The Kingdom of serbia : report upon the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the first invasion of Serbia

38 AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ATROCITIES

This defeat degenerated into an immense panic.

No. 54, Mahommedan, of the 2nd Regt., 8rd Battn., 10th Coy., made the following statement: “ You don’t know the Austrians. They kill us for a mere nothing, on the slightest provocation, when they are dissatisfied with us.” The regiment to which witness belonged was marching forward, when all of a sudden the Serbian artillery opened fire upon them. The order was given to “Retire.” They found themselves alongside of the 93rd Regiment. At this moment an old man came out of a wood carrying an axe. He was killed. This happened on the hill at about four hours’ distance from Ljubovija. The soldier moreover declares that he will not return to Bosnia if the country should remain an Austrian province because, he says, he will be killed. Here they might do with him what they liked, hang him, kill him, ete. Captain Koniakowsk: told him that the Serbs castrated their prisoners. If a Serb or Mahommedan soldier dared to say a word in favour of Serbia, he was killed for it.

No. 82, of the 28th Regiment, asserts that among the Serbian prisoners he saw as many civilians as soldiers.

No. 53, of the 26th Regt., deposes: “We were ordered, and the order was read out to us to kill and burn all we should meet in the course of the campaign and to destroy everything Serbian.” Commandant Stanzer, as well as Captain Irketicz, ordered the men to perpetrate cruelties upon the civil population. Subsequently, before the second invasion, the order was given in Yania, on Sep-