End of the armistice in Montenegro

The British chronology of the war records under 20 January 1916 that the negotiations between Austria-Hungary and Montenegro had been broken off and the armistice had ceased to apply. The ceasefire had indeed lasted only a few days. After the request for an armistice of 11 January and the capture of Cetinje, on 16 January the Montenegrin government accepted Vienna’s condition that the army lay down its arms, and on 17 January the Austro-Hungarian supreme command ordered hostilities to be halted. The negotiations collapsed, however, before anything was signed. On 19 January King Nicholas I left Montenegro, and according to the Austrian official history on 20 January he landed at Brindisi, where he declared that he rejected all the terms and would fight on.

The King’s hesitation

For a long time Nicholas could not make up his mind. According to the Austrian official history he feigned firmness before his entourage, but under pressure from his ministers agreed to negotiations. All the while he was hoping for milder terms and waiting for Emperor Franz Joseph’s reply to his letter asking for an “honourable peace”. On 17 January the Montenegrin negotiators suddenly left, and Prime Minister Lazar Mijušković, according to the Czech historian František Šístek, left the country that same day. On the same day Queen Milena told the Serbs that the court had postponed its departure because it expected better peace terms. The Entente ministers, however, urged the King not to remain in a country occupied by the enemy. According to the Austrian official history, the Entente camp feared that a separate, lenient peace with Montenegro might encourage other small states to seek an understanding with the Central Powers.

Departure for Italy

On 19 January Nicholas and his closest family left the country through Scutari for the coast. Some accounts say that he reached San Giovanni di Medua only on 21 January, but the Austrian official history, based on the Serbian staff history, states that already on 20 January he landed at Brindisi from an Italian torpedo boat together with Prime Minister Mijušković. From there he went on to Rome. He left the conduct of the talks with the Austrians to the ministers who had not yet left the country. His son, Prince Mirko, also stayed behind. The King’s departure surprised and embittered both the remnants of the Montenegrin army and the Serbian soldiers who at the same time were waiting, starving, for ships on the Albanian coast. The ministers who remained in the country later claimed that the King had left without the government’s knowledge, and Mijušković in reply called their actions unauthorised. The state was thus split into a government in exile and authorities left behind under occupation.

The threat of renewed fighting

The Austro-Hungarian command had no intention of waiting. When Serdar Janko Vukotić, appointed chief of staff of the Montenegrin army a few days earlier, raised objections to the disarmament terms handed to him, the supreme command at Teschen threatened to resume operations on 21 January. At the request of the government in Vienna the deadline was put back by one day. At the same time the Austro-Hungarian troops kept advancing, for as early as 16 January Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had ordered a detachment of two battalions and a mountain battery to be sent towards Scutari. On 21 January Vukotić disbanded the army by Order No. 128 to save the soldiers from internment, and the soldiers dispersed to their homes. On 23 January Montenegrin representatives agreed with the Austrians the terms for laying down arms, which were signed on 25 January. They did not bind the King. Nicholas I never signed a capitulation and never returned to Montenegro.