The war, which began in August 1914 – to contemporaries the
“Great War”, to posterity the First World War – marked the end of one period of history and the beginning of another. Starting as a European war, it turned in 1917, with the entrance of the U.S.A. into a world war. The spark that triggered it off was the assassination of the Austrian heir-presumptive, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalist in Bosnia – Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna) movement, in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914.
According to the German historian Fritz Fischer, one of the crucial far-long designs of Germany‟s policy at the end of the 19th c.
and the beginning of the 20th c. was a creation of the Central Europe (Mitteleuropa), as a new economic unit controlled by Germany. The conception of the Middle European tariff union in Bethmann- Hollweg‟s program from September 1914 were territorially divided into two parts: 1) the territories considered as direct members:
(France, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, and Russian part of Poland), plus the Habsburg Monarchy; and 2) the countries considered as associates: (Norway, Sweden, and Italy). However, in 1916 the new territories were designated for annexation by Germany:
Lithuania with Vilnius and Courland with Mitau. At the same time Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, the Ottoman Empire and Greece were saw as an incorporated lands into the “New Order” in Europe under the German lordship. Finally, Livonia, Estonia and Finland were designed for closer political and economic alliance with Germany after the peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Berlin.42 At such a way, the Yugoslav territories of the Habsburg Monarchy were intended for direct membership, while Serbia and Montenegro were considered for incorporation into the German
“New (European) Order” as the separate parts from the other Yugoslav territories. In any case, all Yugoslav territories were
42 Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War, New York, 1967, see the map on p. 107.
designed as parts of the German Central Europe, as a new economic unite under German control and exploitation.
The authorities of the Habsburg Monarchy (both Austrian and Hungarian) accepted participation in Germany‟s schemes for creation oæ the German controlled the Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) – the Central European Customs Union.43
What both Germany‟s and Austro–Hungarian governments understood, what concerns the question of the Balkan incorporation into the Central European Customs Union, was that in this part of Europe their crucial enemy was the Kingdom of Serbia, which sought to be united with its ethnolinguistic compatriots from the Austro–
Hungarian Empire, what practically ment a dissolution of the Austria-Hungary. Serbia was, at the same time, seen as the main obstacle against the Austrian and German political-economic advance towards the Aegean Sea, and even further towards the Middle East (the so-called project of Drang nacht Osten or Berlin-Baghdad connection).
Among all European crises and conflicts at the end of the 19th c. and the beginning of the 20th c. the clash between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Austro–Hungarian Monarchy was a unique one.
According to Joachim Remak, “the concept of a Greater South Slav State was fully as defensible as was Austria-Hungary's right to survival”.44 Further, according to the same author, the Austro–
Serbian struggle originally (as it was imagined in Vienna and Berlin) had to be finished in the form of the third Balkan war, as the war between “the two nations directly affected...”
From Germany‟s perspective, the Austro–Serbian military clash had to be isolated from the influences from the rest of the European powers.45 From the Habsburg perspective, the Austro–
Hungarian declaration of the war against Serbia (July 28th, 1914) was intended to reassert the position of Austria-Hungary as an
43 Alan Sked, The Decline & Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815–1918, London and New York, 1990, p.
259.
44 Joachim Remak, “1914–The Third Balkan War. Origins Reconsidered”, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 43, No. 3, September 1971.
45 ibid. Also, according to Joachim Remark, “...the most basic decisions affecting peace or war were made by Berthold rather than Bethmann, and Paić rather than Sazonov”.
independent European Great Power.46 According to Joachim Remak,
“Berchtold and Conrad had very much of a premeditated desire for a simple Balkan war to recover some of the monarchy‟s lost prestige”.47
Bulgaria‟s policy of a hegemony in the Balkan Peninsula from 1885 dovetailed with the political and military aims designed by the Central Powers, particularly with an intention to eliminate Serbia as a political factor in the Balkans. After the failure of Bulgarian aims in the Second Balkan War (1913), Sofia found a support from the Central Powers for its aim to incorporate the Vardar Macedonia48 (and the Aegean Macedonia, too).
Following the out break of the WWI, on August 2nd, 1914 Bulgaria‟s Radoslavov‟s government offered to the Central Powers a political-military alliance in return for Bulgarian participation in the war against Serbia with the intention to gain territorial concessions (similarly what Italy offered to the Entente in 1915 – to fight on the side of the Entente for territorial concessions in the Balkans and South Tyrol). The government insisted that Bulgaria had to annex those territories on which Bulgaria claims the “ethnic and historical rights”.49 The Bulgarian western territorial pretensions were not in opposition to the Austro–Hungarian plans with regard to the territorial concessions at the expense of the Kingdom of Serbia.
Rather, the plans about creation of a Greater (San Stefano) Bulgaria were fully in accord with the policies of the Danube Monarchy. The Austro–Hungarian ruling circles agreed that the Kingdom of Serbia has to be territorially reduced to the extent which would no longer be dangerous for the Danube Monarchy, but at the same time opposed the annexation of the larger territories populated by the Serbs in order not to have so huge number of the South Slavs (and the Slavs in general) within the Monarchy. That was a crucial reason for the Central Powers to accept the Bulgarian territorial aspirations at the expense of Serbia.
46 A. J. P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918, London, 1990, p. 250.
47 Joachm Remark, “1914–The Balkan War. Origins Reconsiderd”, The Journal of Modern History, vol.
43, No. 3, September 1971.
48 Ţivko Avramovski, Ratni ciljevi Bugarske i Centralne sile 1914–1918, Beograd, 1985, p. 315.
49 Haus-Hoff und Staatsarchiv, Viena, telegram No. 213.
By signing the Secret Convention on September 6th, 1915 with Bulgaria, the Central Powers guaranteed to Bulgaria an annexation of the whole territory of the Eastern Serbia as far as the Morava River and the whole portion of Serbia‟s Vardar Macedonia.50 According to this Convention, Bulgaria gained the territories of the Kingdom of Serbia as far as the demarcation line between Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary, which was stretching from Smederevo, between Kruevac and Stalać, before Vuĉitrn and Prizren, including the ara Mountain, Lakes of Ohrid and Prespa and the town of Gevgelia on the south.51 According to the first article of the Secret Convention, Bulgaria should be enlarged with the new 51.425 square km., and 2.648.168 inhabitants.52 Finally, according to the Secret Convention, Bulgaria should achieve from the Ottoman Empire the territory of the lower Maritza River in front of the city of Edirne.
A main quarrel between Serbia and Bulgaria during the second half of the 19th c. and the beginning of the 20th c. was the question of Macedonia. The problem was so complex that even the Russian ambassador in Belgrade during the WWI (1914–1917), Count G. N.
Trubecki, admitted that he never could reach a right conclusion on Macedonia, although he studied this question for the long period of time.53 The Russian diplomacy was, in general, indulgent towards the Bulgarian territorial requirements. For instance, during a meeting with the Bulgarian ambassador in Serbia, Tchaprashnikov, in November 1914 in the city of Ni Count Trubecki informed him that
“Bulgaria may achieve Macedonia”, but regarding the Balkan territories annexed by Romania and Greece after the First Balkan War “we can only promise that You will be supported by us”.
Trubecki, as well as, indicated that Bulgaria might annex the territory of Thrace as far as the line Enos-Midia. However, the Russian ambassador in Serbia at the same time noticed that Bulgaria would gain these promised territories only in the case if Sophia will enter
50 Ţivko Avramovski, Ratni ciljevi Bugarske i Centralne sile 1914–1918, Beograd, 1985, pp. 150–173.
51 ibid., see the map on p. 225.
52 ibid., p. 170.
53 Knez Grigorije Nikolajevič Trubecki, Rat na Balkanu 1914–1917 i ruska diplomatija, Beograd, 1994, p. 30.
the war on the Entente side.54 The Russian diplomacy, likewise the diplomacies of the other members of the Entente, from the very beginning of the war pressed Serbia to revive the Balkan political-military bloc of 1912, and to make final bilateral settlement with Bulgaria upon a territorial division of the Vardar Macedonia.55 As a territorial compensation for Serbia‟s lands handed over to Bulgaria, Russia offered to Serbia doubtful territorial concessions: “...except pure Serbian lands and concessions on the other side”.56 However, the Serbian answer always had been that the bloc could be recreated again, but with a remark – the required territorial concessions had to be given to Bulgaria by Greece and Romania, but not by Serbia. At the same time, Serbia claimed that the question of the South Slavs had to be resolved by their union into one common national state and that the Vardar Valley (i.e., the Vardar Macedonia) had to be included into Yugoslavia.57 It is obvious that from the very beginning of the war, the crucial war aim of Serbia was a creation of a large South Slavic state in the Balkans. The question of inclusion of Bulgaria into Yugoslavia primarily depended on the Bulgarian diplomatic decision which military bloc (the Central Powers or the Entente) Sofia will join.
The Serbian war aims during the WWI were designed within the two options. The first one, and more realistic, was an option of unification of all Serbian “historical and ethnic territories” into the united national state of the Serbs. In the other words, after the war it should be created the so-called “Greater” or “United” Serbia. That was a minimal Serbia‟s war aim. The first step in the realisation of this option or a project was a territorial enlargement of the Kingdom of Serbia after two Balkans Wars (1912–1913), when Serbia gained Kosovo, Metohija, Northern Sandţak and the Vardar Macedonia.
However, the second option, only accepted in the case that the first one could not be realised primarily because of the opposition by
54 ibid., pp. 71–72; Archives of Serbia (Arhiv Srbije), Beograd, Ministarstvo Inostranih Dela, Političko Odeljenje, 1918, X-323, “Pašić to Vesnić”, January 18th, 1918; Dragoslav Janković, Bogdan Krizman, GraĎa o stvaranju jugoslovenske države, vol. I, Beograd, 1964, p. 45.
55 Milorad Ekmečić, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914–1918, Beograd, 1992, pp. 8–9.
56 “Spalajković-Ministry of Foreign Affairs” (Ministarstvo Inostranih Dela – MID), St. Petersburg, November 1/14th, 1914, Diplomatic Archives of Yugoslavia (Diplomatski Arhiv Jugoslavije – DAJ), Beograd, secret, No. 10166.
57 Milorad Ekmečić, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914–1918, Beograd, 1992, p. 11.
the Great Powers (what practically happened at the end of the war) was more important for the subsequent history of the Balkans and its inhabitants in the 20th c. Namely, Belgrade accepted the mid-19th c.
idea of creation of Yugoslavia, or in the other words a common state of the South Slavs, but with a final and forever exclusion of Bulgaria (as the causer of the Second Balkan War). That was a maximal war aim of Serbia during the whole period of the WWI and it would be realised only if both Balkan military and international diplomatic-political situation at the end of the Great War would be lesser suitable for the realisation of the first option.
For the Serbian authorities, the essential task of the realisation of the idea of Yugoslav unification it was in fact an unification of the Serbdom as a fundamental historical-national task of all Serbian history and the Serbs. Thus, for example, at the beginning of 1912 a Memorandum, written by the order of the Serbian Regent Aleksandar KaraĊorĊević to the Russian Emperor Nikolai II Romanov, asked for the Russian support for the realisation of the Serbian national program in the coming Balkan wars. The importance of the Serbs for Russia and the whole Slavic world was put on the first place in this memorandum. The Orthodoxy was, according to the Memorandum, the crucial link between the Serbs and the Russians and the main national marker of the both nations. The Serbs, historically, after the Russians and Russia are the strongest deffenders of the Orthodoxy in the Slavic community in which they have a significant role in the Slavic struggle against the Pan-Germanic imperialism. Finally, the Memorandum stresses that a creation of united Serbian state, consisted of Serbia, Montenegro, part of Macedonia (the Vardar Macedonia), the Ancient Serbia (Kosovo, Metochia, Raška/Sandţak), Bosnia, Herzegovina and Croatia (including Dalmatia and Slavonia) with 10 million Slavic inhabitants would be an important political-military factor in Europe, and what is the most important, it would be a significant pilar and supporter of the Russian Pan-Slavic policy.58 A united Serbian state would finally stop further Germanic penetration to the Near and the Middle East. At the same time, the Balkan
58 About the Serbian-Russian connections on the basis of the Russian Pan-Slavic policy there are indisputable indications in: Международные отношениа в епоху империализма – Документы из архивов царского и временного правительства, 1878–1917 (ДЦА), Москва, 1935, V/55, “Letter by Aleksandar KaraĎorĎević to Nikolai II”. After the Sarajevo assassination on June 28th, 1914 Austro-Hunarian Emperor/King Franz Joseph I clearly indicated in his letter to the German Emperor that Serbia is the principal pilar of the Russian Pan-Slavic policy in the Balkans.
Peninsula would be ultimatly put under the Slavic domination.59 On the other side, Serbia was for Russia of an extreme importance as the only Balkan state, according to the Memorandum, on which Russia could rely upon. Namely, Bulgaria was more and more under the Austro–German influence through the personality of the Bulgarian King Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who was of the German origin;
Greece was put as weel as under the strong Germanic control through Greece‟s dynastic connections with the German nobility and the Germanophile policy of the King Constantine I, while Turkey was already under a total German political-financial control. For those reasons, the Serbian national and war aims had to by supported by Russia for the sake of its own political interest in the Balkans. Finally, the Memorandum concludes that the Greater Serbia would be for Russia “the last bulwark against the West”.60
During the first days of the Balkan Wars 1912–1913 the Serbian Regent Aleksandar I adressed his army with the words that it came a moment to finish the process of liberation and unification of all Serbs, a process which started with the First Serbian Uprising against the Turks (1804–1813).61 He precisely marked, at the very beginning of the WWI, the Serbian lands which have to be liberated and united with Serbia and Montenegro in his Proclamation to the Serbian soldiers: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Banat, Baĉka, Croatia, Slavonia, Srem and Dalmatia.62 Obviously, for him all Austro–
Hungarian Orthodox South Slavs belonged to the ethnic community of the Serbdom.
Following this idea of the Pan-Serbian unification, the Serbian Prime Minister and the Minister of the Foreign Relations, Nikola Pašić, presented his own vision of the new (Yugoslav or united
59 Archives of Yugoslavia (Arhiv Jugoslavije), Beograd, Fond Vojislava Jovanovića, f. 119, “Projekat memoranduma za ruskog cara”, Salonika, February 3rd, 1912.
60 The Serbian consul in Odessa, Marko Cemović, proposed to Serbia‟s Prime Minister Nikola Pašić to ask the Russian authorities to send three divisions to the Balkans in order to help the Serbian army to finally
“realize the Serbian national program” [Archives of Serbia, Beograd, Ministarstvo Inostranih Dela, Političko Odeljenje, 1916, IX/415, “Cemović‟s Memorandum to Pašić”]. In general, the Tsarist Russia had been “the principal champion of Serbia among the Great Powers and, without the support of St.
Petersburg, the Serbs were in urgent need of friends” [John B. Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia, Columbia University Press, New York, 2000, p. 224].
61 Archives of Military-Historical Institute (Arhiv Vojnoistorijskog Instituta), Beograd, p. 2, k. 35, Operacijski dnevnik, “Naredba Komandanta I armije za 18. X 1912”.
62 Branislav Gligorijević, Kralj Aleksandar KaraĎorĎević, Beograd, 1996, p. 364.
Serbian) state to his the most closed political associates on July 29th, 1914 – an idea that should be realised during the war. Namely, on the question asked by Jovan Cvijić with regard to the new boundaries with Austria-Hungary after the war, Paić answered that “our borders are going to be set up on the line Klagenfurt-Marburg-Szeged”.63 The first official act issued by the Serbian government in which the Yugoslav program is presented, as Serbia‟s maximal war aim, was Paić‟s Circular Note, sent on September 4th, 1914. In this document it was emphasised that in the Balkans a strong national (Yugoslav) state has to be created, composed by all Serbs, Croats and Slovenes64 (but not Bulgarians). According to Pašić, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes are the single “same-tribe nation”, which, on the basis of history, language, literature and the rights to self-determination, had all conditions to create their own independent political state.65 This Circular Note also emphasised that such state would present one ethnic and economic region with a united people of the “same-tribe nation”.66 At the end of September 1914 Paić sent to all Serbian ambassadors in the capitals of the Entente states a map with very clearly marked territorial boundaries of the future Yugoslav state, after the defeat of the Habsburg Monarchy. Paić anticipated that this state would have approximately 12 mil. Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and about 230.000 sq. km. It has to be noticed that in the case of annexation of Trieste and Klagenfurt the “First”
Yugoslavia would be territorialy bigger than the “Second” Yugoslavia, which was created after the WWII.67
The Yugoslav program, as the maximal war aim of the Serbian government, was recognised as a legal and official one on the session
63 Archives of SANU (Arhiv Srpske Akademije Nauka i Umetnosti), Beograd, The Memoires by General Panta Drakić, 14 211; Milorad Ekmečić, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914, Beograd, 1992, p. 84.
64 ĐorĎe Đ. Stanković, Nikola Paić i jugoslovensko pitanje, vol. I, Beograd, 1985, p. 148; Milorad Ekmečić, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914, Beograd, 1992, pp. 87–89; Dragoslav Janković, Srbija i jugoslovensko pitanje 1914–1915, Beograd, 1965, p. 101; Dragoslav Janković, “Nika deklaracija”, Istorija XX veka: zbornik radova, vol. 10, Beograd, 1969, p. 97.
65 ĐorĎe Đ. Stanković, Nikola Paić i jugoslovensko pitanje, vol. I, Beograd, 1985, p. 150.
66 Milorad Ekmečić, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914–1918, Beograd, 1992, p. 177.
67 Aleks N. Dragnić, Srbija, Nikola Paić i Jugoslavija, Beograd, 1994, p. 124. According to the author, these territorial intentions were “all but only not the intentions for a creation of the Great Serbia”, p. 124. It is interesting to present opinion by Seton-Watson that the future capital of Yugoslavia should be Sarajevo or to be shifted from one place to other [Milorad Ekmečić, Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914–1918, Beograd, 1992, p. 182].
of the Serbia‟s People‟s Assembly (Parliament) in the city of Ni on December 7th, 1914. The principal result of the assembly‟s session was an adoption of the Declaration of Ni that publicly presented the Serbian war aims to the Entente.68 The fact is that the Serbian Prime Minister saw creation of the Yugoslav state as the best “second”
option to finally resolve the “Serbian Question” (i.e., to politically unite all Serbian population and lands) in the case if the “first”
solution (creation of the pure Pan-Serbian national state – Greater Serbia) cannot come true.69 This Declaration especially stressed that
solution (creation of the pure Pan-Serbian national state – Greater Serbia) cannot come true.69 This Declaration especially stressed that