used in September 1915, a month before the October invasion of Serbia by German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces.
ВидиномDas III. Aufgebot des serbischen Heeres in der Feuerlinie vor WiddinIII. Contingent of the Serbian army in the firing line at VidinReverse:Message dated September 16, 1915
"They tried the man with the aid of an interpreter and heard the principal witnesses. It seems that, in spite of repeated warnings from his fellow villagers, he was firing viciously on our soldiers. As he surveys the crowd gather there, he looks half savage, dropped from another world.The sentence is soon passed; the guerrilla must hang.. . .The komidatschi is brought up by two soldiers. He shows no particular emotion but looks around with a truculent stare as if he were insane. They put the sling around his neck and pull the platform from under his feet. The rope is not hung high enough, and, with a supplementary powerful tug, the butcher adjusts it. The man's face is slowly distorted. Long jerking convulsions shake his body, dying. The tongue twists out of his mouth as he swings with stiffening limbs."
Account from the journal of Pál Kelemen, an Hungarian cavalryman with German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces invading and occupying Serbia in October and November, 1915.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 175, 176, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
1915-10-31, 1915, October
