SERBIA’S BLOODYMINDED 1914: PART I HUMILIATING THE HABSBURGS
“SERBIA WAS NOW HOME TO MINORITIES WITH ASPIRATIONS AND GRIEVANCES OF THEIR OWN. THEY PROVED AS HOSTILE TO THEIR NEW SERBIAN OVERLORDS AS BOSNIAN SERBS, LIKE THE ASSASSIN GAVRILO PRINCIP, WERE TO AUSTRIA-HUNGARY”
Though the Kingdom of Serbia had emerged from the First and Second Balkan Wars (1912-13 and 1913) as the undisputed military powerhouse of the Balkans, nearly doubling its territory at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, the reality of the situation was that Serbia was in no condition for a scrap in 1914. National confidence – never in short supply in a country obsessed with a nationalist calling to unite the South Slavs – was sky high. While its army was experienced and blooded, Serbia’s economy had been battered by conflict and its new, rural provinces from Turkey’s semi-feudal hinterland yielded few material benefits.
Furthermore, Serbia was now home to minorities with aspirations and grievances of their own. They proved as hostile to their new Serbian overlords as Bosnian Serbs, like the assassin Gavrilo Princip, were to Austria-Hungary. A cautious customs and military union with the mountainous Kingdom of Montenegro – considered kin in language, identity and Orthodox rite – had begun in 1914, but on the eve of war that remained the only concession to state-building, and all this contributed to the war effort in real terms was 35,000 glorified clan levies with nothing resembling a professional officer class.
However, Austria-Hungary too was supremely confident. The Kaiserlich und Königlich (Imperial and Royal) troops gathered at its borders overwhelmingly outnumbered Serbia’s fighting forces and outclassed them in materiel.
Troops packed into trains raucously sang out, “Every shot – one Russian/ Every stroke – one Frenchman/Those in Serbia have to die too!” as they clattered towards their divisions.
Although battle-hardened, flushed with its earlier victories and able to muster an estimated 200-250,000 fighting men, the lack of modern equipment (and uniforms, some men marched
