Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

THE OVERRUNNING OF SERBIA. 151

to Prilep, by Negotin and Kavadar. The Tcherna, or Black River, deep and strong, which joins the Vardar between Gradsko and Krivolak, is spanned by a wooden bridge at Vozartzi, and a few miles farther a similar bridge crosses the Rajetz torrent. North of the Rajetz, between it and: the Babuna Pass, is a wild tangle of mountains, which rise in the peak called Archangel to a height of nearly 4,000 feet. Early in November, after the first Serbian success at the Babuna had been nullified by the arrival of Bulgarian reinforcements, and the defenders had been driven back to the crest of the pass itself, the French column from Krivolak attempted to join hands with them. On sth November it carried the Vozartzi bridge, and attempted to escalade A the heights. The Serbians at the Babuna "0%" >" were, as the crow flies, only ten miles distant. The French moved ten miles down the left bank of the Tcherna, and then, turning westward, pushed halfway up the slopes of Mount Archangel. But by this time the Bulgarian army of Uskub numbered some 125,000 men, and the French had behind them a difficult and precarious line of communication—a crazy wooden bridge, twenty miles of bad road, and a hundred miles of a single line railway by which their supplies had to travel. The first attack failed. Meantime the Serbians had been driven from the Babuna Pass, and all hope of effecting a junction was at an end. The Bulgarians by a turning movement were threatening to cut the French off from the Vozartzi bridge, and pin them against the unfordable Tcherna. The French commander did the only thing possible in the circumstances. He fell back across the Tcherna, and took