SERBIA'S SITUATION AND RESOURCES

The first great campaign on the southeastern battle grounds of the Great War began on July 27, 1914, when the Austrian troops undertook their first invasion of Serbia. They crossed the Serbian border at Mitrovitza, about fifty miles northwest of Belgrade, driving the Serbians before them. The first real hostilities of the war opened with the bombardment of Belgrade by the Austrians on July 29, 1914—six days before the beginning of the campaigns on the western battle fields.

We are now familiar with the theatre of war as described in the preceding chapters, and will now follow the first Austrian armies into Serbia.

A stubborn fight excites the admiration of all observers, regardless of the moral qualities of the combatants. So, wherever our sympathies may lie, considering the war as a whole, there can be no doubt that the defense which the Serbians made against the first efforts of the Austrians to invade their country will stand out in the early history of the war as one of the most brilliant episodes of that period of the general struggle. Like a mighty tidal wave from the ocean the Austrian hosts swept over the Serbian frontier in three furious successive onslaughts, only to be beaten back each time. Naturally, there were material and moral causes, aside from the mere valor of the Serbians, which combined to create this disaster for the Austrian forces, but enough of the human element enters into the military activities of these campaigns to make them easily the most picturesque of the early period of the war.

Before entering into a description of the actual events in 1914, it is well to consider the forces engaged. From a material point of view the Serbians entered into these campaigns greatly handicapped. They had lately been through two wars. In the First Balkan War they had not, it is true, been severely tested; the weight of the fighting had been borne by the Bulgarians in Thrace. The real test, and the great losses, came only with the second war, when the Serbian army threw every fiber of its strength against the Bulgarians in the Battle of the Bregalnitza, one of the most stubborn struggles in military history. The result was a Serbian victory, but it was very far from being a decisive and conclusive victory. The Bulgarians were forced back some fifteen miles into their own territory, but had it not been for the intervention of Rumania there can be no doubt that the Serbs would have entered Sofia. Here it was that the Serbians lost 7,000 killed and 30,000 wounded of their best men, as against 5,000 killed and 18,000 wounded in the whole war with Turkey; a total loss that was bound to be felt a few months later when the struggle was to be against so powerful an adversary as Austria-Hungary. The two previous wars had, without exaggeration, deprived the Serbian fighting forces of one-tenth their number—a tenth that was of the very best of first-line troops.

Added to this was another serious handicap, possibly even more serious. Serbia had, indeed, emerged victorious from the two wars, with a large stretch of conquered territory at her backdoor. But this acquired territory, practically all of Macedonia that had not gone to Greece, was peopled by Serbs. For twenty-five years these Macedonians had been organized into revolutionary fighting bands, the "Macedonian Committee" for the liberation of Macedonia and Albania from the Turks, and had struggled, not only against the Turks, but against foreign armed bands of propagandists. Some eight years subsequently to the foundation of the Macedonian Committee of native origin, the Bulgars founded in 1893 their committee which was called the Macedo-Adrianople Committee. During the First Balkan War these experienced guerrilla fighters were valuable allies to the Serbian forces operating against the Turks.

But even before the First Balkan War the Serbians had very distinctly given the Macedonians to understand that they were to remain Serbian subjects. This action on their part had had not a little to do with rousing the Bulgarians to precipitate the Second Balkan War. And when finally Serbia conquered all this territory, confirmed to her down to Doiran by the treaty of Bucharest, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria began at once a fiery anti-Serb propaganda throughout the world, and took measures through provocatory agents and Bulgar bands crossing from Bulgaria into Macedonia to create disturbances.

When the Great War broke out in July, 1914, this Bulgarian activity in Serb Macedonia grew more intense. Thus it was that when the Austrians attacked the Serbians on their front the Serbians had still to detach enough of their forces to guard the Serbo-Bulgar border to prevent the crossing into Serb Macedonia of Bulgar bands. And added to this was the danger from Bulgaria herself. The Serbians knew that the opportune moment had only to come and Bulgaria, too, would hurl herself on the Serbian eastern flank. Thus another large percentage of the Serbian fighting forces had also to be stationed along the Bulgarian frontier to guard against possible attack from that quarter.

Offsetting these handicaps, however, and more than equalizing them, was the moral strength of the Serbian fighting units. They had just emerged through two victorious wars; they had triumphed so completely that there was small wonder if the Serbian farmers had come to believe themselves invincible and their leaders infallible. Practically every man in the Serbian army was a seasoned veteran; he had had not only his baptism of fire, but he had been through some of the bloodiest battles of modern times. He had got over his first fright; he was in that state of mind where danger and bloodshed no longer inspired either fear or horror. And even the warlike savage trembles on entering his first battle. Finally, he was now defending his country, his home, his very fireside and his family against foreign invasion. And it is generally admitted that a man fighting in that situation is equal to two invaders, all other things being equal.

The Serb army opposing the Austrian invasions was composed of ten divisions of the First Ban and five divisions of the Second Ban. Five of the divisions of the First Ban and the five of the Second came from the kingdom as it was prior to the two Balkan wars, but the second five divisions of the First Ban were new creations recruited from Serb Macedonia.

The principles on which the organization of the Serbian army was based were very simple. The former kingdom was divided into five territorial divisional districts—Nish, Valievo, Belgrade, Kragujevatz, and Zaitchar. Each of these territorial divisional districts was subdivided into four regimental recruiting districts, each of which provided one infantry regiment of four battalions and one depot battalion. The battalion numbered about a thousand men, so that the war strength of the divisional infantry amounted to, about 16,000 men. Attached to each division was a regiment of artillery, consisting of three groups of three 6-gun batteries; in all, 54 guns. The divisional cavalry, existing only in war time, consisted of a regiment of four squadrons, from men and horses previously registered. To each division was also attached its own technical and administrative units, engineers, and supply column, and its total strength amounted to 23,000 officers and men of first-line troops.

In addition to these five divisions of the First Ban, there was also a regiment of mountain artillery, made up of six batteries, six howitzer batteries and two battalions of fortress artillery. Then there was a separate cavalry division composed of two brigades, each of two regiments. Its war strength was 80 officers and 3,200 men. Attached to the cavalry division were two horse artillery batteries, of eight guns each. All told, this first-line army numbered about 200,000, with about 5,200 sabers and 330 guns.

The Second Ban, or reserve, much inferior in armament to the first line, brought the strength up to about 280,000 men. But this figure is probably an underestimate. Volunteers were enrolled in immense numbers. Some of them were men who had been exempted in the first conscription; others were Serbs from Austrian territory. The United States sent back thousands of Austrian and Macedonian Serbs who had emigrated there. It is probable, therefore, that the total strength of the Serbian forces shortly after the war broke out was at least 280,000, if not a trifle more. To this must be added the Montenegrin army which, though operating in a separate field, contributed its share in driving the Austrians back; another 40,000 men of first-class fighting ability and experience.

Finally, there was the third reserve, another 50,000 men, but they could be used for fighting only in the gravest emergency.

The infantry of the First Ban was armed with excellent Mauser rifles, caliber 7 mm., model 1899. The Second Ban carried a Mauser, the old single loader, to which a magazine was fitted in the Serbian arsenals; while the Third Ban had the old single-loader Berdan rifle. The machine gun carried was the Maxim, of the same caliber as the new Mauser.

In artillery the Serbians were perhaps not so well off. Their cannons had seen a great deal of service in the Balkan wars, and the larger a piece of artillery the more limited is the number of rounds it can fire. It is extremely doubtful that there had been time to replace many of these worn-out pieces.

The field gun was of French make; it was a 3-inch quick firer with a maximum range for shrapnel of 6,000 yards, a little over 3-½ miles. The Second Ban was armed with old De Bange guns of 8 cm. caliber. The heavy guns, which had done much service outside Adrianople, were of Creuzot make, and included 24 howitzers of 15 cm. and some mortars of 24 cm. As for the aviation wing, there was none.

The Serbian army was under the superior command of the Chief of the General Staff, Voivode (Field Marshal) Putnik. Unlike his younger colleagues, his military education was entirely a home product; he had never studied abroad. His father was one of those Serbs born on Austrian soil; he had emigrated from Hungary to Serbia in the early forties where he had followed the vocation of school-teacher. In 1847 the future general was born. After passing through the elementary schools, young Putnik entered the military academy at Belgrade. He had already attained a commission when the war of 1876 with Turkey broke out, through which he served as a captain of infantry. His next experience was in the unfortunate war with Bulgaria, in 1885, in which the Serbians were beaten after a three days' battle. At the outbreak of the war with Turkey, in 1912, General Putnik was made head of the army and received the grade of voivode (field marshal), being the first Serbian to enjoy that distinction. The grade of field marshal was created in the Serbian army during the First Balkan War.

With him worked Colonel Pavlovitch, the son of a farmer, who had won a series of scholarships, enabling him to study in Berlin. He had directed the military operations in the field against Turkey and Bulgaria, and he was to do the same thing under his old chief against the Austrians.[Back to Contents]