Английская Википедия:Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Good article Шаблон:Use British English Шаблон:Infobox event Шаблон:History of Serbia The Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces occupied Serbia from late 1915 until the end of World War I. Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia on 28 July 1914 marked the beginning of the war. After three unsuccessful Austro-Hungarian offensives between August and December 1914, a combined Austro-Hungarian and German offensive breached the Serbian front from the north and west in October 1915, while Bulgaria attacked from the east. By January 1916, all of Serbia had been occupied by the Central Powers.
Serbia was divided into two separate occupation zones, an Austro-Hungarian and a Bulgarian zone, both governed under a military administration. Germany declined to directly annex any Serbian territory and instead took control of railways, mines, and forestry and agricultural resources in both occupied zones. The Austro-Hungarian occupation zone covered the northern three-quarters of Serbia. It was ruled by the Military General Governorate of Serbia (MGG/S), an administration established by the Austro-Hungarian Army on 1 January 1916 with a military governor at its head, seconded by a civil commissioner. Emperor Franz Joseph I appointed Johann von Salis-Seewis, an officer born in Croatia, as the first Military Governor General. The goal of the new administration was to denationalise the Serb population and turn the country into a territory from which to draw food and exploit economic resources.
In addition to a military legal system that banned all political organizations, forbade public assembly, and brought schools under its control, the Austro-Hungarian Army was allowed to impose martial law, practice hostage-taking, burn villages in punitive raids and respond to uprisings with public hangings and summary executions. During the occupation, between 150,000 and 200,000 men, women and children were deported to purpose-built internment and concentration camps in Austria-Hungary, most notably Mauthausen in Austria, Doboj in Bosnia, and Nagymegyer, Arad and Kecskemét in Hungary.
In September 1918, Allied forces, spearheaded by the Serbian Second Army and the Yugoslav Volunteer Division, broke through the Salonica front, leading to the surrender of Bulgaria on 30 September, followed by the quick liberation of Serbia and the retreat of all remaining Austro-Hungarian troops by the end of October. By 1 November 1918, all of pre-war Serbia had been liberated, bringing the occupation to an end.
Background
Шаблон:See also On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. The preservation of Austria-Hungary's prestige necessitated a punishing attack on Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarian leadership deemed responsible for the murder. The Austro-Hungarian military leadership was determined to quash Serbia's independence, which it viewed as an unacceptable threat to the future of the empire given its sizeable South Slavic population.Шаблон:Sfn
On 28 July 1914, exactly one month after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. That evening, Austro-Hungarian artillery shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade from the border town of Semlin (modern-day Zemun), effectively starting World War I. Command of the Austro-Hungarian invasion force was delegated to Feldzeugmeister Oskar Potiorek, the Governor-General of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who had been responsible for the security of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg in Sarajevo.Шаблон:Sfn On the morning of 12 August 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army crossed the Drina River, effectively starting the first invasion of Serbia.Шаблон:Sfn
Punitive expedition and first occupation
During the first invasion of Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarian leadership euphemistically dubbed a punitive expedition (Шаблон:Lang-de),Шаблон:Sfn Austro-Hungarian forces occupied parts of Serbia for thirteen days. Their war aims were not only to eliminate Serbia as a threat but also to punish her for fuelling South Slav irredentism in the Monarchy. The occupation turned into a war of annihilation, accompanied by massacres of civilians and the taking of hostages.Шаблон:Sfn Austro-Hungarian troops committed a number of war crimes against the Serbian population, especially in the area of Mačva, where according to historian Geoffrey Wawro the Austro-Hungarian army savaged the civilian population in a wave of atrocities.Шаблон:Sfn During the short occupation between 3,500 and 4,000 Serb civilians were killed in executions and acts of random violence by marauding troops.Шаблон:Sfn
Mass killings took place in numerous towns in northern Serbia. On 17 August 1914, in the Serbian town of Šabac, 120 residents—mostly women, children and old men, who had previously been locked in a church—were shot and buried in the churchyard by Austro-Hungarian troops on the orders of Feldmarschall-Leutnant Kasimir von Lütgendorf.Шаблон:Sfn The remaining residents were beaten to death, hanged, stabbed, mutilated or burned alive.Шаблон:Sfn A pit was later discovered in the village of Lešnica containing 109 dead peasants who were "bound together with a rope and encircled by wire"; they had been shot and immediately buried, even with some still alive.Шаблон:Sfn Wawro writes that in Krupanj, men of the 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division, the exclusively Croat formation known as the Devil's Division,Шаблон:Efn bashed a group of old men and boys to the ground using rifle buttstrokes and then hanged any who were still breathing.Шаблон:Sfn
These types of attacks were planned at the highest level, the ground for the escalation of violence was ideologically prepared by the commanders' verbal radicalism,Шаблон:Sfn on August 13 Potiorek ordered reprisal hangings, the taking of hostages and arson by all units.Шаблон:Sfn Often bodies were left hanging on the gallows, trees or street lamps for days as a deterrent and as evidence of the Austro-Hungarian military's determination to deal with Serbian suspects.Шаблон:Sfn Many executions were photographed by Austro-Hungarian soldiers and officers; some of the images were reproduced as postcards and sold through the Austro-Hungarian army's official sales outlets.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The Swiss criminologist and physician Archibald Reiss reported on the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian army in a report that was presented at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919,Шаблон:Sfn Reiss recorded that the number of civilians killed in the invaded Serbian territory amounted to between 3,000 and 4,000, including a large number of women and children, in the region around Šabac he counted 1,658 burned buildings. According to historian James Lyon, "the Habsburg forces engaged in an orgy of looting, rape, murder, mass extermination, and other atrocities".Шаблон:Sfn Reiss likened the Austro-Hungarian atrocities to the Rape of Belgium.Шаблон:Sfn
American war correspondent John Reed, touring Serbia with Canadian artist Boardman Robinson, reported stories about the atrocities committed by Austrian soldiers against the civilian population "We saw the gutted Hôtel d’Europe, and the blackened and mutilated church in Šabac where three thousand men, women and children were penned up together without food or water for four days, and then divided into two groups – one sent to Austria as prisoners of war, the other driven ahead of the army as it marched south against the Serbians".Шаблон:Sfn
Austrian historian Anton Holzer wrote that the Austro-Hungarian army carried out "countless and systematic massacres…against the Serbian population. The soldiers invaded villages and rounded up unarmed men, women and children. They were either shot dead, bayoneted to death or hanged. The victims were locked into barns and burned alive. Women were sent up to the front lines and mass-raped. The inhabitants of whole villages were taken as hostages and humiliated and tortured."Шаблон:Sfn According to various sources, 30,000 Serbian civilians were executed during the first year of occupation alone.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
On 24 August, after delivering a major defeat to Austria-Hungary's invading "Balkan Armed Forces" (Шаблон:Lang-de) at the Battle of Cer,Шаблон:Sfn the Royal Serbian Army liberated Šabac and reached the frontier banks of the Sava River, thereby bringing the first Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia to an end, and securing the first Allied victory of World War I.Шаблон:Sfn
Repulsed invasions and Serbian victory
On 8 September 1914 the Austro-Hungarians launched a second invasion, a twin-pronged night attack across the Drina to secure a firm bridgehead. This time engaging all their forces the well-equipped Habsburg forces outnumbered the Serbs who were short of munitions two to one.Шаблон:Sfn Facing fierce resistance, the Fifth Army was pushed back into Bosnia while the Sixth Army's offensive was stopped by a strong Serbian counterattack. On 23 October, the flagship of the Austro-Hungarian Danube Flotilla, the SMS Temes, which had shelled Belgrade on the first day of the war, was sunk by a mine on the Sava.Шаблон:Sfn Although it suffered nearly 30,000 casualties and the invasion was temporarily halted, the Austro-Hungarian army retained a foothold in Serbia.Шаблон:Sfn Convinced that Serbia was near defeat, Potiorek regrouped and launched a third offensive on 5 November 1914. Potiorek exploited the Austro-Hungarians' superiority in artillery, including large calibre mortar, to capture Valjevo on 15 November and with support from a monitor group of the Danube Flotilla as well as aerial reconnaissance,Шаблон:Sfn Belgrade on 30 November, forcing the Royal Serbian Army to retreat.Шаблон:Sfn
The conquered territory was divided into five county commands (Шаблон:Lang-de). The Austro-Hungarian Feldmarschall of Croatian ethnicity Stjepan Sarkotić, commander during the first invasion of the 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division,Шаблон:Sfn was appointed governor-general of Serbia by Emperor Franz Joseph on 24 November 1914.Шаблон:Sfn Under Sarkotić's administration, multiple concentration camps were established in which tens of thousands of Serbs were interned,Шаблон:Sfn in the town of Šabac alone, between 1,500 and 2,000 civilians were deported to internment camps in Hungary.Шаблон:Sfn According to the historian Bastian Matteo Scianna, the Austro-Hungarian atrocities had a planned exterminatory character.Шаблон:Sfn
In early December, the Royal Serbian Army launched a sustained counterattack, decisively defeating the Austro-Hungarians at the Battle of Kolubara and recapturing Belgrade a day after General Sarkotic's new military government had been established.Шаблон:Sfn By 15 December, the Royal Serbian Army had captured Zemun, having crossed the border in pursuit of the Austro-Hungarians,Шаблон:Sfn Defeat at the hands of Serbia, a small Balkan peasant kingdom, wounded the pride of Austria-Hungary's military and civilian leadership.Шаблон:Sfn One Austrian officer was reported as saying that Potiorek would be shot if he appeared among his own troops. Шаблон:Sfn On 22 December, Potiorek was relieved of his command and replaced by Archduke Eugen of Austria.Шаблон:Sfn Although Austria-Hungary had failed to defeat Serbia, the Royal Serbian Army had exhausted its military capability, losing 100,000 men in battle, and was forced to deal with a typhoid epidemic that further decimated the army and civilian population.Шаблон:Sfn
German officials urged their Austro-Hungarian counterparts to launch yet another offensive against Serbia, despite the fact that the Austro-Hungarians were engaged in a costly second front with Russia to the east.Шаблон:Sfn The Austro-Hungarian leadership would not consider invading Serbia again for almost a year, when Bulgarian participation in such an invasion was guaranteed.Шаблон:Sfn
Conquest of Serbia
On 6 September 1915, Germany and Bulgaria entered into a secret military alliance. German officials promised Bulgaria all of Serbian Macedonia, parts of northeastern Serbia, as well as a new loan of 200,000,000 gold francsШаблон:Sfn in return for Bulgaria's participation in an upcoming invasion of Serbia. The agreement was signed in the German town of Plessa.Шаблон:Sfn The Central Powers enjoyed massive superiority in numbers and equipment, especially in artillery, along the nearly Шаблон:Convert front. Serbia and Montenegro could hardly muster half the number of soldiers as the Central Powers.Шаблон:Sfn
On 5 October 1915, Austria-Hungary and Germany launched a joint invasion of Serbia. The offensive marked Austria-Hungary's fourth attempt to conquer Serbia, this time led by German General August von Mackensen. On that day, a heavy artillery bombardment from the border with Serbia began. The next day three German and three Austro-Hungarian Army corps crossed the Sava, attacking from the north as part of Army Group Mackensen.Шаблон:Sfn On 9 October, Belgrade, Serbia's capital, was evacuated, on the same day, Austrian forces entered the neighbouring and allied country of Montenegro.Шаблон:Sfn On 14 October, with the bulk of the Serbian forces opposing combined invaders up north, two Bulgarian armies invaded southern Serbia from the east, advancing towards Niš and Skoplje.Шаблон:Sfn On 21 October Skopje is occupied by Bulgarian troops effectively cutting off the Serbian Army's lines of communication to the south as well as a retreat route towards French General Maurice Sarrail's relief force, which had advanced northwards up the Vardar River valley from the Allies' new base in Salonica.Шаблон:Sfn
Despite the treaty of mutual assistance with Serbia against a Bulgarian attack, King Constantine of Greece refused to let the Greek army enter the war to aid the Serbs or let the Allies use the Greek railroads devoted to supporting their mobilization.Шаблон:Sfn On 27 October, the Germans entered the town of Knjaževac, the entire Serbian government moved its headquarters from Niš to Kraljevo;Шаблон:Sfn on 2 November the Serbian government moved again this time from Kraljevo to Mitrovica in Kosovo. On 5 November, Niš was taken by the Bulgarians who had connected General Gallwitz's Eleventh German Army.Шаблон:Sfn Avoiding encirclement and the trap set up by Mackensen, the Serbian army withdrew to Kosovo, on 22 November Putnik ordered a retreat.[1]
Within six weeks, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Germany had succeeded in conquering Serbia.Шаблон:Sfn While the strategic goals set before the offensive had been achieved, the Central Powers were deprived of a decisive victory by the Royal Serbian Army's winter retreat over the mountains of Albania and Montenegro towards the Adriatic coast. Ultimately, around 140,000 Serbian soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians were evacuated to the Greek island of Corfu, among them the entire Serbian government, as well as the Serbian royal family.Шаблон:Sfn
The Royal Serbian Army retrenched itself in Greece, where it was reorganised and repurposed to combating Bulgarian and German troops on the Salonica front. Towards the end of 1915, Serbia was divided between Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, with both countries establishing military administrations in the territories they had occupied.Шаблон:Sfn
Administration and governance
Shortly after the retreat of the Royal Serbian Army, the country was divided into three zones. The Austro-Hungarian occupational zone stretched from the region west of the Morava Valley to the Macedonian frontier, and included Belgrade. Bulgaria gained the whole of Serbian Macedonia, as well as the areas east of the Morava, and Southern Serbia between Kosovo and the Danube River. A German control zone was established in the area east of the Velika Morava, the Južna Morava in Kosovo and the Vardar Valley. The Germans took control of all railways, mines, forestry, and agricultural resources in Serbia.Шаблон:Sfn
On 1 January 1916, the Austro-Hungarian High Command (Шаблон:Lang-de; AOK) ordered the formation of the Military General Governorate of Serbia (Шаблон:Lang-de; MGG/S), with Belgrade as its administrative centre. The Austro-Hungarian occupation zone was divided into thirteen approximately equal districts (Шаблон:Lang-de), which were then divided into sixty-four boroughs (Шаблон:Lang-de), with the city of Belgrade as its own district.Шаблон:Sfn The occupational administration was subordinate to the AOK under General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, and later under Generaloberst Arthur Arz von Straußenburg. The Military Governorate was headed by a General Governor with the rank of a corps commander.Шаблон:Sfn
The first governor-general, Johann Graf Salis-Seewis, an ethnic Croat with experience fighting insurgents in Macedonia, had served as the commander of the 42nd Devil's Division after Sarkotić.Шаблон:Sfn Salis-Seewis was appointed to the position in late 1915 by Emperor Franz Joseph, officially taking office on 1 January 1916.Шаблон:Sfn The historian and Balkan specialist Lajos Thallóczy was appointed as the Military General Governorate's civilian commissioner, as well as Salis-Seewis's deputy. Thallóczy arrived in Belgrade on 17 January 1916.Шаблон:Sfn
With the Austrians in charge of the military, the civilian administration was mostly made up of Hungarians and Croats. Four administrative departments were set up: military, economic, judicial, and political, with the latter, which had its own intelligence and police forces, under former Devil's Division officer and future UstašeШаблон:Efn leader Major Slavko Kvaternik.Шаблон:Sfn Military intelligence (Шаблон:Lang-de) for the occupation zone was entrusted to Croat Lujo Šafranek-Kavić,Шаблон:Sfn as the Austro-Hungarian army relied considerably on South Slav officers and Bosnian Muslims knowledge of the language for intelligence purposes.Шаблон:Sfn
In December 1916, Thallóczy was killed in a train crash while returning from Vienna to Belgrade.Шаблон:Sfn In January 1917, Teodor Kušević, a high-ranking functionary from Bosnia and Herzegovina, was appointed to replace him as the civilian commissioner. The function was given more prominence with new areas of responsibility including trade, police, religion, education, justice and finance.Шаблон:Sfn
System of occupation
Rule of law
The first measure of the occupiers was to establish a new legal system to secure order, prevent guerrilla resistance and exploit the country's resources. MGG/S control over the population was accomplished in accordance with the "Directives for the Political Administration in the Areas of the General Military Governorate in Serbia" (Шаблон:Lang-de) and with the "General Principles for the Imperial and Royal Military Administration in the Occupied Territories of Serbia" (Шаблон:Lang-de). Italian historian Oswald Überegger speaks of a "system of totalised, repressive occupation rule".Шаблон:Sfn
The MGG/S intended to ignore Hungarian objections and integrate Serbia as a part of the empire, but as an area that would remain under direct military rule for decades after the end of the war and where political participation would be prohibited to prevent the emergence of a new Serbian state.Шаблон:Sfn
Occupation forces
The MGG was safeguarded by a permanent Austro-Hungarian garrison consisting, in August 1916, of 35 battalions, a Landsturm regiment, six companies of patrol troops, 12 units of railway guards, four-and-a-half squadrons, five artillery batteries and two anti-aircraft batteries, totaling around 70,000 men, of which 50,000 were reserved for military operations.Шаблон:Sfn Within the towns and villages of the twelve districts, 5,000 gendarmes were posted in groups of 20 to 30.Шаблон:Sfn If needed, patrol companies also served as mobile combat reserves.Шаблон:Sfn
To help police the civilian population and to track down partisans, the Austro-Hungarian leadership decided to recruit amongst ethnic minority groups positively disposed towards the Dual Monarchy.Шаблон:Sfn With Thallóczy's encouragement, the Austro-Hungarian authorities permitted Kosovo Albanians to volunteer for service in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces.Шаблон:Sfn Prominent Albanians in towns such as Novi Pazar and Kosovska Mitrovica declared their support and offered to recruit volunteers for the occupying authorities. According to the notes of Colonel Hugo Kerchnawe, the Muslims in the Sandžak and the Albanians in Kosovo "behaved very loyally and offered their support" to the empire,Шаблон:Sfn Kerchnawe added in his report that "our interests ran parallel with the Muslims' interests."Шаблон:Sfn
A special commission to organise recruitment was set up by Thallóczy, assisted by former Ottoman officers and Bosnian militia leaders. Over 8,000 volunteers were recruited this way,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn despite the fact that the recruitment drive was a violation of the Hague Convention treaties that Austria-Hungary had signed,Шаблон:Sfn which forbade the use of occupied populations towards a country's war efforts.Шаблон:Sfn In March 1917, a home battalion was formed, supported by Bosnian gendarmes and led by former Ottoman officers.Шаблон:Sfn
In the final phase of the Serbian Campaign, the Austro-Hungarian military had relied on paramilitaries consisting of Albanian clansmen from Kosovo and northern Albania as irregular troops,Шаблон:Sfn organised early in the occupied territories Albanian pursuit fighting units were set up to assist Austro-Hungarians patrols track down Serbian guerrillas.Шаблон:Sfn These counter-insurgency bands were based on their Bosnian counterparts, the Streifkorps, paramilitary groups made up of Muslim volunteers with experience fighting Serb guerrillas and a reputation for heavy-handed tactics.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn District pursuit units were established in each district of the Austro-Hungarian occupied zone, each consisted of 40 men led by one officer.Шаблон:Sfn The Bulgarian occupation authorities also used Albanian gendarmes and irregular troops within their occupation zones.Шаблон:Sfn
Conflicts between the Central Powers
Annexation
The separation of power in Serbia quickly led to clashes between the civilian and military authorities, as well as between Austrian and Hungarian occupation officials. Chief of the General Staff of the military General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf saw the military administration of Serbia as preliminary to its annexation, along with Montenegro and Albania, to a future South Slavic union under Croatian leadership.Шаблон:Sfn Conrad worried that by not annexing Serbia the monarchy would lose its Great Power status. Austria-Hungary's Joint Foreign Minister, Stephan Burián von Rajecz, supported the annexation of Serbia, but only if it would be allotted to Hungary.Шаблон:Sfn
For Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza, Serbia was a Hungarian area of interest but under no circumstances did Tisza want an annexation and thus an expansion of the Slavic element in the Danube Monarchy.Шаблон:Sfn In early 1916. Lajos Széchényi who represented both the Croatian and Hungarian components as envoy to the foreign ministry, accused Governor Salis-Seewies of favouring the Serbs as a Croat, then Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' envoy in Serbia, Lajos Széchényi, argued that Salis-Seewis' policies would lead to Serbia's annexation to the Dual Monarchy, which Thallóczy, following Hungarian prime minister István Tisza's directives, strongly opposed.Шаблон:Sfn
In mid-February 1916, Thallóczy complained to Tisza about the number of Slavs in positions of authority, writing, "the governor is Croat, the chief of the general staff is Czech, the deputy governor is from the former military border and the new General Staff Officer Slavko Kvaternik is the son in law of Croatian independentist Josip Frank."Шаблон:Sfn
Tisza refused to consider the annexation of Serbia as it would lead to a substantial increase in Austria-Hungary's Slavic population, and significantly reduce the proportion of Hungarians within the Dual Monarchy. He demanded instead that northern Serbia be colonized by Hungarian and German farmers.Шаблон:Sfn After touring the three northwestern districts of Serbia together with Salis-Seewis and the visiting General Conrad, Tisza came to regard the Austro-Hungarian military's efforts in the occupied territory as a prelude to annexation.Шаблон:Sfn
Tisza submitted a complaint to Burián asking for a thorough reorganisation of the Military Governorate, the removal of Salis-Seewis, whose administration he described as "Serbophile and economically incompetent",Шаблон:Sfn and requesting the condemnation of those demanding that Serbia be annexed. Burián took the complaint directly to Emperor Franz Joseph. On 6 July 1916, the emperor decreed that Salis-Seewis and his chief of staff, Colonel Gelinek, were to be replaced by his former corps commander, General Adolf Freiherr von Rhemen and Colonel Hugo Kerchnawe, effective 26 July 1916. Rhemen remained in this office until the end of the war.Шаблон:Sfn
Austro-Bulgarian confrontation
Tensions between Bulgaria and the Dual Monarchy started after Bulgaria extended its zone beyond the agreement signed on 6 September 1915; reaching into western Kosovo and Montenegro, on the Austro-Hungarian side of the treaty border, going as far as Elbasan in Albania; a region that Austria-Hungary considered an occupied friendly state and of "outstanding importance" to the Dual Monarchy. Kaiser Wilhelm himself repeatedly told Bulgarian king Ferdinand that Germany supported "the independence of Albania under Austrian protection".Шаблон:Sfn Burián also reminded Ferdinand that at the "west of the treaty border began the Austro-Hungarian sphere of interest."Шаблон:Sfn
According to the terms of the secret alliance between Bulgaria and Germany, the greater part of Kosovo, including the areas of Priština, Prizren, Gnjilane, Uroševac, and Orahovac, were to fall under Bulgarian rule as part of the Military Region of Macedonia.Шаблон:Sfn Metohija, the southwestern area of Kosovo, was to be incorporated as part of the Austro-Hungarian zone of Montenegro, with the rest of Kosovo, including Kosovska Mitrovica, Vučitrn, and Đakovica, established as part of the Austro-Hungarian Military Governorate of Serbia.Шаблон:Sfn
Tensions started over the respective zones of influence and military control in Djakova and Prizren. The Bulgarians maintained that they had the right to install a civilian administration on any territory they conquered, including outside their treaty border. Conrad, suspecting Bulgaria of harbouring ambitions to annex the whole region, sent troops to expel the Bulgarian civilian administrators. The arrival of Austro-Hungarian troops in areas already garrisoned by Bulgarian forces resulted in a military confrontation. On 27 February 1916, Bulgarian military commander Racho Petrov issued an ultimatum to the Austrians to immediately evacuate Kačanik (Kaçanik, southern Kosovo), on the frontier with Macedonia, resulting in a military standoff.Шаблон:Sfn General Conrad immediately halted all deliveries of war supplies and warned the Bulgarian High Command that unless local Bulgarian commanders abstained from interfering with the Austro-Hungarian administration, a conflict with his troops would be inevitable.Шаблон:Sfn
On 15 March, the Austro-Hungarians issued an order to secure the districts of Prijepolje, Novi Pazar, and Kosovska Mitrovica to their governorate, three districts acquired by Serbia during the First Balkan War.Шаблон:Sfn Bulgarian actions on the ground persisted, leading to a second crisis, with Conrad demanding diplomatic assistance against Bulgarian violations.Шаблон:Sfn The German chief of staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, ordered Mackensen to mediate between the two parties, consequently Mackensen visited Sofia to meet Ferdinand and Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov. The proposed German compromise was accepted and, on 1 April 1916, an agreement on a demarcation line was signed between the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian high commands.Шаблон:Sfn
The Bulgarians withdrew eastwards, retaining the district containing Prizren and Priština, but leaving Albania and western Kosovo to the Austro-Hungarians. The Ottomans, wary of Bulgarian designs on Albania, supported Austro-Hungarian aims to prevent Bulgaria's reach into Elbassan and keep Albania autonomous under Austrian influence.Шаблон:Sfn The agreement gave Bulgaria administrative rights over areas of Serbia that were not in the original agreement. In return, in addition to the railways and mines already yielded to the Germans, Bulgaria agreed to give them access to the valleys east of the Velika Morava, the Južna Morava in Kosovo, as well as the Vardar Valley; effectively turning Macedonia and Kosovo into zones dedicated to German economic exploitation.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Life under the occupation
Denationalisation and depoliticisation
The occupational authorities considered Serbian national consciousness an existential threat to Austria-Hungary. Thus, the policies of the Military Governorate were aimed at depoliticising and denationalising the Serbian population.Шаблон:Sfn Public gatherings and political parties were banned, the Cyrillic script was termed "dangerous to the state" (Шаблон:Lang-de) and banned from schools and public spaces, streets named after people perceived as being significant to Serbian national identity were renamed, the wearing of traditional Serbian clothing was proscribed and the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian. Additionally, all Serbian students had to be educated in the German language, according to Austrian academic standards and through teachers imported from Austria.Шаблон:Sfn
Significant cultural institutions such as the Royal Serbian Academy, the National Museum and the National Library were closed down and looted of their historical artifacts and art collections. The University of Belgrade, as well as various publishing houses and bookshops, were closed down. Schoolbooks and books in French, English, Russian and Italian were banned. Political expression was severely limited with the prohibition of newspaper publication except for the official MGG/S propaganda newspaper Belgrader Nachrichten (published in Serbian as Beogradske novine), which featured letters and photographs purporting to show how well those who stayed behind in occupied Serbia were living. Such propaganda was intended to convince Serbian soldiers who came across the Belgrader Nachrichten to desert.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn
Repression
In 1916, both Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria announced that Serbia had ceased to exist as a political entity, and that its inhabitants could therefore not invoke the international rules of war dictating the treatment of civilians as defined by the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions.Шаблон:Sfn
The occupational authorities carried out numerous summary executions with little or no legal process. Upon being found guilty by a military court, victims were usually shot or hanged. Martial law, such as Шаблон:Lang (the martial law of self-defense), was employed to quash dissent and severe preventive measures were undertaken against civilians.Шаблон:Sfn
The occupational authorities were gripped by the fear of levée en masse and of civilians taking up arms. The Austro-Hungarian Army consequently employed the seizure of hostages from the general population and the burning of villages in punitive raids as a means of quelling resistance. These measures, as well as summary executions, were all permitted under section 61 of the Шаблон:LangШаблон:Efn (k.u.k army regulations).Шаблон:Sfn Disarming the populace was done by holding village elders responsible for handing over a certain quota of weapons that were judged to be held before the war began.Шаблон:Sfn The sentence for possession of a weapon was death by hanging. Military courts also tried civilians for newly defined offenses, including the crime of lèse-majesté.Шаблон:Sfn
Civilians suspected of engaging in resistance activities were subjected to the harshest measures, including hanging and shooting. The house of an offender's family would also be destroyed.Шаблон:Sfn Victims were usually hanged on the main squares of villages and towns, in full view of the general population. The lifeless bodies were left to hang by the noose for several days so as to clearly show the treatment reserved for "spies" and "traitors".Шаблон:Sfn
Deportation and forced labour
The MGG/S, as well as the High Command in Vienna, considered sending civilian prisoners to internment camps as a preventive measure to discourage insurgent activities.Шаблон:Sfn During the occupation, between 150,000 and 200,000 men, women and children were deported to various camps in Austria-Hungary,Шаблон:Sfn it has been estimated they represented slightly more than 10 per cent of the Serb population.Шаблон:Sfn
Since Serbia did not have its own Red Cross, Serbian prisoners did not have access to the aid the Red Cross provided to other Allied prisoners.Шаблон:Sfn Moreover, Serbian prisoners were not considered "enemy aliens" but "internal enemies" by Austria-Hungary's Ministry of War. By defining them as "terrorists" or "insurgents", the Austro-Hungarian authorities were not obliged to disclose the number of captives they held, and which camps they were being held in, to Red Cross societies.Шаблон:Sfn
Four significant waves of deportations occurred in occupied Serbia. The first occurred at the very start of the occupation, when Salis-Seewis rounded up 70,000 "dissidents", mostly able-bodied men, ex-soldiers, politically active individuals, as well as members of the political and cultural elite who had remained in the country after the retreat to Corfu. University professors, teachers, and priests, especially those who had participated in political, cultural or even athletic associations, were arrested and sent to internment camps.Шаблон:Sfn
The second and largest deportations took place after Romania entered the war on the side of the Allies on 27 August 1916. From mid-August to late October 1916, an order to arrest all males between the ages of 17 and 50 was issued. These men were targeted because they were of fighting age. More than 16,500 males were sent to internment camps during this round of deportations.Шаблон:Sfn During the Toplica uprising, in the Spring of 1916 when armed resistance seemed to be spreading, more deportations took place. The fourth and final round of deportations occurred after the Allied breakthrough on the Salonica front in late 1918.Шаблон:Sfn In Bohemia, the camp at Braunau (modern-day Broumov, Czech Republic) held about 35,000 prisoners, almost exclusively Serbian, civilian, military prisoners, men, women and children.Шаблон:Sfn According to a 1918 press report, an epidemic of dysentery almost wiped out all the children in the camp.Шаблон:Sfn After the war, a mass grave was found behind the camp containing the remains of 2,674 people (these remains were later moved to the crypt of the Heinrichsgrün camp).Шаблон:Sfn The camp at Heinrichsgrün (modern-day Jindřichovice, Czech Republic), held mostly Serbs, both soldiers and civilians, from the Šumadija and Kolubara districts of western Serbia. An average of 40 people died there every day.Шаблон:Sfn
In Hungary, the largest internment camps were in the Nezsider district; Nezsider (modern-day Neusiedl am See, Austria) was a concentration camp primarily used to detain civilians from Serbia and Montenegro, and the principal camp for Serbs suspected to be "terrorists" or "agitators".Шаблон:Sfn The number of detainees by May 1917 was 9,934, including children as young as nine.Шаблон:Sfn Over the course of the war, the Nezsider camp held 17,000 internees, about 4,800 people are known to have perished at the camp.Шаблон:Sfn
In addition to those deported to Hungary, some 30,000 Serb civilians were sent to Austrian camps or used as forced labour.Шаблон:Sfn In Lower Austria, the camps of Drosendorf and Mittendorf held both Serbian soldiers and civilians.Шаблон:Sfn Thousand of Serbs perished during a typhus epidemic at the Mauthausen camp in Upper Austria when about 14,000 were being held; an official Austro-Hungarian army report mentioned 5,600 prisoners of war buried in the camp graveyard in the early months of the war.Шаблон:Sfn
According to official figures, between 27 December 1915 and 5 July 1917, 45,791 civilians and prisoners of war from Serbia and Montenegro were held captive at the camp in Doboj, in Bosnia. Around 12,000 are estimated to have perished there.Шаблон:Sfn Other camps held both civilians and prisoners of war, including Boldogasszony, Nagymegyer (modern-day Veľký Meder, Slovakia), Arad (modern-day Romania), Cegléd, Kecskemét and Győr.Шаблон:Sfn
By May 1917, 39,359 people from Serbia, including women and children, were interned outside the country. These large scale deportations caused concern around Europe quickly becoming an international scandal. The Spanish authorities complained then, in April 1917, the Holy See intervened through the office of the Apostolic Nunciature to Austria against the internment of Serbian women and children between the ages of 10 and 15.Шаблон:Sfn By the end of the year, Austria-Hungary's Ministry of War admitted that 526 Serb children were in fact being held at Nezsider, but that it was necessary on the grounds of military security.Шаблон:Sfn
According to a Red Cross report dated 1 February 1918, by the end of 1917, there were 206,500 prisoners of war and internees from Serbia in Austro-Hungarian and German camps. According to the historian Alan Kramer, the Serbians in Austro-Hungarian captivity received the worst treatment of all the prisoners, and at least 30,000–40,000 had died of starvation by January 1918.Шаблон:Sfn
Economic exploitation and famine
The economic exploitation of Serbia during the occupation was characterised by various measures, including confiscations, requisitions, and the utilisation of economic resources and labor. Extensive requisitions of materials such as wool, copper, brass, nickel, zinc, as well as food and leather were conducted by Special units, known as Шаблон:Lang. Seized materials were sent to Шаблон:Lang, an administrative body in Belgrade then transported to Austria-Hungary.Шаблон:Sfn
Tensions between the Austrian and German authorities increased after Burián complained that the German military was employing a ruthless system of requisition, resulting in famine and the pauperisation of the population.Шаблон:Sfn Behind the front lines, the Germans "Шаблон:Lang" was an area that Berlin had secured as a zone dedicated to agricultural production to feed its troops on the Salonica front.Шаблон:Sfn As the German exploitation of resources in occupied Serbia was handled by the German Oriental Society (Шаблон:Lang-de), the exploitation of mines failed to satisfy the Dual Monarchy's need for vital raw materials because Germany took two-thirds of all production from Serbia as reparations for its military aid.Шаблон:Sfn
Austro-Hungarian reports on the state of Serbia in 1915 noted famine threatening the occupation zone and a population in a desperate state after nearly four years of constant war. The return of refugees exacerbated the shortage of food. Reports from late 1915 spoke of the necessity of receiving urgent relief to avoid disaster. Starvation loomed after soldiers destroyed or captured much of Serbia's foodstuffs and livestock. Harvest yields and produced goods had to be turned over to authorities while food was rationed.Шаблон:Sfn In late 1915, reports from Serbia emphasised the urgent need for relief from Austria-Hungary to avert a looming disaster. Austrian Prime Minister, Karl von Stürgkh, was inclined to respond positively to these appeals but Tisza and Conrad were firmly opposed to it.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Quote
In early 1916, Conrad ordered that Serbia's resources be "squeezed dry" regardless of the consequences for the population.Шаблон:Sfn As news of the famine in Serbia spread around the world, campaigns were organised asking for Relief for Agonized Serbia.Шаблон:Sfn American, Swiss and Swedish humanitarian organisations offered assistance. According to Red Cross reports, starvation killed more than 8,000 Serbians during the first winter under Austro-Hungarian occupation. By mid-May 1917, figures from the Habsburg High Command reported that 170,000 cattle, 190,000 sheep, and 50,000 pigs had been exported to Austria-Hungary.Шаблон:Sfn
Resistance
Immediately after the withdrawal of the Royal Serbian Army and the start of the Austro-Hungarian occupation, armed individuals and small groups of insurgents, called Chetniks, made up of former soldiers who had remained in the country, began to wage a guerrilla campaign against the occupiers.Шаблон:Sfn The Chetniks had a long tradition as guerrillas after centuries of Ottoman rule. Their actions were often considered heroic by the population and depicted in epic folk poetry, giving them strong local support.Шаблон:Sfn
The first organised guerrilla group was formed in the Novi Pazar and Kosovska Mitrovica districts in early 1916, and was led by former army captain Kosta Vojinović. In March 1916, General Conrad ordered that all resistance be quashed with ruthless severity. Komitadjis, as the Austro-Hungarian army called the insurgents, were deemed outside international law by the MGG and were to be "completely wiped out".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn Jovan Avakumović, a former Prime Minister of Serbia, suggested to Salis-Seewis that he should issue a joint proclamation for the restoration of peace and order. Avakumović's proposal was turned down and Salis-Seewis ordered his arrest and internment.Шаблон:Sfn
The Military Governorate responded to the multiplication of guerrilla groups by employing small Ottoman and Albanian counter-guerrilla units based on the Streifkorps from Bosnia instead of regular patrol troops.Шаблон:Sfn In late September 1916, the Serbian High Command flew in the experienced Chetnik guerrilla leader Kosta Pećanac from Allied Headquarters in Salonica. He was parachuted in by air to organize resistance in Serbia together with Vojinović.Шаблон:Sfn
In early February 1917, a rebellion led by Vojinović broke out in the vicinity of Kuršumlija and Prokuplje. The insurgents, supported by volunteers and Chetniks from Montenegro, liberated Kuršumlija, Prokuplje, Pusta Reka, Lebane and Ribarska. The uprising was planned to coincide with an Allied offensive.Шаблон:Sfn Later that month, a large scale uprising broke out in the Toplica District in Bulgarian-occupied Serbia. A force of 4,000 armed men and women managed to liberate a significant area in the Morava Valley before the uprising was put down.Шаблон:Sfn During the summer of 1917, the Austro-Hungarian Army was forced to bring in troops from the Isonzo Front to reinforce the Bulgarian Army and Bulgarian paramilitary groups.Шаблон:Sfn Without the expected Allied support, the uprising collapsed. In late 1917, Vojinović was killed; Pećanac managed to escape and went into hiding. According to contemporary Austro-Hungarian Army reports, 20,000 Serbs were killed in the course of the rebellion, while 2,600 managed to escape into the forests.Шаблон:Sfn Despite the harsh repression, guerrilla groups managed to survive and were able to support Allied offensive operations in the summer of 1918.Шаблон:Sfn After the war, Chief of Staff Paul Kirch described the withdrawal of the German 11th Army:Шаблон:Quote
Liberation of Serbia
In September 1918, following the Vardar Offensive and the success of Allied forces at the Battle of Dobro Pole, Bulgaria capitulated and signed the Armistice of Salonica. On 3 October, a German military governorate was created in Niš to replace the departing Bulgarian administration, while new Austro-Hungarian and German troops were redeployed to try to block the northward advance of Serb and French troops.Шаблон:Sfn
Guerilla warfare broke out spontaneously across all occupied regions in support of the Allies offensive.Шаблон:Sfn By the third week of October, General Hermann von Kövess, commander of all Austro-Hungarian and German forces in the Balkans, ordered a strategic retreat behind the Danube, Sava and Drina rivers, also ordering that ‘about "two per cent of the male population should be taken as hostages, and kept with the troops on the march".Шаблон:Sfn
On 29 October, Governor-General von Rhemen and his staff left occupied Serbia. The following day, Belgrade was liberated by the Royal Serbian Army. By 1 November, all of pre-war Serbia had been liberated, bringing the three-year Central Powers occupation to an end.Шаблон:Sfn
Military commanders and governors
Austro-Hungarian commanders
- Feldzeugmeister Oskar Potiorek (12 August 1914 – 27 December 1914)Шаблон:Sfn
- Generaloberst Archduke Eugen Ferdinand (27 December 1914 – 27 May 1915)Шаблон:Sfn
- General Karl Tersztyánszky von Nádas (27 May 1915 – 27 September 1915)Шаблон:Sfn
- General Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza (27 September 1915 – 1 January 1916)Шаблон:Sfn
Austro-Hungarian military governors-general
- Feldmarschallleutnant Johann Ulrich Graf von Salis-Seewis (1 January 1916 – July 1916)Шаблон:Sfn
- Generaloberst Adolf Freiherr von Rhemen zu Barensfeld (6 July 1916 – October 1918)Шаблон:Sfn
- Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza (October 1918 – 1 November 1918)Шаблон:Sfn
See also
- Military General Governorate of Serbia
- Bulgarian occupation of Serbia (World War I)
- Nazi occupation of Serbia (World War II)
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
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Websites
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External links
- The second occupation of Serbia at the International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907 Hague Conventions of 1907
- ↑ DiNardo 2015, p. 116
- Английская Википедия
- Страницы с неработающими файловыми ссылками
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- 1918 disestablishments in Serbia
- Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia during World War I
- History of Serbia
- Invasions by Austria-Hungary
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- Military occupation
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- Serbia in World War I
- Wars involving Austria-Hungary
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