Serbia and the End of the Great War

 This book, published by the Historical Museum of Serbia, covers the latter part of Serbia's role in the First World War, after the retreat through Albania and the recovery on Corfu. It appears to have been a limited print run and not widely available. I picked up a copy in a shop attached to the Serbian war museum in Corfu Town.

There are not many books in English dedicated to Serbia in WW1, with Dusan Babac's Serbian Army in the Great War being my usual starting point. This book is in English and Serbian. The text is not that gripping, being largely limited to reproductions of official texts, timelines and pen portraits of the leading personalities. However, it does have a wide range of photographs, many of which I haven't seen before. It also touches on some aspects of war that are rarely mentioned.

One of those is Serbia under occupation. All the occupying powers adopted a denationalisation programme, although the Bulgarians applied it more radically. The Austro-Hungarians applied the Latin alphabet, but the Bulgarians detained and even executed Serbs who used their language, names, books and even folk costumes. Both powers ruthlessly exploited the country economically, bringing the population to the brink of starvation. With the fighting-age population much reduced by the war and the Serbian armies in Macedonia, uprisings were more challenging than in WW2. The most famous is the Toplica Uprising in February 1917, which resulted in around 20,000 victims of the counter-insurgency operation. 

The book also covers Serbian units that served outside the Balkans. These included the Serbian Volunteer Corps, recruited from Austro-Hungarian PoWs. This was eventually transported to the Macedonian Front. Some Serbs ended up in the Czechoslovak Legion during the Russian Civil War, and others fought for the Bolsheviks in the First Serbian Revolutionary Battalion and the Serbian-Soviet Battalion. Several other detachments fought with the Red Army. Sadly, no pictures of these units, which would make an interesting addition to the Red Army on the tabletop.

Serbian refugees found shelter across Europe. Britain received 400 students, who settled in cities across the country, including Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen. France took in 17,000 refugees, and many ended up in French colonies.

There are better books on the Serbian contribution to the Macedonian Campaign, which was crucial to the Entente victory. However, there are some good pictures, if a little too heavy on the commanders rather than the army in the field. The post-war diplomacy that resulted in the creation of what would become Yugoslavia is covered in some detail, with a predictable Serbian slant! Objective history is rare in the Balkans!

Some of my 28mm Serbs