Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1876 — Self-Mutilated Servians. [ARTICLE]

Self-Mutilated Servians.

The fact; is the Servian war is about to assume a much less ambitious character than that which it was endeavored to impart to it when it was first undertaken. Any troops that this country can muster together are not to meet the disciplined battalions of the enemy in the open field. Until now I have refrained from mentioning a circumstance so remarkable as to have attracted the attention of every person who has seen in any considerable numbers the wounded falling back from exposed positions; I allude to the very large proportion who are wounded in one hand or in one arm, or as is the case in a large percentage of instances, in one finger. I have sought an explanation of this suspicious coincidencce, and have been told that the Turks are such cowards that they stoop veiy low down in their trenches at the mere sight of the Servians, and that, having from the crouching position they assume, to slant their rifles at a very great angle, their fire goes upward. I am afraid this explanation will not do, because if it were good there ought to be more beads wounded than hands and fingers. I am afraid the only solution of the matter is that self-inflicted injuries have not been unfrequent since it became manifest that the Turks, regular and irregular, were not going to run away the moment the Servians appeared. The war is going to resolve itself into what I always anticipated it would become —a guerilla affair, —Belgrade Cor. London Times.