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The minds of the witnesses, by far the most of whom peasants, had calmed down since the time when the Austrians committed the atrocities. The danger of exaggeration from excitement, which is so natural in the first moment, was to a great extent eliminated. I also noted that the Serbs peasants are very reserved indeed, and I am convinced that they are more inclined to say too little than too much. Finally, misfortune has depressed them to such an extent (without however depriving them of their courage in fighting the enemy) that they have almost come to accept the evils that have fallen upon them as natural and inevitable.
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I have also endeavoured to ascertain the number of the cases of rape committed by the army of invasion. This was even a more difficult task than to arrive at the number of the wounded. You, Monsieur le President, are well aware of popularr sentiment in your country in all matters touching the honour of the family, and you know that it is impossible, or at least, exceedingly difficult for a girl who has been outraged to find a husband. The families endeavour to conceal as far as possible the misfortune tha has befallen them in the violation of their women. Hence the utmost absolute impossibility of ascertaining the number of women who had been subjected to lewd assaults from the soldiery of the hostile army.
I am convinced that the number of violated women and young girls is very great, and judging by what I saw during my enquiry, I do not think that I am mistaken in saying that in many of the invaded villages almost all women from the very youngest to the very oldest have been violated.
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[Austro-Hungarian soldier, witness] No. 48, of the 26th Landsturm, states that the men were given the order to bayonet all living creatures, women, men and children, without distinction. A private of the 79th Regt. told him that, near Drenovatz, the Austrian officers made a ring of 26 persons round a house, and then set fire to the house, thus burning the 26 victims.
No. 50, [Austrian] hospital sergeant in the 28th Infantry Landwehr Regt., deposes that before crossing the frontier the officers abused the Serbs [drafted in Austro-Hungarian army from Bosnia and Krajina] in every possible way, calling them "barefoot," "gipsies," "assassins," "brigands," etc.
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All men, old men and children, were captured and driven before the troops with bayonet thrusts. These people were questioned as to the position of the Serbs and the comitadjis. If their answers failed to satisfy the [Austrian] officers they were shot immediately. In most cases, when the troops entered a village the greater number of the hostages, or even all of them, were killed. These unfortunate people were almost always old men or children.
In [Velika Reka village] there was an inn. The innkeeper was bayoneted by Corporal Begovitch. The innkeeper's wife, who had witnessed the scene, wrenched the rifle from the Croat and killed him. Other Austrians threw themselves upon her and ripped her body open from end to the end with a bayonet. Her child was killed with the same weapon. The house was completely sacked.
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The Hungarians and the Croats were the worst, but the men were incited by their officers to commit atrocities. Wherever the regiment passed through the officers urged them to kill everything, cows, pigs, chicken, in fact everything whether it was required for the subsistence of the army or not. The men got dead-drunk, with "schnaps" in the [Serbian wine] cellars. They allowed the liquor to run out of the barrels, so that often the cellars were inundated with alcohol.
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No. 53, of the 26th Regt., deposes: ... An Austrian soldier, one Doshan, a Croat, boasted of having killed a woman, two old men, and a child, and invited his comrades to go with him to have a look at his victims.
No 56, Corporal of the 28th Landwehr Regt., deposes that in [Serbian town of] Shabatz the Austrians killed over 60 civilians beside the church. They had previously been confined in the later. They were butchered with the bayonet in order to save ammunition... There were several old men and children among the victims.
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No. 64, of the 93rd Regiment. Near [Serbian village] Ljubovia a lieutenant of the first Company shot a priest with his revolver. Captain Veit ordered the corpse to be burnt.
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The victims tell how the Austro-Hungarian army used Serbian civilians - at the front line - as human shields. Women, children, old men murdered, butchered different ways. Whole families slaughtered, burned alive.
The case of Mihailo Yankovitch, aged 75, was mentioned on page 60. He "was killed with rifle shots. The male organ was cut off and placed in his mouth."
Whole villages (i.e. the population that did not run in front of the invading army) were massacred.
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[Serbian woman] Anitza Yezditch, aged 32, eyes put out, nose and ears cut off.
[Serbian woman] Mirosava Vasilievitch, aged 21, violated by about 40 soldiers, genital organs cut off, her hair pushed down the vagina. She was finally disembowelled, but only died immediately after this being done.
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All these atrocities were perpetrated by the Austrians on their arrival on August 3rd. No one among the civil population had fired upon the enemy, and most of the villagers had taken flight. Almost all those who remained were massacred. The bodies of Zhivko Boitch, aged 70, and his daughter-in-law, Pelka, aged 25, and her infant, aged 4 months, were found later on. The bodies had been cut to pieces.
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So many died during that exodus... But many of those who stayed in their homes under Austro-Hungarian occupation got the same destiny.
Mass slaughter of Serbian civilians was common all across Serbia. These are skulls and bones of some 3,000 (three thousand) Serbs dug out after the war at Surdulica a small village near Belgrade.
The first victims were usually intellectuals: priests, teachers, scientists.
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The war had cost Serbia 23 percent of its population.
Fonte:
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/ww-1/book/massacres.html
Mais:
http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww1/cou/ser/w1cs-os.html
