Chapter 185: Thorn Serbia
At the beginning of the VI century, a group of Serbs from the southern Slavs, the Danube, entered the middle and lower Sava rivers and settled in the mountains south of the Sava River.
At the end of the 10th century, Serbia was under Bulgarian rule for a time. In 1018, Byzantium destroyed the First Bulgarian Kingdom and then forced Serbia into submission. Since then, the political center of Serbia has shifted from Raška to Zeta. During the reign of Mikhail, Voislav's son (c. 1050~1082), Lashka was merged. In order to improve Serbia's international status, Mikhail received a crown from Pope Gregory VII in 1077 and began to claim the throne. During the reign of his son Bodin (c. 1082~1101), Bosnia was annexed. However, after Bodin's death, Serbia was once again divided, and Bosnia was forced to attach itself to Hungary. The rest of the region was under Byzantine control.
The Slavic peoples came to what is now Serbia in the 8th century AD and converted to Orthodox Christianity under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest Serbian state was founded in the middle of the 10th century by Caslavklonimirovic. The rise of the Nemanya dynasty in the 12th century and the establishment of a feudal kingdom by the Serbs in the Balkans in the early 13th century. In the mid-14th century, the reign of Tsar Stefan Dusan pushed the development of the Serbian state to its peak.
The Ottomans began to conquer the Balkans at this time, and in 1389 they defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo (the outcome of which is now disputed), and by the end of the 15th century, the Ottomans had completely conquered Serbia, beginning a five-century period of rule.
A large part of Serbia's thorn in the Balkans is also due to religious and social issues. He has been an Orthodox Christianity since his conquest by the thousand-year-old Byzantine empire. The vast majority of people in Serbia believe in Orthodox Christianity, and in Serbia there are also Islam, Catholicism, etc. But what the Ottoman Empire was, it was a country protected by Allah, and religion always accompanied the Ottoman Empire in its conquest of North Africa and Central Asia. It is precisely because Serbia has been under the oppression of various powers for a long time that the current Serbs are radical and extremely insecure.
Serbia chose to build a standing army to expand its armaments as soon as it gained political power. But how much wealth does tiny Serbia have for him to squander? When the Ottomans left here, they also looted it on a large scale. Agriculture plays an important role in the Cypriot economy. The land is fertile, the rain is abundant, and the conditions for agricultural production are good. There are 5.12 million hectares of agricultural land, or about 66% of the country's land area, mainly concentrated in the northern Vojvodina plain and the central region of Cyprus. But now the Vojvodina Plain in the north is still in the hands of Austria-Hungary, and the loans of the British are mortgaged by the Serbian government with tariffs and the right to build railways.
At present, there are only two ways to resolve social contradictions, one is to increase the social productive forces, but it is obviously impossible, and there is only another way, starting a war and diverting contradictions. But in front of the Serbian king and the Great Serbists is to fight whom? Ottoman Empire? What is the reason? Liberate Bulgaria? No kidding, Britain, France and China have all issued declarations that they will ensure all the rights of the Ottoman Empire to Bulgaria and Macedonia, and besides, the Ottoman army of 200,000 is now stationed in Macedonia and Bulgaria; To the north is Romania, which is confirmed by Germany, Russia and China, and to the west is Albania, Italy, so it can only go north, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the back is still digesting Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the time is right, plus the protection of Serbia is in the hands of Austria-Hungary, Serbia can then declare war with Austria-Hungary in a counterattack posture -
In October 1878, Austria-Hungary finally took Bosnia and Herzegovina into its hands. Then there was the timely imposition of the right of protection for Serbia, which in the eyes of European countries amounted to the treatment of Serbia as a colony or dependency.
On October 21, 1878, the Austro-Hungarian Croatian Infantry Division first assembled in Vinosard (a city on the Vojvodina Plain in the north), followed by nearly 70,000 men, including the Hungarian Cavalry Division and the South Tyrolean Chasseur Regiment. From there to the south, Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, with only one old Pazova between the two cities, will be Serbia's first line against Austria-Hungary.
On October 25, 1878, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Andrách, declared that "we will exercise absolute protection of Serbia as soon as possible, and we will deliver God's people from the infidels." "Both Orthodox and Catholicism are extensions of Christianity, and Austria has fought against the Ottomans and Islam for many years in European history, and even the Habsburgs have the title of guardian of Christ.
On 27 October, Austrian Field Marshal Albrecht Friedrich Rudolf (Grand Duke Albrecht) was appointed commander-in-chief of the "rescue operation".
On November 3rd, the Austro-Hungarian* team began to move south, and it was not wise for the Austro-Hungarian* team to go out at this time near the cold winter, but the Austro-Hungarian high-level people were still in ecstasy, and perhaps they couldn't wait to show their strength in the conquest of Serbia! In particular, Emperor Franz Joseph I, the emperor who lost to Prussia and became the emperor of Germany.
Just as Austria-Hungary was moving south, Serbia officially declared war on Austria-Hungary (Austria and Serbia, which were not internationally recognized as having the right to declare war, were not equal, and the Great Powers only saw this as a joke). Of course, the British have been calling internationally for the recognition of Serbian sovereignty, which is actually disgusting and disgusting to the Germans), and the Serbian army lined up in Staraya Pazova, and they gathered nearly half of the country's army and nearly 100,000 men to build a defensive line outside the city. He even planned to engage in street battles with the Austro-Hungarian army in the city, showing the indomitable spirit of Serbia even if he failed. When Archduke Albrecht arrived outside Staraya Pazova with his army, the two armies engaged in a small probing.
You may think that Serbia may be about to break out, and Austria-Hungary may be suffering, then you are wrong. At that time, everyone in the world thought that Serbia was just a turtle in an urn, and yes, Serbia was a poor king. The commander of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the Archduke Albrecht, the last famous commander of the Austrian Empire, the eldest son of the famous general Karl during the Napoleonic Wars, and the grandson of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. He defeated the 120,000 troops commanded by the King of Italy at the Battle of Custoza in 1866, presided over military reform after the war, and obtained the rank of marshal of Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire, and the German Empire. He was one of the most influential figures in Europe in the 19th century. Born as the son of a famous general, his military literacy and military talent are absolutely first-class.
Winter warfare was already the greatest pressure that the Austro-Hungarian higher-ups could put on him, and Archduke Albrecht ordered the army to rest and recuperate as soon as he led his army to Old Pazova, and waited for the winter to fight. Archduke Albrecht did it wisely, Austria-Hungary was a big country, and his logistics were not a problem at all (after all, the front of more than 70,000 people fighting was not far away). But Serbia is different, and the two-year expansion has drained the treasury and the potential and patience of the people.
On 20 December, the Serbian army, exhausted of patience, launched the first attack on the Austro-Hungarian army. The front of just a few kilometers was crowded with Serbian soldiers, but Austria-Hungary was Austria-Hungary after all, it could be defeated by Prussia, it could be defeated by Russia in numbers, but it would not be defeated by the Serbian army, which had only been trained for two years. This campaign was an asymmetrical battle of the 19th century, both in terms of weaponry and tactics, and strategic thinking. The Austro-Crarian trench defense line was as strong as a reef by the sea, especially the Austro-Hungarian defense line was also equipped with a large number of grenades and Grimm machine guns, especially in front of the machine guns, even if it was not the murderous Maxim (the standard machine gun now equipped by the Imperial Army was also a Grimm machine gun), Grimm was enough. * How fragile it is in the face of the line of steel fire, and the reason why it is said that this is an asymmetrical battle is because the Serbian army actually uses the mode of lining up to kill when using breech-loading guns (the Serbian soldiers do not know that the mode of war has changed, and they are also drunk), it is conceivable that the Serbian army of more than 100,000 people finally collapsed on its own, Archduke Albrecht originally planned to fight to consume national strength to drag down the Serbian army (the Austrians knew that the British had aided Serbia, so they looked down on Serbia), who knew that the opponent was so dish, so Archduke Albrecht decisively ordered to launch a counterattack on all fronts, and finally in the astonished exclamations of experts on various matters, the Serbian army was annihilated, more than 60,000 people were annihilated, more than 20,000 people were captured, and the rest fled in all directions, and the door to Belgrade was opened so easily.
Archduke Albrecht, having ordered the army to rest for a while, decided to storm Belgrade. On 22 December, the Grand Duke of Albrecht arrived in Belgrade with his army. However, what made the observers dumbfounded was that Belgrade was so defenseless that some of the inhabitants of Serbia once thought that their army had won the victory and returned to the court, and when the army of the Grand Duke Albrecht approached, the soldiers defending the city reacted, but it was useless.
Archduke Albrecht led his army to capture Belgrade and control the Serbian king and his government. On 30 December Serbia surrendered and surrendered to Austro-Hungarian protection.
China did not pay much attention to the disposition of Serbia, because the emperor and the government had already set their sights on the other side