In a scene rich in historic symbolism, Kosovo's Serbs yesterday began their great retreat.
They took to the roads in articulated lorries, petrol tankers, delivery vans, tractors and police jeeps. Someone even drove away a gigantic yellow bulldozer on a massive low-loader.
I watched them struggling to move along both lanes of the highway at Kosovo Polje - "Kosovo Field" - a stretch of undulating farmland just north of the capital, Pristina, which is the most famous piece of real estate in all Serbia.
It was at Kosovo Polje in 1389 that Serbs fought their most historic battle, losing to a Turkish army and later enduring 500 years of Ottoman rule. From here they fled again nearly three centuries later, led by their Orthodox patriarch, after a failed rebellion. And here, 10 years ago this month, the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, made his name telling a crowd of 500,000 Serbs, "Serbia will never abandon Kosovo".
Well, now Serbia has. On a hill above the convoy, the dark tower which is Kosovo Polje's war memorial, and from where Mr Milosevic made his speech, is now deserted, the visitor centre next door burned out.
Even the weather was against the Serbs - they moved under a grey sky, rain pouring down at one point on the soldiers stuck in open trucks. They moved slowly, passing Serb farms set ablaze by their owners as they left, the columns of smoke marking a path across Kosovo Polje into the afternoon.
And further away, Serb troops set buildings ablaze in a chain of villages around the battered town of Podujevo, a final gesture of scorched earth.
Some Serbs feel abandoned by Mr Milosevic, who this week made a speech, not about Kosovo, but about the need to rebuild bridges on the Danube at Novi Sad.
"He is a monster, he has his victory, he has his broken bridge in Novi Sad but here, we have lost everything," said one despairing government official. "Pristina is my home. I have nowhere to go. I don't know what to do."
For Belgrade's historians it was always thus. Serbs pride themselves on their defeats, which they view as tests of character. Before the battle of Kosovo Polje, it is said that Lazar, their leader and later saint, was visited by a bird sent from heaven to give him a choice: an empire on earth or an empire in heaven. He chose the latter and Serbs say they have suffered the price ever since.
In among the convoy buzzed British army Land Rovers, trying to disentangle the military and police vehicles from the rest. It was a hopeless task, many of the army vehicles, in contrast to the sprightly NATO jeeps, are battered, rusty and covered in mud.
Many of the civilian cars and trucks are worse, with soldiers jumping from their trucks to try and get broken cars started, their owners terrified that they might be left behind. They passed the sprawling army bases which have been pulverised by NATO, the gas storage tanks crumpled, the buildings ripped to pieces as if by a massive hammer.
One farmer, putting cases into his car in a village next to Pristina airport, explained: "We don't trust NATO to protect us; we are afraid of what happens when our Albanian neighbours get back."
In his village, seven houses are Serb. They are easy to spot because, unlike the 40 Albanian homes, they are still standing. The Albanian houses are charred ruins. "That was all done by politics," he said. "We have lived here all our lives, no one wants to leave. But we're frightened of what happens when our neighbours get back."
That appears to be something NATO has not considered: with the police and army gone, Pristina is literally lawless. NATO can stop tanks but, short of putting troops on every street corner, it cannot prevent the revenge of the returning Albanian majority.
Pristina has been turned inside out. On Monday night, there streets were empty of everyone except roving bands of Serb police and paramilitaries firing volleys from car windows.
With the daylight, the mood suddenly changed - the streets were empty of police, and the ethnic Albanians who had been too frightened to leave their homes came out. The market opened for the first time in many weeks and British Warrior armoured vehicles parked on street corners.
The armoured vehicles were strewn with red and yellow flowers, bought by Albanians in the market. Fruit stalls were open and farmers wandered by holding live chickens upside down.
The Serbs, masters on Monday, are now fearful. "I don't know what to do," said a waiter at a Serb-run hotel. "This is my home but 90 per cent of our police have gone. Probably, I will be gone in a couple of days."
This retreat compounds 10 years of misery for Yugoslavia. When Mr Milosevic addressed those crowds on that bright June day, the country was the jewel in eastern Europe's crown, poised to march into a new Europe. Since then Serb forces have lost wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and now Kosovo.
Yugoslavia consists now of only Serbia and its little brother, Montenegro, whose President, Mr Milo Dukanovic, has announced he wants a referendum on whether to join all the other republics in breaking away from Belgrade.
Yesterday's refugees will arrive in a Serbia bankrupted by 10 years of wars, massive government corruption and now dislocated by NATO bombing. It is already crammed with refugees.
In July 1995, 250,000 Serbs fled to Serbia from another historic region, Krajina, in Croatia. A few months later, when Serb parts of Sarajevo were handed over to the mostly-Muslim city authorities, the Serbs again left, as now burning many of their homes behind them.
In Pristina's town centre, the former press officer of the KLA, Mr Adem Demaci, held court where once he feared to tread. "I want to believe that not all Serb police came here willingly but they must leave. Serbians will now be on the ground, not somewhere in the sky; they will learn to treat people as normal people."
Albanians are still wary and many will not give their names as they watch the Serb procession. "I am so, so happy, we feel free for the first time in my life," said one.