Kingdom of Serbia

King Milan I of Serbia

The Principality of Serbia was a state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian revolution which lasted between 1804 and 1817. Despite brutal oppression and retaliation by the Ottoman authorities, the revolutionary leaders, first Karađorđe and then Miloš Obrenović, succeeded in their goal to liberate Serbia after centuries of Turkish rule.

At first, the principality included only the territory of the former Pashaluk of Belgrade, but in 1831–1833 it expanded to the east, south, and west. In the first decades of the principality, the population was about 85% Serb and 15% non-Serb. Of those, most were Vlachs, and there were some Turkicized Muslim Albanians, which were the overwhelming majority of the Muslims that lived in Smederevo, Kladovo and Ćuprija. The new state aimed to homogenize its population. As a result, from 1830 to 1876, it has been estimated that up to 150,000 Albanians that lived in the territories of the Principality of Serbia emigrated or were expelled.[2]

In 1867 the Ottoman army garrisons retreated from the Principality, securing its de facto independence.[3] Serbia expanded further to the south-east in 1878, when it won full international recognition at the Congress of Berlin.

After the 1877–1878 expansion, in the new areas (present-day Jablanica, Toplica and parts of Nišava District) an estimated 49,000–130,000 Albanians were expelled (Expulsion of the Albanians 1877–1878), settling mainly in Kosovo.[4][5][6] These events marked the beginning of the Serbian-Albanian conflict.[7]

The Serbo-Bulgarian War erupted on November 14, 1885, and lasted until November 28 of the same year. The war ended in defeat for Serbia, as it had failed to capture the Slivnitsa region which it had set out to achieve. Bulgarians successfully repelled the Serbs after the decisive victory at the Battle of Slivnitsa and advanced into Serbian territory taking Pirot and clearing the way to Niš.

When Austria-Hungary declared that it would join the war on the side of Serbia, Bulgaria withdrew from Serbia leaving the Serbo-Bulgarian border precisely where it had been prior to the war. The peace treaty was signed on February 19, 1886, in Bucharest. As a result of the war, European powers acknowledged the act of Unification of Bulgaria which happened on September 6, 1885.

Territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Serbia in 1913

Serbia in 1918 (27 November - 1 December, during de facto military demarcation)

Negotiations between Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria led to the Serbian-Bulgarian Treaty of Alliance of March 1912, which aimed to conquer and to divide the Ottoman held Macedonia. In May, a Serbian-Greek alliance was reached and in October 1912, a Serbia-Montenegro alliance was signed.[8]

After the war started, Serbia, together with Montenegro, conquered Pristina and Novi Pazar. At the Battle of Kumanovo Serbs defeated the Ottoman army and proceeded to conquer Skopje and the whole of Kosovo vilayet. The region of Metohija was taken by Montenegro. At Bitola and Ohrid Serbian army units established contact with the Greek army. Populations of ethnic Serbs and Albanians tended to shift following territorial conquests. As a result of the multi-ethnic composition of Kosovo, the new administrations provoked a mixed response from the local population. Serbs considered this a liberation.[9]

On November 29, 1913, the Drač County of the Kingdom of Serbia was established on the part of the territory of Albania taken from the Ottoman Empire during the First Balkan War. Serbian Drač County had four districts (Serbian: срез): Drač (Durrës), Lješ (Lezhë), Elbasan and Tirana.[10][11]

After the First Balkan War of 1912, territories of Kosovo and north-western Macedonia were internationally recognised as a part of Serbia[12] and northern Metohija as a part of Montenegro at the Treaty of London of May 1913.[13] In a report to Rome, Lazër Mjeda, Archbishop of Skopje, estimated that 25,000 Albanians were killed by Serbian forces during and after the conflict.[14]

The old disagreements regarding the territory of Macedonia among the members of the Balkan League and primarily Serbia and Bulgaria, led to the Second Balkan War. Here, Serbia, Greece, Romania, the Ottoman Empire, and Montenegro fought against Bulgaria in 1913.

The final borders were ratified at the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913. Serbia came to control the land which became known as Vardar Macedonia, and today stands independent as the Republic of North Macedonia but land-locked Serbia was prevented from gaining access to the Adriatic Sea by the newly established Principality of Albania.

As the result of these wars, Serbia's population increased from 2.9 million to 4.5 million and territory increased by 81%.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo (then part of Austria-Hungary) brought the tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia to a head. Behind the assassination in Sarajevo was the secret Serbian officers organization Black Hand.[15] The assassins were supported by an "underground railroad" of Serbian civilians and military officers that provided transportation and hid them; members of the Serbian military that trained them, encouraged them, and provided weapons, maps, and other information. After the assassination, the conspirators were arrested in Bosnia-Herzegovina and tried in Sarajevo in October 1914.

The political objective of the assassination was to break the southern Slav provinces off from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered a chain of international events that embroiled Russia and the major European powers in the conflict.

On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia.

In 1915 Serbia was occupied by foreign troops after a combined invasion by Austro-Hungarian, German, and Bulgarian troops. The 135,000 soldiers of the Serbian Army retreated through Albania and were evacuated to the Greek island of Corfu, and in spring, 1916, they became part of a newly formed Salonika front. In 1916, the Kingdom of Montenegro was conquered by Austria-Hungary.

At the end of the war and the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Serbia experienced a loss of 28 percent of its pre-war population[16] and went through radical changes after the liberation, all within days. On November 28, 1918, it absorbed the Kingdom of Montenegro at the Podgorica Assembly.[17][18]

On December 1, 1918, Serbia united with the newly created State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs to form a new southern Slav state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.[19] The new country continued to be ruled by the Serbian monarchy when in August 1921 Prince Alexandar I became king.

King Alexander I of Serbia and his unpopular wife Queen Draga were assassinated inside the Royal Palace in Belgrade on the night of 28–29 May 1903. Other representatives of the Obrenović family were shot as well. This act resulted in the extinction of the House of Obrenović, which had been ruling Serbia since 1817.

After the May Coup the Serbian Skupština invited Peter Karađorđević to assume the Serbian crown as Peter I of Serbia. A constitutional monarchy was created with the military Black Hand society operating behind the scenes. The traditionally good relations with Austria-Hungary ended, as the new dynasty relied on the support of the Russian Empire and closer cooperation with Kingdom of Bulgaria.

In April 1904 the Friendship treaty and in June 1905 the customs union with Bulgaria were signed. In response Austria-Hungary imposed a Tariff War (Pig war) of 1906–1909. After the 1906 elections the People's Radical Party came to power. In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, where Serbia had hoped to expand its territory.

The Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909 (also referred to as the Annexation crisis) erupted into public view when on October 5, 1908, the Kingdom of Bulgaria declared its complete independence from Ottoman Empire and on October 6, 1908, when Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was populated mainly by South Slavs.

Austro-Hungary had ambitions of imperialistic expansion and saw the Balkans in the same way that other colonial powers saw Africa or Asia. This idea was severely opposed by the Serbian public and intelligentsia, mainly gathered around Serbian Literary Herald (Srpski književni glasnik).[21]

Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, the Kingdom of Italy, Serbia, Principality of Montenegro, German Empire and France took an interest in these events. In April 1909, the 1878 Treaty of Berlin was amended to accept the new status quo and bringing the crisis to an end. The crisis permanently damaged relations between Austria-Hungary on the one hand and Russia and Serbia on the other. The annexation and reactions to the annexation were some of the contributing causes of World War I.

Okrugs of the Kingdom of Serbia 1914

In 1890, it was divided into 15 districts (okruzi) which were further divided into counties (srezovi). Cities of Belgrade and Niš had special administrative status. The districts were: Valjevo, Vranje, Kragujevac, Krajina, Kruševac, Morava, Pirot, Podrinje, Podunavlje, Požarevac, Rudnik, Timok, Toplica, Užice and Crna Reka.

In 1912 and 1913 Serbia enlarged its territory after victorious First Balkan War. In August 1913, 11 new districts were formed in the newly liberated areas: Bitola, Debar, Kavadarci, Novi Pazar, Kumanovo, Pljevlja, Prizren, Priština, Skopje, Tetovo and Štip.

The largest cities in the Kingdom of Serbia were (with population figures from c. 1910–1912):

Largest cities or towns in Kingdom of Serbia https://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/G1953/pdf/G19534002.pdf
	Rank		District	Pop.	Rank		District	Pop.
Belgrade Prizren	1	Belgrade	City of Belgrade	100,000	11	Leskovac	Vranje okrug	14,300	Bitolj Skoplje
	2	Prizren	Prizren okrug	60,000	12	Tetovo	Tetovo okrug	56,059
	3	Bitolj	Bitolj okrug	54,000	13	Požarevac	Požarevac okrug	13,600
	4	Skoplje	Skoplje okrug	50,000	14	Šabac	Podrinje okrug	12,800
	5	Niš	Niš okrug	25,000	15	Mitrovica	Priština okrug	12,000
	6	Veles	Skoplje okrug	24,000	16	Vranje	Vranje okrug	10,500
	7	Priština	Priština okrug	20,000	17	Pirot	Pirot okrug	10,000
	8	Prilep	Bitolj okrug	20,000
	9	Kragujevac	Kragujevac okrug	18,500
	10	Ohrid	Ohrid okrug	18,000

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Early Middle Ages White Serbia around 600 AD Principality of Serbia Duklja, Travunia, Zachlumia, Narentines, Raška, Bosnia 7th–10th century Catepanate of Ras around 969–976
High Middle Ages Duklja (Zeta) 11th–12th century Theme of Sirmium 1018–1071 Grand Principality 1071–1217 Kingdom of Serbia 1217–1346 King Dragutin's realm 1282–1325 Empire Fall 1346–1371 Prince Lazar's Serbia 1371–1402 Despotate of Serbia 1402–1537
Early Modern Serbia under Turkish rule 1459–1804 Jovan Nenad / Radoslav Čelnik 1526–1530 Banate of Lugoj and Caransebeș 16th–17th Habsburg occupation 1686–1699 Great Serb Migrations 1690 and 1737–1739 Military Frontier 1702–1882 Habsburg Serbia 1718–1739 Koča's frontier 1788–1791
Serbia 1804–1918 Revolution 1804–1815 Principality of Serbia 1815–1882 Serbian Vojvodina 1848–1849 Serbia and Banat 1849–1860 Kingdom of Serbia 1882–1918
Serbia since 1918 Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1918–1941 Axis occupation 1941–1944 Federal unit of Socialist Yugoslavia 1944–1992 Constituent state with Montenegro 1992–2006 Republic of Serbia 2006–present
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Serbia was geographically located in the path of several trade routes linking Western and Central Europe with Middle East. Morava Valley was in the strategically important terrestrial route that linked Central Europe with Greece and Constantinople. During the 19th century major efforts were made to improve the transport in this connections. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Austria-Hungary helped Serbia to gain new territories, conditioning Serbia, however, to sign a new convention. The convention obliged Serbia to construct the railway line from Belgrade to Vranje and Turkish and Bulgarian borders in three years. In addition, the obligation to sign commercial contracts was imposed on Serbia, as well as a claim to carry out regulation works in Đerdap. Serbian Government approved this treaty by adopting the Law on Proclamation of the convention. Consequently, Serbian Railways were formed in 1881. The regular traffic on the railway line Belgrade–Niš started in 1884.[22]