Furthermore, fresh water in sufficient quantities had to be
procured. For if the springs on the island could supply
eighty thousand inhabitants, they now had to triple their
output and give out a far greater supply to meet the demand
of one hundred and fifty thousand more mouths. Every bit of
flour had to come from outside, from Italy, France or
England since Corfu has very few resources and we did not
wish to encounter the hostility of a population to which it
was necessary for us to show firmness more than once. The
most recalcitrant were forced to give in, not without
ceasing to rob us very much in the dealings they had with
us. Oranges went up to ten francs a dozen, and small
shopkeepers realized fortunes by doing money changing at
fantastic rates.
And all that will furnish only a very incomplete idea of the
innumerable obligations the aquatic anthill, from an
industrial and military standpoint, which is called a naval
base, has to meet.
On the ninth of January, 1916, the situation of the Serbian Army was
precisely as follows: In the neighborhood of San Giovanni di Medua
there were twelve hundred officers, twenty-six thousand foot soldiers,
seven thousand horses and two thousand cattle; at Durazzo there were
thirty-six hundred officers, sixty-nine thousand soldiers, twenty
thousand horses and four thousand cattle; on the roads that led to
Valona some fifty thousand men including officers, two thousand horses
and three hundred cattle.
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