r

LOS ANGOES

Heroic Serbia
FROM THE FRENCH OF

VICTOR BERARD

Women's

Printing Society, Ltd.,

Brick Street, Piccadilly,

'

W,

'?

LIBRARY

1-03 A,

M.

VICTOR BERARD.

M. VICTOR BERARD is one of the ablest and most cultivated French political writers. Born in 1864 and educated at the Ecole Normale Sup6rieure
he rapidly distinguished himself by the brilliance
of his
intellect

and the

versatility of. his talent.

in
in

His Hellenic studies stimulated his interest Near Eastern questions, and after publishing,
1894, his first

*' De 1'Origine des important work Cultes Arcadiens," he produced in rapid succession valuable works upon Turkey and Hellenism, the policy of Sultan Abdul Hamid, Macedonia, and Cretan affairs. In 1900 he published one of the best books yet written on England and British Imperialism, in the preparation of which he had the assistance of the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.

Returning then to his classical studies he produced an excellent work upon the Phoenicians and the

Odyssey, which was followed by a series of volumes on foreign questions, including works on Russia and on " France and William II." Since the beginning of the war he has devoted himself entirely to spreading in France knowledge of the Allies, and of the allied cause. He has lectured

and written constantly upon Serbia and Southern Slav unity, of which he is an ardent supporter, All his writings are marked by profound knowledge and by a vivacity of mind which renders attractive his treatment of even the most arid subjects.

HEROIC SERBIA
SERBIA AND ITS HISTORY.
the year 1912 Serbia was one of the weakest states in Europe and her very
existence as

I.

UNTIL

a nation was threatened.

Though larger than Belgium (11,000 square miles), Holland (12,500 square miles) or even Denmark
(15,500), and Switzerland more sparsely populated.
(15,900), Serbia
Its territory

was far was eleven

times smaller than that of the United

Kingdom

population fifteen times less for in an area of 18,600 square miles (the United Kingdom has
its
;

and

121,600) Serbia

had only 2,900,000 inhabitants

(as

The whole population against 45,000,000). Serbia scarcely equalled that of Paris alone.

of

Serbia's geographical situation was even less favourable that that of the other small European

Completely cut off from any sea-board, she lacked those commercial relations and possistates.
bilities of

expansion which have given to Denmark,

their
like

Holland and Belgium their good fortune and She was shut in on all sides security.
Switzerland by land frontiers
:

powerful states cut

2045480

HEROIC SERBIA

her off from the rest of the world and she had not
yet become, like Switzerland, a road and railway centre where the travellers of half Europe meet.

Switzerland has been called the shunting pivot of The the railway engines and tourists of the West. Serbia of 1912 remained what she had been for
the battlefield on which five or six centuries past the ambitions and diplomatic intrigues of the East

met.
it

Already neighbouring armies were marking out as the rendezvous for the battles of the

morrow.

For five or six centuries Serbia had never known complete independence. During the close
of the Middle Ages, before the arrival of the
in

Turks

Europe, she had been a great and prosperous state stretching from the Save to the Adriatic.

Peopled entirely by Jugoslavs (Southern Slavs), she was Christian and highly civilised. Thanks to her Adriatic ports, where the fleets of Venice touched, she could preserve contact with the West and She had especially with the Latin nations. intimate relations with the Italian cities and with Western influence the Kings of France and Spain. introduced to her our ideas, fashions and arts, and
Serbia
still

has churches erected by the ancient

master-builders and decorated by the fresco painters of the West.

But
provinces

in the

the Turks of Asia

middle of the fourteenth century Minor invaded the European

of the They Byzantine Empire. advanced by the valley of the Vardar into the

HEROIC SERBIA

heart of the Serbian lands, to the plain of Kosovo, " the field of the blackbirds." At the battle of

Kosovo (1389) Serbian heroism was crushed by the Turks reduced the whole superior numbers of Serbia, and not long afterwards Hungary, upper and lower, and the whole plain of the middle
;

Danube

to within easy distance of Vienna.

For four centuries then (1400-1804) Serbia was massacred and pillaged. A quarter of her population was reduced to serfdom or perished by the sword, another quarter was forcibly converted to Islam, the religion of the Turks and Arabs, and became under the name of Bosniaks a Moslem people which still spoke the language of its

same Slav language as the other which but was attached by a community of Serbs, to service of the conquering Turks. the religion
ancestors, the

A third quarter emigrated to Russia, to Italy and even to Provence, but above all to the " Military Frontiers" of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was
the Southern Slav race which during four centuries furnished the House of Austria with those famous

Croat regiments which proved its best defenders against invasion from without and rebellion from
within.

In

what had once been Serbia there only

soil

remained two groups of mountaineers, unchangeably

attached to the
ancestors, the

and

to

the

faith

of

their

Sumadija modern Serbia), and the men of the Mountain (Montenegro, as the Latins

men

of the

(the forests of

Black
of the

HEROIC SERBIA
it,

Adriatic call

Crna Gora

as

it

is

called

by the

Slavs themselves). At the beginning of the nineteenth century the ideas of the French revolution rekindled the

courage and patriotism of this nation of slaves. In 1804 the Serbs were the first Balkan people to
rise against

the Turks, and followed the French

people

in its

conquest of the Rights of Man.

It is

interesting to note that

of the insurgents'

Stephen Zivkovic, director

powder magazine at Valjevo, Serb the Telemaque of Fenelon. Throughout last century an indomitable courage and patriotism, aided by Russia and France, won first autonomy and then independence for the two
translated
into

groups of

Serbs

which

had

always

remained

Christian and recalcitrant in the Sumadija and in Montenegro. Piece by piece the remnants of their
ancestral
territory

was

delivered

and

divided

between the two Serbian States, which became the Principalities and eventually the Kingdoms of
Serbia and Montenegro, with their two capitals in

Belgrade and Cetinje.

1912 Serbia and Montenegro were still separated from each other by the two Turkish
In

The Serbs provinces of Kosovo and Novibazar. were still far from having attained their national
resurrection.

To

the Great Serbia of former days,

the south, and in the centre of Turkey still held

a million Serbs in subjection, in Macedonia and Kosovo. To the north, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in

Slavonia, in the Banat of Temesvar, in Croatia and

HEROIC SERBIA
in

Dalmatia, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had for two centuries taken the place of the Turks,

whom

the arms of loyal Croats and Serbs had expelled from these dependencies of Hungary.

and

Austria persisted in subjecting to its bureaucracy police as the victims of intolerance and exploitation, five or six million of these*} ugoslavs,

who

speak one and the same language but practise three religions. The Croats of Croatia and

Dalmatia are
Orthodox,

Roman

Catholics,

the

Serbs are
of

while

a considerable

section

the

inhabitants of Bosnia- Herzegovina are Mohammedans. But all these peoples in Austria- Hungary

belong to the same branch, the Serbo-Croat, of

the Jugoslav race
;

all

speak an identical language

and are one

in outlook in the present as in the past.

imperial and royal dynasty of AustriaHungary, the House of Habsburg, which held by right of conquest the countries of Croatia, Slavonia,

The

Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, had the design, publicly avowed, of adding to them sooner or later the two independent Serbian states, Serbia and
Montenegro, with the object of creating a single Serbo-Croat Kingdom, to be annexed to its other

kingdoms
Austria.

of

Hungary,

Bohemia,

Poland

and

The Habsburg dynasty regarded

the conquest

as legitimate because the annexation of the two

Serbian kingdoms seemed to it necessary if the Monarchy was to endure. This Monarchy has
never

known such a

thing as

national

unity,

it

HEROIC SERBIA

ruling peoples, the

includes seven or eight subject nations under two German and the Magyar, with

two capitals, Vienna and Budapest, the one German and the other Magyar. It owes its survival to a balance maintained with difficulty between these two peoples and states which are not so much
friends as rivals.

necessary
"

to

promise
of

as

it

It has repeatedly been found " comnegotiate an agreement or is called, between the two cabinets

Vienna and Budapest, between the two govern" ments of this " Dualist regime. Thus the future

of the dynasty

was precarious.
the death

Francis

Ferdinand,
(born in 1830),

The Heir Apparent, who expected to become

of the aged Francis had the idea of substituting Joseph " for this Dual system a project of Trialism," more

Emperor upon

planted on the triple base of the three kingdoms which would be obtained by annexing all the Jugoslav peoples and thus adding a Serbofirmly

Croat kingdom of Agram or of Belgrade to the Austrian kingdom of Vienna and the Hungarian

kingdom of Budapest.
Since the year 1906 the
of the Jugoslav race.
official

journalists ol
for the future

Vienna saw but a single alternative

Either
the
all

the Southern Slavs,

Habsburg Monarchy, forcibly would become the subjects of the Germans of Vienna or of the Magyars of Budapest or, left free

annexed

to

make their own choice, the people of Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina would sooner or later unite with the Serbs of Belgrade and
to

HEROIC SERBIA
Cetinje to

make

a single independent kingdom, a

national and democratic state of Serbia, just as

formerly Neapolitans, Romans, Tuscans, Venetians Lombards and Piedmontese had united to make a
national

kingdom of
for

Italy.
all

Since 1906, but above

since 1909, Austria

was only looking

for

an opportunity or a pretext

two

throwing her millions of soldiers against the She counted upon easily little Serbian states.

invading and annexing the kingdom of Belgrade, and then encircling and reducing by hunger the Every year from 1909 to kingdom of Cetinje. of the Vienna found some perfi1914 government
dious complaint to raise against the mobilised against them, threatened to

Serbs

it

make

war,

before the diplomatic intervention of the Triple Entente. In 1914 The great the renewed menace ended in war.

but recoiled at the last

moment

Serbian victories of 1912-1914 kindled the enthusiasm of all the Jugoslavs and turned the heart of
every Serb and Croat towards Belgrade. Austria thought that she could no longer give way.
II.

THE THREE WARS.

:

From 1912 to 1916 the Serbs have had to endure three great wars
(1)
(2)

(3)

The war against the Turks, 1912. The war against Bulgaria, 1913. The war against Austria-Hungary,
Germany and
the Turks.

(i)

The war against

Bulgaria, 1914-1915. In September,

10

HEROIC SERBIA
Turks
still

held in Europe the proMacedonia and Roumelia, that is to say the whole centre of the Balkan Peninsula between the Adriatic and the Black These Ottoman provinces were inhabited Sea.
1912, the vinces of

Albania,

by a Christian majority Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks and Vlachs and a Moslem minority of Albanians and Turks. They had always been very badly
Since 1894 they were a prey anarchy and insurrection as the result of administrative pillage and of the theocratic regime
administered.
to

of the Turks.
tion

On

was organised on European

paper the Turkish administralines, but the

never being paid, they^ resorted to every kind of theft in order to live. As the phrase goes
officials

and the As the stole the and officers and food, generals pay, so soldiers of the and troops, gendarmes clothing plundered in the towns and on the high roads. As
in that part of the world, " "

they

"

ate,"

appetite of these

eaters

was

insatiable.

the prefects did not pay the salaries in their offices, the officials under them demanded money from

the public for the simplest documents, and nothing

was possible
ments.

in

Turkey without innumerable docuto travel in the interior a passport

Even
all

was needed.

Above

government, and the government farmed out this tax to middlemen, who extorted from the peasants a fifth and even a

prey of the tax collector. harvest was due to the

the Christian peasantry were the The tenth part of the

HEROIC SERBIA
quarter of his crop.

11

Besides this the peasant was and often killed by the beaten molested, robbed, Mussulman chiefs who arrogated to themselves all
seignorial
rights

subject to imposts
chiefs,

and treated the Christians as and corvees. The Albanian

Begs of the plain of Kosovo, employed methods, one of which has remained famous under the name of Tash-parassi, the "tooth-penny." Every spring and every autumn an Albanian Beg installed himself with his band in one of the villages of Kosovo. They led a the the cellar and the life, hay loft, jolly emptied and on extracted from the farm-yard leaving
all

above

the

ruined peasant the " tooth-penny" to pay for the

wear and tear of

pleasant week.

their

lordly jaws during

this

For fourteen years (1894-1908)

upon the Sultan himself, who
is

it

had been

possible to lay the responsibility for these excesses

at the

same time

the supreme pontiff of Islam, the Mussulman Pope or Caliph. At that time the Sultan-Caliph of

Constantinople was Abdul Hamid, who affected extreme religious fanaticism. By his massacre of Armenians he had earned the name of the " Red
Sultan," in Macedonia he continued his
exploits

Armenian and he alone was believed to be responsible.

But when
of the

in the month of June, 1908 the outbreak Young Turkish revolution had changed the political facade of the Ottoman Empire, and when

the coup d'etat of August, 1909 had replaced the tyranny of Abdul Hamid by that of the Committee

12

HEROIC SERBIA
Union and Progress,
was remarked that the European Turkey was in
it

of

fate of the Christians in

no way improved.
Turks,
liberals,

On

while

calling

the contrary the Young themselves patriots and

were

in reality fanatical imperialists,

and

order to earn pardon for their revolution against the supreme Pontiff of Islam, they affected the
in

same

religious zeal as

Abdul Hamid and an even

greater hatred of the Christians.

They dreamt of driving all the Macedonian Christians from their native soil, and they wished
to replace

them by Mussulman emigrants, whom

the

they

summoned from

provinces

recently

annexed by Austria- Hungary and Russia.

Under

the pressure of these emigrants, stripped of everything and subject to pillage, the Christians of
to fly

Macedonia and Roumelia saw themselves forced by thousands and take refuge in the neighkingdoms with
their

bouring

blood brothers

in

Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece. The arrival of these unhappy victims
life

made

very difficult for the government and peoples of these kingdoms. The spectacle of such distress
kindled popular anger. thousands of famished

The maintenance
people
involved

of

great
states,

expense upon individuals and upon the

while the subjects of
these

neighbouring states

were themselves

persecuted

and

plundered

in

Turkey by the Young Turkish administration, which showed the same police tendencies and the same appetite as that of Abdul Hamid,

HEROIC SERBIA
the

13

Moreover during the summer of 1912, profiting Turco-Italian war in Tripoli, Serbia, by Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece demanded
under a threat of
hostilities that

Turkey should

become a
should
security,

tolerable

home

for all

her subjects, and

of

that the Christians of

Macedonia and Roumelia

be assured of a

minimum

personal

and of regular laws and administration,

Turkish countries,

and

that, so far as is possible in

massacre and pillage should be punished.

advice of

The

Germany and her ambassador at Constantinople decided the Young Turks to reject all the demands of the Balkan States. The TurcoBalkan war broke out in October, 1912. While the Bulgarians marched on Adrianople and Constantinople, gained the bloody victories of KirkKilisse

and Lule-Burgas and advanced

right

up

to

the lines of Tchatalja, within a few short miles of the Bosphorus while the Greeks in Macedonia
;

and Southern Albania won the victories which led them to Salonica and Janina the Serbs of
;

Belgrade returned as victors to that plain of Kosovo whose sad memory had been so long
celebrated by their national songs.

Kosovo is a sort of fertile framework of mountains. In places the ground is studded with masses of light quartz
lofty plain of

The

oasis in a

resembling in shape broken fragments of bread. The Serbian legend pretends that these are the
last provisions of the Christian

combatants

miraculously turned to stone

when

in 1389, the Turks were

14

HEROIC SERBIA
the

about to devour them.

awaited

Ever since 1389 all Serbia day when they would take their revenge by driving the Turks from the plain, and would return to eat the " bread of Kosovo." For three centuries the Christian villages of Kosovo were decimated by the Albanian Begs and forcibly converted to Islam, and especially during

the last fifty years the number of Christians in the area of cultivation has steadily decreased. In

order not to be massacred, these unhappy people had to renounce their national costume and mother tongue, to assume Albanian dress and to

speak Albanian in public. victorious Serbia returned

this

When
in

the troops of

by

November, 1912, to of their ancestors, they were greeted country the last bands of these unhappy victims, who,

clothed in Albanian rags but speaking the purest " Brothers," Serb, wept as they kissed their hands.

man who led one of these bands, was Brothers, high time that you came. We had waited 500 years for you, but in a few years more you would have found no one left." Then descending from Kosovo the Serbs, still victorious, destroyed the Turkish army of Macesaid "

an old

it

donia at the three great battles of Kumanovo, Along the borders of the Prilep and Monastir.
lovely lakes of Prespa

and Ochrida and through

many mountain gorges they crossed Albania to aid their brothers of Cetinje who, from the heights of the Black Mountain, had thrown themselves upon
the Albanians, but for lack of artillery could not

HEROIC SERBIA

15

reduce the strong fortress of Scutari. After five centuries (1389-1912) the Serbs reappeared on the Adriatic coast, at the ports of Durazzo and San

Giovanni

di

Medua,

which

restored

them

to

intimacy with the West. After five centuries the Serbs once more occupied the whole south of their
national
Adriatic.
district

territory

between the Vardar and

that

the

They had recovered

Macedonian

of Ochrida and that Adriatic plain of which had been, with Kosovo, the best Alessio,

After five centuries provinces in ancient Serbia. sea recovered the free and across the Adriatic they

were once more

in a position to enter into commercial and friendly relations with the West, to return to the schools of Italy and France, and to

become throughout the Jugoslav world the propagators of Western ideas and democratic manners. Henceforth the Turks and their military theocracy were ejected from almost
in
all their

conquests

Europe.

All that

was

left to

them was Constanterritory along the

tinople

and a narrow
Allies

slip of

Dardanelles and Bosphorus.

The

victory of the

was the triumph of modern ideas, of democratic patriotism, and it also appeared to be the dawn of an era of peace and civilisation in
Balkan
the

Balkan world.

This triumph of the small

its

nations rid the Peninsula of

partitioned
(2)
it

among

the states

who had

oppressors and delivered it.

The Serbo- Bulgarian War.

But

Austria,

which could only survive at the expense of these nationalities and through their subjection to its

16

HEROIC SERBIA

Allies.

imperialism, embroiled matters between the Balkan In 1913 a new war broke out. Greece
in

and Serbia united had

;

The Bulgarians were punished for their aggression when the Greeks defeated a Bulgarian army at Kukush. The Serbs
on the
lines of the Bregalnitza

Bulgaria Bulgaria the Turks and the Roumanians.

to meet the onslaught ot her turn was attacked by

made a

heroic stand

against the furious onslaught of another Bulgarian army, and won the victories of Zletovo, Kocana,
Istip

and Krivolak, June-July, 1913.

Peace was only restored by the harsh Treaty of Bucarest which robbed the Bulgarians of the greater part of their recent conquests in Roumelia

and Macedonia.

Serbia remained in possession of her inland acquisitions, of the plains of Kosovo, Skoplje and Monastir of the valleys of the Drin
;

and the Vardar. But this second war, despite its victories and annexation, cost the Serbs almost as
dear as the Bulgars.
Austrian threats forced the

government of Belgrade to renounce the Adriatic coast and hinterland and free access to the sea
;

Montenegro had to give up Scutari, Serbia Durazzo and Medua, to the new Albanian state which
Austria insisted upon creating against the Serbs. After these two years of heroic warfare, Serbia, aggrandised but still landlocked, still remained an
inland state subjected to the menace and economic exploitation of Austria- Hungary.

and

its

This menace continued to weigh upon Serbia capital Belgrade, which was only protected

HEROIC SERBIA

17

against invasion by the waters of the Save and the Danube. Belgrade was always at the mercy of a

bombardment

or a sudden assault.

Belgrade at

the junction of the Save and the Danube occupied a site very similar to that of Lyon during the

Roman epoch Lyon was at that time planted on the high hill of Fourvieres, washed by the junction From the height of of the Rhone and the Saone.
:

its hill which dominates the junction of the Save and the Danube, Belgrade looks far out across the great Danubian plain which stretches out flat and marshy to that hill, 180 miles away, from which

the old Hungarian fortress of

Pest.

Buda

looks out upon

Hungarian territory begins where these two rivers join, at Semlin, whose cannon, with the
Austro-Hungarian monitors, command the river. and Belgrade The Austro-Hungarian customs weigh still more heavily upon the whole economic life of the In order to starve Serbia and force her to Serbs. surrender, Austria-Hungary had no need to make " " a " war of pigs seemed" to her a " war of men
batteries of
;

sufficient.

Serbia exports a very large number of these animals it is the sale of these pigs abroad
;

which forms the chief item

virtually

in her

revenue,

but

was through Austria-Hungary, and the Austro-Hungarian market was her best client. It was sufficient for the latter under pretext of some contagious malady, to close the Semlin customs house to Serbian imports, and the pig war already raging,
her only

way

of exporting

them

18

HEROIC SERBIA

and the Serbian people and state were deprived of their principal commerce. The Austro-Serbian War. Even cur(3) tailed by the creation of an Albanian state and threatened and ruined by the policy of Austria, the Serbia of 1913, national and victorious, independent and parliamentary, tolerant and democratic, remained a bugbear for a feudal and
state like Austria-Hungary. The Southern Slavs, always oppressed by the Habsburg
inquisitorial

Monarchy as their brothers and cousins of Macedonia had been by the Ottoman Empire, applauded the victory of the Serbs. That just revenge for Kosovo which all had awaited for five centuries, seemed to them the first step in their complete and final deliverance, in the resurrection
of the entire race.

and exhausted, only dreamt and repose. She had lost men by tens of she had missed her harvest in 1913 thousands
Serbia, victorious
of peace
;

(and this peasant people draws its whole revenue she had expended millions in from the soil)
;

armaments and military outlay

she needed ten

or fifteen years of peace to restore her people, her army and her finances and to organise and
assimilate

was resolved

her recent acquisitions. But Austria to profit by this exhaustion to realise

" the " great design

which one of her

military

journals, Danzers Armeezeitung, had publicly put forward since the year 1906. This semi-official

organ demanded the occupation by the Austrian

HEROIC SERBIA
army
Serbia
of

19

the

Serbian
It

towns and fortresses of

Belgrade and Nis.

to

regarded the annexation of

the
in

Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as

order to re-open to the House of necessary the route of the Vardar, the conquest of Habsburg

Macedonia and of Salonica, the Drang nach Osten und nach Silden to which Vienna had aspired
for

three

centuries.

The
to

financiers

of

Vienna

agreed

with
in

the

soldiers,

that

Serbia must be

annexed

order
port

Austro-German
In

make of Salonica an and place the Levantine

control.

Mediterranean under
the

German
of

month

May,

1914, the

German

Emperor, William II., and the Austro-Hungarian Heir Apparent, Archduke Francis Ferdinand,

met

at

Konopisht and drew up the plan for the

was regarded by the Austrian and German generals as capable of easy and rapid execution and as indispensable. The Albanian

operations which

kingdom
be kept

artificially

erected in 1913 could scarcely

and the German Prince William of Wied, who had been installed as Mpret (king), was insulted by his unruly subjects. Would Serbia and Montenegro then recover Scutari and Durazzo, of which Austrian diplomacy had robbed them in 1913?
alive,

The Albanians
have

had

peculiar

for five or six centuries past conception of the state.

their opinion as to the best

Other peoples differ in form 9f government

;

some

remain faithful
all

to

monarchy, others prefer a republic, but

consider

20

HEROIC SERBIA
first

that the

duty of a subject or a

citizen is to
its

pay

taxes to the state

and

to

contribute to

support.

The Albanians
pay
all
its

alone considered that the

subjects or citizens

state ought to

and

ask of them nothing save military service. From the spring of 1914, a few months after
the installation of the Albanian kingdom, revolution seemed inevitable and might have furnished
to the Austrians a pretext for invading the

new

Serbian provinces,

the guise of a temporary in Albania. order In June, passage'while restoring 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, once in
in

agreement with William II., went to Bosnia to supervise on the Serbian frontier the completion of the Austrian preparations and to announce to the
have
the

troops that in the near future the Serbs would A fanatic of J:o count upon their prowess.

of Princip assassinated him in Sarajevo. [J^jtPrincip was of Serb nationality but an Austrian

name
;

subject
negro,

he was not a Serb of Serbia or of Montebut

Herzegovinian
of

born

in

Austro-

In Orthodox parents. the Christians have Orthodox Bosnia-Herzegovina always been affronted and even persecuted by

Hungarian

territory

the Austrian bureaucracy, because they are of the same religion as the Serbs of Belgrade and Cetinje,

and because Austria would have liked to convert them to Catholicism in order to place them willy In all nilly under the supremacy of her clergy.
the Southern Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary the Catholic is favoured, the Mussulman protected,

HEROIC SERBIA
but the Orthodox oppressed.
as near neighbours of harshly treated than

21

The Herzegovinians
others.

Montenegro were even more

the

Hence they

detested Austria and only dreamt of deliverance, as the Italians of Lombardy and Venetia in the

days of Silvio

Pellico.

of all the rancour

Princip was the incarnation and hatred of all Herzegovin-

ians against the abuses of Austro- Hungarian He shared the hopes of all Serboadministration.

Croats for speedy liberation, and

like

them dreamt

of national unity. Princip had been expelled from the gymnasium at Sarajevo and had seen a

number

of his

comrades at Mostar insulted by

Austrian garrison. As early as 1908 a Serbo-Croat agitation had broken out in the Hungarian province of Croatia,
officers of the

and the government

brated

of

Vienna had accused Serbia

its territory.

of fomenting revolution in

The

cele-

had been instigated and brought to a conclusion on Austro-Hungarian soil and had proved that Serbia had had no share

Agram

trial

whatever

in

these affairs.

In 1909 a

new attempt

was made. A Viennese historian, Dr. Friedjung, had published documents which he regarded as
proving a secret accord of the Serbo-Croat agitators with Serbia. At the instance of the Croat deputies a new trial, the Friedjung trial, opened in Vienna
itself.

At

it

the documents produced were proved

to be forgeries, and these forgeries were proved to be the work of the Austro-Hungarian Minister at

Belgrade, Count Forgach

finally in

open court

22

HEROIC SERBIA

these false documents had

Dr. Friedjung admitted his error and declared that come to him from the

very highest quarter.

In 1914

came

the third attempt.

The author

of these forgeries,

Count Forgach, had become

Ministry of Foreign affairs sooner had the murder of the

Under Secretary
at Vienna.

in the

No

Archduke become known, than the Viennese press accused the government of Belgrade of being its for a whole month the official journals instigator of the whole Monarchy repeated this accusation
;

without giving the slightest proof. After this campaign of calumny at the end
of July, 1914, the government of Vienna sent Under threat of war, ultimatum to Serbia.

an
it

demanded
of

that the military and

civil

authorities

Austria-Hungary should have the right to enter

Serbia to pursue their enquiries and bring to book the guilty, whom however they did not designate by name. In a veiled form this was the assertion
of

Austrian

control

over

the

government

of

Belgrade, the subjection of Serbia to the officials and to the armies of Vienna, in short the first stage
of annexation.

Despite the two wars which had so recently exhausted and ruined her, Serbia preferred a third

war

to this dishonouring subjection.

But

as in
inter-

1909-1913,

Russia,

France
to

and

Britain

posed and

sought

negotiate

an acceptable

agreement between Vienna and Belgrade. Austria again seemed on the point of yielding to the just

HEROIC SERBIA
remonstrances of
offering
all

23

civilised

new
II.

conditions,

when

peoples, the

and was

Emperor
in

William

brusquely declared war on Russia,

who, on that very day, had given her complete adherence It is thus that Austria to the Russian proposals.
order, he said, to defend his Austrian ally,

was driven by Germany

into this war, in

which the

Triple Entente has intervened to defend the right of all independent peoples against the bad faith of
the two Central Empires.

On
hostilities

29

July,

1914,

the the

Austrians

by bombarding
Belgrade,

open
exposed

opened town of
to

Belgrade.
batteries

being

the

and flotillas of Austria, had been abandoned by the Serbian government, which had withdrawn to the centre of the country at Nis. At first Belgrade was only defended by a regiment of
the third

Ban

(Territorial reserve)

for

127 days

(Aug.-Dec.,

1914) the Austrians

to

bombarded the

town at
on
2

intervals,

December,

but only made their entrance be driven out very soon

afterwards.

During this period the Austrians had twice invaded Serbia from the West. In the month of
August an army of 200,000 men coming from Bosnia crossed the Drina, but was held up on the

Mount Tser in the valley of the Jadar, was routed by 100,000 Serbs after four days of bayonet attacks (15-19 Aug.). In October
slopes of
it

where
a

new Austro-Hungarian army

again crossed the Drina.

On

of 250,000 men a frontier of 100

24

HEROIC SERBIA
for
six

miles the Serbs held themselves entrenched

over

weeks

but at the end of November the

to to run short

rains forced

them

ammunition began necessary to withdraw

evacuate the centre, their and it was found

into the interior as far as

The reinforced Austrians the slopes of Rudnik. hurried their pace, thinking that they already had their hands upon Kragujevac, Serbia's only arsenal,
and Nis, the temporary seat of government. Meanwhile the other army occupied Belgrade. But when the ammunition arrived from France, the Serbs assumed the offensive once more, and from 3 to 7 December they flung back these 300,000 Austrians beyond the Drina and the Save, driving them from Belgrade at the same time. By 14 December the whole of Serbia had been freed from the invader, and an immense booty of rifles, cannon, ammunition and stores, with 60,000 prisoners, remained in Serbian hands. The Austrian assaults upon the other little kingdom of Montenegro had not been more successful. Thus two little peoples
which together count less than 5,000,000 inhabitants, had put to flight the armies of an Empire of
50,000,000.

HEROIC SERBIA

25

III.

THE SERBIAN PEOPLE.

two
little

If these

kingdoms have been able

to

hold in check the Dual

it

Monarchy with

its

because they have been armed from French munition factories and
50,000,000 inhabitants,
is

aided by the Triple Entente. During the three wars which Serbia has had to wage, her principal arm has been the French cannon, and it is the

French 75 and the

officers

with French training to

Monastir, of

whom

the victories of

Kumanovo and

Zadar and Rudnik are due. Francuzi su s nama (the French are with

us),

the Serbian soldiers exclaim joyously when they hear the sound of the 75, for out there the 75 is called the Frenchman, and is credited with all the
qualities usually ascribed to the

men

of France.

always gay and always ready, he is agile 75 and of an accomplished and obliging humour, and you very soon get to know and love him. At the
is

The

first

great

battle

of

1912

at

Kumanovo

the

French 75 served by the Serbs was faced by Krupp This first duel cannon served by the Turks. enabled one to judge the worth of the two adversaries.

The Serbian
to silence

batteries

reduced

the

Krupp cannon
found that

and next day when the

Serbian troops occupied the enemy's position, they all the Turkish officers and men alike

without flinching had bravely fallen by their guns. They had been overwhelmed by the rapid avalanche

26

HEROIC SERBIA
The
"
"

Frenchman had been twice as quick as the "Schvaba" (this is the Serbian name for the German " Swabians "). The Turkish officers had found it so difficult to serve their German guns, that some of the dead were
of Creusot shells.

found with the

little

Krupp

artillery

manuals

still

" grasped in their stiffened fingers. The Schvaba is a very learned cannon but only useful to men of

"

science

and

training, while the

first very logical makes himself understood by every sensible man. With her cannon France had given to the Serbs the pupils of her University. At the battle ofTser

Frenchman and simple cannon who from the

"

"
is

there

fell

heroically Lieutenant Garasanin, former

pupil of the

Lycee Janson-de-Sailly, son

of that
in

Serbian Minister in France

who

fought

the

ranks of the French army in 1870.

But
it

if

French armaments won such

its

victories,

because they have been placed of a people who is fully conscious of

is

in the

hands

national

rights

and

duties,

is

accustomed

to collaborate

and

has a profound sense of democratic solidarity, an intimate knowledge of the sufferings and exploits
of
all
its

ancestors
for

a knowledge spread throughout

classes

many
by
its

every
its

hamlet

the

generations, and taught in poets and singers of its

national songs.
patriotism,

The

Serbian people conquered by democratic manners and its

a nation

popular poetry.

Nine-tenths of the Serbian nation

consists of peasants of small proprietors

owning the

soil

it is

who

live

upon

their crops

and

HEROIC SERBIA
their vines, their flocks

27

and

their fruit trees,

they cultivate with their

own hands.

which Every Serb

was well aware that in opposing the invaders he was defending his own fields and the daily bread of himself and his family. This war of indewas him for a He pendence struggle for life. knew what fearful exploitation Turkish tyranny had imposed upon his fathers and the rapacity which Austrian tyranny still imposes upon the With one heart the whole Jugoslav peoples. nation flung itself upon the invader all for one and one for all from the old men to the children, from the King to the last shepherd, all took to
;

arms.

On

November, 1914, the following notice

:

could be read in the Serbian press "Crown Prince Alexander has just signed, on the proposition of the Minister of War, the promotion

Dragoljub Zelic, aged twelve This was killed at the battle father boy's years. of Kumanovo in November, 1912. Being a pupil
ot the 6th class
in

to the rank of corporal

the

gymnasium

of

Sabac and

not being able to enter the regular army, Dragoljub joined a corps of volunteers and took part with them in seven fights against the Austrians.

Wounded

at

the

battle of

Suva, he refused to

leave the firing line and continued to fire until he was exhausted. In a night attack he penetrated with several comrades into the Austrian lines, and

the success of this adventure secured him a military

medal,"

28

HEROIC SERBIA

At the battle of Rudnik the old King Peter, aged 71 and a martyr to rheumatism, seated himself among the combatants and addressed them in
the second person like a father or a big brother, and himself took a rifle like one of the French

As a former generals of the revolutionary era. pupil of St. Cyr and an officer of the French army
during the war of 1870, he set the example to his
citizen
set the

army, just as French citizen-generals to-day example to the French nation under arms.

Dusan Nikolic was twenty when the war of 1914 broke out. He was the son of the former Serbian Minister at Paris, Andrew Nikolic, who had become President of the Chamber at Belgrade.

He had made

his first studies at the

Lyce JansonCalled to the

de-Sailly and was a student

of law.

colours with the class of 1914 he

stripes,

owing one of the founders of sport in Serbia). At the front where he was sent, his colonel was very careful of this

to his sporting qualities (he

soon got his had been

young

class of 1914,

which he wanted to

harden gradually before exposing it too much. Besides Mr. Nikolic had already lost four children
of croup

demanded

on the same day. But Dusan Nikolic " I am the the most perilous missions son of the President of the Chamber," he said one
:

" I evening, in giving in his report, ought to go before all the others." His colonel sent him. The

day Dusan returned with very valuable information, the second day he was missing, and a week after, when the Serbian army expelled the
first

HEROIC SERBIA
the body of

29

Austrians from the conquered territory, they found Dusan Nikolic, former pupil of the

Lycee

St. Janson-de-Sailly.

following is a mourning announcement in ovine : the official journal Srpske

The

Slobodan P. Jovanovic. Sub-Lieutenant of Infantry, commanding the 3rd Company, 4th Battalion, ist regiment of the

Morava division, wounded 3Oth November before Belgrade, died i8th December, 1914, buried in the churchyard of Mali-Pozarevac. "My son! I saved thee seven times from illness and from death. I saved thee, I brought thee up to thy nineteenth year, to see thee my first born give
thy
life for

thy country.

intelligent, loyal. to return to house

When

Thou \vast hardworking, thy comrades found time

and family, thou didst remain because thou couldst not, and wouldst not neglect thy work. Thy masters, comrades and officers preserve thy memory. If thy father had lived he would have been too old to take his
at the front

Thou hast replaced him place in this Holy War. and hast done thy duty, thou hast given thy life to deliver our hearths and our country which has suffered so terribly. Thy young brother, thy mother and thy three sisters weep for thee. But thou hast found again thy father and thy colonel Milutin Petrovic, who was killed beside thee. We know that thou hast died as an intrepid hero for
the salvation of Serbia,

pense thee.
suffered

May
much

pray thy ancestral

rest

We

God
soil

to recomwhich has

so

lightly

on

thee.

Thy

unhappy mother

Vasilja."
is

The
free

Victory of the Serbs

nation.

and conscientious

the triumph of a It is the victory

of the

Greeks at Marathon, at Salamis and at

HEROIC SERBIA
Plataea
it is
; it is the victory of the Swiss at Morgarten ; the victory of the French at Valmy. The Serbs have a life of "fraternity" ; the

family, the commune, the nation, the race, have a sense of fraternity which is not to be traced in the same degree in any of the neighbouring peoples.

The

ordinarily grouped in of property association Zadrugas, permanent and work, under the authority of the eldest or

peasant
for

family

is

most able member. The property is not partitioned up; the lands, flocks and houses are held in

common
and

all

all live in

the children are educated together, one big menage round the same

court in different apartments. The Zadrugas are united by the same solidarity.

On

the

day

fixed for the harvest or the vintage, in

this or that field or vine-yard, all

work without

remuneration for
food and drink

the
for

Zadruga. which provides

its

voluntary workers.

is made with fields men and are cultivated by widows or orphans. The commune is an hereditary association of Zadrugas. where all common interests are freely

beginning

which have

lost their

and dealt with under the influence of the most respectable and capable. But the sentiment of national unity and racial
discussed
affinity

dominates

this particularist life.

In even-

Serbian hamlet children are taught that not only " the " brothers make up the Zadrugas, the kingdom, the country, but that beyond the existing frontier

they hold the sister countries and kingdoms of

HEROIC SERBIA
Montenegro,
Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia,

31

etc.

One

of the proverbs of this Serbian race, divided between three religions, Orthodox, Catholic and

Mussulman a saying known to all and repeated in Serbia as in Bosnia, in Croatia as in Montenegro " " Brat is (He is my brother, je mio, Koje vjere vio
whatever his religion

may

be).

After the battle of

Kumanovo, November,

1912, they brought back to the village of Radljevo the body of a young officer, the son of the priest
(the

When

Orthodox popes the father had

are,

and must be married).

popes of

officiated with the

the neighbourhood, he said to the villagers : " brothers, let us bear him to the cemetery."

Now
But

from the crowd of women, children and old men who surrounded the coffin, the old mayor advanced

and said

What cemetery, most The cemetery is for the old and

:

"

reverend father
the

women who

have done nothing

for the country.

inter here before the church, that

he

Him we will may serve as

an example to all our children, that is the desire of all our people." The pope refused, because the law forbids burials round the churches. " Never
" mind, go on," said the mayor, we
will

go to the

King, to the

Chamber

you

will

not be troubled."

The pope

yielded.

They dug

the church and placed in it the coffin with uniform and the sabre of the deceased man.

the grave in front of the

But

the pope, taking back the sabre, gave it to his little son of twelve, with the words : " Alexa, my son, take and keep this precious gift Serbia will still

32

HEROIC SERBIA
it,

have need of
calls

and

after Serbia

millions of brothers to liberate,

we shall have when the country

you to the service of the race."

After the battle of Rudnik in December, 1914, the old King Peter was visiting the field ambulance.

They led him up to a dying man who had a bad wound in the head. He looked up and recognised " " Where are the King. he we, gospodar (sire) ?
asked.
"

"

We

have beaten the Austrians and

re-

taken Valjevo."
cried

The man

raised

himself and
nation."
of
it

Long live the King, Long live the Then he asked for his uniform, pulled out

his

" It is for pocket book and gave it to the King. the army," he said, and died. The pocket book
all the savings of this well-to-do peasant. In mid-winter of 1912-1913, the Serbian troops at last reached the Adriatic coast at Durazzo, after

contained 700 dinars (28),

two weeks of forced marching

in the

snow and

icy

water of the Albanian highlands. On the last when in the sea came heights sight an immense
joy overcame them all. They all understood that in the history of the race and nation, it was a

memorable day.
civilisation

The

gates of deliverance and

last

were open once more, and the

felt

of those peasants thought of the free future of his

regenerated country and

that

the
'

Serbian

" 1 people was getting back its They ran lungs. towards Durazzo before entering the town the ranks were reformed and the troops marched to
;

the water's edge in admirable order.

The Serbian

HEROIC SERBIA
flag

33

was planted

in

the sea amid cries of Zivelo

That srpsko more (long live the Serbian sea). evening at the field ambulance the doctors dealt
with the cases of
feet,

147

men who had

or

frostbitten

supported by their comrades, had reached the Serbian sea, and had insisted upon marching to the shore like the others.
It
is

but who,

carried

these

solidarity,

which have made

democratic habits, this national it possible for the non-

combatants to till the fields and gather in the harvest during these four years of almost conAll able-bodied men were at the tinual war.
front,

fighting for all

women,
and
"

children and old

all.

the whole population of men were in the fields,

families of the

cultivating for
killed

The

wounded

were helped their distress and grief, fed

brothers
"

in their

work, succoured in

in their

need by the

of the

Zadrugas or the villages.

The
in

whole nation being but a single family shared

common

its

resources,

and

its

Thus gradually among

invincible hope. the Serbs the heritage

of a distant past has always been maintained by a national popular literature of which the ancient

Greeks alone, or at a later date the French, had an equivalent. The poets and singers of Pesmes have during four centuries, from the defeat of

Kosovo

in

1389 to the insurrection of 1804, been

the true defenders of the

independence of the Serbian race and language. When the whole race lay crushed under the double tyranny of Turkey

and Austria, the singers

and

poets

celebrated

34

HEROIC SERBIA
memory
of their ancestors, their

everywhere the
exploits

and
as

defeats.

Kosovo
France
to

Kosovo
the

for

five centuries

Serbia has re-echoed to this

sorrow

medieval

name name

of

of

Roncevaux the French At Kosovo, in spite of the Roland had fallen. defeat, the Serbian Roland, Marko Kraljevic, had miraculously escaped he was living always, merely fallen asleep in his mountain grotto, whence his invincible aid would return to his people on the " Kosovo avenged." great day of On the day of " Kosovo avenged," in 1912, in
Roncevaux.
at
;

But

1913, in 1914, Marko Kraljevic fought in real truth in the ranks of his people. Along the whole front, in all the battles, the popular singers, the
guslars,

who accompany on a
the
virtues

one-stringed fiddle,

recited

of

Marko, and held up as

an example his incomparable bravery, his indomitable strength, his hatred of tyranny and oppression, his love of the weak and his eternal victory over

As ancient Greece three-headed Arab." had in its Achilles, medieval France in its Roland and modern France in its Jeanne D'Arc, its Bayard, its Hoche and Marceau, the ideal and
the

"

type of

their

national

virtues,

so

it

is

Marko

the Kraljevic devotion of the Serbs to their past, their race and
their national duties.

who

incarnates

and

maintains

In 1912 the

first

Serbian troops crossed the

arrived in torrents of rain
torrents.

Turkish
in a

frontier.

They

muddy plain furrowed by

They had

HEROIC SERBIA
to

35

remain

in the

water

their

convoy had not been

able to follow them, and the wind brought down It was a night of hunger and suffering, the tents. a night too of anxiety. For the Turks were known
to have their railway station only a few miles off

and were receiving reinforcements and provisions

from Mitrovitza.

came

visible

When dawn came, there beon a distant hillock the mosque where

once the Sultan Murad, the conqueror of the One word ran through Serbs, had been interred. Kosovo they had reached Kosovo the army
:

was dancing and singing, and the march was resumed, as though At the station of they had slept and eaten.
In one minute the whole front
eight
"

Mitrovitza, evacuated by the Turks, they found truck-loads of biscuits, and the Serbian

officers

merely had to distribute to the troops the bread of Kosovo."

In Macedonia after the hard field of

Kumanovo
Karljevic.

another battle had lasted

of Prilep, the historic

all

day before the town

home

of

Marko

The
to

Turks, strongly entrenched, had repelled four the Serbians were exhausted and began assaults
;

ray of sunshine suddenly give ground. illuminated the old tower of Marko above the river.

An

officer started

one of the Pesmes which

"
exploits.

cele-

brated

the

hero's
led

Forward

"

and

Marko himself

avengers. By evening Prilep was in Serbian hands. Ljuba Kovacevic, the former minister, is a

the

well-known

Serbian

historian.

He had

five

36

HEROIC SERBIA

daughters and a son, Vladeta Kovacevic, former student of the University of Paris. At the battle of Kumanovo, where he commanded the Mitrailleuses,

Vladeta was
Belgrade.

killed.

His body was brought

back

the day of the funeral his mother and five sisters wept and groaned aloud.
to

On

At the grave the old father without a

" the following speech Thou hast done thy duty.
:

tear

made

My son, depart in peace. My son, do not weep:

I

proud of thee. Thou hast joined the heroes whose sufferings and death of old saved by millions
I

am

the lives and

souls

of

our nation.

Tell

the

heroes of Kosovo, Dushan and Lazar and all the martyrs of former days, that to-day Kosovo is

avenged."

Heroic Serbia
FROM THE FRENCH OF

VICTOR BERARD

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