Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia

Serbian troops marching through the city of Semlin after liberating Belgrade and entering Austria-Hungary in December 1914.

During the first invasion of Serbia, the Strafexpedition[4] (punitive expedition) of August 1914, Austro-Hungarian forces occupied Serbian territories for 13 days. That first occupation turned into a brutal war of annihilation, accompanied by massacres of civilians and the taking of hostages;[5] during that period between 3,500 and 4,000 Serb civilians were killed in executions and random violence by marauding troops.[6]

Mass execution took place in numerous northern Serbia towns. On 17 August 1914, in the Serbian town of Šabac, 120 residents, mostly women, children and old men, who had previously been locked in the church, were shot and buried in the churchyard by Austro-Hungarian troops on the orders of Field Marshal Lieutenant Kasimir von Lütgendorf.[7] These type of attacks did not take place in the turmoil of the battle, but arranged and planned at the highest level.[8] Swiss criminologist pioneer Professor Archibald Reiss reported on the multiple atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian Army in a report that was presented at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.[9]

A second invasion in November captured Belgrade, the conquered territory was divided into five county commands (Etappenbezirkskommando). Austro-Hungarian Croat Field-Marshall Stjepan Sarkotić was appointed Governor-General of the Military Governorate in Belgrade, concentration camps were set up and tens of thousands of Serbs interned.[6] By mid-December the Serbs managed, against all odds, to defeat the invaders at the battle of Kolubara and repel them out of the country by 15 December.[10]

Austro-Hungarian occupation zone (in dark grey)

Humiliation at the hands of a small Balkan peasant kingdom badly wounded the pride and prestige of the dual monarchy and its military but although Austria-Hungary had failed to crush Serbia, the Serbs had exhausted their military abilities[11] and had to deal with an epidemic of typhoid fever that further decimated the army and civilian population. Germany urged Austria-Hungary to restore lost prestige by yet another offensive, but without Bulgarian participation in an offensive against Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian commander-in-chief would not consider it until almost a year later.[12]

In September 1915 a secret agreement and a military convention was signed between the Central Powers and Bulgaria in Plessa. In October Serbia fell to a combined German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian invasion that followed the offensive of the Central Powers. The massive superiority in numbers and equipment of the invaders, especially in artillery, as well as the failed intervention by British and French troops, meant that the campaign was complete within 6 weeks. The defeated Serbian army did not surrender but retreated across the mountains of Albania and Montenegro into exile with the government, the royal house and hundred of thousands of civilians. The Serb Army spent the rest of the war fighting against Bulgarian and German troops on the Salonika front. Towards the end of 1915, Serbia was divided among the victors who each set up harsh occupational regimes.[13]

The first measure of the occupiers was the inauguration of a new legal system that would prevent guerilla resistance and exploit Serbia's economic resources, for this the Austro-Hungarian control over the population was done in accordance with "Directives for the Political Administration in the Areas of the General Military Governorate in Serbia" (Direktiven für die politische Verwaltung im Bereiche des Militärgeneralgouvernements in Serbien) and "General Principles for the Imperial and Royal Military Administration in the Occupied Territories of Serbia" (Allgemeine Grundzüge für die K.u.K Militärverwaltung in den beset-zen Gebieten Serbiens). 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 re-emergence of a new Serbian state.[22]

The Austro-Hungarian military had relied on paramilitaries in capacity of irregulars troops during the final phase of the invasion, these troops consisted of Albanian clansmen from Kosovo or northern Albania. Austria and Hungary both supported the repatriation of Muslim refugees in occupied territory in order to weaken Serbia and strengthen the Muslim presence, as in Bosnia, Austria subsidised and actively encouraged Islamic institutions to frustrate South Slav nationalism.[23]

The Austrian authorities allowed Albanian Kosovars to set up local governments and many of them volunteered for service in the Austrian military.[24] Albanian notables offered the occupying authorities to recruit volunteers, Muslim dignitaries in places like Novi Pazar and Mitrovica also declared their support. According to the notes of Colonel Hugo Kerchnawe the Muslims in Sandžak and the Albanians in Kosovo “behaved very loyally and offered their support, while the Serbian Orthodox priesthood were consistently hostile towards the Austrians".[25] Volunteer formations were established, special commissions to organise recruitment were set up by civilian commissar, and renowned albanologist Lajos Thallóczy, assisted by former Ottoman officers, over 8,000 volunteers were recruited this way.[26]

The separation of power quickly led to multiple clashes between civilian and military authorities as well as between Austrian and Hungarian authorities. The envoy of the Hungarian foreign ministry in Serbia, Lajos Széchényi, asserted that Salis-Seewis' policies would lead to Serbia's annexation to the dual Monarchy, which Thallóczy, following the Hungarian prime minister's directives, strongly opposed.[18] Thallóczy complained to Tisza in mid-February 1916 about the number of slavs in charge, "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".[27]

Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Tisza toured Belgrade and northern Serbia in May 1916.[28]

Conrad von Hötzendorf saw the military administration of Serbia as preliminary to its annexation as a South Slav Union, including Montenegro and Albania, under Croatian leadership,[29] Conrad worried that by not annexing Serbia the monarchy would lose its great power status. Joint Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary Baron Burian, with Hungarian interests uppermost in his mind, supported the forcible acquisition of Serbia but only if it was to Hungary.[29]

Count Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister, would not permit an annexation as it would imply an expansion of the Slavic element, and consequently a significant reduction of the Hungarian part within the dual monarchy, he demanded instead that northern Serbia be colonized with Hungarian and German farmers.[29] After touring the north-western districts of Serbia, together with Salis, and visiting Conrad at Army High Command, Count Tisza was alarmed by what he saw as a confirmation of Austrian's military efforts to make the occupation a prelude to annexation,[21] Tisza submitted a complaint to Foreign Minister Burián asking for a thorough reorganisation of the Military Governorate, the removal of Salis-Seewis and the condemnation of annexationist policy in Serbia; Burian took the complaint straight to the Emperor. By the Emperor's decision of 6 July 1916, Salis-Seewis and his chief of staff, Colonel Gelinek were replaced by his former corps commander, General Adolf Freiherr von Rhemen and Colonel Hugo Kerchnawe on 26 July 1916. Rhemen remained in office until the end of the war.[30]

Tensions between Austria and Bulgaria regarding the Albanian-inhabited Serbian territory culminated in March 1916 with a military confrontation when Austrian troops were sent into a number of towns in Kosovo and Albania already garrisoned by Bulgarian troops.[31] The Bulgarians had extended their zone to the western parts of Kosovo and even to Elbasan in Albania a region that Austria-Hungary considered an occupied friend state. Metohija was part of the Austro-Hungarian Military Government of Montenegro, while a smaller part of Kosovo with Mitrovica and Vučitrn was part of the Austro-Hungarian Military Government of Serbia; the greater part of Kosovo, Pristina, Prizren, Gnjilane, Urosevac, Orahovac fell under Bulgarian rule as part of the Military Region of Macedonia.[32]

Conrad warned Bulgarian High Command that unless local Bulgarian commanders abstained from interfering with Austro-Hungarian administration, a conflict with Austro-Hungarian troops seemed inevitable.[33] After Field Marshall Mackensen was sent to mediate between the two allies; an agreement on a demarcation line was signed between the Austro­-Hungarian and Bulgarian commands on 1 April 1916, Bulgarians withdrew eastwards, leaving Kosovo to the Austro-Hungarians.[31][34]

Damaged buildings in Šabac, western Serbia.

The policies of the Military Governorate of Serbia aimed to depoliticise and denationalise the Serb population since political and national awareness were perceived by the army to be the existential danger to the empire;[35] public assembly and political parties were banned, the Cyrillic alphabet was termed staatsgefährlich (dangerous to the state) and banned from schools and public spaces, streets named after people perceived as significant for national identity were renamed and traditional Serbian clothing was proscribed. The Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian. All Serbian students had to educated in the German language, according to Austrian academic standards and teachers were brought from Austria.[36]

Central national institutions such as the Royal Serbian Academy, the National Museum and the National Library were closed down and looted of their historical artefacts and art collections. The University of Belgrade, 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 the official organ of propaganda MGG/S's Belgrader Nachrichten (published in Serbian as Beogradske novine), which featured letters and attractive photographs dwelling heavily upon the normality of life in the homeland.[37][lower-alpha 2]

Both Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria publicly announced in 1916 that the Serbian state had been wiped off the political map of Europe. Therefore, since Serbia ceased to exist, the rules of civilized warfare safeguarding the material and spiritual welfare of conquered peoples had been swept aside, its inhabitants could not invoke the international rules of war, such as those defined by the Geneva Conventions.[38]

Public execution of alleged Serb partisans by Habsburg troops c. 1916

The fear of a levée en masse captured the imagination of the army, causing it to engage in conflict with the population through hostage-taking, reprisals, and summary justice; military law was employed to overcome Serbian national resistance and severe preventive measures were undertaken against civilians. 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.[39]

There were summary executions at the hands of the Austro-Hungarian authorities with little or no legal process. Military courts even tried Serbians for the crime of lèse-majesté.[40] If civilians were suspected to be engaging in resisting, they would face the harshest measures, including hanging and shooting. The house of the offending Serbian's family would also be destroyed.[41]

The Serbian victims were preferably executed by means of the gallows on the main squares of villages and towns, forcing the population to attend the executions. The lifeless bodies were left to hang by the noose for several days so as to clearly show the treatment reserved to 'spies' and 'traitors' by the Austro-Hungarian army.[42]

During the occupation between 150,000 and 200,000 men, women, and children were deported to camps. A large portion of Serbian political, intellectual and cultural elite had left the country during the Serbian army's retreat through Albania, the remaining ones, including many university professors, teachers, and priests, especially those who had participated in political, cultural or even sports societies were arrested by the authorities and deported. According to official data from the Red Cross in Austria-Hungary dated 1 February 1918, at the end of 1917 there were 206,500 prisoners of war and internees from Serbia in Austro-Hungarian and German camps. In addition to those dispatched to concentration camps in Hungary, some 30,000 Serb civilians were sent to Austrian camps or used as forced labour.[13]

There were four significant waves of deportation: at the start of the occupation in fall 1915 when Governor-General Salis-Seewis rounded up 70,000 'dissidents', mostly able-bodied men, ex-soldiers, politically suspicious persons, as well as members of the political and cultural elite in internment camps,[43] after Romania entered the war, this period saw the largest-scale deportations, it took place from mid-August to the end of October 1916 after an order to arrest all male aged between seventeen and fifty capable of military service as well as former soldiers was issued, 16,500 people were sent to the camps.;[44] during the Toplica uprising more deportation took place and finally after the breakthrough on the Salonica front in 1918.[45]

Those large scale deportations caused concern around Europe, in April 1917 the Vatican intervened, through the office of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria, against the internment of women and Serbian children between ten and fifteen years old in camps.[46]

Austro-Hungarian postage stamp from Bosnia, overprinted with "Serbien", for use under the occupation

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. Late 1915 reports spoke of the necessity of receiving urgent relief to avoid disaster. The return of refugees exacerbated the shortage of food. Harvest yields and produced goods had to be turned over to authorities; food was rationed, Serbia was to become the breadbasket for the army. Tensions between Austrian and German authorities increased after Baron Burián complained that the German military was employing a ruthless system of requisition resulting in famine and pauperisation of the population.[12] The exploitation of mines failed to satisfy the need for vital raw materials because Germany took two-thirds of all production from Serbia as reparations for its military aid.[47]

In this very year (1917) there was a drought that can never be forgotten. A frost and then a drought destroyed everything. Even had there nor been a war, hunger would have invaded us. People ate wild herbs and sawdust made from beechwood . . . . It was then for the first time that we spoke of death.

— Milovan Djilas, Land Without Justice, [48]

News of the famine happening in Serbia spread across the world, American, Swiss and Swedish humanitarian organisations offered assistance. According to Red Cross reports, starvation killed more than 8,000 Serbs during the first winter, at the same time figures from the Habsburg High Command reported that 170,000 cattle, 190,000 sheep, and 50,000 pigs had been exported to Austria-Hungary by mid-May 1917.[49]

Immediately after the withdrawal of the Serbian army and the introduction of the military government, armed individuals and small groups of insurgents, made of former soldiers who had remained in the country, started to appear with the clear intention of waging a guerrilla campaign against the occupying forces.[50] Komitadjis as the Army frequently called Serb chetniks were deemed outside international law and were to be 'completely wiped out'. In March 1916, General Conrad von Hötzendorf ordered that all resistance be destroyed with ruthless severity.[51]

Town officials and citizens were warned to not give or accept bribes. In Kruševac, the local military commander forbade any bribery, corruption, or defamation of "loyal citizens". Former Prime Minister of Serbia Jovan Avakumović attempted to suggest to Governor-General Johann Graf Salis-Seewis to issue a joint proclamation for the restoration of peace and order. Avakumović's proposal was turned down, and the suggestion that he sign his name next to Salis-Seewis angered the Governor so much that it led to Avakumović's arrest and internment.[52] In order to insist on the character of Serb civilians and Komitadjis as criminals outside the laws and customs of war, the war exhibition of 1917Kriegsausstellung) in Vienna included a special section about guerrilla war in Serbia where visitors could learn about the fighting method used to find Komitadjis and Chetniks including a life-size model of a hideout.[40]

In late September 1916, the Serbian High Command flew in the experienced chetnik guerrilla leader Kosta Milovanović Pećanac from Thessaloniki to organize resistance in Serbia. In February 1917, a large scale uprising broke out in the Toplica District in the Bulgarian occupation zone of Morava, a force of 4,000 armed men and women managed to liberate an area in the Morava valley before the uprising was put down. The Austro-Hungarian military reported from the Summer of 1917 20,000 Serbs dead and the escape of 2,600 into the forests.[53]

Despite the harsh repression, guerilla groups managed to survive and when the Allied offensive started in the Summer of 1918 they proved themselves to be very valuable.[54] Chief of Staff Paul Kirch described after the war the withdrawal of the German 11th Army:

Serb guerilla groups emerged throughout the country and attacked our units when they were resting or eating. They also attacked our rearguard and our supply trains on the march and sabotaged the railways. We have sent special Jäger units against them, but it would have been easier to find a needle in a haystack than to find those guerilla groups in the mountain terrain they are familiar with.[55]

• Feldzeugmeister Oskar Potiorek (12 August 1914 – 27 December 1914[57])
• Generaloberst Archduke Eugen Ferdinand (27 December 1914 – 27 May 1915[58])
• General Karl Tersztyánszky von Nádas (27 May 1915 – 27 September 1915[59])
• General Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza (27 September 1915 – 1 January 1916[60])

• Feldmarschallleutnant Johann Ulrich Graf von Salis-Seewis (1 January 1916 – July 1916[15])
• Generaloberst Adolf Freiherr von Rhemen zu Barensfeld (6 July 1916 – October 1918[30])
• Feldmarschall Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza (October 1918 – 1 November 1918[61])

• Holzer, Anton; Spiegel, Der (2008-10-06). "Geschichte". Erster Weltkrieg (in German).
• Cahoon, Ben (1941-04-17). "Serbia". World Statesmen.org.

• Djordjevic, D. (2015). "The Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime in Serbia and Its Break-Down in 1918". Balcanica 2015 Issue 46. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)