Capture of Smederevo

On 11 October 1915 the German 25th Reserve Division took Smederevo, a town on the Danube about 40 kilometres east of Belgrade. The British chronology of the war records that Smederevo was taken by Austrian troops, but according to the Austrian official history the fighting here was done by units of General Max von Gallwitz’s German 11th Army. The American monthly “Current History”, which recorded the events of the war as they happened, also noted under 13 October that Smederevo had been taken by the Germans. Smederevo, in whose fortress the Serbian despots had resided in the 15th century, was, after Belgrade, the most strongly defended place on the Serbian bank of the Danube.

The crossing below the fortress

Smederevo lies at the mouth of the Jezava river where it flows into the Danube. The town is dominated by the fortress built in 1428–1430 by Despot Đurađ Branković when, after losing Belgrade, he moved the capital of Serbia here. By 1915 its medieval walls no longer had any military significance, but the Serbs had built modern trenches and artillery positions around the town. Between Smederevo and Smederevska Palanka, at the mouth of the Morava valley, two divisions of the Serbian 3rd Army stood in reserve.

Opposite the town, on the Hungarian side, the German III Corps of General Ewald von Lochow, made up of the 6th Infantry Division and the 25th Reserve Division, was preparing to cross. During the bombardment that began on 5 October, Smederevo went up in flames. When on 7 October other corps were already forcing the Danube and the Sava, III Corps was still only shelling the Serbian positions. The crossing began on the morning of 9 October. The Austro-Hungarian official history lists the equipment at the corps’ disposal: besides the German bridging trains, four Austro-Hungarian bridging sets, a hundred Danube boats, six motor boats and a steamer with six barges. The soldiers embarked north of Smederevo Island, which lies opposite the town.

The Danube, swollen after torrential rain, was flowing very fast. The pioneers of the 25th Reserve Division, who were to land the infantry upstream of Smederevo, managed to get across with only eight pontoons carrying 150 soldiers. The rest were carried away by the current and, under fire from Serbian batteries, landed back on the island. The 6th Division, ferried across below the island, downstream, had better luck. It landed without much difficulty, drove off the weak Serbian outposts and took the village of Kulič east of the town. Lochow then moved the 25th Reserve Division onto this bridgehead as well and sent it west, towards Smederevo. The handful of soldiers who had landed west of the town held on at the very edge of the bank all day, and were evacuated at night.

The assault of 11 October

The Serbs knew that they were defending a key position. Smederevo barred the way into the Morava valley and at the same time covered from the east the rear of the troops defending the line south of Belgrade, which had fallen on 9 October. As early as 8 October the Serbian supreme command sent here a division that had until then been held in reserve facing Bulgaria, at Knjaževac, and its squadrons and a few companies were also formed into an improvised cavalry brigade. On 10 October III Corps advanced slowly between the Jezava and the Morava. On 11 October the 25th Reserve Division forced the Jezava and took Smederevo together with the old fortress, which, as the Austrian official history admits, the Serbs defended bravely. The Germans then moved on to the west and south. East of the town the 6th Division, in heavy fighting, drove the Serbs back from the village of Lipe, and on 12 October reached the Morava.

The capture of Smederevo opened the way into the Morava valley for the 11th Army, but the fighting south of the town went on for many more days. The Germans had an unbridged river behind them, and their supplies and artillery were carried across by ferries, which from 12 October were hampered by the košava, a violent autumn wind. On the night of 14–15 October two armed steamers and a minesweeper broke through down the Danube to Smederevo, and on 17 October a barge bridge reached the 11th Army. From the end of October the town housed the headquarters of Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who commanded the whole campaign against Serbia.