SERBIA

The fully independent Kingdom of Serbia that went to war in 1914 entered the nineteenth century as an Ottoman territory called the Pashalik of Belgrade. During the course of its struggle for national independence, which began with the Serbian Revolution in 1804, Serbia underwent significant political, social, cultural, and, to a lesser degree, economic transformation.

the serbian revolution

The Serbian Revolution did not begin as an independence movement. In fact, most Serbs were content with their condition under Ottoman rule. In the Ottoman feudal system, the Serbian peasant was not a serf. Serbs did have to pay taxes, including a tithe in kind and a head tax on Christian males. But they owned their own land from which they could move and which they could manage as they pleased. The Serbian population lived in villages in the countryside. The villages were composed of zadrugas, households of two or more closely related families that communally owned, produced, and consumed their livelihood. This system allowed greater economic production through division of labor, and greater economic and personal security. The villages were organized into districts under the leadership of a knez, who collected taxes for the Ottoman feudal landlords (sipahis), who resided in the towns. Thus, the Serbian community had a degree of autonomy under their own notables, who were either elected or appointed from among the wealthier peasants, and only limited contact with Ottoman authorities during rent collection or inspection times. The church or district leaders also had jurisdiction over Serbs for all crimes that did not involve a Muslim or the Ottoman state. In 1793 and 1794 the Ottoman sultan passed a series of reforms granting Serbs greater self-government and limited Ottoman interference in their affairs. He also allowed the Serbs to construct new churches and gave Serbian knezes the exclusive right to collect taxes.

Several changes in the conditions of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century had paved the way for national revolution, most significantly the disintegration of the Ottoman feudal system, internal opposition to the sultan by the elite Janissary corps of the army, and increasing secularization. As Ottoman central authority weakened and the Porte (Ottoman government) increasingly failed to maintain discipline in its ranks, this system of rule began to collapse. Defying the rule of the pasha of Belgrade, the sultan's direct representative in the pashalik, sipahis became increasingly corrupt. Furthermore, unruly Janissaries went to the countryside and seized lands from the Serbian peasants and took rent in addition to what the Serbs already paid to their landlords. They essentially forced Serbian free, landowning peasants into the position of serfs. Thus it was not against the sultan that the Serbs revolted, but against the corrupt and coercive local Ottoman authorities who threatened to divest the Serbs of rights that the sultan had granted them. In fact, the Serbs and the sultan had a common enemy in the Janissaries, who had transformed from an elite fighting unit into an undisciplined, defiant group of mercenaries over which the Porte could no longer effectively exert authority. In fact, the Janissaries who were present in the Pashalik of Belgrade had been sent there by the sultan in his effort to distance their opposition from the capital of Istanbul.

In response to Serbian calls for help, the sultan sent a new pasha to Belgrade, Hadži Mustafa. He was so beloved by the Serbs that they called him the "Mother of the Serbs." In 1797, when the Janissaries went on the offensive, Hadži Mustafa, financially supported the raising of a popular Serbian militia of fifteen thousand Serbian men commanded by Serbian officers. This policy of using Christians to combat unruly Janissaries was wildly unpopular among Muslims. The Janissaries also found a patron, Osman Pasvan-Oglu, Pasha of Vidin, whose support helped them conquer Belgrade and drive out Hadži Mustafa, whom they beheaded for supporting the Serbs. Following their victory, four Janissaries rose to power and called themselves the dahi (the title for Janissary officers). The dahi regime revoked all of the Serbs' autonomous rights. The Serbs planned to revolt against this new regime, and in order to prevent an uprising, the dahis carried out a massacre of Serbian leaders in 1804. This event, which has come to be known as "the slaughter of the knezes," precipitated a general uprising of the Serbian masses. The Serbs formed military units and chose as their leader one of the knezes who had escaped slaughter, Djordje (George) Petrovi?, known as Karadjordje (Black George) because of his swarthy complexion. Karadjordje was a man of the people, even though he was a wealthy swine trader. He had gained military experience fighting in a regiment of Serb volunteers in the Austrian military unit, the Freicorps (Free Corps), during the Austro-Turkish War of 1788–1791. Karadjordje led the First Serbian Uprising, which was the first phase of the Serbian Revolution and lasted from 1804 to 1813. As the revolt progressed, Karadjordje increasingly called for autonomy from the Ottomans and proclaimed himself as the hereditary supreme leader of Serbia. Largely because of an unfavorable international climate, however, the Serbs were defeated, with this first phase of the Serbian Revolution ending when Ottoman forces recaptured Belgrade in 1813. At the end of the uprising, Karadjordje fled to Habsburg lands.

The Second Uprising began in 1814, and was led by another wealthy peasant, Miloš Obrenovi?. After a year of fighting, Miloš succeeded in securing a degree of autonomy from the Porte in 1815, even though full autonomy would not be gained until 1830. First, he was recognized as "supreme knez of Serbia." Second, it was granted that Serbian officials would collect taxes and that Serbian judges would determine Serbian cases. Furthermore, Serbia got favorable tariffs and trading privileges. Finally, Janissaries were excluded from owning land, and all Serbs who participated in the uprising were given amnesty. Miloš was more successful in securing gains for a number of reasons. First, he was more of a diplomat. Second, he was not facing the same international situation that Karadjordje had faced. During Karadjordje's struggle, the European powers were engaged in battle with Napoleon. By Obrenovi?'s phase, Napoleon had been defeated, and the European powers, especially Russia, could turn their attention back to the Balkans.

role of the serbian orthodox church in the national movement

During the revolution, only a minority of Serbs lived in the Pashalik of Belgrade. The remainder of the Serbian population was dispersed over Habsburg and other Ottoman lands. It was the less educated, less literate Serbs of the Pashalik of Belgrade who took up arms against the local Ottoman authorities and secured a degree of autonomy. But it was the more educated Serbs from the Habsburg lands, the pre?ani as they were called because they lived across (preko) the Sava River, who shaped the revolt into a national movement.

The Serbian Orthodox Church was central to the Serbian national movement. More a cultural and quasi-political institution than a religious one, it had preserved a Serbian identity through the centuries of Ottoman rule, and fostered the idea of political unity. The church's role resulted directly from the Ottoman millet system, which had allowed it to preserve autonomy and jurisdiction over legal and moral matters of its local population. Significant to later national aspirations, the church also served as a common point for Serbs who lived outside of the country's borders in Austrian or Ottoman territory, who despite their geopolitical division shared the Orthodox religion, allegiance to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and a common language written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The church perpetuated Serbian medieval history through a cult of Serbian royal saints and epic poetry. The church's monasteries were

educational and cultural centers for priests, some of whom would become leaders in the Serbian national movement.

Especially influential was the Metropolitanate of Karlovci in the Vojvodina (Serbian duchy), the area of southern Hungary to which many Serbs fled from the Ottomans. The greatest migration had occurred in 1690, when thousands migrated under the leadership of Patriarch Arsenius III ?rnojevi? into Habsburg territory where they were granted lands by the Austrian emperor, Leopold I, and a measure of autonomy. Serbian society in the Vojvodina was organized around the church and included peasants and an influential middle class of merchants, artisans, clergy, and the military. This community became an important cultural center, and was influenced by Western ideas and the Enlightenment. Especially influential was the work of two men, Dositej Obradovi? and Vuk karadži?. karadži?, the father of the Serbian language, codified the language and compiled a dictionary and grammar book, in addition to collecting traditional Serbian poetry and stories. Obradovi? was a monk who wrote Serbian literature in the vernacular. Both provided visions of the Serbian nation, albeit two very different ones; Obradovi? was influenced by Enlightenment thought, whereas karadži? was inspired by Romanticism.

internal political life

After the revolution, Serbs were faced with establishing their own government and developing their economy, society, and culture, while concurrently trying to gain increasing independence from the Ottoman Porte. Two key questions dominated Serbian internal political life for much of the century after the Serbian Revolution. The first was the rivalry between the Karadjordjevi? and Obrenovi? dynasties, which was rooted in the personal conflict between Karadjordje and Miloš. After winning the Second Uprising, Miloš began to encounter opposition from within, especially from supporters of Karadjordje. When Karadjordje returned to Serbia in 1817, Miloš had him killed and his stuffed head presented to the sultan. The conflict between these two dynasties persisted throughout the nineteenth century, deepened as their members began to pursue different political policies, and manifested itself in the form of several regime overthrows by one or the other.

The second political question was the debate over what the political structure of Serbia should be. Even though Miloš had led the Serbs in their quest for liberation, he was by no means liberally minded, and was not ready to extend rule to his people. Instead, he ruled as a paternalistic despot who equated his own political and economic interests with those of the state. It has been said that he ran the country like an Ottoman pasha or sultan. The life of the average Serbian peasant did not immediately improve after the Serbian Revolution. Serbian peasants faced an even heavier tax burden than under the Ottomans, because of the needs of the new state apparatus and Miloš's practice of bribing Ottoman officials. They still had to engage in forced labor (a labor tax) because Miloš needed workers to build roads, bridges, and public buildings. Miloš used his position as leader to secure significant personal wealth, by confiscating former Ottoman land, establishing monopolies on livestock export and salt, and maintaining peasant taxes. Furthermore, Miloš saw the need to control the potential political threat of Serbian military leaders, knezes, and prosperous merchants, many of whom were looking to replace the departing sipahis. As a result, he aimed to secure hereditary succession. Miloš did enjoy authority and popularity, which derived largely from the role he had played in the revolution, but also because Serbian peasants were accustomed to patriarchal, despotic rule.

Through negotiation and bribery, Miloš gained the Porte's recognition of Serbia's full autonomy in 1830. He succeeded in large part also because of Russian support, one example of how the intervention of the Great European Powers often played an important role in Serbia's political development. The terms of the 1830 hatti-sherif (irrevocable imperial decree) recognized Miloš as prince of Serbia with the right of hereditary succession. It gave Serbia control over its own internal affairs, namely the administration and collection of taxes and regulation of church affairs. It forbade Ottomans to live in the countryside and confiscated Ottoman landed property. It also delimited the borders that Serbia was to have until the Congress of Berlin of 1878, bounded by the Danube River to the north, the Drina River to the west, and the Timok River to the east, with a southern border directly above the town of Niš. The hatti-sherif also established a council and an assembly, which Miloš refused to implement. This issue gave rise to the struggle between Prince Miloš as the absolute ruler and the notables, a struggle that was to dominate Serbian political life until the promulgation of the first Serbian constitution in 1869.

limiting absolute rule

Having strong personal rule was less in keeping with Serbian tradition than a decentralized system of local notables. The notables, who drew largely on western European ideas and terminology, began demanding a constitution to limit the arbitrary and absolute rule of the prince. In 1838 the sultan issued the so-called Turkish constitution, which was to form the basis for the Serbian government until the Serbian constitution of 1869. It stipulated that sovereignty was to reside in a council of seventeen members who were to be appointed for life by the prince. The prince and the council were to share legislative functions, and the council had to approve laws and taxes, although the prince had absolute veto. It also made ministers responsible to the council, and regulated the civil service, judicial system, and state administration. Miloš accepted the constitution because of pressure from domestic opponents and European consuls. In 1839 he was forced to abdicate by a coalition of six council members—three of whom were pre?ani—calling themselves the Defenders fo the Constitution. Miloš, who was exiled to Habsburg territory, was succeeded by his son Michael (Mihailo), who as a minor, governed through regency. In 1842 Michael was overthrown by supporters of the Karadjordjevi? dynasty, who recognized Karadjordje's son Alexander as the legitimate successor.

The Constitution Defenders instituted oligarchic rule, and promoted legality, greater economic freedom, and the advancement of education. While they were not democratic, they opposed the regulation of national life by the state. This period was dominated by powerful ministers, most prominently Interior Minister Ilija Garašanin, as the prince was too weak to significantly shape the government. The ministers established a bureaucratic regime through which they hoped to modernize Serbia and give it a European-style government. Most of the posts had to be filled by Serbs born and educated outside of the Pashalik of Belgrade, especially by the pre?ani. As a result, a significant cultural rift existed between the foreign-educated bureaucrats and the peasantry, as the former felt superior and the latter were suspicious. As an increasing number of native-born Serbs were sent abroad to receive their education, however, they gradually replaced the pre?ani in the regime. One of the greatest achievements of the Constitution Defenders was the enactment of the civil code of 1844, which was adapted almost entirely from Austrian models. The rule of the Constitution Defenders and Prince Alexander came to an end at a meeting of the national assembly on St. Andrew's Day in 1858, when a combination of local and commercial opponents forced them and the Karadjordjevi? dynasty from power. Miloš Obrenovi? was brought back to the throne the following year.

At this point in its political development, Serbia had three centers of power—the ruler, the council, and the assembly; by 1859 the latter gained advisory powers and had to be called every three years. Two political parties also began to emerge, the Liberals, who favored the supremacy of the council, and the Conservatives, who favored the ruler and the council. In 1860 Michael Obrenovi? came to the throne for a second time upon the death of Miloš. Michael is considered to have been the most effective ruler of modern Serbia. While he was in exile, he had traveled and received a formal education, the first Serbian prince to do so. Michael reasserted the power of the monarchy, and working with Gara?anin, a Conservative, sought to eliminate opposition by repressing the Liberal Party. Toward this end, he passed a censorship law in 1861 and virtually dissolved the highest court in 1864. He also focused on territorial expansion and securing the complete withdrawal of the Ottomans from the city garrisons, which was completed in 1867. Furthermore, he established a national militia, made all males between the ages of twenty and fifty subject to military service, and created a war ministry and facilities for the training of soldiers. He made alliances with neighboring Balkan states against the Ottoman Empire, but these were often thwarted by divergent and competing national interests. In 1868 Michael was assassinated, and having no heirs was succeeded by his fourteen-year-old cousin, Milan.

Milan Obrenovi? ruled with a three-man regency that included Jovan Risti?. Risti? was largely responsible for pushing through the first Serbian constitution in 1869, which replaced the Turkish constitution of 1838. Drafted by a constitutional assembly without foreign interference, the constitution reinforced a strong executive by giving the prince the power to appoint one-fourth of the National Assembly and to dismiss it at will. But it reflected the contemporary European ideas of the Liberals as well. The National Assembly, to which all taxpaying males would elect representatives, was to meet annually and hold public debates. Furthermore, the state council was reduced to an administrative committee. The constitution also provided a general declaration of civil rights, including the equality of citizens, property rights, and freedom of speech and religion. Ultimately, no one was happy with the constitution, as the prince and the Conservatives felt that it went too far in providing for parliamentary rights, and the Liberals felt that it did not go far enough. Much of the next decade was spent in efforts on all sides to revise the constitution.

Serbia moved a step closer to independence when it was recognized as a principality in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin. This is the same year that the Radicals, the ideological heirs of the socialist Svetozar Markovi?, came on the Serbian political scene. Nikola Paši?, the leader of the Radicals, was among the first to be elected to the National Assembly in 1878. The Radical Party, which was formally founded with the Radical Program of 1881, was the party of the peasants, at least traditionally. It advocated amending the constitution to enfranchise all adult citizens and to give the National Assembly full legislative power. The Radicals also called for improvements in the economy and education. The party was highly disciplined and systematically organized, and its influence was reflected in its victory at the polls. Prince Milan, however, decided to work with the Progressive Party, which was overshadowed by the Radicals and never gained much of a following. In 1882 Serbia was proclaimed a kingdom and Milan, king.

The next twenty years of Serbian political life would be dominated by the domestic affairs and scandals of the Obrenovi? dynasty. Before abdicating in 1889, Milan called a constitutional assembly in 1888, which was dominated by the Radicals. The new constitution that they drafted (which was adopted in January 1889 [December 1888, old style]) was more democratic than the constitution of 1869, as it gave more power to the parliament, instituted universal suffrage for taxpayers and secret elections, and more clearly defined civil liberties. Milan appointed a three-member regency to rule when his twelve-year-old son, Alexander, ascended the throne. Alexander's reign was dominated by the Radicals, and is best remembered for the scandal surrounding his wife, Draga, who was ten years his senior and reputed to be barren and promiscuous. His rule came to an end in 1903, when he and Draga were brutally assassinated in their palace by a group of young officers who believed Alexander's rule to be detrimental to Serbia's future.

The coup d'état reinstated the Karadjordjevi? dynasty under the rule of Peter Karadjordjevi?. A new constitution was promulgated in 1903, which was actually a modified version of the constitution of 1889. It was a remarkably liberal document that established Serbia as a hereditary constitutional monarchy and declared that all Serbs were equal before the law. Under this constitution the National Assembly had real powers. It also provided for freedom of the press and religion, as well as an independent judiciary and the abolition of the death penalty. This constitution marked the beginning of a new political orientation for Serbia, characterized by the establishment of justice and freedom, as well as improvements to the economy and the modernization of the army. King Peter was fiercely patriotic, a Russophile, and a staunch supporter of Pan-Serbianism. During his reign relations with Serbia's Balkan neighbors and Russia improved, while relations with Austria-Hungary deteriorated, culminating in the outbreak of war in 1914.

economy and society

While Serbia spent much of the nineteenth century establishing a modern nation-state, economic development lagged behind political modernization. The nineteenth century saw significant demographic changes in Serbia, both in population growth and composition. The population of the Pashalik of Belgrade in 1815 was around 450,000. The first census taken in 1834 reported 678,192 inhabitants. Between 1834 and 1859, the population nearly doubled to one million and further jumped to 2.5 million by 1899. This figure included the territory surrounding Niš that had been added to Serbia after the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 (10,300 square kilometers [4,000 square miles] and 303,097 inhabitants). On the eve of World War I, Serbia had approximately 4.5 million inhabitants. This steady increase in population was due in part to high rural birthrates and the immigration into Serbia of Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, motivated by worsening economic and political situations. Furthermore, territories added to Serbia after the Treaty of Berlin and after the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), especially the incorporation of Old Serbia (the southern provinces that had been under Ottoman rule), significantly contributed to its population increase.

The Serbian population also became increasingly Serbian, especially in the towns. In 1815, 97 percent of Serbs lived in the countryside, while the towns were inhabited largely by the fifteen thousand Muslim Ottomans living in Serbia, two-thirds of whom were Bosnian Muslim Slavs who spoke the same language as the Serbs. The towns were Ottoman administrative and military centers, and the predominant presence of the Muslims was evident in the Ottoman public buildings, mosques, fountains, baths, covered markets, and fortresses. The next largest urban population consisted of the Gypsies. There were also a comparatively smaller number of Jews, Greeks, and Hellenized Vlachs, or "Cincars" (Anglicized as "Tsintsars"), who comprised the merchant class. Through the course of the century many Greek traders departed voluntarily, while the Turks and other Muslims were driven out, with the final expulsion from cities occurring in 1867. By the end of the century, the ethnic composition of Serbia was nearly 90 percent Serb.

Serbia, predominantly a nation of small landowners, faced significant obstacles to economic and social development, as it lacked a substantial merchant class to lead commerce. It also lacked communications and transportation networks. In the early nineteenth century, the Serbian economy centered on stock raising, with agriculture beginning to develop more intensely in the 1830s. The first significant economic change after the revolution was the rapid rise of a Serbian merchant class. Increasingly, Serbian merchants began to replace Greek and Jewish ones through a process of steady urbanization. Serbia's foreign trade doubled between 1850 and 1876. Livestock was the country's major export, with Austria-Hungary the market for 90 percent of Serbian exports. In turn, 90 percent of Serbian imports came from the Monarchy. This arrangement increasingly forced Serbia into a position of economic dependency, which was solidified in 1881 when Prince Milan Obrenovi?, an Austrophile, signed a secret trade agreement with Austria-Hungary that effectively made Serbia a political and economic vassal of the Monarchy. When Serbia refused to renew this commercial agreement, a tariff war, known as the Pig War, broke out between the two countries, lasting from 1906 to 1911. During this time, Serbia's economy suffered, even though the war did encourage the development of certain sectors of the economy, such as the meat slaughtering industry. By the turn of the century, animal husbandry had declined and agricultural products became Serbia's main export. During the century, Serbian agricultural production had increased, especially in wheat. Nevertheless, primitive agricultural technology prevented Serbia from remaining competitive as it entered the twentieth century. Another economic change was the introduction of a money economy, which also led to the disintegration of the zadruga because peasants no longer needed to be self-sufficient.

Industry was very slow to develop in Serbia, consisting initially only of ironworks to support the army. The government did build roads and bridges, and communication received a boost with the arrival of the telegraph in 1855. However, only

toward the end of the 1880s did small factories arise. The development of railroads began in 1884, funded largely by French companies. In the late 1890s, industrial development was more rapid because of an increase in government concessions and an injection of foreign and domestic capital, largely due to the emerging banking system. Toward the end of the century, telephones and electric lights appeared in Belgrade. Despite Serbia's economic development and demographic growth, the country remained largely agricultural, with over 84 percent of the population engaged in agriculture in 1900. At the outbreak of World War I, Serbia was still a peasant society.

cultural life

Until the 1870s, it was largely the Serbs from the Habsburg lands who led Serbia's cultural modernization. At the beginning of the century, there were very few primary schools and a deficit of professionally trained teachers. Initially, Habsburg Serbs filled most of the teaching posts. In the 1830 hatti-sherif, Serbs gained the right to build schools without the Porte's approval. The first law on elementary schools was passed in 1833, but a lack of paper, books, and qualified teachers thwarted their development. Education also suffered from inadequate funding by the government. In the second half of the century, steady progress could be seen. For example, in 1875 there were 534 elementary schools attended by approximately 23,000 students. Two years later the number of schools rose to 558 and students to 47,000. A law in 1882 made six years of elementary education obligatory, although there was a great deal of noncompliance, which is demonstrated by the fact that five years later no village in Serbia had even five grades. The slow development in education is also demonstrated by the low rates of literacy in Serbia. In 1866 only 4 percent of the population was literate, and by 1884 the number had risen to 11 percent. A substantial gap existed between townspeople and villagers. Only 6.4 percent of villagers were literate, compared with 43.7 percent of townspeople. Literacy among women was markedly lower, with only 0.3 percent of women in villages and 12.4 percent in towns being literate.

This town and country divide became even more striking when the capital city of Belgrade underwent a rapid cultural modernization in the 1870s and 1880s, after the expulsion of the Ottomans. This change manifested essentially as a Europeanization in style and manners, thus expelling the once-dominant Ottoman and Serbian patriarchal influences. The people adapted bourgeois fashions from Vienna, Budapest, and Paris. Belgrade became almost the exclusive center of higher culture, where the majority of newspapers and books were published. The circulation of newspapers, which were the primary vehicles for spreading modern culture, sharply increased after freedom of the press was assured in the 1869 constitution. A number of cultural institutions arose in the capital in the latter half of the century. In the 1850s the National Library and National Museum were established, followed by the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1887. The Great School (Velika škola), the highest institution of learning in Serbia, was established in 1863 and was transformed into the University of Belgrade in 1905. The Serbian National Theater, which was established in 1869, had tremendous cultural influence. Also, the Royal Serbian Academy was founded in 1887 with the purpose of advancing scholarship.

external politics

During Miloš's reign, the Serbian government pursued a nonaggressive foreign policy aimed primarily at gaining full autonomy from the Ottoman Empire. When the promulgation of the 1869 constitution somewhat settled internal political affairs, the Serbian government began to pursue an expansionist foreign policy aimed at incorporating the numerous Serbs who still lived in the surrounding Ottoman and Habsburg lands into the Serbian principality. This plan to liberate Serbs from imperial domination and to unify them into a single state was known as the Greater Serbia plan. This idea was first articulated in 1844 by Garašanin in a document called "Nacertanije" (Outline). Here, Garašanin proposed that Serbia reestablish the boundaries of the Serbian medieval kingdom, including the lands of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia and areas of southern Hungary, as well as secure an outlet to the Adriatic Sea. The need to acquire an outlet to the sea became even more apparent in light of the economic difficulties Serbia suffered during the Pig War. This expansionist policy inevitably led Serbia to clash with the neighboring Austrian and Ottoman Empires, as it called for the incorporation into Serbia of imperial lands.

In the early twentieth century, Serbia went to war against the Ottoman Empire, and came to the brink of war with Austria-Hungary on several occasions prior to the outbreak of war in 1914. The closest Serbia came to war with the Monarchy was in 1908 when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which it had occupied since 1878. The Serbian government was forced to accept the annexation, because the Great Powers were not ready or willing to go to war over the annexation. But a group of soldiers and civilians who were dissatisfied with the outcome of this so-called Annexation Crisis organized two nationalist organizations, Narodna odbrana (The National Defense) and Ujedinjenje ili smrt (Union or Death). These underground organizations worked toward the shared goal of a Greater Serbia, both through cultural work and political agitation.

At the same time, Serbia formed alliances with the neighboring countries of Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro to create the Balkan League, aimed at driving the Ottoman Empire from the peninsula. The alliance declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1912 and defeated it in 1913. In the Treaty of London, which ended this First Balkan War, Austria-Hungary and Italy provided for the creation of an independent Albania, which prevented Serbia from getting an outlet to the sea. In compensation, it gave Serbia substantial territory in Macedonia. Shortly thereafter, Bulgaria went to war against Serbia and Greece over competing claims in Macedonia, launching the Second Balkan War. Reinforced by Montenegro, Romania, and the Ottoman Empire, Serbia and Greece quickly defeated Bulgaria. The ensuing Treaty of Bucharest reaffirmed Serbian gains in Macedonia. As a result of the Balkan Wars, the Kingdom of Serbia almost doubled in size from 48,000 square kilometers (18,500 square miles) to 87,300 square kilometers (33,700 miles), and its population jumped from 2.9 million to 4.4 million. It had also regained the lands of Old Serbia, which included the historically significant province of Kosovo.

While Serbia's struggle against the Ottomans was resolved with its victories in the Balkan Wars, its conflict with Austria-Hungary only continued escalating in the first decade of the twentieth century and ultimately culminated in the outbreak of war in July 1914 when the Austrian government held the Serbian government responsible for the actions of the Union or Death organization in assassinating the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand. This Austro-Serbian war quickly devolved into World War I.

See alsoAustria-Hungary; Balkan Wars; Belgrade; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Karadjordje; Millet System; Nationalism; Ottoman Empire; Slavophiles.

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