Kingdom of Serbia (1882 – 1918)

Although the assignment of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria had deprived Serbia of the most coveted provinces, however, having almost doubled the territory and having achieved a position of particular importance in the Balkans, allowed it to rise from a principality to reign. Milan assumed the new title on January 6, 1882 and the proclamation by the Skupština Ristretta took place on February 22, but the foreign policy remained and the domestic one full of convulsions. The Treaty of Berlin imposed an Austrian attitude, so it was better to link the economy to that of Austria and not think about the redemption of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Other failures were added. In 1885 Bulgaria annexed Eastern Rumelia, that the Treaty of Santo Stefano had assigned to it and of which an independent territory had been established in Berlin. Serbia, harmed in its interests, waged war against it. But in Slivnica he suffered such a serious defeat, followed by such an acute internal crisis, that the king, also troubled by family disagreements, had to abdicate on February 22, 1889 in favor of his son Alexander. The reign of Alexander, the last of the Obrenovićs, is the most turbulent period in modern Serbian history. Bloody party contests, coups d’état, palace conspiracies, all the most unpleasant government expedients that sovereigns, governments and parties had used in the most troubled moments, became a system. The situation resulted in regicide. On the night of 10 to 11 June 1903 a conspiracy of officers suppressed the king, the queen, two brothers of the queen and several ministers. On June 15 the Skupština and the Senate, united in a single assembly, proclaimed Peter Karagjorgiević king. Under him politics completely changed the sovereign of parliamentary views, he left free play to the parties, essentially assuming the role of guardian of the constitution. The atmosphere gradually reproduced in the village, and the aspirations of the times of Michele Obrenović resumed. They began to look with hostility to Austria and Turkey, holders of Slavic territories; the support of the Slavic Russia was sought. Once this line was established, it was never abandoned. In 1908, when Austria turned the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina into annexation, it almost went to war. Soon after,Balkan, wars) The Serbian armies occupied Skoplje, Priština, Prilep, Prizren, Peć, Ochrida However, the common enemy was overcome, dissensions and jealousies emerged among the allies. of allies. He did not want to abandon the Bulgarian Macedonia which the alliance treaty had assigned to Bulgaria. The disagreement intensified so much that in July 1913 there was a new war between Serbia and Greece on the one hand, and Bulgaria on the other. Bulgaria, also attacked by Turkey and Romania, had the worst and in the Bucharest treaty of 10 August had to accept the Serbian requests in full. After that Serbia, which once again doubled its territory, it became the strongest power in the Balkans and did not hide the intention of wanting to redeem other regions as well. Austria, which many Slavs had within its borders, felt the threat and wanted to respond with demonstrations of power. The Viennese cabinet decided that the great military maneuvers of 1914 would take place in Bosnia and that the crown prince Francesco Ferdinando would assist. On June 28, while the prince was walking through the streets of Sarajevo, a Bosnian, armed with Serbian propaganda, Gavrilo Princip, killed him. Austria sent a note to Belgrade with a series of requests that Serbia partly did not accept, considering them harmful to its sovereignty. On July 28, war was declared, which, rapidly flaring up and spreading, invested almost all of Europe. In 1914 the Austrian armies invaded the Serbian territory twice trying to settle there, but were repulsed, the first time in the battle of Cer (16-19 August) and the second in that of Kolubara (3-15 December). The disaster came for the Serbs in the autumn of 1915 (5 October-28 November), when, also attacked by the Bulgarians, they had to evacuate the last inch of the national territory and repair in pitiful and ruinous disorder through the Albanian mountains, on the banks of the lower Adriatic, where they were collected by the allied naval forces, primarily Italian, and transported, together with the government and a large civil population, to the island of Corfu. Here, reorganized and re-equipped, the survivors, about 140,000 men, were sent to the Thessaloniki front, where they fought alongside the Allies until the victory of the Entente in 1918. Meanwhile, the government, in agreement with the Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian emigrants from the Austrian provinces, who had formed the Yugoslav Committee in London on the 20th July 1917 made the declaration be the will of all Croatian Serbs and Slovenes to unify under the scepter of the Karagjorgjević into a single constitutional, democratic and parliamentary monarchy, in which the three peoples and the scope of their civilizations (religion, language and alphabet) enjoyed the same rights. However, even earlier, among the population and the Yugoslav representatives in the Austrian chamber, another current had taken shape, and in the declaration of May 30, 1917, which wanted to unify the Slavs of the Austria under the scepter of the Habsburgs under Croatian state law. The outcome of the war undoubtedly fulfilled the aspirations of the Serbian government and the emigrants. While Austria was falling apart, national councils were set up in the Slavic lands that had already belonged to it, which, with appropriate constitutional guarantees, approved the unification with Serbia. On 1 December 1918, Prince Alexander, who had assumed the regency since June 1914, received the delegates and proclaimed the new state. To Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia and Slavonia were added Montenegro, Dalmatia and, along all borders, various rounding zones. Milos’ Serbia increased tenfold; with this, however, it exhausted its historical mission. The very different Kingdom of the Serbs took its place,