To the left, caricatures of a fallen King Albert of Belgium, Tsar Nicholas of Russia, President Poincare of France, generic (?) caricatures of an English man and a Japanese soldier, Kings Peter of Serbia, and Nikola of Montenegro engaging in a tug of war, the rope being held on the right by a German (in gray) and an Austro-Hungarian soldier. Between the teams and behind the rope stands the diminutive caped figure of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, all hat, mustache, and chin.
Das Europaische Gleichgewicht 1914The European Equilibrium, 1914
"The first Serb units had been shipped to Corfu on 15 January [1916], but in the course of two weeks only 15,000 troops arrived there, and Pašić had to warn again that another 140,000 people were waiting on the Albanian coast. Suffice it to say that on 23 January, the day when the Austro-Hungarian forces entered Skadar, barely one tenth of the people waiting to be rescued had been evacuated. In the meantime the exhausted and hungry Serb troops had to move from northern Albania to the safer and more secure ports of Durrës and Vlorë, which meant marching up to 250 kilometers through inhospitable terrain."
After defeat by the combined forces of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, Serbia's army, government, and many civilians retreated through the mountains of Albania to the Adriatic coast. Having failed to aid Serbia with troops that had been landed in Salonica, Greece, her allies again fell short in providing food, shelter, and transport to the Serbians who had survived the winter, the mountains, and brigands that cost thousands of lives in the retreat. With Serbia defeated, Austria-Hungary invaded Montenegro, with whom the empire was at war, then neutral Albania, with whom it was not. Skadar, Durrës, and Vlorë are all Albanian cities. Nicola Pašić was Prime Minister of Serbia.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 159, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
1916-01-23, 1916, January, Serbia, Serbian evacuation
