An Austro-German force was invading the country from the north. The Bulgars were attacking from the east, and one of their armies, by a lightning march on the Nish-Salonica railroad, had cut off the possibility of retreat to the south. There remained for the Serbians but one line of escape — to the west, across the snowclad, trackless mountains of High Albania.
They proceeded to take it, adding one more to the long list of violations of neutral territory by the two sides in the war. Not that anybody worried about the Albanians. The King of Montenegro had just completed the last of a long series of similar financial transactions, and sold the Lovchen position, which defends Getinje, to the Austrians.
The Austrians would now be able to overrun Montenegro and invade Albania from the north. This meant that the exhausted Serbians would have to be withdrawn to the south of Albania, which was strongly held by the Italians, and from there shipped, as transport became available, to whatever place of refuge could be found for them.
But what if, during their evacuation of Albania, the Bulgarians were to attack them in the flank, debouching from the Albanian mountains to catch them on the march along the littoral? If the Bulgarians thought it worth while, there was nothing to prevent them. But would they care to detach the force necessary for the purpose? That was what they wanted to know in Rome; the plan was that I should make a journey into the interior and obtain information as to the Bulgar intentions.
If so, what better way of accomplishing my mission than to act as his emissary to the advancing Austrian? My inquiries, however, soon convinced me that I had done the Pasha an injustice. He adhered, in fact, continuously to the Allies, with more loyalty than they later displayed to him. He made no attempt to approach either Austrian or Bulgar; and when the day came for the Allies to abandon Durazzo before the Austrian advance he left his own country with them sooner than desert the Allied cause.
