Destination Somewhat Unknown
Belgrade lies on the Sava River, which in 1914 was Serbia’s northern boundary with Austro-Hungarian territory. The bombardment had first come from the river, not from the other side. The Empire had a flotilla of river-sized warships, with firepower roughly equivalent to that of some modern tanks.
SMS Bodrog being refueled; this is the ship that fired the first salvo of World War I
The bombardments hit not only military or government targets. Shells seemed to strike anywhere: shops, streets, homes, offices, hospitals, etc. As time went by, mortars and howitzers were set up inland, several miles north of the river. These guns would thereafter carry the burden of the attack, sending bigger, more destructive shells into Belgrade. In response, the Serbian government relocated further south, primarily to the city of Nish, and it also distributed some of its functions among smaller cities and towns. Even as Mary Keller and her peers worked their way north, the government in Nish was reevaluating the decision to put the new hospital in Belgrade.
At Nish, the Americans left the train and traveled around the region for four days, conferring with a number of officials of the Serbian Red Cross and government in their new locations. Talking with them, seeing rural Serbs in their traditional dress and centuries-old homes, and partaking of some of the local customs, the nurses and doctors began to gain an understanding of Serbs as a people. Once the hospital was functioning, that understanding would remind them that their patients were not truly anonymous. They might differ from Americans, but the patients were simply people, much like the good people they had met on this trip, but people who had been drawn into the Great War.
