 Following this battle and into early 1916, over 400,000 defeated and worn-out Serbian soldiers and civilian refugees, with thousands of Austrian prisoners, retreated toward the Adriatic coast on a terrible trek across Prokletije, the Accursed Mountains, that separate Kosovo and Albania, as the snow began to fall.They retreated in three columns, one across southern Montenegro, one through central Kosovo across northern Albania, and the southernmost from Prizren to the port of Dürres.Ravaged by disease, freezing to death in the bitter winter, lacking food or transport, harassed all the while by Albanian guerrillas, the survivors managed somehow to stagger to the Albanian coast in what became known as the “Great Retreat.”

The territory of Serbia was occupied by Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops.