Second Serbian Uprising 1815

This year is the 200^th anniversary of the Second Serbian Uprising that led to autonomy from the Ottomans for Serbs living in the Belgrade Pashalik.

After the first Uprising there were attempts at reconciliation under a new governor, Suleyman Pasha. However, by 1815 repression had returned and this resulted in the Second Serbian Uprising, led by Milos Obrenovic, starting on 23 April 1815. He was another pig farmer, but he learned from the first uprising and avoided major military confrontations with the Ottomans. His strategy was to negotiate a deal with the Ottomans.

Not that he didn’t raise forces and fight battles. When elected he famously said, "Here I am, here you are. War to the Turks!". There were actions at Cacak, Ljubic, Palez and Dublje before the Ottomans were driven from the Pashalik.

We don’t know a great deal about these actions. They appear to have been mostly defensive actions by the Ottomans who defended entrenchments that were stormed by the Serbian forces. On several occasions, negotiated surrenders ended the action with the Ottomans withdrawing leaving any cannon behind. The strategy was not to repeat the barbarity of the first uprising, to make a negotiated peace possible. For example at Dublje, the Bosnian Pasha was captured after his army fled. He was treated well, given presents and allowed to return home.

In mid-1815, the first negotiations began and agreement was reached on a form of partial autonomy. The Ottomans were wary of the Russians after Napoleon’s defeat and were busy with unrest elsewhere in the empire.  In 1816, formal documents acknowledged the Serbian Principality under which they paid a yearly tax to the Porte and had a garrison of Turkish troops in Belgrade until 1867. However, it was, in most other matters, an independent state.

Here are a few Serbian troops of the period. They looked pretty similar to the Greeks, so I used the new 28mm range by the very talented Steve Barber. 

On the tabletop with this skirmish game.

There is a more detailed feature article on this conflict in this month's Balkan Military History.