The Balkan Piedmont - Serbia and the Yugoslav Question

INTRODUCTION
All the crises in the 19th century Balkans stemmed from the Austro-Russian rivalry over the
Eastern Question i.e. the question of the succession to the Ottoman provinces in Europe.
National movements of the Orthodox Balkan Christians (the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and
Romanians) developed under the influence and active support of Russia. The Greek national
movement obtained the support of all the Great Powers, due to its Hellenic heritage, considered
as the core of European civilisation. The Romanian and Bulgarian national movements were
strongly supported and also shaped by tsarist Russia due to their geopolitical importance in the
global strategy of Russian foreign policy - an exit on warm seas.
The Serbian national movement, first to arise in the Balkans as a national and social revolution in
1804 under the leadership of Karadjordje, was also supported by the Slavonic and Orthodox
Empire. Savagely crushed in 1813, it gradually recovered after 1815, establishing the nucleus of
the renewed Serbian state, encompassing most of today's Central Serbia, which acquired in
1830, through decisive Russian diplomatic pressure on Constantinople, an internationally
recognized autonomy which expressed Serbia's independent status within the Ottoman Empire.
The Principality of Serbia, bordering on the Habsburg monarchy with a specific geopolitical and
fragile political position, was not only dependent on the will of the suzerain court, the Porte, but
on the influence of the two Great Powers that dominated the Balkans. In the first half of the 19th
century, the neighbouring Habsburg Monarchy's economic domination over the Principality's trade
was less tangible than the political protectorate of imperial Russia, at the time both the official and
traditional protector of all Orthodox Christians in Turkey. It was only after Russia's defeat in the
Crimean war that St. Petersburg's ambitions to dominate the political developments taking place
among the Balkan Slavs were curbed. In 1856, the Treaty of Paris placed the Principality of
Serbia under the protection of the European powers. Serbia was thus forced to balance between
the triangle of interests (Ottoman, Habsburg and Russian Empire), which were all, at various
times, opposed to Serbia's primary goal: the unification of the Serbs, dispersed as they were in
various provinces within the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. (1)
Prince Milos Obrenovic (ruled 1815-1839 and 1858-1860), who became the official hereditary
ruler of the autonomous principality, just like Karadjordje, tried to conduct a policy as independent
as possible of the powers that tailored the fate of the Balkans, especially Russia which treated
Serbia as its province. His national goals were the same as those of Karadjordje: Serbia's final
goal was to unite with Bosnia, Old Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. He called on their leaders
to incite an uprising: "thus to liberate yourselves from Turkish oppression and thus to unite with
us, Serbia, so that we will renew the Serbian Kingdom that was destroyed at Kosovo." The British
Consul in Belgrade, Colonel Hodges, who, at the time of the joint action aimed at limiting Russia's
influence in the principality, was acquainted with Milos's plans, and considered that the Serbian
Prince had the support of France for the unification of Bosnia and Serbia into an independent
kingdom under the Obrenovic crown. Prince Milos, just like his predecessor Karadjordje, knew
the importance of the South Slav framework for the resolution of the Serbian question. One of his
associates told a foreign diplomat in confidence that Milos was secretly planning to unite Serbia,
Bosnia, Bulgaria, Herzegovina, Uskokija (Krajina), Banat, the Slovenes, Illyria, Dalmatia,
Montenegro and the Albanian mountains into a Southern Slavic Empire. At that time, names like
Dalmatia, Croatia or Bulgaria were only geographical names or historical memories: except for
the Serbs there were no other profiled national identities among the predominantly Slavonic
populations. (2)

THE NATIONAL PROGRAM OF SERBIA

The Serbian national program was drawn up in 1844, during the rule of Prince Alexander
Karadjordjevic (1842-1858), at a time when, after the toppling of absolutist ruler Milos Obrenovic,
liberal ideas, accompanied by administrative reforms in the organization of the state
administration, had rapidly penetrated the political life of the autonomous Serbian principality.
This was a consequence of the coming to power of the enlightened bureaucratic elite (the socalled "Defenders of the Constitution"). Only a small circle of them, the Prince's associates, knew
about the existence of the "Nacertanije" - the Program of Serbia's foreign and national policy at
the end of 1844, drawn up by Prince Alexander's interior minister, Ilija Garasanin, a politician of
broad political visions. (3)
The Nacertanije was based on the model for the unification of the Southern Slavs proposed to
Garasanin by the Polish emigrants at the Htel Lambert in Paris; they belonged to the circle
around Prince Adam Czartoryski. Polish migrs with the financial and political support of the
French and British governments, opened their agency in Belgrade. They projected the creation of
a big Slavonic state around Serbia - the only (if tiny Montenegro is excepted) autonomous Slavic
principality in the Balkans. That state was to be a counterpoise to the spreading of the influences
of Russia and Austria, the two Great Powers that stood in the way of the restoration of the Polish
state. Garasanin who, at the time did not believe, with good reason, in the possibility of the
disintegration of the Habsburg Empire, modified the proposals of the Polish agent in Belgrade
(Frantisek Zach, a Czech by birth) in accordance with Serbia's possibilities and needs. Zach's
"Plan of the Slav Politics of Serbia" based on ideas of a previous plan made by Czartoryski
himself ("Advices on the course of action to be followed by Serbia"), envisaged that Serbian
national propaganda should expand towards Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and northern
Albania and that Belgrade should strengthen its relations with the Illyrian movement in Croatia.
Because of the existing geopolitical realities, Garasanin softened the strong anti-Russian attitude
in Czartoryski's and Zach's proposals and took the idea of Yugoslav unification as a subsidiary
one as against that of the unification of the Serbs into one state. He was aware of the fact that the
Serbian national movement was the only fully formed Southern Slavic movement - those of the
Croats, Slovenes and Bulgarians were still in their infancy. The Illyrian movement in Croatia in the
early forties was still a narrow cultural rather than a developed national movement. (4)
Essentially, Nacertanije, following advice and plans by Czartoryski and Zach, can be reduced to
two main goals: 1) an independent policy had to mean balancing between the Great Powers and
seeking support from those which had no direct interests in the Balkans; it was possible to lean
on Russia only as regards its support of Serbian aspirations, and this was by no means to lead to
Serbia's subjugation to the Slavonic empire's Balkan goals. 2) the development of Yugoslav cooperation in order to carry out Serbia's unification, first with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then
also with Montenegro, Old Serbia and Macedonia - the Serbian-inhabited lands within the
Ottoman Empire - which would have access to the Adriatic Sea through a narrow belt in the north
of Albania. For Garasanin, unification of Serbia with the Southern Slavs in the Habsburg
Monarchy was a task for future generations; he considered that, in the existing circumstances,
the only active co-operation that was possible, was primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nacertanije was a national program that gave a new dimension to Serbian national aspirations:
the bearer of the unification was to be the Principality of Serbia, organized as a modern European
state with developed bureaucratic structures that would organize and channel national
propaganda. According to "Nacertanije", support for Serbian goals was to be sought from the
powers that, unlike Russia and the Habsburg Empire, were not directly interested in the Eastern
Question - Great Britain and France. Inspired by Jacobin ideas, Nacertanije was a nation-state
model; at the level of generally accepted principles, it was the unofficial program of Serbia's
foreign policy all the way up to the creation of the Yugoslav state in 1918.(5)
Depending on different criteria, the Serbian ethnic territory meant different regions. The
widespread linguistic principle which dominated European science was that language makes a
nation. That principle was introduced into Serbian politics by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic. He
accepted the views of distinguished scholars, experts on Balkan history, linguistics and literature,
like the Slovene Jernej Kopitar and the Czech Pavel Safaryk that the shtokavian dialect of the
Serbian language was the main criteria for ethnic affiliation. A map of a united Serbia dating from

1854 showed, according to the linguistic principle, apart from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and
Herzegovina and it also included South Hungary (the Serbian Vojvodina part as from 1848), Old
Serbia (Kosovo with sandjak of Novi Pazar and northern Macedonia), Vardar Macedonia, along
with the Serbo-Croatian region up to Istria and northern Albania (the region around Scutari).
In contrast to the linguistic principle, there also existed a narrower, almost confessional model of
Serbian unification advocated mainly by pan-slavist circles within the Serbian Orthodox Church
and the politicians of the Liberal party who dominated the foreign policy of Serbia during the late
1860s and early 1870s, during the minority of Prince Milan Obrenovic. On a map sent to the
Russian government in 1866, asking for help in resisting aggressive Roman Catholic
propaganda, Belgrade Metropolitan Mihailo mentioned as Serbian lands mostly the regions under
Ottoman rule where the Serbian Orthodox population, according to his sources, constituted an
absolute or relative majority,: apart from the two principalities, Montenegro and Serbia, he also
mentioned Bosnia and Herzegovina, Old Serbia (including the sandjak of Nis, Kosovo, the
sandjak of Novi Pazar including today's northern Macedonia, and northern Albania (the region of
Scutari). (6)

THE FEDERAL AND YUGOSLAV OPTIONS

Panslavist propaganda coming from Russia became intense during the late 1850's and early
1860's. The establishment of the Slavophile Committee in Moscow in 1858 and the visit of
leading slavophile ideologist Ivan Aksakov to Serbia, Montenegro, Dalmatia and Croatia in 1860
gave fresh impetus to plans for liberation from Ottoman rule. Panslavist propaganda was focusing
on Serbia and then on Bosnia, where general insurrection was being prepared.
Serbia's foreign policy plans during the second reign of prince Michael Obrenovic (1860-1868) the preparations for a simultaneous uprising by the Balkan nations under Ottoman rule, an
agreement with the leaders of the Croatian movement and the creation of an alliance of Balkan
states - were being carried out by his Foreign Minister Ilija Garasanin. Garasanin's main goal
during the 1860's was the unification of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbia. Although there was
no general insurrection, the various plans and activities showed the level of the revolutionary
atmosphere within Serbia's political circles and among national leaders in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
The "Serbo-Bosnian committee", in charge of national propaganda in neighbouring countries,
worked in Belgrade (1860-1861), in collaboration with Hungarian and Italian revolutionaries.
Secret strongholds were created in the main towns: Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Maglaj and Travnik.
The rebelling Serbian regions in Herzegovina, Bosnia and the Montenegrin army were financially
supported by Panslavist committees. In accordance with the project of the uprising, the Serbs
counted on the support and co-operation of part of the Bosnian Muslims.
The Serbo-Bosnian Committee organized 17 agencies in Dalmatia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia,
sent petitions and protests to the Great Powers from Kosovo and Bosnia. In 1862 another
Serbian Committee was established in Belgrade to prepare general insurrection in Bosnia and
Bulgaria, to welcome and organize Bulgarian refugees in a separate military unit which would
operate together with Serbian forces. Another attempt was made during the Austro-Prussian war
in 1866 when Bosnia again emerged as a main goal for Serbia. In Sarajevo a committee for the
preparing of a general Serbian insurrection was established. Its leaders went to Serbia for special
military training.
The most important achievement of Michael's rule was the creation of the Balkan Alliance. The
first agreement on co-operation was signed in 1866 with Montenegro and it became the basis for
the creation of the future alliance. Montenegrin prince Nicholas I Petrovic Njegos (ruled 18601918), agreed to renounce his throne in favour of prince Michael in the event that the two Serbian
states united. Close ties were established and agreement on co-operation in the upcoming

insurrection was concluded with the tribal leaders of northern Albania. The goal of the agreement
with Bulgarian emigrants in 1867 was the creation of a Southern Slavonic Empire.
The alliance was crowned by an agreement with Greece - first an agreement on an alliance in
August 1867, and then also a military convention in February 1868. In the event of a war and of
joint action in it, Greece would get Epirus and Thessaly, while Serbia would get Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The Balkan alliance was rounded off in 1868 with the signing of an agreement of
friendship with Romania which had been created through the unification of the two Danubian
principalities.(7)
The Yugoslav movement which emerged as a political program in the mid-nineteenth century with
the Illyrian movement in Croatia, was dependent on the internal stability of the Habsburg
Monarchy. The Yugoslav question in Austria-Hungary was thus, up to 1914 the question of either
its federal re-organisation or its dissolution and the consequences of any of these two solutions.
The crisis in the late 1850's and mid-1860's caused by lost wars in Italy and Germany, Italian and
German agitation in the Balkans, opened the prospect of possible collapse of the Habsburg
Monarchy. Garasanin established, during the 1860s close ties with leading Croatian politicians
who, dissatisfied with the Compromise ("Ausgleich") between Austria and Hungary in 1867,
instead of the expected federal reorganization, got a double-natured master: the Dual Monarchy Austria-Hungary.
In an oral agreement with Garasanin, their leader, the Croat Bishop of Djakovo, Josip Juraj
Strossmayer, agreed in principle to the creation of a common, independent "federal state", and
also to the plan for the annexation of Bosnia to Serbia, as the beginning of the resolution of the
issue of the future Southern Slav unification. It was in Zagreb that one of the important
committees of the future uprising in Bosnia was supposed to operate.
The turnabout towards the final abandonment of the war for Bosnia, took place after the meeting
between Prince Michael and Count Andrassy, the Hungarian Prime Minister, in August 1867. In
order to dissuade Prince Michael from relying for support on Russia and from establishing closer
relations with the leaders of the Croatian movement, Andrassy promised him tacit diplomatic
support in getting Bosnia peacefully on condition that Serbia enter a political alliance with
Hungary. The assassination of Prince Michael in a local political conspiracy in Belgrade, in June
1868, marked the end of the plans for a general uprising against Ottoman rule in the Balkans. A
broad Balkan Alliance was established half a century later, in 1912.(8)
The Balkan Alliance and negotiations on a common state with the Croats once again raised the
issue of a global resolution of the Yugoslav question. According to the views of Garasanin, who
relied on the theoretical postulates of the leading scholars of the time, this was one nation for
which the Serbian state, as the Balkan Piedmont, would be the main foundation. In his letter to
Strossmayer in 1867, Garasanin pointed out: "The Serbian and Croatian nationalities are one the Yugoslav SSlavC nationality; religion is not to interfere in the least bit in national affairs; the
state is the only basis of nationality; religion divides us and separates us into three parts Si.e.,
Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, IslamC, but it can never be the principle of our
unification into one state; it is our nationality, which is the same, that can". (9)
The main precondition for the future unification of the Serbs and the Croats was the disintegration
of the Habsburg Monarchy along national lines which, after the defeat of the Viennese Emperor's
army in Italy and Germany seemed possible at least for a while. In a memoir submitted to
Napoleon III in 1866, Garasanin warned him that the Habsburg Monarchy was a strange
agglomeration of nations, which should be recomposed according to the principle of nationality.
Garasanin even envisaged the creation of a vast confederation of some 44,000,000 inhabitants,
which would encompass the space between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea. That state,
according to Garasanin's proposal, with Serbia as the Piedmont would serve as a buffer zone
between Russia and Germany.(10)
Along with the spread of the network of political agents and the preparations for a joint struggle
during the 1860s, propaganda work was being carried out to acquaint Europe with the Serbs'
desires and their views on the resolution of the Eastern question. One of the leading Serbian
politicians in Vojvodina, Mihailo Polit-Desancic, published (in 1862) a study "The Eastern

Question and its Organic Resolution" ("Die orientalische Frage und ihre organische Lsung") in
which he advocated the application of the principle of nationality and a confederation as a model
for the future organization of the Balkans, suggesting that the problem of the Ottoman heritage in
Europe be resolved outside the framework of Austria-Hungary.
Similar stands were also advocated in a study "Eastern Question" ("Die Orientfrage") written in
1877 by the leader of the Vojvodina Serbs, Svetozar Miletic, who stressed the significance of
"natural rights" and proposed the creation of a Balkan confederation composed of a SerboBulgarian federal unit on the one side, and of the Romanians and Greeks on the other. The
Serbian unit, apart from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Old Serbia, would also
include part of Macedonia "where the character of Serbian customs, the Serbian way of thinking,
Serbian inclinations, and even the language itself, has largely and essentially penetrated, and
that is the region spreading up to and somewhat beyond the Vardar River".
The leader of the Liberals in Serbia, Vladimir Jovanovic, strongly influenced by Mazzini, along
with Miletic, was the main founder of the United Serbian Youth (Ujedinjena omladina srpska), an
organization similar to Young Italy. Jovanovic stressed that a union of Balkan states ("the Balkans
to the Balkan peoples"), for which Constantinople and Salonika would be free ports, would be
most compatible with and useful for the political and economic interests of Europe as the bearer
of liberal ideas in this part of the world, in contrast to the weakened and anachronous Ottoman
Empire. Due to its geopolitical position, democratic aspirations and the overall diffusion of the
Serbian population in the central parts of the peninsula, Serbia would have a special place in the
alliance: according to Jovanovic, there were over five million Serbs in the Balkans, living in
Montenegro, Serbia, Slavonia, Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Albania, Old
Serbia and Macedonia.(11)

THE SERBIAN PARTIES: UNIFICATION THROUGH BALKAN CO-OPERATION

The political parties in Serbia, a fully sovereign state from 1878, were established in the early
1880s. They shaped their programs on a basis similar to Garasanin's Nacertanije. In its 1881
program the National Radical Party stressed that the state structure it aspired to was "the
people's well-being and freedom on the inside, and state independence and the liberation and
unification of the rest of the Serbian lands, on the outside." The paragraph devoted to foreign
policy contains several ideas taken from the "Nacertanije" as regards: Balkan co-operation,
cultural activities, the awakening of national awareness: "that concord among all the brotherly
neighbouring nations be cherished, that the creation of an alliance of Balkan nations be actively
worked on, and especially that agreement be reached as soon as possible with Montenegro and
Bulgaria; that cultural assistance be offered to the dismembered and unliberated Serbian lands
and that the lively awakening of the awareness about our national unity in the distant Serbian
provinces, which are exposed to foreign factors, be organized (...)."(12)
The qualitative difference between the Radicals' program and Nacertanije, which relies on the
State and its bureaucratic apparatus in the realization of its goals, had to do with political
freedoms and democratic institutions as preconditions for the successful realization of foreign
policy goals: general voting rights, legislative power for the Assembly (Narodna skupstina),
freedom of the press, freedom of speech and agreement, freedom of association, communal selfgoverning, an independent judiciary and obligatory schooling free of charge.
Unlike the Radicals who did not hide their conviction that Austria-Hungary was the main obstacle
to the national emancipation and unification of the Serbs, the Progressive party, which rallied part
of the intelligentsia working for the state bureaucracy, without having stronger support among the
people, leaned towards the Obrenovic dynasty and, in accordance with the dynasty's policy, it
was ready to make certain compromises with Austria-Hungary. Emphasizing the importance of
law, freedom and progress for the internal life of a country, in their 1879 program, members of the
Progressive party presented the following position concerning foreign policy: "Feeling that
loneliness at the international level brings no blessing, it is our holy duty to help spirituality and to

preserve the valuable national characteristics of the Serbs outside the Serbian principality as
well, and to strengthen brotherly relations in the big family of Slav nations, and, along with other
neighbouring nations, on the basis of mutual respect and support, to give life and a meaning to
the principle: the East belongs only to the Eastern nations."(13)
The Serbian Liberals, the oldest party in the country, which, respecting the principles of western
democracies, persistently fought, from the end of the 1850s, for the establishment of
constitutional rule and democratic institutions, formulated, in its 1881 program its foreign policy
goals, adding a number of its own solutions to "Nacertanije's" main postulates: "Since the main
precondition for the survival of every nation and the development of its natural resources and its
living strength, is its unification, they Sthe liberalsC, just like all good patriots, consider that the
Serbian nation's main concern and constant aspiration, as well as the highest and most sacred
goal, must be: to unite its dismembered parts and lands of the Balkan peninsula within their
natural ethnographic borders, and in the framework of the old historical glory and power, both on
the political and the religious plane. To achieve this aim, and for the purpose of ensuring the
freedom and independence of the people, it must choose, as the shortest and best road, greater
closeness and a confederation (alliance) of the Eastern nations that have a similar historical fate
and the same political and cultural interests - and it must primarily work on the establishment of a
customs alliance with these nations and states. In this regard, we think that the best friends of
Serbia and the Serbian nation are those states and nations whose political and economic
interests are not opposed to the determined aspirations and interests of Eastern nations. In this
respect it is Serbia's duty and need to seek and preserve the friendship of the big and
enlightened nations, without ever forgetting those friendships and the assistance already written
in the pages of contemporary Serbian history."(14)
Even after new redefinitions, brought about by the change of dynasty, and the establishment of
full parliamentary democracy in 1903, party programs did not considerably change as regards
positions of principle concerning foreign policy. The Radicals (after 1903, the Old Radicals), as
the strongest party in the country, did not change their program, while, four years later, a new
political party sprang-up from the faction that had separated in 1901 - the Independent Radicals
(the Young Radicals). Rallying mostly young intellectuals, educated at foreign universities, the
Independent Radical party established lively ties with the cultural and political lite in Croatia,
where a Yugoslav oriented Croato-Serb coalition had been in power since 1906 which in contrast
to predominantly clerical circles, inspired by the teachings of Czech liberals led by Tomas
Masaryk, placed its hopes for the liberation of the Southern Slav nations in a democratic and
constitutional Serbia as the Piedmont of the Yugoslav nations.
In their political program, the Independent Radicals included a paragraph about the need to
cherish the spirit of togetherness with other Yugoslav nations: "To cherish concord with all kindred
and neighbouring nations and good political relations with other states. To work on creating a
political and economic alliance with other Balkan nations under the slogan: the Balkans to the
Balkan nations. To cherish the spirit of a Yugoslav togetherness." However, their conclusion was
practically the same as the one included in the Radicals' program of 1881: "Particularly to
maintain and strengthen the cultural alliance with and to increase assistance to the dismembered
and unliberated parts of the Serbian nation, and to keep awake the awareness about the question
of national unity in distant Serbian provinces, exposed to the surge of foreign elements - all this
with the desire: for Serbia, as the Piedmont of the Serbian nation, to do everything it can in order
for all parts of the Serbian Nation to unite." (15)
The spirit of "Nacertanije", now adapted to the new political realities, also imbued the program of
the Independent Radicals, which showed their essential belief that the unification of the Serbs
was not considered to be contrary, but rather compatible with Yugoslav co-operation in principle.
The influence of Garasanin's ideas is also easily noticed in the other Serbian state, Montenegro,
among the parties that were founded after 1905, when the country got its Constitution.
In its program of 1907, the most influential among them, the National Party of Montenegro
(Narodna stranka) defined its foreign political goals in the same way as the parties in Serbia: "To
cherish concord with all the Balkan nations according to the principle: for everyone what is his; to
maintain and strengthen ties with the oppressed Serbs Sreferring to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Old

Serbia, Macedonia and DalmatiaC; to work in co-operation with Serbia and to aspire towards the
realization of national ideas: to cherish ideas about a Yugoslav togetherness".(16)

THE EASTERN CRISIS

The challenge came with the Eastern Crisis (1875-1878). The uprising of the Serbs in
Herzegovina in the Nevesinje region (the Nevesinjska puska), and then in Bosnia in 1875, from
social demands soon turned to national ones - annexation to Serbia and Montenegro. The open
air national assemblies of the Bosnian Serbs in June and July 1876 proclaimed, in identical
proclamations, unification with Serbia: as the only "legitimate representatives of the Serbian land
of Bosnia, after much waiting and without hope for any kind of help, we have decided - as of
today and for all times, to break with the non-Christian government in Constantinople, in the
desire to share the fate of our Serbian brothers, no matter what it may be".(17)
The act of unification with Serbia was solemnly celebrated in Bosnia, and on that occasion,
allegiance was also pledged to Serbian Prince Milan Obrenovic (1868-1889). At the same time,
the Herzegovinian insurgents proclaimed their unification with Montenegro. Leading a unit of
insurgents and calling himself Petar Mrkonjic, there also appeared in Bosnia a pretender to the
Serbian throne from the rival dynasty - the grandson of Karadjordje, and the son of Prince
Alexander - Peter Karadjordjevic.(18)
Disappointed in the policy of Budapest and Vienna towards the Croats, Bishop Strossmayer, the
leader of the neo-Illyrian People's Party in Croatia-Slavonia wrote in October 1876, in his letter to
British Prime Minister Gladstone: "The Serbs are a warriorlike and very enterprising race, full of
vitality. It would be a just reward for their sanguinary sacrifices in a sacred cause, to put the
autonomy of Bosnia under the protection of their energy and their fifty year' experience".(19)
Serbia's goal in the 1876 war was to proclaim, after the ultimate victory in liberated Kosovo, the
unification of Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus create a unified Serbian kingdom. Being militarily
unprepared with only 40,000 untrained soldiers dispersed on four fronts, Serbia tried to make up
for its weakness with Russian volunteers, Slavophiles who rushed to help their endangered Slav
brothers (around 2,500 soldiers and 600 officers). The Slavophiles believed that by sending
volunteers, their society would "wage a war without the approval of its SRussianC government,
without any kind of state organization in a foreign country".(20)
The command of the army was entrusted to Russian general M.G.Cherniaev. "the Lion of
Tashkent", a hero from the wars in Central Asia. Trying to penetrate in various directions, via
Sandjak towards Herzegovina, eastern Bosnia and southern Serbia, the poorly organized and
even more poorly led Serbian troops experienced a failure on the southern front. Due to the
intervention of the Great Powers, peace between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire on the basis of
the status quo ante was concluded in March 1877. The lost war caused much turmoil in Serbia.
Montenegro with 17,000 soldiers was much more successful in the war: it joined the insurgents in
eastern Herzegovina and liberated a considerable part of the neighbouring territories.(21)
The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with the question of Bulgaria where an uprising broke
out in April 1876, became the concern of the Great Powers. At a meeting between Russian Tsar
Alexander II and Austro-Hungarian Emperor Francis Joseph I at the Reichstadt, in July 1876,
their Foreign Ministers, Gorchakov and Andrassy agreed not to allow the unification of Bosnia
with Serbia and of Herzegovina with Montenegro. The two Serbian principalities, apart from the
international recognition of their sovereignty and full independence, would also be granted minor
territorial extensions, while most of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be annexed by AustriaHungary.
In the Budapest convention (January 1877), in view of its forthcoming war with Turkey, Russia
ensured the neutrality of Austria-Hungary which was given the freedom to choose a favourable
moment to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. The problem of the "small black dot in Herzegovina",
as Bismarck called Nevesinje - a stronghold of rebelling Serbs in Herzegovina, became, for the

moment, the focal point of the balance of forces in Europe and initiated an accelerated resolution
of the Eastern question. In Constantinople at the end of 1876, there was a Conference of the
ambassadors of the Great Powers which tried to impose its own solutions for the reformation of
the Ottoman Empire, and this would include the international supervision of the resolution of the
question of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (22)
Information about the Serbs in Bosnia being massacred by Muslim troops did not easily reach the
European public appalled by the atrocities committed by the Turks in Bulgaria. Nevertheless, Sir
Arthur Evans wrote in the Manchester Guardian that around 6,000 "old people, women and
children were cold-bloodedly murdered", that around 30,000 were forced to leave their burnt
down villages, and that around 250,000 people fled to the Austrian side, across the Sava River.
(23)
When Russia entered the war with Turkey at the end of April 1877, this encouraged Montenegro
which, when its negotiations with Turkey failed, continued to fight. It was not before mid
December that, after some hesitation, Serbia engaged in a new war against Turkey and scored
important victories by liberating southern Serbia (sandjak of Nis). The advance units of the
Serbian army got to Kosovo, reaching the monastery of Gracanica near Pristina, where they were
greeted with great popular enthousiasm. After the signature of the Russian-Turkish truce which
also referred to Serbia and Montenegro (in Adrianople on January 31st 1878), Serbian units were
forced to withdraw from Kosovo to the agreed line of division.
The army of Montenegrin prince Nicholas Petrovic Njegos (1860-1916) achieved even more
important successes. After difficult battles, Montenegrin troops liberated a whole series of towns
and enlarged the territory of the small principality several times over.
The Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija (central part of vilayet of Kosovo), being under the constant
pressure of both the Albanian irregular units of plunderers, and the Ottoman authorities which
were not well disposed towards their Christian subjects, fled in large numbers (30,000) to Serbian
territory, and a similar number of Albanians from southern Serbia crossed over to Kosovo and
Metohija, partly of their own will and partly under the pressure of the Serbian authorities. Along
with other Albanians from the border regions of the Ottoman Empire, they represented the
fighting fist of the Albanian League (1878-1881), a movement which, requesting the creation of a
unified Albanian vilayet within the Ottoman Empire, was resolutely against the territorial gains of
Serbia and Montenegro.(24)
After seizing northern Bulgaria and with Romania entering the war, after six months of difficult
battles, on March 3rd 1878, the Russian army imposed on the Ottoman Empire its own solutions
in the Treaty of San Stefano. Even before it was signed, Serbian Prince Milan had informed
Russian diplomats that Serbia requested territorial concessions in Bosnia (the region between
Foca and Visegrad in eastern Bosnia), the city of Vidin on the Danube (today's Bulgaria) and all
of Old Serbia (the Kosovo vilayet). Informed about the Russian intentions to create a extensive
Bulgarian state in the Balkans under its own protectorate which would also include certain
Serbian territories, Prince Milan informed the Russian army's main headquarters that "the Serbian
army will not leave the city of Nis even if the Russian army attacks it".(25) In response to the
protests lodged by Serbia, Romania and Greece with the Russian government because of the
provisions of the San Stefano Treaty, they were told that, in the hierarchy of Russian interests,
Bulgarian interests come before Serbian ones. The Serbian goals were abandoned by the
St.Petersburg Slavophiles, lead by Ivan Aksakov, so soon as immediately after the first war with
the Turks.
The Pan-Slav settlement of the Eastern question, which Russia imposed on Turkey in San
Stefano, provoked the reaction of the other Great Powers: after protests by Great Britain, AustriaHungary and the Balkan countries, on June 13th 1878, a congress was convened in Berlin. It was
preceded by a secret agreement between British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Porte:
in exchange for Britain's support at the Congress, the Turks gave up Cyprus. Serbia, abandoned
by Russia, turned to Austria-Hungary. At Prince Milan's initiative, his Foreign Minister, Jovan
Ristic, concluded an agreement with Count Andrassy, in which Serbia undertook to construct a
railway from Belgrade to Nis, and afterwards to establish either a commercial or customs alliance
with the Dual Monarchy.

Russia's representative, Count Shouvalov, instructed Ristic to reach agreement with Vienna,
consoling him that, in fifteen years time at the latest, Russia would have its showdown with the
Dual Monarchy. The Serbs were especially disappointed in the St.Petersburg Slavophiles. Seeing
that Russia supported the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to be free to create a
greater Bulgarian state, a Serbian emissary in the Russian capital complained to the Belgrade
government that "there are nowhere in the world such snakes as our Slavophiles have turned out
to be."(26)

UNDER AUSTRIA-HUNGARY'S DOMINATION

The Treaty of Berlin (1878) gave a mandate to Austria-Hungary to occupy the rebellious Ottoman
provinces, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to have its troops enter into the bordering Novi Pazar
Sandjak. The Dual Monarchy considerably strengthened its shaken reputation in Europe.
Penetration into the Balkans was a long awaited compensation for territorial losses in the wars in
Italy (1859) and Germany (1866). The first ideas about a penetration into the Balkans had been
formulated twenty years before the Berlin Congress in a memoir prepared by Marshal Radetzky;
in 1862, the Foreign Ministry at the Ballhausplatz concluded that the Monarchy "must try, with all
its power, to prevent the development of a cultural and state nucleus in the southern Danubian
region that would be independent of Austria".(27)
The Treaty of Berlin brought Serbia and Montenegro the recognition of their independence in
exchange for their main goal - the liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which Orthodox Serbs
accounted for a relative majority (42.9% in 1879, compared to 38.7% of Muslims, the islamized
Slavs). With Europe's mandate, Austro-Hungarian troops marched into Bosnia, crushing the illorganized resistance of the common Muslim led Muslim-Serb forces. For Austrian generals of
Croatian descent, like Josip Filipovic, the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was an
opportunity for the enlarging of Croatian regions in the Habsburg Empire, even though Roman
Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina who could be considered as Croats were only 18,1% of the
population. The Croatian Diet's request for Bosnia and Herzegovina to be joined to CroatiaSlavonia, a province under Hungary, was resolutely rejected by Emperor Francis Joseph, with the
explanation that this institution had overstepped its authority. The occupied provinces were
placed under direct control of the Common Finance Ministry in Vienna. (28)
It was not possible to carry out the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina without the political
neutralization of Serbia. From 1878 to 1903 Serbia was very strongly under Austria-Hungary's
influence and was on the verge of being a protectorate. Abandoned by Russia at San Stefano
and at the Congress of Berlin, Prince Milan Obrenovic turned to Vienna. By a Secret Convention
("Tajna konvencija") in 1881 (renewed in 1889) Austria-Hungary got to supervise the foreign
policy of Serbia. In return, Serbia soon became a Kingdom (1882) and its Orthodox church
gained independence from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, Serbia was obliged to
abandon any further national agitation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with vague guarantees that in the
future it could expand only a southerly direction, towards region of Skoplje. (29)
Austria-Hungary in 1878 successfully drove Russia out of the Balkans. By forming an alliance
with Germany in 1879, to be joined by Italy three years later, the Dual Monarchy oriented its
future towards the south, even though it formally accepted a division of spheres of interest in the
Balkans through agreements on the status quo, concluded with Russia in 1897, and again in
1903 in Mrzsteg. Serbia was practically left in the sphere of the Dual Monarchy's influence. On
January 5th 1901, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Goluchowski, assured the
German ambassador: "We will simply strangle Serbia if something serious happens in the
Balkans and if Serbia dares to conduct a policy different from what we want."(30) Viennese
diplomats were ready to prevent the unification of the Kingdom of Serbia with the Principality of
Montenegro, even if this meant war. Rounding off its influence in the Balkans by establishing proAustrian regimes in Serbia, Romania and partly in Bulgaria, Vienna fully dominated the Balkans in

the last quarter of the 19th century. In 1887, Russian Tsar Alexander II resignedly toasted
Montenegrin Prince Nicholas as his "one and only true friend" in the Balkans.
Despite the depression that was felt in the Balkan countries due to Austria-Hungary's domination,
Serbia placed great hopes in the Franco-Russian alliance (1891,1894) as the beginning of a new
balance of forces in Europe. In a special brochure, Stojan Boskovic, one of the leaders of the
Serbian Liberals, pointed to the importance of the Serbs and their possible leadership in the
future federal reorganization of the Balkans. Boskovic pointed out that the newly established
rivalry among the Great Powers was an opportunity for the Serbs, after they previously created
their state within their ethnic borders, to become the pillar of the Balkan nations. In a study on the
Eastern question (1894), one of the leaders of the Radicals, Milovan Milovanovic, speaking about
the creation of a Franco-Russian alliance, predicted "a new era of fateful and epochal events." He
stressed that Serbia, like other states in south-eastern Europe, was a creation of Russia's policy
and that "all its efforts should be aimed at making itself, its progress and its national mission part
of the Russian policy program for resolving the Eastern question, making itself indispensable to
Russia, and determining that its interests and its goals coincide, in every aspect, with the Russian
goals as regards the Eastern question and showing that, in it, Russia can always find a reliable
associate for its own, and the general Slav policy. Otherwise, Serbia will soon be crushed (...) A
Russian-French action is on the threshold. The Eastern question is entering a new phase,
perhaps its last one." (31) Milovanovic's program, published at the time of the Dual Monarchy's
full domination over the political life of Serbia, was an expression not only of the people's widespread feeling that Austria-Hungary was their natural enemy, and that Russia was the Serbs'
traditional ally, but also of the very ideology of the National Radical Party, followed by a majority
of Serbia's electorate: that internal freedom could be achieved on the model of the French
Radicals' political solutions, and, on the foreign political plane - by leaning on Russian support.
(32) The Empire of the Tsars, in contrast to the time of Ilija Garasanins' "Nacertanije" (1844), was
no longer a power, like Austria-Hungary, that could endanger the independence, internal policy
and political aspirations of Serbia.

THE ALBANIANS: THE NEW VIENNESE CLIENTS

The Treaty of Berlin gave Austria-Hungary the mandate to send its troops into the northern part of
the Novi Pazar sandjak. It was a region with a mixed Orthodox-Muslim population under the
formal sovereignty of the Porte - a narrow strip that separated Serbia from Montenegro. Through
the Sandjak, the Dual Monarchy had a direct link with the Albanians, a nation that had acquired
an important place in its plans. Expecting the demise of Turkish rule in its European provinces,
Austria-Hungary was preparing a plan for marching into Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia, with
Europe's mandate, on the model applied in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The creation of a large
Albanian state under Vienna's protectorate would form a wedge that would definitely separate
Serbia from Montenegro and avert the danger of the formation of a strong and united Serbian
state. For Vienna the Albanians in Kosovo and western Macedonia were the bridge towards
Salonika. It was to be the first step in the German policy later called "Drang nach Osten". During
the disputes on the necessity for a reform programme for the protection of Christians endangered
by Albanian outlaws in Kosovo and Macedonia, the Russian Ambassador in Constantinople
noticed that "for the Austrian ambassador Albanian atrocities do not exist, for they are not
commited against the Catholics - who, like the Albanians, go about armed and enjoy all privileges
- but against the Orthodox Serbs, who are treated like serfs that have no rights." The Russian
Ambassador also stressed that Austria-Hungary was not displeased to see the gradual
disappearance of the Serbian population in the vilayet of Kosovo (Old Serbia):"c'est sans
dplaisir qu'elle en voit disparatre peu peu la population orthodoxe serbe."(33)
The belatedness in the Albanians' national integration was favourable as regards a broad action
by the Dual Monarchy: the Albanian lite, divided among three religious communities, consisted
of people of different social status and speaking different dialects. In order to overcome the
existing differences, Vienna launched important cultural initiatives: books about Albanian history

were printed and distributed, national coats-of-arms were made and various grammars were
written in order to create a unified Albanian language. The Latin alphabet, supplemented with new
letters for non-resounding sounds, was envisaged as the future common script.
The most important cultural initiative was the Illyrian theory about the Albanians' origins. The
theory about the Albanians' alleged Illyrian roots was launched from the cabinets of Viennese and
German scholars where, until then, it had only had the form of a narrow scientific debate, and it
was skilfully propagated in a simplified form. According to this theory, for which reliable scientific
evidence has not been found to the present day, the Albanians are the oldest nation in Europe
created through a mixture of pre-Roman Illyrian and Pelasgian tribes from an Aryan flock "Volksschwarm". (34)

THE FAILURE OF THE "BOSNIAN NATION"

While politically neutralized Serbia was seething after a lost war (with Bulgaria 1885) and internal
battles for a parliamentary regime against the absolutist rule of Milan (Timok rebellion 1883) and
his son Alexander Obrenovic (ruled 1889-1903), in the occupied provinces of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the Dual Monarchy's "civilizing measures", aimed primarily against the Serbs, also
affected the Muslims. Reluctant to accept European education and technology, Muslims who
consisted 90 percent of the land-owning beys, although favoured by the authorities started to
emigrate to neighbouring provinces under direct Ottoman rule. According to the first population
census in 1879, of the 1,158,164 strong population, Orthodox Serbs accounted for a relative
majority: 496,485 (42.88 percent, while in 1910, of the 1,898,044 inhabitants, the Serbs once
again represented the most numerous part of the population - 825,918 (43.49 percent). Despite
migrations (over 40,000 of them had emigrated by 1914) the Serbs were, due to their high birth
rate, with the agrarian population accounting for 87.92 percent, a population in constant
demographic expansion. According to Austro-Hungarian sources, the Serbs dominated Bosnia
and Herzegovina not only in the demographic, but also in the economic sense (in the small but
growing capitalist sector), although the Muslims were still more numerous in the towns. At the
beginning of the 20th century, out of the 19 millionaires in Sarajevo, 17 were Serbs. The number
of Muslims, due to their slightly lower birth rate and large-scale emigration to Turkey, kept
dropping: the authorities feared that, in time, the Orthodox Serbs would totally prevail in Bosnia.
To prevent this, the authorities constantly kept settling new people, mostly Roman Catholics, for
the needs of their economy and the bureaucratic and police apparatus. The Croats, considered
as a Habsburgtreu nation were quietly but systematically settled in those regions: around 230,000
people, mostly Roman Catholics and predominantly Croats, came to live in Bosnia and
Herzegovina by 1914. In 1910, there were 124,591 people living in Bosnia-Heregovina who did
not have Bosnian citizenship, and by 1914 around 180,000 people had been settled in regions
bordering on Serbia. Around 140,000 people, mostly Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, were
stimulated, by various means, to emigrate.(35)
The proclamation of the application of the Military Law (creating conscription) for Bosnia and
Herzegovina, at the end of 1881, provoked, at the beginning of 1882, an uprising by the Serbs in
Herzegovina which was supported by Montenegro and even by the Ottoman government. Some
local Muslims also took part in the rebellion. The uprising spread across the Neretva river in
Herzegovina to central Bosnia, and then also to the region of eastern Bosnia around the Drina
river. As the insurgents were without many weapons and sufficient foreign support, the uprising
was severely crushed by 70,000 Austrian soldiers. The Austro-Hungarian foreign minister
considered that "this uprising was the last cry of fatally wounded Slavism in the Balkans". The
revolt perhaps did have a certain negative impact on ideas about the annexation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the abandonment of dualism, which Vienna thought about in 1882 and 1883.
(36)
An authority on Serbian affairs - the consul in Belgrade 1868-1875, a Hungarian nobleman
Benjamin Kallay, was appointed governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1882. In order to

definitely separate Bosnia-Herzegovina from Serbia, Kallay carefully developed the theory about
a separate Bosnian nation, whose bearers would be the Bosnian Muslims, allegedly the
descendants of the old Bogomil nobility of the Middle Ages which had retained its old privileges
by accepting Islam. Since it was known that majority of the Bosnian nobility had been destroyed
during the Ottoman onslaught, and that the Muslims were mostly the descendants of Islamized
Serbs or Croats (nearly every Muslim family knows its origin), Kallay's new ideology, despite
great efforts, did not encounter a significant response.
Instead of the Serbo-Croat language, the official language became "Bosnian", the Cyrillic script
used by the Serbs and Muslims kept being systematically pushed out, and Serbian elementary
schools had to face numerous problems in their work. The Austro-Hungarian ideology about a
separate Bosnian nation was propagated by richly subsidized newspapers, with the intention of
reviving Bosnian individuality ("Sarajevski list", the official "Bosnische Post", the Muslim
"Bosnjak"). It was strictly forbidden to bring any Serbian newspapers printed in Montenegro,
Vojvodina, Dalmatia or Serbia into Bosnia; Kallay even banned his own book "The History of the
Serbian Nation", because in it the Serbs were described in a much too positive way.(37)
In 1889, a special coat of arms and a red and yellow flag were introduced in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The occupied provinces were covered with a network of foreign officials (58%) and
police officers (mostly from Croatia); some Catholics were settled in Serbian-inhabited areas
along the Drina river so that the ethnic continuity along the border with Serbia would be
interrupted. For the purpose of strengthening Catholic influence, in 1881, Jesuits were brought to
Bosnia. They were considered more aggressive in proselytist action than the local Franciscans
who, over the previous decades, closely cooperated with the domestic Serbs and the
governments in Belgrade. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo, Josip Stadtler, was
especially ardent in sowing the seed of discord between the Serbs and the Croats, and between
the Serbs and the Muslims. Numerous books and brochures containing insulting names for
Orthodox Serbs were frequently printed and the persecution on a national and religious basis
often verged on open racism. Along with the virulent persecution of the Serbs, Orthodox
Christianity was also stifled. The Dual Monarchy had an agreement with the Patriarchate of
Constantinople, to which the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia was formally subjected, for it to
appoint a Metropolitan independently. In 1881, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Sarajevo, Sava
Kosanovic, informed the Serbian government, the Russian Synod and the Viennese ministry that
a person working for the local government had offered him a lot of money to convert to the Uniate
rite and to recognize the Pope as the supreme religious leader. Finally, because of his firm
resistance to Roman Catholic proselytism, Metropolitan Kosanovic was forced to leave his post
and eventually to emigrate from Bosnia.(38)
The Bosnian Muslims were, according to their own tradition, mostly of Serbian, and in a much
lesser number of Croatian descent; very few of them spoke the Turkish language, almost every
family knew when and under what conditions it had converted to Islam. The Muslims called the
Cyrillic script, used for many centuries, 'Old Serbia', but their ties to the traditions of the Ottoman
state in which they were the ruling layer, separated them from the Serbs who, having been for
centuries "Rayah", were mostly serfs on their estates. Frightened by the possibility of remaining
the subjects of a Christian state, a considerable number of Bosnian Muslims emigrated to
neighbouring provinces under the direct rule of Constantinople; the leaders of the majority who
stayed soon formed an alliance with the Serbs in a joint struggle for the gaining of educational
and cultural autonomy. (39)
There soon emerged out of the Muslim intelligentsia, a movement of young Muslims rallied
around the society and magazine "Gajret", which after several years started to cherish Serbian
national sentiment, referring to their common origin with the Serbs. Poets like Osman Djikic and
Avdo Karabegovic represented the leaders of an important group of Muslim-Serbs. Only several
Muslim intellectuals, like Safvet-beg Basagic, advocated the theory of a Croat origin of the
Bosnian Muslims.

CROATIA-SLAVONIA: "STATE RIGHTS" AGAINST NATIONAL RIGHTS

Another Hungarian aristocrat, Khuen Hedervary, who administered Croatia-Slavonia (1883-1903),
skilfully took advantage of the Croat open intolerance of the Serbs, which had gradually acquired
a social dimension. Being more organized and enterprising in economic affairs, the Serbs had a
disproportionately important position in trade, industry and banking. After the annexation of the
Military Frontier ("Vojna Krajina" or simply "Krajina") to Croatia-Slavonia in 1881, the number of
Serbs grew considerably, and Khuen Hedervary skilfully manipulated the nationally frustrated
Serbs by way of certain concessions in order to prevent the Croats from setting out their national
requests vis--vis the Hungarians.
After the annexation of the Krajina to Croatia in 1881, the Serbs accounted for 26.3% of the
population of Croatia Slavonia, that is, they numbered 497,746 people out of the 1,892,499
strong population. Among the 35 members from Vojna Krajina in the Croatian Diet, there were 18
Serbs - 28 altogether, all followers of Bishop Strossmayer's People's party. Concerned about their
nation's autonomous rights, "because of the narrow-minded and chauvinist policy" of the majority
of Croatian politicians, they were forced to found, in 1883, the Serbian Independent Club of
Members of the Diet. Starting from 1884, their newspaper was Srbobran. The first Serbian party
had already been formed in 1881 in Srem - the Serbian People's Party and it had two seats in the
Croatian Diet. Nevertheless, most of the people opted for the Serbian Independent Party, founded
in 1887 in the town of Sremski Karlovci, and whose activities took in the territories of Croatia,
Slavonia, Srem and Vojna Krajina. Considering themselves equal to Croatian nationals, with
whom they wanted to establish active co-operation, in their program, the Independents stressed
that they would advocate and defend "Serbian national individuality and the right of the Serbs, as
a nation, to autonomy in respect of our Serbian Orthodox church and schools (...) to achieve the
Serbian nation's right to autonomy in schooling and to establish the authority of the SerbianNational-Church Assembly (...) the guaranteed equality of the Orthodox confession with Roman
Catholicism." Srbobran was officially proclaimed the party newspaper.(40)
The Serbs in Croatia-Slavonia and Krajina were considered to be an enterprising nation, skilful in
trade and banking affairs, unlike the Croats whose intelligentsia, from landholders to the
bureaucratic stratum, was mostly involved in agriculture and administrative affairs. Also, the
Serbs in Vojna Krajina were free peasants who, instead of fulfilling feudal obligations, did military
service, unlike the Croatian peasantry which found it difficult to discard the mentality of feudal
subjugation. (Conditions especially in Civil Croatia-Slavonia were exceptionally onerous for the
peasantry - they were often far worse than elsewhere in the Dual Monarchy).
Along with the strengthening of the economic power of the Serbs in Croatia, the Serbian
population also grew. At the beginning of the 20th century, in Croatia (with Slavonia and Krajina)
there lived 708,993 Serbs, compared to 467,247 Serbs who lived throughout Hungary. Around
1900 among Serbs Zagreb took over the position of economic supremacy from Novi Sad, capital
of Vojvodina, becoming the Serbs' main centre in Austria-Hungary. The foundation of the
craftsmen's society "Privrednik" ("Entrepreneur"), then "the Alliance of Serbian Farmers' cooperative societies (or zadrugas)" in 1897, and finally the "Serbian Bank" in 1895, was the
economic expression of the prestige of Zagreb as the Serbs' new national centre.
The Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia, Slavonia and Krajina, which constantly had problems in
acquiring religious equality, consisted of two dioceses, with seats in Pakrac and Plaski. In the
1860s, it had 337 Orthodox parishes and 466 churches with 428 priests. The usual, disparaging
expression for Serbian Orthodox Christianity was the "Greek-Disunited Confession", and for the
Serbs, names like Gypsies, Wallachians, Shkipetars SAlbaniansC were used, or they were
described as "those who Christen themselves Serbs" etc.
Starting from the administration of ban (governor) Ivan Mazuranic, croatization was increasingly
pronounced: the school system was croatized in 1874, the Cyrillic script used by the Serbs was
placed under pressure everywhere under various pretexts and in various ways. The Serbian flag,
which followers of Party of (Croat State) Rights insultingly called "the Wallachian rag", was
banned as a national symbol. Some improvement was brought about, during the rule of Khuen
Hedervary, by the so-called "Serbian law" of 1887. The Serbs acquired Church and school

autonomy, but they were not granted the right to call their Orthodox Church Serbian, but rather
Greeco-Eastern. In return, the Serbs started to co-operate with the Unionist party in Croatia,
which sponsored by Count Hedervary, was advocating closer ties with Budapest.(41)
In October 1895, during a visit by Emperor Francis Joseph to Zagreb, the local Serbs raised their
flag on the Orthodox church and the Church community building, a mob then attacked Serbian
institutions, under the pretext that "there can be only Croats in Croatia". The attacks were led by
followers of Josip Frank's extreme rightist Party of Rights, whose founder, Ante Starcevic, in his
numerous writings full of open racist prejudices over the previous decades, constantly had denied
even the Serbs' very existence.
In time, Ante Starcevic, became the father of Croatian nationalism. From an enthusiastic Illyrian in
his youth, Starcevic became an ideologist of racial intolerance and an advocate of the theory
about 'the Croatian State Right' as the basis for the creation of an "independent" Croatian state
under the Habsburg crown, in which there would be no room for non-Croatian nations. For
Starcevic, the Serbs were "a race of slaves, the most repugnant of all beasts", people "without a
conscience, who don't know how to read, they are not able to learn anything, they can be no
better or worse than they already are. They are all absolutely the same, except for differences in
cunningness and ability". Like Gobineau, he based his postulates on the theory about superior
and inferior races. According to his theory, the Croats are by origin a Nordic, ruling race, while the
Serbs, whose name he derived from Latin expressions for slaves, are the descedants of slaves.
Starcevic also denied the existence of the Slovenes, calling them "Alpine Croats", and his texts
also contained unequivocal anti-semitic messages. Towards the end of his life, along with Josip
Frank, Starcevic founded the Pure Party of Rights which, having become increasingly dependent
on influential clerical circles at the turn of the century, especially in urban areas, remained the
bearer of a policy of unhidden intolerance towards the Serbs.(42)
The Serbs' requests for the use of the Cyrillic script and for religious and school equality did not
encounter the Croatian Diet's understanding. New incidents took place in Zagreb in June 1889,
during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the literary work of Serbian poet Jovan
Jovanovic Zmaj, and afterwards once again in February 1900, after the completion of debates on
the Serbs' request for national equality. The peak of the pogrom-type mood towards the Serbs
was September 1902. It took place because of a newspaper article by a then unknown student
from Bosnia, Nikola Stojanovic (who only decade later became a supporter of Yugoslav unity and
was a member of the Yugoslav Committee 1915-1918), about the prospects for the Croats to be
assimilated by the ethnically and politically stronger Serbs. Published in the Srbobran the article
by Stojanovic stressed: "The battle being waged throughout the world between liberalism and
ultra-montanist cosmopolitism is embodied here in the struggle between the Serbs and the
Croats. The difference between the Historical State Right, which is the basis of the programs of
all the Croatian parties, none of which are liberal (certainly a unique example in Europe), and the
natural rights expressed in Serbian national thought, being the basis of the programs of the
Serbian parties, none of which are clerical and conservative, best attests to this". Stojanovic
considered the Croats to be "an alien avant-garde", and the Serbs to represent the principle of
the "Balkans to the Balkan nations".(43)
Although Stojanovic's text was his personal opinion, the article was used as a convenient excuse
for the followers of Josip Frank and Ante Starcevic to engage in the demolishing and plundering
of Serbian stores and houses for three days, even though the Serbs never reacted with violence
to much more serious and dangerous accusations that kept coming from the Croatian press.
Similar pogroms took place in Karlovac and Slavonski Brod, while Serbian newspapers in
Vojvodina kept calling on the disturbed Serbs in Krajina to remain calm. "There was a time Croatian politician Iso Krsnjavi wrote in his diary - when there were writings saying that all the
Serbs should be cut with an axe. That thought has something to it, and it is very important;
namely, it points, openly and consistently, to the only way in which the 'Croatian thought' can be
realized. It would certainly be a different matter if the Serbs would let themselves be killed so
easily, like those good-natured calves in the North Sea called seals."(44)
The Serbs' claims for separate national individuality kept being denied in regular waves, as a rule,
on the initiative of Frank's followers who were joined afterwards by followers of other parties as
well, depending on the balance of forces and Croatian policy towards Vienna. Frano Supilo, one

of the advocates of closer Yugoslav co-operation, wrote in his memoirs: "In the winter of 1907,
there was a big battle in the Croatian Diet for the term "Serbian nation" to be erased from the
name of the Coalition. In that debate, which lasted for almost a month every day, the whole day
until late at night, and then again from early in the morning, the Serbs in Croatia were discussed
from all possible standpoints and with the use all possible arguments. (...) Some tried to prove
that there are no Serbs in Croatia at all, that the Orthodox element, which had now given itself the
Serbian name, had been Croatian since time immemorial until priests taught it the Serbian name
along with the religion, with the assistance of the government which, in that way, wanted to divide
and weaken the Croats; that, at the time of Ottoman rule, elements of the Orthodox religion did
flee to Croatia from the Balkans, but, according to the interpretation of these speakers, part of
those from Bosnia were Croatian, while the rest were mostly the Greeks, Tzintzars, Romanians
called Wallachians, that is Wlachs.(...) Others kept proving that there have been Serbs in Srem
Stoday's western part of VojvodinaC for as long as our nation has been present in these regions;
that these Orthodox elements settled as the Serbs in Slavonia and Croatia proper; that this has
been acknowledged by Imperial privileges and patents; that for the four or five centuries that they
have been there, the Serbian name has always consistently been propagated among them in
ways that were possible at the time, either through the name of the people or the language, or
through recognition by civilian or church districts; therefore, today's Serbs do not originate from
Orthodox Croats. (...) Finally, their argumentation was that they are Serbs, they want to be Serbs
and that is it".(45)

DALMATIA: A RISORGIMENTO INFLUENCE

The Serbs in Dalmatia, which was under the direct rule of Vienna, were not exclusively of the
Orthodox religion; a considerable part of the intelligentsia, especially the town-people of
Dubrovnik, Sibenik, Zadar and Split, although of the Roman Catholic religion, declared
themselves as Serbs. The Serbian People's Party, created in 1880 around the Srpski List
newspaper in Zadar, relied for support on the Dalmatian movement of liberal citizens advocating
autonomy. Sava Bjelanovic was the leader of the Serbian People's Party, and its radical wing was
led by Nikodim Milas, the Orthodox Bishop of Dalmatia. More serious conflicts between the Serbs
and Croats in the littoral region started with the clerical agitation of Roman Catholic priest Mihovil
Pavlinovic, but they did not produce the same effects as those in Croatia-Slavonia.
The nucleus of the future Croato-Serbian cooperation was the creation of the United Croatian and
Serbian Youth in Prague in 1896, which, under the influence of Czech politician Thomas Masaryk
and on the basis of the stand that the Serbs and Croats are "one nation with one language",
started publishing, in 1897, its almanac called The National Thought printed in the Cyrillic and
Latin scripts. They were advocating the national unity ("narodno jedinstvo") of the Serbs and
Croats, as a basis for future co-operation. Thanks to new conflicts between the Hungarians and
Vienna, where both sides tried to win over either the Croats or the Serbs as allies, a new
movement led by Progressive Youth (Napredna omladina) for establishing closer ties between the
two nations appeared in Dalmatia, where the traditions of the national renaissance owed more to
the Italian Risorgimento than to Hungarian-Croatian feudal legitimism. In Dalmatia, together with
the Croats, especially in Dubrovnik, Zadar, Sibenik and Split, the bearers of Croato-Serb concord
were Roman Catholic Serbs, mostly the descendants of the old Dubrovnik nobility (even including
some Roman Catholic priests like don Ivo Stojanovic) and the bourgeoisie from the coastal cities,
from Antun Fabris and Luka Zore to Medo Pucic and the brothers Lujo and Ivo Vojnovic. (46)
Having supported Hungary's desire for independence, Croatian politicians adopted, in Rijeka in
October 1905, a resolution stating their desire for "State Rights". Some ten days later, the Serbs
in Dalmatia adopted their resolution in Zadar supporting the Rijeka (Fiume) resolution. The
creation of a Croato-Serb coalition in the Dalmatian parliament (the "New Course") laid the
foundations for co-operation and, in time, instead of Budapest and Vienna, it started increasingly
turning towards Belgrade, as the pillar of the future Yugoslav assemblage after 1903. In the
Croatian Diet, the Croato-Serb coalition - with the constant support of its Serbian part led by

Svetozar Pribicevic - thanks to a limited franchise, won a relative majority so soon as the 1906
elections, which, despite great challenges, it kept maintaining until the Unification in 1918.(47)
The Croato-Serb co-operation, established in 1905, was orientated against the common enemy the Hungarians, who, at the internal level were endangering Croat and Serbian individuality, in
Croatia-Slavonia and Vojvodina as well - and against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as a whole.
Substantial differences which existed within the Serbian and Croatian national movements,
religious affiliation, uneven social and political backgrounds, were, for the moment put aside, for
the sake of the closer political co-operation of the liberal branches of the two national movements
against the political forces which menaced their development - the Common Ministry in Vienna
and the Hungarian government in Budapest.
However, Vienna had on its side the whole of the clerically based part of the Croatian national
movement, which rallied different political currents. Without the secularisation of the national
ideology, as had been done at the State level in France and Germany ("Kulturkampf"), Croatian
politics with its framework constituted of a religiously intolerant, xenophobic variant of a
nationalism, would exercise, in the coming internal and external crisis, an important influence on
the whole of the Yugoslav area.

DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM: THE RISE OF SERBIA

Serbia was freed from its de facto Austria-Hungarian protectorate by a coup d'tat on June 11,
1903. The last Obrenovic, pro-Austrian oriented King Alexander I, was notorious for his marital
scandals. His reign was marked by the systematic limitation of political freedoms. In 1894 he
abolished the parliamentary system introduced by way of the extremely liberal 1888 Constitution.
Alexander Obrenovic and his wife Draga Masin were killed in a conspiracy organized by a group
of Belgrade officers who were assisted by several political figures from the Liberal party.
Under the rule of the new king, Peter I Karadjordjevic (1903-1914, formally up to 1921), from the
rival dynasty, the parliamentary rgime was re-established with the reinstatement of the slightly
modified 1888 Constitution. With its liberal institutions, its unhindered political life and almost
unlimited freedom of the press, the parliamentary monarchy in Serbia released the long stifled
national energy. The principle of "the Balkans - to the Balkan nations" - which all the political
parties from the Liberals to the Progressists and from the Old to the Independent Radicals
advocated in their programmes on foreign policy - a principle based on the right to selfdetermination of nations - was experienced in Vienna as a direct threat to the very existence of
the Habsburg multi-ethnic empire. After initial difficulties with the Great Powers (Great Britain
renewed relations with Serbia only in 1906, after the retirement of the most influential officerconspirators), Peter I Karadjordjevic, the first truly constitutional ruler in Serbian history, gradually
strengthened his unstable position.(48)
The operetta-like Balkan kingdom, known in Europe, in the last decades of the 19th century, for
its court scandals, dubious financial affairs and a picturesque mixture of Balkan-oriental customs
and European influences, a state whose not so high reputation seemed to be permanently
compromised by the bloody change of dynasties on the throne in 1903, showed, in an unusually
short period of time, the ability to undergo an essential political transformation. King Peter I
Karadjordjevic's accession to the Serbian throne marked the beginning of the most liberal period
in Serbian history. His regime was often described as a "republican monarchy" or a "peasants'
democracy". In 1904, the percentage of the population who had the right to vote was the third
highest percentage in Europe, just after France and Switzerland.
The political scene was characterized by the domination of the Radicals who were divided into
two rival factions - an older one which retained the name of the National Radical Party, and the
younger faction called the Independent Radical Party. Together, they used to win around 70-80%
of the votes at the elections. However, the Old Radicals, closer to the peasantry, were more
successful. For eleven years they constituted eight homogeneous cabinets, and the Balkan wars

(1912-1913) were also waged under a homogeneous Old-Radical cabinet. The Independents,
gathering together mostly urban intelligentsia, had only one homogeneous cabinet for less than a
year (1905-1906).
Both Radical factions were aware of the importance of Serbia's further democratic transformation
for the global settlement of the Serbian question in the Balkans. The leader of the Old Radicals,
Nikola Pasic laid emphasis on this in his program speech at the party's assembly held in
November 1911: "It is believed profoundly that a Serbia with a constitutional and parliamentary
order can become the Piedmont of the Serbs, that only an open-minded Serbia attracts the
Serbs, and that only being armed and well prepared can it fulfil its Piedmont-type vow." (49)
The period between 1903 and 1914 marked Serbia's return to the independent foreign policy
described in Ilija Garasanin's "Nacertanije", adapted to the new international framework; the
renovation of the struggle for national unification through an independent foreign policy. Reliance
on the western democracies, France and Great Britain, as a counterpoise to the growing German
influence, went through Russia, in which the Serbs saw their natural ally, the long-time traditional
protector of Slav and Orthodox interests in the Balkans.
The balance of forces among the Great Powers, established at the Berlin Congress, was
disrupted at the beginning of the 20th century, with the strengthening of Germany and the new
regrouping of the Great Powers. The danger of a German expansion whose unequivocal goal
was the creation of a gigantic German empire in Europe (the plan "Central Europe"), where the
Middle East would become an undisputed part of its sphere of interest (the project for the "BerlinBaghdad" railway and the plan "Central Europe from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf"), led to
the creation of the rival bloc of the Entente (Russia, Great Britain, France).
The "Drang nach Osten" policy acquired a framework in the form of the Triple Alliance in which
Italy had a somewhat subordinate role, while Austria-Hungary was the auxiliary lever that was to
be adapted to Berlin's interests. The developing rivalry over cheap raw materials, concessions
regarding the construction of a railway network, the building of new ports, the investment of
capital through state loans and the purchase of weapons, increasingly tied Austria-Hungary to
Germany's goals vis--vis the Balkans. It was not before the first decade of the 20th century that
the Balkans, as an inexhaustible agrarian region, became important for highly industrialized
Germany as "an additional economic space" ("ergnzugswirtschaftsraum").(50)
The opening of the Serbian question in the south - the problem of the upcoming division of the
Balkan provinces under Ottoman rule - along with the resolution of the further fate of the Serbs
and the Yugoslavs (the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes within the Dual Monarchy), inevitably led to
an open conflict with Austria-Hungary; the conflict was to be waged along several parallel lines.
On Serbia's southern borders, in the vilayet of Kosovo (Old Serbia), Austro-Hungarian diplomacy
obtained (1904) the exclusion of the predominantly Serbian regions (Sandjak, Kosovo including
Metohija) from the Great Powers' reform actions (1903-1908). The Consuls of the Dual Monarchy
actively supported and financed the Muslim leaders of the Albanian national movement which
was spreading fear and anarchy among the Christians in the region. The Ballhausplatz
aristocracy had already in 1896 made plans for the creation of a satellite Albanian state that
would serve as a bridge for Austria-Hungary's intended penetration into the Balkans - towards the
bay of Salonika.
Preparations for the planned conquest were announced by way of the concessions for the
construction of a railway that would connect the Austro-Hungarian territories with Salonika (1908).
Serbia responded with a project for an Adriatic railway, from the Danube to the Albanian coastal
region. The Adriatic railway was a plan of special importance for Serbia: it would provide access
for Serbia to western markets.(51)
As the national action in the Serbian-inhabited lands under Ottoman rule proceeded, the question
of co-operation with other Yugoslav nations in Austria-Hungary was reopened. The Serbs
constantly kept getting into conflict over Macedonia with the Bulgarians who, because of their
German dynasty, constantly kept gravitating towards the German Reich and Austria-Hungary.

The policy of "the New Course" and the theory about a national unity (narodno jedinstvo) of the
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes invented by Croatian Progressive Youth ("Napredna omladina")
encountered a significant response from intellectual circles in Serbia, especially among the ranks
of the second strongest party in Serbia - the Independent Radicals. The Independent's leader
Ljubomir Stojanovic, met with the leader of the Dalmatian Croats, Frano Supilo in Rijeka. The
latter visited Belgrade in 1905 and met with the Prime Minister, Nikola Pasic, who was an Old
Radical. Certain ties were established with the leaders of the Croato-Serbian coalition prior to its
formation and to their accession to power in Croatia and Slavonia. Closer political ties with the
Coalition were established in 1905-1906 during the rule of the Independent Radicals. A group of
young intellectuals and students in Belgrade formed an association in 1904 called the Slavonic
South ("Slovenski jug") which published a newspaper advocating the unification of the Yugoslav
nations (in the newspaper's heading, there were two mottos: "Southern Slavs unite!" and "A
revolution in the unliberated regions!"). Special "Yugoslav evenings" were regularly held on the
Belgrade fortress promenade.
Belgrade's gradual growth into the pillar of the intellectual assemblage of the Yugoslav nations in
Austria-Hungary started after Peter I ascended the throne. His coronation in 1904 and the
celebration of the centenary of the First Serbian Uprising in Belgrade was attended by numerous
representatives of the intellectual and political lite of all the Yugoslav lands. In September the
same year, The First Congress of the Yugoslav youth was held in the Serbian capital, and in
November 1905, The First Congress of Yugoslav writers and journalists (with representatives of
the Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian and Slovenian societies) took place. A strong stimulus to the
assemblage of the Yugoslav-oriented youth and intellectuals around Belgrade was given by
professors of the "Great School", trqnsformed into the University in 1905, an institution that was
the spiritual mentor of the idea for Serbia to grow into the Piedmont of the Southern Slavs. A
citizens' club called The Slavonic South was formed as early as 1907, and its founders were the
most highly reputed professors of the Belgrade University (from Jovan Cvijic and Bogdan Popovic
to Jovan Skerlic and Bozidar Markovicc and the Independents' leaders (Ljubomir Stojanovic,
Ljubomir Davidovic, Jasa Prodanovic. According to its initiators, the club was founded for the
purpose of "spreading the Yugoslav idea, and also Balkan mutuality in some distant future". The
turmoil caused by the Yugoslav movement further troubled the ruling Viennese aristocracy.(52)
Leading Serbian scientists kept explaining to the public, in a theoretically convincing and
politically reasonable manner, that the Yugoslav framework was best for the global resolution of
the Serbian question. Through the activities of these intellectual circles, the nation-state model for
resolving the Serbian question slowly started acquiring the features of a new, supranational
cultural-state model. (As the basis for unification literary critic Jovan Skerlic suggested the
acceptance of the Serbian Ekavian dialect and the use of the Latin instead of the Cyrillic script in
order for linguistic differences to be overcome). The model of a unified Yugoslav nation fitted into
the historical experience of the Serbs who equated the state and the nation. On the political
plane, this meant the deterioration of relations with Austria-Hungary. Serbian statesman and
diplomat Milovan Milovanovic wrote in 1911 that "Austria-Hungary is right when it accuses Serbia
of Yugoslav national scheming, but it has forgotten that it had directed Serbia, that it had, actually,
forced Serbia to go that way".(53)
Vienna's reaction to the Yugoslav challenge went along several parallel lines. The encirclement of
Serbia started with the tariff war (1906-1911), known as a "Pig war" - the ban on exporting
Serbian animal stock to Austro-Hungarian markets aimed at economically destroying Serbia and
forcing it to be obedient. The results of the tariff or so-called "Pig war" were favourable for Serbia
who found new markets and new trade routes. Several years later, Austria-Hungary, instead of
previous 90 percent controlled only 41 percent of Serbian trade. The Viennese Cabinet started
preparing itself for a war with Serbia as early as in 1907. In the summer of 1908, a plan was
drawn up for the total destruction of Serbia and its division between the Monarchy and Bulgaria.
The annihilation of Serbia's independence was to mean an internal "cleansing" for AustriaHungary which was the precondition for the Monarchy's future consolidation - in Vienna they
spoke about the war as being about a "cleansing" with "a steel brush". (Later plans for the
division of conquered Serbia mentioned the possibility of parts of its territory being given to
Bulgaria and Romania, and after 1912, to the just then created Albania as well).(54)

In autumn of 1908, Count Aehrenthal, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister explained, to the
German government the logic of Vienna's policy: "With Turkey weakening and it being pushed
towards Asia, the process of state reorganization on our south-eastern borders has once again
been initiated. We had to take a stand on this. Thirty years ago this was resolved by occupation,
while this time by annexation. Both acts meant the dispelling of the dreams about the creation of
a Great Serbian state between the Danube, the Sava and the Adriatic. There is no need for me to
point out that this new factor, if it were to be created, would receive instructions from the outside,
from the north-east and the west, so that it wouldn't be an element contributing to a peaceful
course of developments in central Europe. In such a crucial phase of our state reorganization
which, from our point of view, is better to be called "the development of the Reich", one must,
when nothing else helps, think about applying the ultima ratio in the life of a nation".(55)
THE BOSNIAN CRISIS
Another attempt at eliminating the Serbian challenge, which was stigmatized in Vienna by the
pejorative phrase "the Great Serbian danger", took place on October 5, 1908, with the full
annexation of the occupied provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a gift to Francis Joseph for
his sixty-year-long rule. The annexation was also the final defeat of Kallay's policy of creating a
separate Bosnian nation. In Vienna's strategic plans, the annexation was a transitional means for
finally abolishing Serbia's independence and for a final closing of the Yugoslav question.(56)
The reaction in Serbia to the annexation was fierce: a government of national unity was formed,
public opinion was in favour of war, even volunteer legions, on the example of Garibaldi's "death
legions" were formed; Austrian flags were burned in protest in Belgrade and other Serbian towns.
The Austro-Hungarian legation in Belgrade reported on the unanimous readiness for war. On
October 12th, the Serbian parliament adopted a resolution against the annexation and expressed
its solidarity with the government, saying that it approved of all the measures it had to take. On
the initiative of writer Branislav Nusic, in Belgrade on October 21, 1908, an association called the
National Defense ("Narodna Odbrana") was spontaneously formed and it acquired a large
number of followers by advocating a more active national policy, including the war option, "for the
defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina". Within several weeks, 220 committees were formed and
they immediately registered around 5,000 volunteers. The National Defense founded its
committees in other lands under Otoman and Habsburg rule and in Bosnia as well, but after the
recognition of the annexation (March 1909), their activities were reduced to those of a cultural
nature and to educational and national propaganda. The prestige of the National Defense, and
especially Vienna's fear of its conspiratorial role, were overestimated given the predominantly
ceremonial activities it carried out until 1909, when its work was revived.(57)
A wave of stormy protests against the annexation also spread throughout Montenegro. It was
considered that the annexation had endangered the future of the Serbian idea, and that the
survival of both Serbian states was made directly dependent on the will of the hostile militaryadministrative bureaucracy in Vienna. In Cetinje, Montenegro's capital, in front of the Royal Court,
demonstrators called on King Nicholas Petrovic Njegos "to lead them to war for the Serbian lands
and Serbian rights", and the Montenegrin parliament adopted a resolution concluding that the
annexation had "dealt a lethal blow to the interests of the entire Serbian nation".(58)
Bosnia and Herzegovina itself seemed to be watching the happenings concerning the annexation
passively, but the Austro-Hungarian authorities admitted that there was a lot of agitation in the
country and that "almost the entire population was on Serbia's side". The Sarajevo garrison was
immediately mobilized and 29 new battalions with 30,000 reservists were brought in. Eleven
special "flying units" were formed from Muslim and Croatian volunteers. Followers of Josip
Frank's extreme rightist Pure Party of Rights (Cista stranka prava) unsuccessfully tried to form, in
Zagreb, a "Croatian national legion" for a possible war with Serbia. It was then that the "Croatian
national ustashi (rebels)" were mentioned for the first time, a term which several decades later
was to be adopted by Ante Pavelic's Ustashi movement. Francis Joseph rejected the General
Staff's request for first an ultimatum to be sent to Serbia and then for war to be waged.(59)

The third attempt at eliminating "the Great Serbian danger" was made through the persecution of
Serbs in Croatia-Slavonia. Public opinion there was prepared for the annexation through a
"rigged" trial in Zagreb of 53 Serbian politicians for their alleged conspiratorial activities against
the Monarchy in collaboration with the government in Belgrade. The Austro-Hungarian
government, helped by a special agent Djordje Nastic, a Bosnian Serb infiltrated into Montenegro
and Serbia, prepared a series of false documents and published several brochures. Charges
were brought against the leading figures of the Serbian Independent Party ("Srpska samostalna
stranka") which acted within the Croato-Serbian coalition. The trial began prior to the elections in
Croatia-Slavonia and its goal was to break up and topple the Croato-Serbian coalition. The
indictment was based on the statutes of an ephemeral revolutionary Serbian organization without
followers, which was in favour of a Yugoslav republic and not of the monarchy under the rule of
Peter I Karadjordjevic, as the indictment claimed. The indictment was also to serve as proof that
the Serbs did not exist as a nation in Croatia and Slavonia (around 26 percent of the population),
but rather that they had been created from the Orthodox population of various origins by
persistent propaganda from Serbia. The trial became pointless when there was no longer any
need for it to justify a possible war against Serbia. The accused were pardoned by a decree of
emperor Francis Joseph. Another attempt at compromising the Coalition failed when it was
proved in court that the articles in "Neue Freie Presse" based on the documents of the prominent
Viennese historian Heinrich Friedjung about an alleged conspiratorial connection between the
leaders of the Coalition and Belgrade, were only bad forgeries. (60)
In contrast to the Croato-Serbian coalition, a clerical movement was emerging in CroatiaSlavonia. Leaning on the uneducated peasantry it was entirely controlled by the Roman Catholic
Church: religious intolerance was combined with the Serbophobic ideology of Josip Frank, the
successor to Ante Starcevic. The death of the liberal Archbishop of Djakovo, Josip Juraj
Strossmayer (1905), who advocated Yugoslav unity and the union of the Serbian Orthodox with
the Roman Catholic Church was followed by a new situation. Clerical circles, relying on extreme
rightist forces, took control over the passive majority (nine-tenths) of the Roman Catholic peasant
population of Croatia-Slavonia, where only 5% of the people had the right to vote. Adopting
Starcevic's ideology after the First Catholic Congress in Zagreb in 1900, clerical circles drew the
map of Great Croatia which, encompassing all of Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of
Vojvodina, was to extend to Dalmatia up to the Bay of Kotor (today the Montenegrin coast).
Croatian historians had only one task left - to "prove" that these regions had been Croatian for
centuries. Opposed to the idea of Yugoslav unity, Croatian historiography, which was almost
entirely in the service the national aspirations, tried, due to the lack of "historical rights", to resort
to new interpretations of historical sources in order to confirm Croatian "rights" in respect of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Clerical circles on the Croatian political scene claimed that the Bosnian
Muslims were "the purest Croats", and the head of the formally anti-clerical Croatian Peasants'
Party, Stjepan Radic, even went to Russia to hold lectures on the Croats' "rights" to these
provinces.(61)
Without foreign support, Serbia, along with Montenegro, unsuccessfully tried to internationalize
the question of Bosnia and Herzegovina, since the act of annexation had violated the Treaty of
Berlin. Following upon the expression of an idea of the Serbian Foreign Minister Milovan
Milovanovic and to avoid a European war, Serbia tried to get some compensation in Raska
(Sandjak) and to avoid a European war. The request for compensation did not meet with the
expected response among the friendly powers - Russia, France and Great Britain, even though it
meant the indirect recognition of the annexation. The powers of the Entente, although inclined
towards Serbia, avoided even thinking about waging a war against Austria-Hungary and Germany
because of the Bosnian crisis.
The Serbian public, along with the National Radical Party of which Milovanovic was a member,
was against such a solution. It was considered that Europe should be blackmailed with the threat
of war against Austria-Hungary. On the basis of the nationality principle, autonomy was to be
sought for Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the first phase towards its final unification with Serbia.
The plan was militarily to seize the Sandjak, from whose northern part the Austro-Hungarian army
was withdrawing after the proclamation of the Annexation, in agreement with the newly installed
Young Turk regime in Constantinople. The conquest of the Sandjak would place Europe before a
fait accompli. The tension reached boiling point. The slightest incident on the Serbian-Austrian

border could turn into a war. Expecting an invasion, the Serbian government transferred the state
archives and the National Bank's safes to the country's interior.(62)
Backed by Germany, Austria-Hungary obtained recognition of the annexation. Although unfamiliar
with the preparations for the annexation, Berlin soon supported the action of its ally, and on
March 22nd 1909, with an ultimatum to Russia, it neutralized any European intervention. The
other powers of the Entente were unprepared for war: France, preoccupied in Morocco, believed
that, by relenting, it would influence Vienna not to get too close to Berlin, and Great Britain,
despite the disturbance in court circles, did not take any concrete steps. Serbia's unconditional
yielding was also the result of an open threat of war. Austria-Hungary sent an army of 1,041,000
soldiers to the borders of Serbia and Montenegro. In March 1909, Serbia was forced to accept a
fait accompli and officially declare that its interests had not been encroached upon by the
annexation.(63)
Milovan Milovanovic, disappointed by the issue of the Bosnian crisis criticised the entire concept
of Serbian "Piedmontism": During the last crisis Serbia was often compared to Piedmont and the
Serbian Question to the Italian one. Meanwhile, Serbia's position and her task, as well as the
difficulties she was faced with were quite different from the one which Piedmont had to confront...
what does Serbia's position in the Balkans look like? The idea of Serbia being a Balkan Piedmont
originated even before the 1870s. It is true that its Piedmont role for Serbia was not envisaged for
the entire Balkan Peninsula, encompassing only the South Slavs, but including also those of
them living to the north of the Sava and Danube rivers. After 1878 Bulgaria was created and
through it the Bulgarian national idea, parallel to the Serbian, was realized. Further on, when they
both clashed after 1885 and Bulgaria, unified with Eastern Rumelia, became even more powerful
than Serbia, the Balkan-Slav Piedmontism of Serbia became nonsense. This nonsense had
become more obvious everyday as the Macedonian problem had been progressing. The Serbian
program in Macedonia has an outspoken opponent in Bulgaria, with whom a struggle on the
terrain and in the field of European diplomacy is under way".
Milovanovic, scared of an Austro-Bulgarian collaboration in Macedonia concluded:
"1) The Piedmontese role of Serbia could be limited today only to Serbdom and thus, at the
beginning, only to Balkan Serbdom. It is conditioned by the accomplishment of a sincere, solid,
truly Serbo-Bulgarian agreement. Without it, the role of Serbia in emphasizing Serbian interests
has to be directly opposite to the role of Piedmont: instead of a unified Serbian state opposed to
Austria, the unification of all Serbs can be achieved only under Austrian auspices, and in
harmony with the Habsburg Monarchy's Balkan interests. Instead of fuori Sout withC Austria from
the Balkans - the slogan has to be: forward with Austria to Salonika". Let us suppose now that
what we all want and strive for has been accomplished: that an agreement with Bulgaria has
gone through and that Serbia has overtaken, in respect of Serbdom (of the Balkans primarily) the
role of Piedmont. We must face the truth and see how much, in all regards, the position of Serbia
is worse and her task more difficult and less accessible than that of Piedmont. Piedmont disposed
of twenty million Italians placed in defined geographical boundaries, while Serbia has barely 3,5
million Serbs Swithin SerbiaC and these are mixed Soutside of SerbiaC, in some places, with
foreign, even hostile elements, with a vague and undefined frontier. There are more Serbs
outside the Balkan Peninsula, but mixed with Croats and representing a minority among them.
The Croats do not feel identical with the Serbs, and are not willing to abandon themselves to
Serbian leadership."
" 2) While the Italian people were united in their national characteristics and entirely imbued with
the idea of national unity, the Serbs in most Serbian provinces outside Serbia i.e. in Bosnia
Herzegovina are divided into three religions SOrthodox, Muslim and Roman CatholicC, each of
them having separate national ideas."
"3) Piedmont had to confront only Austria. Even possessing an agreement with Bulgaria, Serbia
would have to face both Austria and Turkey (The Albanians too)."
" 4) With its glorious past, Italy attracted the sympathies of the entire civilised world, Serbia and
Serbdom could not even come close to competing with Italian prestige."(64)

THE MACEDONIAN LABYRINTH

The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the view of Belgrade and Cetinje, permanently
endangered Serbian interests in the Balkans. In order to prevent the further spreading of AustroHungarian influence, Serbia needed a Balkan alliance for joint resistance to the Drang nach
Osten. Closer ties between Vienna and Sofia would mean the further encirclement of Serbia and
it would mark an introduction to the loss of its independence. Initiatives for the creation of a new
Balkan alliance - on the model of the alliance from the time of Prince Michael Obrenovic in 1868 were launched, several times, by Serbia - in 1909 and 1910, and attempts were made to
establish close co-operation with Greece and Romania.
Meanwhile, the situation in Macedonia - where the Slav population's national awareness was still
not clearly defined - constantly kept deteriorating. By the time the Patriarchate of Pec was
abolished in 1766 most of the population in Vardar Macedonia, according to the testimony of
foreign writers who had travelled there, felt themselves to be Serbs or ethnically close to the
Serbs. The attempts at defining a separate Macedonian individuality, linked to the local tradition,
were supported by Bishop Strossmayer who helped, in Zagreb, the publication of Macedonian
epic poetry selected by the Miladinov brothers. By supporting their localism, the Croatian bishop
wanted the Slavs in Macedonia, dissatisfied because the Church organization was under the
jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and because the services were in the Greek
language, to accept, in time, a union with the Roman Catholic church.
Different regions in Slavonic parts of Macedonia spoke different dialects - the western regions a
dialect closer to Serbian, and the eastern closer to Bulgarian. The Serbian criteria for determining
nationality was the custom of celebrating a slava (the day of the acceptance of Christianity) which
foreign and domestic travel writers noticed among the population of northern, central and western
Macedonia, while the celebration of the name-day (a custom characteristic of the Bulgarians) was
wide-spread in the south-eastern regions (Pirin Macedonia). The dozens of requests for the
unification of certain regions with Serbia that were sent to Belgrade during the 19th century also
contained the claims that the population of those regions had been Serbian since time
immemorial. At the end of the 19th century, from various regions similar petitions were also sent
to Sofia. However, the ethnic composition of Macedonia was much more complex: apart from the
Slavs who were in a dilemma over whether they belonged to the Bulgarians or the Serbs, there
were also many Turks, Islamized Slavs, Tsintsars, Wallachians and Jews.
Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia was simple: it requested the establishment of an
autonomous Macedonia within European Turkey, which would then, at an appropriate moment,
like Eastern Rumelia in 1885, proclaim its unification with Bulgaria. A powerful weapon in the
hands of Bulgarian propaganda was the creation of the Exarchate in 1870, which let Bulgaria
handle Church and educational affairs in Macedonia. This was done with the blessing of the
Serbian government - it was considered in Belgrade that it was important to introduce a Slavic
language instead of Greek in Church services. Among the illiterate population desirous of
Slavonic services in the Church and an elementary education, the Exarchate had a great effect.
Bulgarian agitators also skilfully eradicated the traces of a Serbian feeling among the
Macedonian Slavs - they systematically destroyed old Serbian books and manuscripts, even
scratching frescoes with the images of Serbian saints in the numerous monasteries built at the
time of Stefan Dusan and his successors in the 14th century. The traditional pilgrimage of
Macedonian Slavs to Serbian monasteries in Kosovo completely died out at the end of the 19th
century.
Another powerful weapon of Bulgarian propaganda was the IMRO (the Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Organization) which, financed by Sofia, conducted a campaign, and sometime was
even engaged in armed clashes with the Turkish authorities, for Macedonia's autonomy. The
IMRO was divided into several factions and experienced a number of successive divisions. The
Ilinden uprising (1903) which ended in disaster, was an attempt at casting off Turkish oppression
by revolutionary methods. The IMRO was in essence, a most useful tool for the goals of the
government in Sofia.

Until the beginning of the 20th century Serbia passively and resignedly watched Sofia's campaign
aimed at Bulgarianizing Macedonia. The dissatisfaction with the government's passiveness
stimulated private circles in Belgrade to found, in 1904, the Chetnik movement which, using
Macedonian migrant workers in Serbia and its followers in the regions of Skoplje and western
Macedonia, opposed the Bulgarian komitadji and created a Serbian nucleus for the struggle for
liberation from Turkish domination (region of Porec). The Chetniks were trained in army camps
along the border with the Ottoman Empire, but armed units sent to Macedonia failed to diminish
the strongly established Bulgarian influence in southern, central and eastern regions. Parallely
with this, the reform action of the Great Powers in Macedonia (1903-1908), which was to ensure
the equality of the Christians and the Muslims, produced no tangible results. The Young Turk
Revolution in June 1908 eventually ended all the efforts at further reforms by the European
powers which aimed at preventing severe national and religious clashes in Old Serbia and
Macedonia. The Pan-Ottoman policy of the Young Turks provoked during the following years a
growth of ethnic and religous tensions, followed by a renewed persecution of Christians in Old
Serbia and Macedonia.(65)
The advocates of unification with Serbia were most numerous in the north-western part of
Macedonia, in the region between Kumanovo, Skoplje, Tetovo and Veles, where Serbian units
operated (the dialect there was closest to the Serbian language), while the pro-Bulgarians
controlled parts of eastern Macedonia up to the Vardar river, in areas where the dialectal
differences vis--vis the Bulgarian language were not great. Between them an Albanian national
movement operated, and it was especially strong in the south-western part of Macedonia, around
Gostivar, Kicevo and Debar, where most of the Albanians lived. Greece also joined in the
resolution of the Macedonian question through the renewal of the organization Philiki Hetaeria
which sent its units, the so-called Andartes, to operate mostly in Greek Macedonia. Serbia
considered the Dual Monarchy's desire to create a Great Albania that would spread from the
Adriatic Sea to the Vardar river as being especially dangerous, because that state would
endanger Serbia's independence from the south. The Albanian revolts (1909-1912) which were
partly subsidized by Serbia and Montenegro, in order to avoid complete control over the
insurgents by Austria-Hungary, proved such fears to be justified.
The enormous literature on the Macedonian question created great confusion, because Serbian,
Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek statistics concerning Macedonia's ethnic composition differed
considerably. The estimate of Jovan Cvijic, at the time the top authority on Balkan ethnography,
caused stormy disapproval among both the Serbs and the Bulgarians. Noticing the multitude of
different customs, traditions and the lack of a firmly founded national identity, Cvijic concluded:
"the popular masses of the Macedonian Slavs have no determined national feeling or national
awareness, either Serbian or Bulgarian, even though they are quite close to both the Serbs and
the Bulgarians", and that, essentially, they are "in the national sense, fluctuating masses of
people with an ethnic predisposition to become either Serbs or Bulgarians." (66)

THE BALKAN ALLIANCE

The political climate in Europe was favourable for the creation of a Balkan alliance because
Russia and France, which Serbia leaned towards, saw in it a new ally in their confrontation with
the future Central Powers. A crucial turning point in the creation of an alliance was the ItalianTurkish war (1911) in northern Africa which reopened the Eastern question. The danger of the war
spreading to the European part of Turkey called for an urgent response by the Balkan states. The
stumbling block was the division of so-called Vardar Macedonia, in which Serbian and Bulgarian
interests were in sharp confrontation. Serbia eventually made concessions in return requesting
access to the Adriatic sea via Kosovo to the Albanian coast, and a larger part of Macedonia was
to be handed over to Bulgaria. According to a secret annex to the agreement of alliance signed
on March 12th 1912, Serbia was to get the "undisputed zone" north and west of the Sar
mountain, while Bulgaria would get the "undisputed" zone east of the Rhodope mountain range
and the Struma river. For the rest of the territory - the "disputed" zone - the agreement envisaged

either autonomy or a division in which Serbia would get the western part (the diagonal from Kriva
Palanka in the north-east to Ohrid in the south-west). In the event of a dispute, the final arbitrator
regarding the division of territories would be the Russian Tsar. This was followed by the creation
of a Greek-Bulgarian alliance on May 29th 1912, in which the possibility of the central parts of
Vardar Macedonia acquiring autonomy - which Greece was most resolutely against - was not
even mentioned; the question of the final territorial division was left open. The alliance was
rounded off, first of all, with an oral agreement between Montenegro and Bulgaria, and then also
with a Serbo-Montenegrin agreement signed on September 27th.(67)
Austria-Hungary warned all the other Great Powers that it would not allow a change of the
existing territorial situation, while Russia firmly stood behind the Balkan states. Right after an
ultimatum was issued to Turkey demanding an immediate proclamation of reforms under the
supervision of the Balkan states and protection of the Christians, a war broke out after the
declaration of war by Montenegro. On October 18th, the Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian armies
crossed the border. In the battle of Kumanovo (October 23th-24th), Serbian troops, under the
command of Crown Prince Alexander, heavily defeated the Turkish forces and entered Skopje
(skb). At Florina, the Serbian army met with Greek troops after the victory at Bitolj (Monastir).
At the end of October, Serbian armies liberated Kosovo, and on the Sandjak front near Novi
Pazar they united with the Montenegrin forces which, on the southern front, seized Metohija and
Pec - the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate. (68)
Upon the liberation of Kosovo, in two columns, the Serbian army crossed Albania on November
9th, in order to ensure for itself an Adriatic port that would save Serbia from the iron embrace of
Austria-Hungary. By conquering Tirana, Allesio and Durazzo at the end of November, Serbia
violated the principle of nationality which it constantly kept referring to. When Serbian troops
reached the Albanian coast, Austria-Hungary, through its Albanian protgs, led by Ismail Qemali,
initiated the creation of an independent Albanian state on November 28th in Valona. Serbia was
threatened with war if it did not withdraw from Albania.
The military party in Vienna demanded war against Serbia, and strong Austro-Hungarian troops
were brought to the borders with Serbia. War against Serbia was only a matter of days. A
declaration of war had already been prepared in Sarajevo, and the Viennese emperor's diplomats
in Serbia had been ordered to burn their archives when war was declared. Serbian troops,
occupied in the south, had only 25,000 conscripts of the third call-up on the border with the Dual
Monarchy. The danger of a European war breaking out forced the Great Powers to react quickly.
At the London Conference (1912-1913), convened at the initiative of French president Raymond
Poincar, all the disputed issues were to be resolved without war. Presided over by Sir Edward
Gray, on December 17th 1912, the conference adopted the decision to recognize the
independence of Albania and this resolved the issue of Serbia's withdrawal from the Adriatic
without a debate. In contrast to Austria-Hungary, Russia, along with France, tried to ensure as
large a territorial extension as possible for Serbia. Montenegro, which helped by Serbian forces
managed to seize Scutari (Shkodr) in April 1913, was threatened by the Dual Monarchy with the
bombing of its ships on the Adriatic. Faced with the possibility of an invasion, Montenegrin King
Nicholas handed Scutari over to international forces in May 1913.(69)
The danger of a European war was avoided. On May 30th 1913, Turkey signed a peace
agreement in London by which it lost all its European provinces up to the Enos-Midia line near
Constantinople. However, the conflicts between the Balkan allies over territorial divisions were
leading to a new war. Most of Slave Macedonia went to Serbia which, having been driven out of
Albania, asked for compensation in the south, on the territory which had been taken by the
Serbian armies. Carried away by their great victories, certain political and especially military
circles in Serbia refused to withdraw to the line of division envisaged by the agreement with
Bulgaria signed in 1912. They justified the compensation by the fact that Serbian troops, going
beyond the agreement, offered the Bulgarians resolute assistance on the eastern front and
especially in liberating Adrianople (Edirne). At the same time, a Greek-Bulgarian dispute broke
out over the territorial division of the south-eastern region. A Serbo-Greek defensive alliance for
the protection of the common border in Macedonia was established in June 1913. Russia's
attempt to arbitrate in the conflict failed. Bulgaria responded with a simultaneous, unannounced
attack on Serbia and Greece. Defeated by the Serbs in the battle of the Bregalnica river, Bulgaria

found itself in a new war not just against its Balkan allies, but also against Turkey which won back
Edirne (Adrianopole). A peace agreement which approved Bulgarian losses was signed in
Bucharest in August 1913. (70)
The unexpectedly great victories of the Serbs in the Balkan wars increased Serbia's prestige in
the Yugoslav provinces of Austria-Hungary. From Zagreb and Split to Dubrovnik and Sarajevo,
and even in Ljubljana, the liberal youth of the Croats, Slovenes and Muslims publicly expressed
its enthusiasm for Serbia. Serbia's exaltation was especially pronounced in Dalmatia which,
unlike Croatia and Slavonia, based its views regarding the national question on Italian
experiences: In an address to Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic in November 1912, the SerboCroatian youth of Dalmatia "welcomed with enthusiasm the victories of the Serbian armies,
bowing before the avengers of Kosovo and the creators of a new Yugoslavia".(71)
In Montenegro, which had become a Kingdom in 1910, despite the rivalry between the two
Serbian dynasties over supremacy in the Serbian movement (King Nicholas Petrovic-Njegos was
the father-in-law of Peter I Karadjordjevic, and the children of Serbia's ruler were born in Cetinje),
the unanimous mood was that in favour of unification with Serbia, especially after the Balkan
wars. The establishment of a common border with Serbia in the Sandjak, allowed a new
regulation of relations between the two Serbian states. A real union between Serbia and
Montenegro, proposed by the Montenegrin ruler in the spring of 1914, as the first step towards
final unification was prevented by the outbreak of the world war.(72)
The growth of Serbia's prestige in the Balkans deeply worried the government in Vienna. At a
ministerial meeting on October 3rd 1913, on the same day that Serbian Prime Minister Pasic was
visiting the Monarchy's capital trying to conclude an agreement, Foreign Minister Berchtold used
the following arguments to explain the policy towards Serbia: "Serbia represents a big attraction
today, because it is visible that its prestige has grown to the detriment of ours. If Serbia continues
to develop, our Yugoslavs will feel even more drawn to it, and even the best internal policy will not
be able to do anything there (...) A showdown with Serbia and its humiliation - that is the
Monarchy's vital interest. If this does not happen today, we must be thoroughly prepared for
it"(73).

THE BLACK HAND

Serbia's war successes created a special feeling of self-confidence in the army which, ever since
the coup in 1903, had played an important role on the political scene. Military circles, in the
beginning supported by King Peter himself because they had brought him to the throne, tried, by
exerting pressure on the ruler and certain party leaders, to significantly influence the political life
of the country. The conflict between the conspirators of 1903, who advanced in their careers with
lightning speed, and the part of the officers' corps which considered that they must be punished
for regicide, ended in a defeat of the "counter-conspirators". It was only in 1906 that, under strong
diplomatic pressure by Great Britain, the six main conspirators were retired, the court camarilla
was disbanded and the army was, for a while, placed within the constitutional framework. The
radical opening of the Serbian question through the annexation crisis and the government's
consenting to the loss of Bosnia and Herzegovina led to a new polarization in military circles.
While the two leading parties, the Old and the Independent Radicals tried to adapt national policy
to realistic foreign policy circumstances, a group of junior officers-conspirators of 1903, founded,
along with several civilians, a secret organization - "Unification or Death" - popularly called "The
Black Hand". Disappointed in the democratic institutions of the parliamentary monarchy, which
they considered to be the main reason for slowness and hesitation in resolving the question of
Serbian unification, they rallied around the newspaper Piedmont, advocating the ideology of
authoritarian nationalism and sharply opposing the government, going so far as to make bomb
threats to "disobedient" ministers. With 178 active members, mostly from Serbia, who were
predominantly junior officers, the organization Unification or Death acted on the basis of a
Constitution that was the Balkan version of similar European officers' conspiracies that operated

according to the principles of Masonic lodges. Led by charismatic officer Dragutin Dimitrijevic Apis, head of the Supreme Command's Intelligence Service, the Black Hand gradually infiltrated
its members into various important organizations, including the National Defense whose activities
were, until then, mostly of a cultural nature. Dragutin Dimitrijevic Apis personally approved the
line of division with Bulgaria in Macedonia.(74)
The organization's principles were not, however, strictly and consistently respected. Its existence
was no secret to the public; new members were semi-publicly recruited from the army, and even
some Yugoslav-oriented Croats were admitted into its ranks. The influence of the Black Hand
grew especially after the Balkan wars where its members, through heroic accomplishments on
the front, acquired a great reputation within the officer corps. Prior to the second Balkan war
against Bulgaria the Piedmont newspaper openly warned the government concerning borders in
Macedonia that if it let Bulgaria take part of the territory, it would be accused of treason.
According to British sources, the apparent aim of the Black Hand was to "sacrifice everything to
the building up of a powerful army for an ultimate war with Austria and the consolidation of a
unified Slav Kingdom."(75)
The conflict with the government, over whether it was the military or civilian authorities that
should have had supremacy in Macedonia in 1914, showed that the Black Hand, tactically
supported by the opposition, had "praetorian desires" that were contrary to the democratic order.
The crisis caused by the dispute over the supremacy of either the military or the civilian
authorities ended in a constitutional crisis: the dissolution of the Parliament and the scheduling of
elections, just before the assassination in Sarajevo. King Peter, unable to protect the army's
interests, under the joint pressure of the Radicals and Russian diplomacy, quietly abdicated on
June 24th 1914, handing the royal prerogatives over to his younger son, Crown Prince Alexander.
(76)
THE ROAD TO SARAJEVO
Between the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkan wars, the position of the Serbs in
Bosnia had rapidly deteriorated. Due to political violence, persecutions, imprisonment, the
obstruction of the work of cultural and educational associations and their inability to act politically,
in 1911, youth organizations like "Young Bosnia", created on the model of Mazzini's Young Italy,
decided to shorten the road to freedom with individual sacrifices. On the day of the opening of the
Bosnian Diet, in June 1910, after an unsuccessful attempted assassination of the AustroHungarian governor, the leader of Young Bosnia, Bogdan Zerajic, committed suicide, thus giving
the entire generation an example of heroic self-sacrifice for the sake of national freedom.
In the years that followed, the persecution of the Serbs acquired vast proportions, creating an
atmosphere of unbearable pressure. The arrival of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francis
Ferdinand in Sarajevo to oversee big military manoeuvres in the region bordering on Serbia, on
the day when the anniversary of the battle of Kosovo was being celebrated in all Serbian lands in
a specially festive atmosphere since, two years before that, Kosovo had become once again free
after four centuries, meant for the Serbs in Bosnia not just a serious provocation but also an open
attempt at humiliation.(77)
Francis Ferdinand was shot by a young Serb, Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Young Bosnia
organisation. Its members considered the Archduke to be the leader of a militarist party in Vienna
seeking an excuse for waging a war against Serbia and for crushing the Serbian and Yugoslav
movement. The military manoeuvres in Bosnia in the summer of 1914 were, in a way,
preparations for war against Serbia. It was considered in Vienna that the abandonment of the
idea about war against Serbia would have serious consequences for the Dual Monarchy: a) the
definite loss of the status of a Great Power; b) proof of her incapacity as the ally of the German
Reich; c) the permanent endangerment of the Monarchy's Yugoslav regions by the strengthened
Balkan states.(78)
The Viennese government persistently tried to prove the Serbian government's involvement in the
assassination. Even though they had received weapons from the "Black Hand" leaders, and

although they had been transferred, with its help, from Serbia to Bosnia, the assassins belonging
to Young Bosnia acted independently. The assassination of Francis Ferdinand was an authentic
act of their nationalism which was not exclusively Serbian but more Yugoslav: the members of
Young Bosnia were recruited among the Serbs, Croats and Muslims alike who considered
themselves as Serbo-Croats or Yugoslavs. Vienna tried, without real evidence, to accuse the
Serbian government of inspiring the assassination. The Viennese Foreign Ministry's envoy,
Friedrich von Wiesner reported to his government that "there existed nothing that would point to
the Serbian government's involvement in the organization or preparation of the killing or in
supplying weapons. Nor is there anything that would arouse such suspicions."(79)
The assassination in Sarajevo was received in Vienna as the long-awaited excuse for a war
against Serbia. Right after the annexation, Chief of Staff Konrad von Htzendorf, suggested that
a war crisis be provoked and that an unacceptable ultimatum be issued to the Serbian
government. A similar method to this was used in the July crisis of 1914. The Serbian government
was blamed for the assassination, and a month later, when Germany's support was assured, an
unacceptable ultimatum consisting of ten points was issued to Belgrade on July 23rd. The AustroHungarian government knew that the war would inevitably turn into a world war because, already
before the ultimatum, imperial Russia openly stood in defense of Serbia with an unequivocal
statement that it would not "allow a blow to be dealt to Serbia's independence".(80)
Unprepared for war, militarily and financially exhausted by the Balkan wars (the army lacked
about 120,000 rifles) and with the new territories in the south still insufficiently integrated, Serbia
did everything to prevent escalation. The response to the ultimatum was diplomatically
impeccable, and the only two conditions that were rejected were those incompatible with the
status of an independent country - that allowed the investigative organs of the Habsburg police to
search for the perpetrators on Serbian territory in a sovereign manner. At the same time, through
British representatives in Serbia, the Belgrade government expressed readiness to fulfil, with
minor corrections, all the requests set out in the ultimatum.(81)
Dissatisfaction with the response was taken as an excuse for declaring war on Serbia on July
28th 1914. In his proclamation, Montenegrin King Nicholas said that "the pride of the Serbian
nation ("pleme") did not permit further, yielding" and stressed: "My Montenegrins are ready to die
in defense of our independence".(82) In his proclamation to the nation, Serbian Regent Alexander
stressed that "thirty years ago, Austria-Hungary conquered Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina",
provinces which "it finally and illegitimately appropriated six years ago", and he called on the
people to defend "with all their strength, their homesteads and the Serbian nation" (pleme)(83).

TOTAL WAR: REPRESSION AND MASSACRES

The way in which the war against Serbia was waged and, at the same time, the persecution of
the Serbs in the Dual Monarchy, clearly showed that this was an attempt at totally crushing
Serbian resistance and definitely closing the Serbian question in the Balkans. The repression
against the civilian population during the short-lived Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbian
territory at the end of 1914, included the perpetration of serious war crimes: the most active
perpetrators were soldiers of Hungarian and Croatian nationality under the command of Austrian
officers. On the pretext that they were preparing and offering resistance, large numbers of
Serbian civilians were executed or brutally killed in cold blood, regardless of their age: the victims
were women, old people and children alike; authorized officers warned the Serbian Chief of Staff
about the large number of mutilated bodies of women and children, and a complete
documentation was collected in the field by Dr. Rudolf A. Reiss, a Swiss scholar of German
descent, in his capacity of an independent researcher. (84)
One internal and confidential instruction written in German and signed by general Horstein for his
troops, found on a wounded Austro-Hungarian soldier, showed, in a way, the general army policy
towards the Serbian civilian population: "Brother soldiers, we will soon enter into a country with
people who are worse than the most terrible barbarians; if you unfortunately fall into their hands

the most shameful thing will happen, they will cut off your ears and noses, put out your eyes,
poison the water and food. Therefore I command you not to treat these bandits with humanity but
to destroy everything of Serbian origin, and every person speaking the Serbian language is to be
shot without mercy. After entering the Serbian cities and villages all the prominent persons
including clerks, priests and teachers should be arrested, and in the presence of the local
population three persons from each group should be hanged." (85) The names of the officers who
committed the most brutal executions and war crimes and who came from the 21st, 25th, 26th,
29th, 37th and 79th infantry divisions of the Austro-Hungarian army were afterwards published in
a book by Clara Sturzeneger.(86)
Within Austria-Hungary all the Serbs in Bosnia and Srem who had welcomed the Serbian and
Montenegrin troops as liberators during their joint offensive in eastern Bosnia and the region
around Sarajevo in summer 1914 were arrested or interned. Over a hundred Serbian civilians
were executed or bayoneted in the region between Sarajevo and the Drina river in the first wave
of retaliation Salone. The governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Oskar Potiorek made plans during
1914 to repatriate all the Serbian Orthodox population from Eastern Bosnia. Afraid of a potential
Serbian insurrection Potiorek planned to use domestic Muslims as armed volunteers ("Burgwehr"
and "Schutzwehr") against unreliable Orhthodox Serbs in Bosnia. Potiorek's successor Stjepan
Sarkotic in order to limit expression of Serbian national identity in Bosnia, wanted to submit the
Serbian Orthodox Church to the military authorities, as was the practice in the Military Frontier
("Vojna Krajina") centuries before.(87)
The persecution of Serbs as unreliable subjects in the Dual Monarchy started immediately after
the assassination of Francis Ferdinand: almost all Serbian shops in Sarajevo were demolished,
and the most active in these attacks against the Serbs were the followers of the clerical current
among the Croats and certain elements among the Bosnian Muslims. Serbian schools, private
shops, cultural and educational societies were demolished and Orthodox priests were maltreated.
Anti-Serbian demonstrations in Zagreb lasted for four days and they resulted in the terrorization
of the Serbs and the plundering and demolition of their firms, shops and houses.
In their condemnation of the assassination in Sarajevo, followers of Frank's Party of Pure Rights
were also joined by the Croatian People's Peasant party led by Stjepan Radic. A joint
proclamation to the Croatian people named the culprit for the Sarajevo assassination: "the
conspiratorial Great-Serbian policy on Croatian soil, within the borders of the Habsburg
Monarchy". The press also called for pogroms against the Serbs. The Frankist newspaper
"Hrvatska" ("Croatia") wrote on July 3rd 1914: "The people are announcing a battle to the death
against the Serbs, and for their expulsion from Bosnia and Herzegovina", and on July 29th, the
same goal was set out but in an even more radical form: "We must settle accounts with them
once and for all, and destroy them... The Serbs are poisonous snakes which one is safe from only
when they are beheaded". A few days after the assassination, Stjepan Radic wrote in his party's
journal "Dom" ("Home") that "Serbian politicians from Belgrade, in their excessive greediness for
Bosnia (which Francis Ferdinand had allegedly intended to unite with Croatia) and in their even
greater hatred towards everything that is Croatian, Catholic and Austrian (...) had ordered the vile
and perfidious murder". Radic said in the Zagreb Diet that "our Serbs must accept the Croatian
thought and to abandon the Serbian thought, because the person who is the friend of Serbian
thought is the enemy of the Croatian thought". The Slovenian clerical journal "Slovenec" wrote on
July 1st: "Great-Serbianism is striving to create a big Serbian state on the ruins of AustriaHungary. For the Catholic 'Yugoslavs' this would not be 'national liberation', but rather national
slavery and death. The assassination in Sarajevo should sober up all those youthful elements
that have been swayed by Great-Serbian propaganda".(88)
The persecution of the Serbs was carried out, with the tacit consent of the authorities, apart from
Sarajevo and Zagreb, in other cities of Bosnia-Herzegovina also: Mostar, Stolac, Konjic, Tuzla,
Bugojno, Visoko, Capljina and Trebinje. The violence did not stop at the demolition of property
and the harassment of people: there were serious injuries and killings as well. Prior to the
ultimatum to Serbia, the houses of the most respectable Serbs in Dalmatia, Bosnia and Vojvodina
were searched, and immediately afterwards these people were taken as hostages in accordance
with special lists.(89)

Special paramilitary forces called the "Schutzkorps" were created of Muslim and Croatian
volunteers, who in the villages of Bosnia and Herzegovina killed Serbs concerning whom they
had doubts without a trial. During the war, the number of Schutzkorps members rose to 11,000
people. In order to prevent "an armed rebellion in the country", 9,000 rifles were distributed
exclusively to Muslims and Roman Catholics: it was considered by the local government that
there were absolutely no loyal Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.(90)
The establishment of a court martial in the first months of the war, made possible the unhindered
execution of a large number of Serbs. Their peaceful conduct, it was reported from certain
regions in Bosnia, "is not to be ascribed to the Serbian population's loyalty, but rather to the
effects of - the gallows". Certain repressive measures were also taken against Jews. At the very
beginning of the war, the Austro-Hungarian army executed Serbs without a trial, especially in the
regions bordering on Serbia (Foca, Gorazde, Cajnice). On August 14th 1914, 126 Serbs were
killed in Foca alone.(91)
Simultaneously, the systematic eradication of the Serbian culture and national symbols was also
being carried out: most Serbian newspapers and magazines were banned, national and cultural
societies were closed down, and state and cultural institutions fired most of their Serbian
employees. In October 1914, the Croatian government banned the use of the Cyrillic script in
primary schools - it remained only for limited use by the Serbs - and the same order was also
immediately issued by the Bosnian government (finally legalized only in November 1915); In
Croatia-Slavonia in November 1914, the name of the language - "Croatian or Serbian", was
replaced by "Croatian". The Cyrillic script was definitely and finally to be removed from public use
in January 1915. Because of presumed anti-Monarchy conduct, Serbian high-schools in Tuzla
and Mostar were closed down for a year, and the Bosnian parliament where only loyal Serbs had
been nominated was dissolved with a similar explanation, on February 6th 1915. (92)
Most prominent Serbs, sometimes even entire families, were interned. On the basis of the
treatment of these prisoners, the camps for internees in Austria-Hungary are considered as being
the predecessors of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. On the Yugoslav territories of
Austria-Hungary alone, there were around twenty (out of a total of fifty throughout the Monarchy)
concentration camps (reception and permanent ones), where hundreds of thousands of civilians
were interned: Koprivnica, Virovitica, Osijek, Cepin, Tenja, Borovo, Varazdin, Dalj, Petrovaradin,
Brsadin, Belisce, Donji Miholjac, Pleternica, Pqcetin, Bobota, Sisak, Turanj, Doboj, Poganovci etc.
At the beginning of the war, the largest number of Serbs were in Arad (today's Romania) where,
due to the terrible hygienic conditions, the internees died on a mass scale. According to
incomplete documentation, it is considered that out of 5,500 internees, 1,195 people died by the
end of January 1915. Internees were also placed in camps in Doboj (around 46,000, 17,000 of
whom were women and children - members of the families of volunteers in the Serbian army),
Neszider (internees from Serbia), Turony and Soproniek. At the same time, the BosnianHerzegovinian government kept carrying out the systematic expulsion of Serbian families (who
were no longer considered to be Austro-Hungarian subjects). In February 1915 alone, 5260
people had their status of subjects taken away and were expelled, with their property being
confiscated. Around 20,000 Serbs from the periphery of the Monarchy, from regions bordering on
Serbia, were forcibly moved from Srem to Baranja, and another 60,000 were moved to Slavonia.
Tens of thousands of Bosnian Serbs died, due to poor hygienic conditions, in the concentration
camps in Hungary - Arad, Neszider, Talesdorf, Turony and Soproniek.(93)
In 1915 alone, mass trials were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Banja Luka, Travnik, Sarajevo,
Mostar) against Serbian schoolboys and their teachers. The were accused of being responsible
for the foundation of Yugoslav oriented schools' societies and because of their alleged ties with
Belgrade and Prague. At a new trial of Serbian intellectuals, mostly of the older generation,
charged with "high treason", that was held in Sarajevo in spring 1916, 159 persons (including
twenty-four professors and teachers, twenty-one priests, eight students, seven members of the
Diet) were convicted without real evidence; 16 were sentenced to death, while the others got
many years of imprisonment. Under the pressure of world public opinion, the new AustroHungarian Emperor, Charles I, released them in order to present his regime as liberal at the time
of the talks on a separate peace agreement with France.(94)

The Serbs in Vojvodina like their kinsmen in Bosnia experienced similar persecutions, arrests and
executions, trials without real evidence and internment. Apart from Srem, where terrible
retaliations, arrests and executions were carried out after the Serbian offensive in 1914, Banat
suffered the same fate where only a few advance parties of the Serbian army appeared. Serbian
political parties were disbanded, and a number of proceedings were instituted against schoolboys
in Novi Sad, Kikinda, Sombor and other towns. In the Hungarian parliament, Gyula Andrassy
warned that the "Great Serbian movement" had acquired such dangerous proportions that a
revolution could break out any moment, and that the movement's goal was the unification of the
12 million Serbs disunited throughout the Monarchy and the Kingdom of Serbia, as well as the
creation of a big Slavic state to the detriment of Hungary. As a counter-measure, he proposed
that the separate nationalisms of the Slovenians, Croats and Serbs in the Monarchy be favoured
as opposed to the Yugoslav movement.(95)
The Austro-Hungarian military and civilian authorities tried especially hard to awaken disputes
between the Serbs and the Croats. For this reason, in the operations in Serbia in 1914, a special
place was given to the 42nd Croatian Home-Guard ("Domobran") regiment; it was insisted on that
Croatian units - the 26th Karlovac infantry regiment - be the first to enter the evacuated and, for a
short while, lost Belgrade. Croatian soldier Josip Broz, the future Marshal Tito, also fought in the
operations on the Drina in 1914, in a Croatian unit.(96)
The surprising victories of the Serbian army in 1914 forced even the Austro-Hungarian press to
admit a defeat. "The Budapest Hirlap" wrote: "In Serbia, a mortal battle is being waged by a five
million strong nation. It is being waged by a well-equipped, daring and, above all, brave army
which does not number 400,000 but rather five million people, because everyone is fighting there,
from old people to children"(97).
While the Serbian Orthodox Church, rooted in national traditions, stood by Serbia and
Montenegro, the Roman Catholic church supported Vienna: Pope Pius X called for a final
showdown with Serbia in order to do away with "the contagious disease that could, in a time,
endanger the Monarchy's vital nerves."(98) Turkey, having joined the Central Powers, declared a
holy war - a jihad, on the infidels in Serbia and Montenegro. Muslims from Bosnia, Kosovo,
Macedonia and Albania, regardless of whether they fought under the flag of the Austrian eagle or
the green Islamic flag, had a clear message - Serbia and Montenegro were their enemies. The
Fatwa declaring the jihad was officially read to the Bosnian, predominantly Muslim battalions in
Vienna and elsewhere. Sarajevo's newspapers explained that the jihad meant that "all the
Muslims were obliged, in this case to participate in the war against those who were marked as
enemies of Islam." The Mufti of Tuzla like other Bosnian Muslim religious officials sent a telegram
to the Sultan at Constantinople, the Khalif of all Muslims. They all stressed their happiness at the
resolute struggle against the enemies of Islam, waged together with Emperor Francis Joseph,
"the friend of Muslims and the guardian of security in this world." (99)

GREAT SERBIA OR YUGOSLAVIA?

The most important theoretical basis for the Yugoslav idea, in its anthropogeographic sense, was
provided by Jovan Cvijic, a geographer with European renown. In his voluminous scientific
writings he explained that the Dinaric complex in the Balkans was a geopolitical whole with a
quite uniform ethnic composition, since numerous migrations in the past had resulted in the
mixing of the Serbs and the Croats, creating related cultural and civilizational patterns, especially
in the vast Dinaric region where a patriarchal culture was dominant. The cultural unity of the
Yugoslav nations was especially advocated by the influential lite of scholars, particularly experts
in history and literature - among the Serbs (Stojan Novakovic and Jovan Skerlic) and the Croats
(Vatroslav Jagic and Tomo Maretic). Prior to the world war, in 1913, the most reputable literary
magazine in the Slavic South, "Srpski Knjizevni Glasnik", conducted a poll among scholars on the
further development of the uniformity of the common language: no one among the dozens of
them brought cultural unity into question.

The Yugoslavs were described as "a nation in creation" (Milan Marjanovic - a Croat, Sukrija
Kurtovic - a Serb-Muslim) that would represent a synthesis of the East and the West in the
Slavonic South. Stojan Novakovic, a historian and diplomat, predicted that a unified Yugoslav
state would be created in the future and that it would spread from Split in the west, to Subotica in
the north, and from Ohrid in the south, to Maribor in the north. Among the Croats, the bearers of
the Yugoslav ideology were national leaders from Dalmatia, which, unlike Croatia, formed within
the Central European cultural circle, developed under the influence of the Mediterranean
heritage, inspired by Mazzini's model of unification around a Piedmont. For all of them, including
influential Croat leader Frano Supilo, who was the only one to work, during the war, on a plan for
the future state's federal set-up, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were "one ethnic nation" with
their Piedmont being exclusively Belgrade.(100)
The greatest resistance to the movement for Yugoslav closeness and unification was offered by
clerical circles of the Roman Catholic church in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In August 1914,
the Archbishop of Zagreb said that the war against the Serbs was a holy war, and similar
statements about the Serbs as enemies were also made by the Bosnian Archbishop Stadler and
the Bishop of Mostar Monsignor Misic; Slovene bishop Jeglic held a special speech to soldiers
against the Serbs "the avowed enemies of Jesus himself who is present in the sacrament of
love". In clerically oriented Slovenia, Bishop Sustercic made inflammatory statements against the
Serbs, and it is in Slovenia that there appeared the famous slogan "(Hang) Serbs on willows"
("Srbe na vrbe"), analogous to the one that sublimated the mood in the Viennese press prior to
the war - in the slogan "Serbien muss sterbien" ("Serbia must die"). Religious intolerance proved
to be the one main obstacle to the idea of Yugoslav unification. Later on, Bosnian Archbishop
Stadler formulated the desires of the conservative Roman Catholic hierarchy : "Strictly Catholic
circles (...) predict that under the rule of Orthodox Christianity, Catholic life would have to be
destroyed. The religiously indifferent and mostly anti-church oriented intelligentsia (...) is
unanimous in the idea, prevalent in that circle even before the war, (...) for creating a better,
national, political and economic existence by joining the Orthodox Slavs". That the bearers of the
Yugoslav idea were mostly younger generation persons was also confirmed by Frano Supilo in
1915, in Nis, Serbia's war-time capital: "most of the present-day generation is not for this, but a
large number of young people speak in favour of the national unity of the Serbs and the Croats".
(101)
The need for creating a powerful state in the centre of the Balkans that would be strong enough
to resist foreign pressure, resulted from the onerous political heritage of Serbia which had to
adapt to the will of the neighbouring empires for a whole century. The Yugoslav movement,
although it united only the liberal political and cultural lite and youth, was considered to be a
solid foundation for the creation of a common Southern Slav state.
On September 4th 1914, Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic, sent a circular letter to legations
abroad saying "that Serbia should become a strong south-western Slav state that would also
include all the Croats and all the Slovenes". Only such a state could be "in the interest of the
annihilation of Germanic supremacy and penetration towards the east"; only such a state could
offer resistance to all the combinations whose aim would be to endanger European peace, or to
annul the successes of the Allies' weapons". Already in the first days of the war, Pasic predicted
that the borders of the future common state would go along the Klagenfurt-Maribor-Szeged line.
At Serbian politicians' symposiums in Nis at the end of October 1914, it was predicted that the
common state of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes "would preserve, without any special
organization, the national characteristics of each tribe". Much later, after the war, NikolaPasic
explained, in the following way, the decision to create Yugoslavia: "As soon as we were attacked,
we saw that it was a matter of either staying alive - and if we stay alive, we must take advantage
of the opportunity and liberate our Croatian and Slovenian brothers, - or being destroyed (...) We
took the stand - and the situation was such - that we were either going to wage this war for the
sake of the survival and unification of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or we would be
destroyed". It was the Yugoslav solution that the Serbian government, led by Pasic, persistently
advocated throughout the war, even when the Allies might have offered Serbia the possibility of
the Serbian question being resolved outside of the proclaimed Yugoslav framework, with territorial
extensions in Bosnia and on the Adriatic coast, but with certain territorial concessions to Bulgaria
in Macedonia. (102)

The war goals were publicly proclaimed already at the very beginning of the war, after the great
victories against Austro-Hungarian troops on the Drina river and on Cer mountain in the summer
and autumn of 1914. The war goal was epitomized in the Serbian government's declaration
presented before the Parliament in Nis, on December 7th 1914:
"Convinced that the entire Serbian nation is determined to persevere in the holy struggle for the
defense of their homesteads and their freedom, the government of the Kingdom (of Serbia)
considers that, in these fateful times, its main and only task is to ensure the successful
completion of this great warfare which, at the moment when it started, also became a struggle for
the liberation and unification of all our unliberated Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian brothers. The
great success which is to crown this warfare will make up for the extremely bloody sacrifices
which this generation of Serbs is making".(103)
The proclamation of Serbia's war goals was aimed at acquainting the Allies with its wish to create
a Yugoslav state, because there was fear among the Serbian leadership that Russia and Great
Britain would make efforts to weaken Austria-Hungary considerably, but not to break it up. Great
Britain considered that, due to the religious differences, the unification of the Serbs and the
Croats would be the source of new instability in the common state and in the entire region, and it
was believed in Russia that the religious differences were such that it would be better to create a
"Great Serbia". According to certain researchers, the creation of a "Great Serbia" (occasionally
identified with Yugoslavia), was advocated by the Black Hand which, in this regard, perhaps had
the support of certain military circles in Russia.(104)
According to private information obtained by the Serbian Foreign Ministry some provisional plans
for the "future Serbian state" were made by Black Hand officers who had an important influence
over the Chief of Staff. These plans were probably backed by the Russian legation and military
attach Artamanov who often (un)officially discussed the future of Serbia with Dragutin
Dimitrijevic-Apis. (Artamanov also told Crown-Prince Alexander that the future state should be a
federation because of British attitudes). On the other hand the Piedmont newspaper of the Black
Hand advocated, during 1914, the unification of the Serbs and Croats usually without mentioning
the Slovenes: "Unity means that we - the Serbs and Croats are one nation, unification means: we
should be one state, while unity is a fact, unification is our ideal." The destruction of AustriaHungary was the primary goal: "Austria is a state without national foundations and without a
cultural mission. Far from being an organic unit, those pieces of which she is made are still
together due to old glue which could easily break-up if any stronger internal or external pressure
is applied. Without modern constitutionalism and parliamentarism, Austria made up of nations full
of hate against the Germans and Hungarians, is to be subjugated to the democratic imperatives
of this century, in which states without national foundations are condemned to die, if not,
according to the laws of History, will perish from the Earth."(105)
The conflict between the Black Hand on the one side and the government and Prince-Regent
Alexander on other, about who was to have political supremacy ended with a "rigged" trial and the
organization's liquidation in Salonika in 1917. Only the three first-accused were executed
(Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic Apis, Major Ljubomir Vulovic and a volunteer from Bosnia Rade
Malobabic). During the trial it was discovered that members of the Black Hand were involved
(indirectly) in the Sarajevo assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in
1914 and, what is more, that they had been preparing a whole new series of assassinations of
the German, Bulgarian and Greek rulers. Above an open grave, prior to his execution, Colonel
Apis cried out: "long live Serbia, long live Yugoslavia."(106)
The Entente powers considered that, when the war ended, provided that it gave part of
Macedonia to Bulgaria, Serbia should get considerable territorial extensions at the expense of
Austria-Hungary: all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of Southern Hungary (Vojvodina) and most
of Dalmatia. The border of the compensations to Serbia would go along the Pakrac-Split line,
and, thus, regions of the one time Military Frontier in Croatia would also become part of Serbia.
According to Great Britain's plans, parts of Dalmatia and Macedonia were to be given to Italy and
Bulgaria so as to persuade them to enter the war on the side of the Entente.
The Russian plans concerning the future borders were linked to the question of Constantinople
and the Straits. At the beginning of the war, Russian diplomacy predicted the reorganization of

Austria-Hungary on a trialist basis (Austrian, Czech and Hungarian lands), while Serbia would get
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dalmatia and northern Albania, with Croatia and Slovenia remaining
within the Habsburg Empire. During the crisis over Bulgaria's engagement in the war, Russian
diplomats requested that a considerable part of Macedonia - the apple of discord between the
Serbs and Bulgars ever since the Balkan wars - be given to Bulgaria.(107)
The Serbian government, however, persistently kept refusing to give part of the territories in
Macedonia to Bulgaria, considering that Macedonia was the key to strategic influence in the
Balkan peninsula. Serbian officials, relying on Greece's support, reacted by establishing closer
ties with France, which was trying to harmonize the opposed interests of Serbia and Italy on the
eastern part of the Adriatic. However, Serbia, in accordance with its strategic orientation and the
principle of the ethnic unity of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, persistently kept rejecting any
kind of agreement. Because of its importance, by the London Treaty of April 26, 1915, the
members of the Entente promised Italy all of Istria, several islands and Dalmatia up to the zone in
the vicinity of Split; a clause banning the unification of Serbia and Montenegro ( the latter already
had access to the Adriatic) was left out at the last moment.(108)
On the other hand, Germany and the Dual Monarchy were designing their own plans of the future
borders in the Balkans. To obtain Bulgaria's entrance in war on the side of Central Powers, Sofia
was promised almost 60% of Serbia's territory. There were several plans made in Vienna,
concerning the annexation of the northern and central parts of Serbia and strategically important
parts of Montenegro. Germany tried separately from Vienna, to establish direct contacts with the
Pasic government. Berlin sent special emissaries to Serbia who opend the way to the possibility
that some Yugoslav territories within Austria-Hungary could be given to Serbia. At the same time,
there were intense negotiations between Vienna and Budapest about a new redistribution of the
Yugoslav territories under their authority.(109)
Serbia's Yugoslav option acquired significant backing in the Yugoslav Committee established in
Paris in May 1915, with the Serbian government's financial support "to assist in the creation of a
unified Yugoslav (possibly Serbo-Croatian) state by informing leading circles and by publicity
activity". Chaired by a Croatian politician from Split, Ante Trumbic, the Committee rallied exiled
Croatian and Serbian politicians from Dalmatia, Croatia and Bosnia. The Comitteee was soon
transferred to London where it had the task of promoting the idea of Yugoslav unification among
the Allies. One of the arguments in favour of the desires of the Committee was the great
response by volunteers from the United States and South America - apart from the Serbs, the
Serbian army was also joined by persons of various nationalities including a small number of
Croats. However, the number of Croatian volunteers from Austria-Hungary itself was even
smaller; the Serbian army was mostly joined by Serbs and Czechs from the Austro-Hungarian
army, and only a very small number of Croats and Slovenians.(110)
From December 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian army was driven out of Serbia, until October
1915, when a new offensive was launched, Serbia had an important period of peace which,
however, was marked by new hardships: contagious diseases, especially typhoid, took a high toll
in the winter between 1914 and 1915. An undeclared war was being waged on the border with
Albania, where incursions were made into Serbia by units trained by Austro-Hungarian and
Turkish officers, with the aim of provoking a rebellion of the Albanians in Kosovo and western
Macedonia. At the same time, in the summer of 1915, the Allies kept exerting strong diplomatic
pressure on Serbia to make territorial concessions in Macedonia in order for Bulgaria to enter the
war on the side of the Entente. Bulgaria, however, was already concluding agreements on an
alliance with the Central Powers and making maps for dividing up Serbia with Austria-Hungary.
(111)
Certain difficulties appeared in the relations with the Montenegrin ruler who, faced with the will of
his people to unite with Serbia, feared for the future of his dynasty. Nicholas I was ready to agree
to a state "according to the German system", expressing readiness to be "like the Bavarian king",
"the happy King of Montenegro in a Great Serbia of my Sgrandson, the Serbian Crown PrinceC
Alexander". At the end of 1915, Pasic wrote: "Serbia is willing, and it has given proof of this, to
ensure the utmost financial security for the Montenegrin dynasty, to preserve its prestige for all
time, provided however that the unity of the Serbian nation be ensured at least by a real union.

The issue of the borders between Serbia and Montenegro is to be considered an internal Serbian
affair".(112)
On the international plane, the successful repelling of two Austro-Hungarian offensives in 1914,
and the heroic battles against the several times more numerous enemy, raised Serbia's prestige
among the Allies to a high level, especially in France where, in the middle of 1915, all schools
celebrated Serbian Day, and the following year, similar events also took place in Great Britain.
New challenges followed the break of the Serbian defense in autumn 1915: the joint AustroGerman offensive from the north, and the Bulgarian offensive from the south-east, forced the
Serbian army to withdraw towards the south-west. Cut off from Greece by Bulgarian advances in
Macedonia, the Serbian army started moving towards the Albanian coast, partly via Montenegro,
and partly via Albania, in order for Allied ships to transfer it to a safe place. Defending the flank of
the withdrawing Serbian troops, on Orthodox Christmas Day on January 7th, the Montenegrin
army heavily defeated Austro-German troops at Mojkovac, but it could not resist a new attack.
The Montenegrin Parliament decided to follow Serbia's example, to withdraw in the face of the
enemy, but King Nicholas, crushed and demoralized, left the country and crossed to Italy at the
beginning of 1916, after which Montenegro was forced to sign a capitulation. Part of its army
joined the Serbian troops who, accompanied by a multitude of civilian refugees, were forced, due
to the Italians' obstruction, to fight their way through to the southern port of Albania, where French
ships were waiting to evacuate them.
After leaving Kosovo, the second, larger part of the Serbian army withdrew, via the Albanian
mountains, towards ports on the Adriatic. The withdrawal of the Serbian army is remembered as
the Serbian nation's "Albanian Golgotha". Hungry, exhausted and unprepared for the winter,
constantly fighting against enemy clans, over two hundred thousand soldiers (including an entire
generation of recruits) and civilians remained for ever in the snow-covered mountain ranges of
Albania. The number of casualties would have been much higher if the Serbian army had not
been helped by the forces of the Lord of Central Albania, Essad-pasha Toptani: in the religious
and civil war between tribes and regional lords, he had received military and political support from
Serbia which, thus, worked against the Austro-Hungarian current among Albanian headmen. The
Serbian government, along with the Parliament and the army (around 140,000 people) was
evacuated to Corfu, civilians to French colonies and pupils and students to towns on the French
Riviera. When the Salonika front was opened in 1916, the army was transferred to the front
towards Macedonia, where it scored several important victories so soon as the first battles.(113)
In occupied Serbia, along with an attempt to denationalize the population, accompanied by the
ravaging of cultural goods (the plundering and destruction of valuables from libraries, archives
and monastery treasuries), the terror employed by the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian military
authorities against civilians intensified (internment, arrests, executions). In 1917, a large-scale
uprising broke out in the region of Kosovo and southern Serbia (the Toplica uprising -Toplicki
ustanak), which, despite initial successes, was crushed in blood, because the expected
breakthrough of the Salonika front did not take place. In occupied Montenegro, the Komitadji
movement developed favouring the idea of the two Serbian states' final unification. The
Montenegrin Committee for National Unification was formed in exile and it consisted of reputable
political leaders. Led by Andrija Radovic, the Montenegrin Comittee opposed King Nicholas
accusing him of being prepared, for the sake of the dynasty's interests, "once again to tear the
Serbs up" into two states, and to betray the Montenegrins' centuries-long desire for union with
Serbia.(114)
With the outbreak of the February revolution in Russia, and with the United States entering the
war, the positions of the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee concerning the way in
which to carry out the unification and to establish the future structure of the common state were
acceleratedly being brought closer. The circumstances were considered favourable for the
Yugoslav question to be brought before Europe and for the disputed issues regarding the
character of the future alliance to be settled. Prince-Regent Alexander, the Serbian government,
the leaders of the opposition and representatives of the Yugoslav Committee were present at the
debates on a joint declaration, which lasted for a month. Only the issues on which positions had
been co-ordinated entered the final text signed by Nikola Pasic and Ante Trumbic on July 20,
1917:

"The State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known as the Southern Slavs or Yugoslavs, will be
a free and independent Kingdom with a unified territory and unified citizenship. It will be a
constitutional, democratic and parliamentary monarchy ruled by the Karadjordjevic dynasty, which
has offered proof that in its thoughts and feelings it is not separated from the people and that it
places the people's will and freedom above everything... The Constitution which, after the signing
of a peace agreement, will be adopted by a Constituent Assembly, elected on the basis of the
general, equal, direct and secret voting right, will be the basis for the functioning of the state, the
source and last resort of all competences and rights, and the entire life in the State will be
regulated according to it. The Constitution will also give the people the possibility to develop their
energies in self-governing units bearing the hallmark of their natural, social and economic
circumstances. The Constitution is to be adopted in its entirety, by the Constituent Assembly, with
a numerically qualified majority. Both the Constitution and other laws that the Constituent
Assembly adopts come into effect when the King sanctions them".(115)
With a special statement, the Corfu Declaration was also accepted by the Montenegrin
Committee for National Unification. It was only King Nicholas's government in exile that rejected
the Corfu Declaration in a sharply worded communiqu.
The Yugoslav Committee, however, was not a representative body of the Croatian and Slovenian
nations. Most of its members, apart from the Serbs from Bosnia, were Croatian politicians from
Dalmatia (at the time separated from Croatia and under the direct jurisdiction of Vienna, with its
own Assembly), who considered the Yugoslav unification to be the best defense against Italian
pretensions towards Dalmatia. With financial support from the Serbian government, the Yugoslav
Committee successfully resolved all the questions, except the issue of the future Yugoslavia's
constitutional structure.
Disagreements with the Serbian government over a series of questions characterized the work of
the Yugoslav Committee's Croatian members. Frano Supilo went the furthest, fearing that Serbia
would agree, with its new ally - Italy - on a division of Dalmatia. Won over by the stands of two
British experts (Henry Wickham Steed and Robert William Seaton-Watson), that the focal point of
the future federal state should be Roman Catholic Croatia, in a memorandum to the British
government he asked for guarantees that the new state would not be of a predominantly Serbian
and Orthodox nature and that, before the creation of a unified state, all the forces that saw
Croatia as their cultural and political centre, would be brought together around Zagreb. Before his
death in 1917, Supilo once again turned to co-operation with the Serbian government.(116)
The Serbs had two opposed concepts: the first one, which, apart from Pasic, was advocated by
most of their political leaders, envisaged that the Serbian lands unite first, and, only then, that a
common state with the Croats and the Slovenes be created. The second, less wide-spread one,
advocated mostly by leaders of the Independents and part of the scholarly lite considered that
the state that should be created first and that its structure should be determined afterwards.
Some among them advocated federal reorganization of the future Yugoslav state. (117)
The Corfu declaration completely shook the positions of the representatives of the Slovenes and
Croats who tried to preserve Austria-Hungary. Even before it was adopted, noticing the mood
among certain layers of the population, Anton Korosec, the leader of the Slovenian People's
Party, underlined, in his report to the Austrian Prime Minister, that, in the south of the Monarchy,
the "Great Serbian idea is the strongest" and he proposed that it be opposed by the unification of
Slovenia and Croatia. At Korosec's initiative, in May 1917, the Yugoslav club of Croatian and
Slovenian members of the Viennese parliament adopted a declaration which, "on the basis of the
national principle and the 'Croatian State Right', called for the unification of all the lands in the
Monarchy inhabited by the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs into one independent state body that
would be free from the nobility of the other nations and based on democratic foundations, under
the sceptre of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, and it would invest all its efforts in order for this
request of its 'one-and-the-same nation' to be achieved." For an overwhelming majority of the
Serbs in the Monarchy, such a stand was not acceptable.(118)
Almost until the very end of the war, the Allies were against the break-up of Austria-Hungary,
which was the conditio sine qua non of Yugoslav unification. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia in
November 1917, made Allied circles fear that the disappearance of the Dual Monarchy would

create a vacuum in central and south-eastern Europe. The version which, in 1917, seemed more
probable to the Allies was the Dual Monarchy's federalization. With the disappearance of Russia
as a rival in the eastern question, Great Britain gradually started accepting Yugoslav unification
as a possible, but still distant option. At the beginning of 1918, the statements made by the British
Prime Minister and "the Fourteen points" made by American President Woodraw Wilson, pointed
to the fact that the Allies did not favour the disintegration of the Dual Monarchy. Autonomy was
envisaged for the Yugoslavs, while Serbia would get access to the sea through a narrow strip on
the Albanian coast.
Concerned because of the course of developments, Pasic tried to work out a "dis-annexation" of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, in case the possibility of Yugoslav unification fell through, but he
abandoned this intention when, in the following six months, a certain turnabout took place in the
Allies' stand and when announcements came of internal disarray on the territory of AustriaHungary.(119)
In the field, two divisions of volunteers, mostly Serbs, along with a small number of Croats,
Slovenes and Czechs, under Serbian command, were transferred to the Salonika front. A special
Yugoslav division was created of Yugoslav volunteers recruited primarily in the United States. The
first victories had been scored already in the autumn of 1916, but a joint Allied offensive was not
carried out before September 1918. Within the bloc of Allied forces, Serbian troops, under French
supreme command, carried out a mighty breakthrough on the front, broke the Bulgarian lines
and, in a few weeks, in a continuous march, they liberated and reinstated the authorities in
Serbia. Kaiser Wilhelm II was furious because of the Serbian successes. After the successful
Serbian breakthrough, in a telegram to the Bulgarian king, he wrote: "Disgraceful, 62,000 Serbs
decided the war".(120)
The Serbian and Allied successes on the Salonika front intensified the already existing antiHabsburg mood within the borders of Austria-Hungary. Already in February 1918, the fleet in the
Bay of Kotor (today's Montenegro) rebelled against the Emperor, as did a Slovenian regiment in
May. In Croatia-Slavonia and Bosnia, a movement called the Green Cadre was rapidly created of
military fugitives. Its followers, mostly Croats and Serbs spreading an anti-war mood from their
hide-outs in forests, attacked plundered and burned the estates of large landholders, seeking
social justice and national rights. By the end of 1918, the numerous well-armed units of the Green
Cadre in Bosnia, Croatia and Slavonia which numbered tens of thousands of men dominate
almost the entire countryside.(121)

THE CREATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

At the end of October 1918, the severance of all state and legal ties with Austria-Hungary was
ceremonially proclaimed in Zagreb, and a National Council formed ad hoc. It tried to create, from
the Yugoslav territories in the former Monarchy, a separate State of the Slovenians, Croats and
Serbs which, however, was not internationally recognized by the Allies and it did not receive the
people's support. The National Council's calls for mobilization encountered no response. From
Zagreb, the National Council authorized the Yugoslav Committee to represent it abroad. (122)
At the beginning of November 1918, in Geneva negotiations were conducted with representatives
of Serbia on the form of the future common state which, in accordance with the Croats' request,
was to be organized according to the dual, Austro-Hungarian model. Faced with the possibility of
the opposition concluding an agreement with the National Council and the Yugoslav Committee
without him, and being suspicious about the intentions of Prince-Regent Alexander to take into
his own hands the resolution of the issue of unification, Pasic unwillingly accepted not only the
agreement on a dual model for the new state, but also the provision by which the country's
monarchist character was not specifically stated. The Geneva agreement caused a government
crisis: several ministers submitted their resignations saying that the agreement represented the
achievement of the Yugoslav politicians' intention "to separate the Serbs of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Srem and Slavonia, Dalmatia and Lika, Backa and Banat and Baranja, from Serbia

and then to have them form a front against Serbia." (123) Pasic submitted the resignation of the
entire government, thus annulling the agreement, and afterwards, at the initiative of its Serbian
members, the National Council in Zagreb which, like the Yugoslav Committee, was not a
representative body of the Slovenes, Serbs and Croats from the territory of the former Monarchy,
also renounced the agreement. The Allies refused to recognize the Zagreb National Council as a
partner at the Peace Conference: this dispute was ironed out much later by Serbian diplomacy
when Ante Trumbic was appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the common, interim
government.
The main obstacle to the creation of a common Yugoslav state was the Treaty of London of 1915,
which gave Dalmatia to Italy as compensation for entering the war on the side of the Entente
Powers. While the Italians insisted on the fulfilment of the agreement, Serbia, along with the
Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary, referred to the right to self-determination which, along with other
conditions, President Woodrow Wilson accepted several months after proclaiming his Fourteen
Points.(124)
In the field, the course of developments surpassed diplomatic activities. In contrast to Zagreb, on
November 4th, the National Council of Sarajevo called on the Serbian army to enter Bosnia. Two
days later, the second Serbian army led by Field-Marshal (vojvoda) Stepa Stepanovic
ceremonially entered Sarajevo as liberators. In November 1918, the departments and counties of
Bosnia and Herzegovina commenced proclaiming the unification of Bosnian municipalities and
local government areas with Serbia: 42 out of 54 municipalities (Banja Luka, Prijedor, Bihac,
Kljuc, Jajce, Zvornik, Bijeljina, Visegrad, Gacko, Nevesinje, Rogatica etc.) proclaimed direct
unification with Belgrade by the 3rd of December 1918 when news of the proclamation of the
united Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on the 1st December brought this spontaneous
activity to an end.(125)
On November 25th, the Great National Assembly of Vojvodina proclaimed the unification of
Banat, Backa and Baranja with Serbia, and expressed the people's willingness to enter the future
Yugoslav state. The Assembly of Srem adopted similar conclusions on the preceding day. In
Podgorica on November 26th, the newly elected Montenegrin Parliament decided to overthrow
the Petrovic-Njegos dynasty and, like Vojvodina, proclaimed unconditional unification with Serbia
under the Karadjordjevic dynasty.
Dalmatia, the centre of the movement for Yugoslav unification threatened the National Council in
Zagreb, on November 16th, that it would directly unite with Serbia, in five days' time, if Croatia
continued to hesitate to enter the common state. Zagreb's last, unsuccessful attempt to impose
the dual form of unification was made on November 24th when "the unification on the one hand of
the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, formed on the entire uninterrupted Yugoslav territory of
the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, with on the other the kingdoms of Serbia and
Montenegro" was proclaimed. A delegation of 28 members rushed from Zagreb to Belgrade to
convey the decision to the Serbian Regent Alexander. Before the members of the Zagreb
delegation, in his response, the Prince-Regent ceremonially "proclaimed, in the name of H. M.
King Peter, the unification of Serbia with the lands of the State of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
into a unified Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes", and stressed that this act represented
"the final realization of what the best sons of our blood, of all three religions, of all the three
names, on both sides of the Danube, Sava and Drina, started preparing already during the rule of
my grandfather Prince Alexander of blessed memory and Prince Michael SObrenovicC."(126)
The unification was welcomed in all the regions. An attempt at offering armed resistance was
made only in Zagreb where several dozen soldiers, followers of the National Council, provoked
clashes in which 15 people were killed. Behind the unrest stood Italy which, through Stjepan
Radic, the leader of the Croatian People's Peasant party tried to prevent the unification and
proclaim an independent Croatian republic. Radic was preparing a petition for the creation of an
independent Croatia, claiming that he had collected as many as 200,000 signatures, but the
Allies' reports confirmed that there was no great resistance to the unification in Croatia. A French
emissary wrote that "organized support for Radic is only a myth" and that the attempts at
organizing a resistance had turned into a farce. The exact percentage of the population that
readily accepted the unification with Serbia, apart from the 44 percent Serbs in Bosnia and the 25
percent Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia, was not determined. The exact percentage of the Roman

Catholic population (Croats and Slovenians) who approved of the unification (except for Dalmatia
where, according to Austro-Hungarian estimates, almost 100 percent of the population was in
favour of the unification with Serbia) was not determined. According to an American report, the
proclamation of unification in Belgrade was accepted without resistance in Slovenia: "It seems
that the Slovenes are taking as something natural the necessity to preserve and consolidate the
unification."(127)
Another attempt at challenging the new state took place in January 1919: Followers of ousted
King Nicholas, several thousand of them, with the financial support of Italian officers who armed
them unsuccessfully tried to provoke a general rebellion in Montenegro and to restore the
Petrovic-Njegos dynasty. Without greater support from the people, the rebellion was soon
crushed, and the rebels surrendered.
The unification itself would have been of no significance if the creation of the Yugoslav state had
not been of exceptional geopolitical importance in the new order that had been created in Europe
under the leadership of France and Great Britain. At first, Yugoslavia represented a barrier to
Germanic domination in the south-east of Europe. Then, it was part of a sanitary cordon towards
Soviet Russia, which had tried, throughout the previous century, to get through to the
Mediterranean. The mixed religious and national composition of the Yugoslav state also
eliminated the fear of British experts on the Balkans (Robert Seaton-Watson) that, after the
disappearance of Austria-Hungary, the creation of a big, united Serbian state, would represent a
latent danger of Russia dominating the region in the future, due to its historical ties and kindred
Orthodox and Slavonic characteristics. The Yugoslav unification would not have been possible
without the consent of democratic Europe, which confirmed its existence at the Peace
Conference in Paris.(128)
From the Serbian point of view, the price of the unification was extremely high: "After the
unification in 1918, the Serbian national movement which, historically speaking, invested the
greatest energy in its realization, is moving from a period of offensiveness towards a period of
defensiveness. Weakened and historically exhausted, it is unable to build new towers on the
foundations laid in 1918. All the energy is being spent on defending the set foundations. Apart
from the fact that the struggle for a free farming estate is no longer the prime mover of social
progress, the main reason for this stagnation is the loss of the Serbian population's biological
basis. It is considered that 1,900,000 people died in the Yugoslav region during World War I.
Serbia alone suffered 65.63 percent of all the losses. Estimates differ, and according to the official
report for the Peace Conference in Versailles, Serbia lost 1,247,000 people - 845,000 civilians
and 402,000 soldiers. Within its old borders (before 1912) Serbia had 2,900,000 inhabitants,
which means that it lost 43 percent of its overall population. In European history, such a
demographic collapse was registered only in German and western Slavonic provinces at the time
of the Thirty Years' war (1618-1648). It took several centuries for that population to be renewed,
but in the meantime, entire provinces changed their ethnic character. Due to its enormous losses
in the war, pre-war Serbia had become a passive migrational region into which streams of
Orthodox immigrants from neighbouring provinces are pouring. Room has been left for the growth
of the population belonging to the Islamic religion which, in the past, kept experiencing a
demographic decline, everywhere except in Kosovo. The unification in 1918 was a Pyrrhic victory
for the Serbian nation (...) In the war, Montenegro lost 63,000 people - one quarter of its overall
population. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 360,000 people, or 19 percent of the population was lost.
Children up to ten years of age account for almost a third of this percentage, because of which
the demographic loss will be felt in the following decades more than right after the war in 1918".
(129)
NOTES
1) G. Yakchitch, L'Europe et la rsurrection de la Serbie (1804-1834), Paris, Hachette 1907.
2) Cf. S.K.Pavlowitch, Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Serbia, 1837-1839: the Mission of Colonel
Hodges, Paris Mouton 1961.
3) Cf. D. MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin. A Balkan Bismarck, Boulder, Colorado, 1987.

4) M. Handelsman, "La question d'Orient et la politique du prince Czartoryski aprs 1840", in:
Sances et travaux de l'Acadmie des sciences morales et politiques, Paris 1929, pp. 394-409.
5) D. Stranjakovic, Kako je postalo Garasaninovo "Nacertanije", Belgrade, Spomenik SKA, vol
XCI 1939, pp. 64-115.
6) M. Ekmecic, Ustanak u Bosni 1875-1878, Sarajevo, Veselin Maslesa 1960, pp. 41-46.
7) Cf. D. Stranjakovic, Srbija, Pijemont Juznih Slovena 1844-1853, Belgrade 1932, idem,
"Politicka propaganda Srbije u juznoslovenskim pokrajinama (1844-1858)", Glasnik Istorijskog
drustva u Novom Sadu, vol IX, pp. 155-179.
8) G. Jaksic, V. J. Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije za vlade kneza Mihaila. Prvi Balkanski savez,
Belgrade, Istorijski institut, 1963.
9) V. J. Vuckovic, Politicka akcija Srbije u juznoslovenskim pokrajinama Habsburske monarhije,
Belgrade, SANU, 1965, p. 274.
10) Ibid.
11) Cf. D. Djordjevic, "Projects for the federation of South-East Europe in the 1860s and 1870s",
Balcanica, vol I (1970), pp. 118-149.
12) Narodna Radikalna stranka. Program, Statuti, Belgrade, 1882.
13) Videlo, Belgrade, January 2/14 1880.
14) Srpska nezavisnost, Belgrade, N 1, October 1/13 1881.
15) Samostalna radikalna stranka. Nacela, Program. Statut. Nasa Rec, Belgrade 1905.
16) Program Narodne stranke u Crnoj Gori, Dubrovnik, Srpska dubrovacka stamparija, 1907. All
party programs are reprinted in: V.Krestic-R.Ljusic, Programi i statuti srpskih politickih stranaka
do 1918. godine, Belgrade, Knjizevne novine 1991.
17) M. Ekmecic, Ustanak u Bosni 1878-1878, p. 231.
18) Cf. "Petar Mrkonjic (Petar Karadjordjevic),Dnevni zapisci jednog ustasa o bosanskohercegovackom ustanku 1875-1876", edited by M.Stevcic and M.Radevic, in: Miscellanea,
Belgrade, vol VII(1980), pp 9-149.
19) R.W.Seaton Watson, The Southern Slav Question and the Hapsburg Monarchy, New York,
Howard Fertig 1969, Appendix XVII, p.420
20) M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II, p.314-315.
21) D. MacKenzie, The Serbs and the Russian Panslavism 1875-1878, Ithaca N.Y., 1967.
22) Cf. M. D. Stojanovic, The Great Powers and the Balkans 1875-1878, Cambridge, 1939, pp.
209-233.
23) A. Evans, Illyirian Letters. A Revised Selection of Correspondance from the Illyrian Provinces
of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Albania, Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, adressed to the Manchester
Guardian, London 1878, pp. 43-55.
24) D. T. Batakovic, The Kosovo Chronicles, Belgrade, Plato 1992, pp.75-82.
25) V. Stojancevic, Srbija i Bugarska od Sanstefanskog mira do Berlinskog kongresa, Belgrade,
Istorijski institut 1986, pp. 18-56.
26) M. Ekmecic, Ustanak u Bosni 1875-1878, p. 290.
27) V. Corovic, Borba za nezavisnost Balkana, Belgrade, Balkanski institut 1938, p.56.
28) Cf. G.Jaksic, Bosna i Hercegovina na Berlinskom kongresu, 1878, Belgrade, SAN, 1955.
29) By Article II of the Secret Convention Serbia undertook the obligation "not to permit any
political, religious or other intrigue which might be directed from her territory against the Austo-

Hungarian Monarchy, including Bosnia, Herzegovina and the Sandjak of Novi Pazar." The article
IV of the same Convention obliged Belgrade to act so that "without previous agreement with
Austria-Hungary, Serbia shall not negociate nor conclude any political treaty with any other
Power." Only by Article VIII was it allowed to expand such that if "Serbia should be in a position to
expand in the direction of her southern frontiers (with the exception of the Sandjak of Novi Pazar),
Austria-Hungary will not opose this, and will intervene with the other Powers to incline them to
adopt an attutude favourable to Serbia." In 1889 when the Convention was renewed, Article VIII
was made more precise: instead of "her southern frontiers", it stated explicitly "in the direction of
the Vardar valley, and added that the expansion was to extend "as far as circumstances
permitted". (Cf. G. Jaksic, "Istorija Tajne Konvencije", in: Arhiv za pravne i drustvene nauke, vol
IX, No 3, 1924, pp. 270-274).
30) V.Corovic, Borba za nezavisnost Balkana, p. 92.
31) Cf. M. Milovanovic, Nasa spoljna politika, Belgrade 1894.
32) Cf. M. St. Protic, Radikali u Srbiji.Ideje i pokret 1881-1903, Belgrade, Dosije -Balkanoloski
institut 1991.
33) Cf. H. D. Schanderl, Die Albanienpolitik sterreich Ungarns und Italiens 1877-1908,
Wiesbaden, O.Harassowitz 1971; Documents diplomatiques franais, 2e srie, vol II, p. 672.
34) Austro-Hungarian documentation quoted in: M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918,
vol II, pp. 451-455.
35) Istorija srpskog naroda, vol V/1, Belgrade, Srpska knjizevna zadruga 1981, pp. 560-565.
36) H. Kapidzic, Hercegovacki ustanak 1882.godine, Sarajevo, Veselin Maslesa 1973
37) T. Kraljacic, Kalajev rezim u Bosni i Hercegovini 1882-1903, Sarajevo, Veselin Maslesa 1987,
pp. 214-272. Cf. also B.Kallay, Geschichte den Serben von den Altesten Zeiten bis 1815, Wien
1878, p. 17.
38) M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II, pp. 418-420.
39) S. Kurtovic, O nacionalizovanju Muslimana, Sarajevo 1914; Cf. R. J. Donia, Islam under the
Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina 1878-1914, Boulder Colorado 1980.
40) Cf. V. Krestic, Istorija Srba u Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji 1848-1914, Belgrade, Politika 1992, p. 85
passim.
41) Ibid., 291 passim
42) M. S. Spalatin, "The Croatian Nationalism of Ante Starcevic 1845-1871", The Journal of
Croatian Studies, vol 16 (1975), pp. 105-146.
43) Cf. more details in: M.Artukovic, Ideologija srpsko-hrvatskih sporova, "Srbobran" 1884-1902,
Zagreb, Naprijed 1991.
44) I. Krsnjavi, Zapisi iza kulisa hrvatske politike, vol II, Zagreb, Globus 1986, p. 212.
45) F. Supilo, Politika u Hrvatskoj, Zagreb 1953, pp.297-298.
46) Cf. R. Lovrencic, Geneza "novog kursa" u Hrvatskoj, Zagreb 1972.
47) M. Gross, Vladavina Hrvatsko-srpske koalicije, 1906-1907, Belgrade, Institut drustvenih
nauka, 1960, pp. 25-28.Istorija srpskog naroda, vol. VI, t. 1, pp. 432-439.
48) Cf. W. Vucinich, Serbia Between East and West. The Events of 1903-1908, Stanford
University Press, Stanfor Ca. 1954, pp. 60-74; D.R.Zivojinovic, Kralj Petar I Karadjordjevic, vol II,
Belgrade, BIGZ 1988.
49) Spomenica Nikole P.Pasica, Beograd 1936, p. 175.
50) D. Djordjevic, "Srbija i Balkan na pocetku XX veka", dans: Jugoslovenski narodi pred Prvi
svetski rat, SANU, Belgrade, SANU 1967, pp. 207-230. Cf. also V. Corovic, Odnosi Srbije i

Austro-Ugarske u XX veku, Beograd 1936; A. Mitrovic, Prodor na Balkan. Srbija u planovima

Austro-Ugarske i Nemacke 1908-1918, Belgrade, Nolit 1981, p. 75 passim.
51) D. Djordjevic, "Austro-srpski sukob oko projekta Novopazarske zeleznice", Istorijski casopis,
vol VII (1967), pp. 213-248; idem, "Projekt jadranske zeleznice u Srbiji 1896-1912", Istorijski
glasnik, vol 3-4 (1956), pp. 3-35.
52) D. Jankovic, "Jugoslovenstvo u Srbiji 1903-1912", Anali Pravnog fakulteta u Beogradu, vol:
XVII (1969), pp. 523-535.
53) Cf. D. Djordjevic, Carinski rat Srbije i Austro-Ugarske (1906-1911), Belgrade, Istorijski institut,
1962.
54) A.Mitrovic, Prodor na Balkan. Srbija u planovima Austro-Ugarske i Nemacke 1908-1918, pp.
61-174.
55) M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol. II, p.590.
56) Cf. M. Nintchitch, La crise bosniaque (1908-1909) et les puissances europennes, vol I-II,
Paris, A. Costes 1937; B. Schmidt, The Annexatiuon of Bosnia 1908-1909, Cambridge University
Press, 1937.
57) Narodna Odbrana, Belgrade 1991; B.Bogic, Ciljevi Narodne Odbrane, Belgrade 1938;
Vladimir Corovic, Odnosi Srbije i Austro-Ugarske u XX veku, pp. 540 passim
58) Luka Vukcevic, Crna Gora u Bosansko-hercegovackoj krizi (1908-1909), Titograd 1985, p.
134 passim.
59) Milorad Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II, p. 607.
60) J. Sidak, M. Gross, I. Karaman, D. Sepic, Povijest hrvatskog naroda 1860-1914, p. 247
passim; T. G. Massaryk, Der Agramer Hochverratsprozess und die annexion von Bosnien und
Herzegovina, Wien 1909; M. Chultz, "L'affaire Friedjung", Revue historique de la guerre
mondiale, vol XV (1937).
61) Cf. St. Radic, Zivo hrvatsko pravo na Bosnu i Hercegovinu, Zagreb 1908; F. Sisic, HercegBosna prigodom aneksije. Geografsko - etnografsko-historicna i drzavno-pravna razmatranja,
Zagreb 1908.
62) Istorija srpskog naroda, vol. VI/1, Belgrade 1981, pp. 169-170.
63) M. Nintchitch, op. cit; vol II, p. 324-325.
64) D. Djordjevic, "The Influence of the Italian Risorgimento on Serbian Policy during the 19081909 Annexation Crisis", Balcanica III (1972), pp. 345-346.
65) Cf. Livres Jaunes. Affaires de Macdoine 1902-1907, Ministre des affaires etrangres, Paris
1907; Dj. Slijepcevic, The Macedonian question. The Struggle for Southern Serbia, Chicago
1960; D. Dakin, The Greek Strugle in Macedonia 1897-1913, Thessaloniki 1966; S. Skendi, The
Albanian National Awekening 1878-1912, Princeton 1967.
66) J. Cvijic, Promatranja o etnografiji Makedonskih Slovena, Beograd 1906, pp. 9-10.
67) Cf. D. Drossos, La fondation de l'alliance balkanique, Athnes 1929; E. C. Helmreich, The
Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars 1912-1913, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., 1938; A.
Rossos, Russia and the Balkans. Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy 1908-1914,
Toronto 1981, pp. 40-68.
68) D. T. Batakovic, The Kosovo Chronicles, p. 176.
69) Cf. D. Djordjevic, Izlazak Srbije na Jadransko more i Konferencija ambasadora u Londonu
1912-1913, Belgrade 1956; M.Vojvodic, Skadarska kriza 1913, Belgrade, Zavod za izdavanje
udzbenika 1970; Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes ad Conduct of
the Balkan Wars, Washington, Carnegie Endowment 1914.

70) Cf. Bela. K. Kiraly et Dimitrije Djordjevic (ed.), East Central European Society and the Balkan
Wars, War and Society in East Central Europe, vol. XVIII, Boulder Colorado, 1986.
71) V. Novak, Le Roi Alexandre Ier Karageorgevitch et la formation de l'unit nationale, Paris,
Editions des "Amitis franco-yougoslaves" 1935, p. 40-41.
72) N. Rakocevic, Odnosi Crne Gore i Srbije 1908-1914, Cetinje, Obod 1985.
73) Cf. D. Djordjevic, "The Role of the Military in the Balkans in the Nineteenth Century", in: Der
Berliner Kongress von 1878, Wiesbaden 1982, pp. 317-347;
74) D.MacKenzie, Apis: The Congenial Conspirator. The Life of Colonel Dragutin T. Dimitrijevic,
Boulder Colorado 1989.
75) PRO, FO, 371/2098, N 12, Belgrade, January 17, 1914.
76) D. T. Batakovic, "Sukob vojnih i civilnih vlasti u Srbiji u prolece 1914", Istorijski casopis XIXXXX (1982-1983), pp.477-491.
77) V. Dedijer, La route de Sarajevo, Paris, Gallimard 1969.
78) PRO FO, 371/1899, N 32744; A.Mitrovic, Prodor na Balkan . Srbija u planovima AustroUgarske i Nemacke 1908-1918, p. 105.
79) Osterreich Ungarns Aussenpolitik vom der bosnischen Krise 1908 bis zum Kriegsausbruch
1914, Wien 1930, vol VIII, p. 436.
80) PRO FO 371/2169, N 33849; I. Geiss, Juli 1914. Die Europaische Krise und der Ausbruch
des Ersten Weltkriegs. Dokumente, Munchen 1965, pp. 89-115.
81) M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II, p. 691-694.
82) N. Rakocevic, Crna Gora u Prvom svjetskom ratu, Cetinje, Obod, 1968, p. 21.
83) M. P. Djordjevic, Srbija i Jugosloveni za vreme rata 1914-1918, Belgrade, Sveslovenska
knjizara 1922, p. 15.
84) R. A. Reis, Rapport sur les atrocits commises par les troupes austro-hongroises pendant le
premiere invasion de la Serbie, Paris 1919.
85) N. Stojanovic, Srbija i Jugoslovensko ujedinjenje, Belgrade 1939, pp. 19-21.
86) K. Sturzenegger, La Serbie en guerre 1914-1915, Paris 1916.
87) M. Ekmecic, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914-1918, Belgrade, Politika, 1992, p. 90.
88) Quotations taken from: D. Jankovic, Srbija i jugoslovensko pitanje 1914-1915, Belgrade
Institut za savremenu istoriju 1973, pp. 90-115.
89) V. Corovic, Crna knjiga.Patnje Srba Bosne i Hercegovine za vreme svetskog rata 1914-1918,
Sarajevo 1920, pp. 115-143; A. Mitrovic, Srbija u Prvom svetskom ratu, Srpska knjizevna
zadruga, Belgrade 1984, pp. 101-121.
90) M. Ekmecic, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914., 151-153.
91) I. Bozic (ed.), Istorija Jugoslavije, Belgrade,Prosveta 1972, pp. 394-396.
92) V. Corovic, Crna knjiga, pp. 125-130
93) Ibid., 131-134.
94) Cf. Veleizdajnicki proces u Banjaluci, Banja Luka 1987.
95) D. Jankovic, Srbija i jugoslovensko pitanje 1914-1915, p.126.
96) I. Bozic (ed), Istorija Jugoslavije, p. 384.
97) D. Jankovic, Srbija i jugoslovensko pitanje 1914-1915, p. 132.

98) D. R. Zivojinovic, Vatikan, Srbija i stvaranje jugoslovenske drzave 1914-1920, Belgrade, Nolit,
1980, p. 25 passim.
99) Sarajevski list, Sarajevo, December 1 and 18, 1914.
100) Cf. J. Cvijic, La pninsule balkanique.La geographie humain, Paris, A.Colin 1918;
Lj.Trgovcevic, Naucnici Srbije i stvaranje jugoslovenske drzave 1914-1918, Narodna kniga,
Belgrade 1986, 20 passim ; M.Ekmecic, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914., pp. 178-195.
101) M. Ekmecic, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914., pp. 198-207, 315-342.
102) M. Ekmecic, "Serbian War Aims", in: D.Djordjevic (ed.) The Creation of Yugoslavia 19141918, Clio Books, Santa Barbara, Oxford 1980, p. 21-23.
103) Srpske novine, Nis, N 282, November 25/ December
8, 1914.
104) M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol. II, p. 725.
105) Pijemont, N 169, 172, 174, 183, 198, 252, June-July 1914.
106) Cf. M. Z. Zivanovic, Solunski proces 1917, Beograd SAN, 1957; D. MacKenzie, Apis. The
Congenial Conspirator, pp. 263-296.
107) N. Popovic, Odnosi Srbije i Rusije u Prvom svetskom ratu, Belgrade, Narodna knjiga, 1977,
pp. 34-41..
108) Cf. M. Marjanovic, Londonski ugovor iz godine 1915, Zagreb 1960.
109) A.Mitrovic, Prodor na Balkan, pp.197-211.
110) G. Stokes, "The Role of the Yugoslav Committee in the formation of Yugoslavia", in: D.
Djordjevic (ed.) The Creation of Yugoslavia 1914-1918, pp. 51-67.
111) A. Mitrovic, Srbija u Prvom svetskom ratu, pp. 195-222.
112) Ibid., pp. 243-252.
113) Ibid., pp. 312-315.
114) Cf. N. Rakocevic, Crna Gora u Prvom svjetskom ratu, Cetinje, Obod, 1968.
115) F. Sisic, Dokumenti o postanku Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca 1914-1920, Zagreb,
Matica Hrvatska, 1920, pp. 96-99.
116) D. Sepic, Pisma i memorandumi Frana Supila (1914-1917), SANU, Belgrade 1967, pp. 4345, 106-107, 119-121, Cf. M. Paulova, Jugoslavenski odbor (Povijest jugoslavenske emigracije za
svjetskog rata od 1914-1918), Zagreb 1925.
117) Cf. D. Jankovic, Jugoslovensko pitanje i Krfska deklaracija 1917. godine, Beograd, Institut
za savremenu istoriju, 1967.
118) F. Sisic, Dokumenti, p. 94; V.Corovic, Istorija Srba, vol III, BIGZ, Belgrade 1989, p. 229.
119) Cf. Dj. Dj. Stankovic, Nikola Pasic, saveznici i stvaranje Jugoslavije, Belgrade, Nolit 1984,
pp. 178-215,
120) P. Opacic, Solunska ofanziva 1918, Belgrade, Knjizevne novine 1983. Cf. also L. Cordier,
Victoire clair en Orient 15-29 septembre 1918, Union sociale de l Haute Auvergne, Aurillac 1968.
121) Cf. R. G. Plaschka, H.Haselsteiner, A.Suppan, Innere Front. Militarassistenz, Widerstand
und Umsturz in der Donaumonarchie 1918, Erster Band: Zwichen Streik und Meuterei, Wien
1974, p. 118 passim.
122) B. Krizman, Raspad Austro-Ugarske i stvaranje jugoslavenske drzave, Skolska knjiga,
Zagreb 1977, pp.40-67.

123) D. Jankovic, "Zenevska konferencija o stvaranju jugoslovenske zajednice 1918", Istorija XX

veka, vol 5 (1963), pp. 225-227. Quotation: M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II,
p. 815.
124) Cf. D. R. Zivojinovic, America, Italy and the Birth of Yugoslavia (1917-1919), Boulder
Colorado 1972.
125) Istorija srpskog naroda, vol VI, t.2, pp. 251-254. Cf. H. Kapidzic, "Pokusaj Ujedinjenja Bosne
i Hercegovine sa Srbijom u novembru 1918", in: Bosna i Hercegovina u vrijeme austro-ugarske
uprave, Sarajevo 1968.
126) B. Krizman, op. cit., 169-175; A. Mitrovic, Srbija u Prvom svetskom ratu, p. 555-569.
127) M. Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II, pp.830-832.
128) Cf. I. J. Lederer, Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference. A Story in Frontier Making, Yale
Univeristy Press, London & New Haven 1963; A. Mitrovic, Jugoslavija na Konferencija mira u
Parizu 1919-1920, Belgrade, Zavod za izdavanje udzbenika 1970.
129) Quoted from: M.Ekmecic, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, vol II, p. 838.
Previously published in: Dialogue #10, Paris 1994. pp. 25-73