Montenegro asks for an armistice

The British chronology of the war records under 12 January 1916 the conclusion of an armistice between Montenegro and Austria-Hungary. In reality no armistice was in force that day. According to the Austrian official history, the Montenegrin government had already asked on 11 January for a six-day suspension of hostilities and the opening of peace negotiations, but the Austro-Hungarian high command refused. It demanded the unconditional laying down of arms by the whole Montenegrin army and the handing over of the Serbian soldiers still in the country, and ordered the fighting to continue until these conditions were met. The historian Srđa Pavlović dates King Nicholas I’s consent to negotiations to 12 January. Hostilities were suspended only a few days later, when the Montenegrins accepted Vienna’s terms.

Defeat on Lovćen

On 8 January the Austro-Hungarian troops of General Stjepan Sarkotić attacked from the Bay of Kotor against the Lovćen massif, which guarded the road to the Montenegrin capital, Cetinje. After three days of bombardment by land guns and warships and of fighting on the bare rocks, Lovćen fell. On 10 January the Austrians also took Berane in the east of the country. In the north the Montenegrins had held Mojkovac a few days earlier, but this could not change the outcome of the war. According to the Austrian official history, the hungry and poorly clothed soldiers from Lovćen refused to obey the order to counter-attack, despite appeals from the king’s sons, Princes Mirko and Peter. Units began to disperse to their homes.

The request for an armistice

On the evening of 10 January the Montenegrin government proposed to the king that the enemy be asked for a suspension of hostilities. According to the Austrian official history, Nicholas refused, because he was counting on the help promised him by Tsar Nicholas II and on his own influence. On the morning of 11 January, when his appeals to the retreating soldiers had no effect, he gave way. Cetinje was in chaos. The carriages of the royal family and of the foreign legations hurriedly left for Rijeka Crnojevića, while hungry refugees crowded around the state warehouses. Government envoys handed the Austrian advanced guards of the 47th Infantry Division a letter signed by Prime Minister Lazar Mijušković, asking for a six-day armistice and the opening of peace negotiations.

Vienna’s answer

The headquarters of the 3rd Army immediately forwarded the request to the high command at Teschen. The answer was harsh: hostilities would cease only after the unconditional laying down of arms by the whole Montenegrin army and the handing over of the Serbian soldiers in the country. The Chief of the General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, had no intention of sparing Montenegro, a neighbour that had been troublesome for Vienna for decades. As late as the end of 1915 he had proposed to the Foreign Minister, István Burián, that after the war it be annexed in its entirety to Austria-Hungary.

The advance did not slow down. On 12 January the Austro-Hungarian troops in the west were still meeting resistance, but the next day they found the ground ahead empty. On 13 January the Austrians entered Cetinje, and that same evening the Montenegrin government renewed its request for peace. At this time the king wrote to Emperor Franz Joseph, asking for an “honourable peace”. On 16 January the government accepted the condition that the army capitulate, and a day later the Austrians suspended hostilities. This brief suspension of hostilities collapsed after only a few days, when the king left the country.