Montenegro declares war on Austria-Hungary

On 5 August 1914 the Kingdom of Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary. This is the date given by contemporary chronicles of the war. Other sources give 6 or 7 August, partly because Montenegro was then still using the Julian calendar and news from Cetinje reached Europe with a delay. All sources agree, however, that the small Balkan monarchy entered the war in the first week of August, as Serbia’s first ally.

At Serbia’s side

The decision of King Nicholas I came as no surprise. Montenegro was bound to Serbia by a common language, faith and sense of belonging to the Serb nation, as well as by dynastic ties. The two states had fought together in the Balkan Wars. Montenegro ordered mobilisation as early as 26 July, and in the first days of August agreed military cooperation with Serbia. The Serbian general Božidar Janković soon became chief of staff of its army.

A few days later Montenegro also declared war on Germany. This was mainly symbolic, since the two countries had no common border, but it underlined that Cetinje had taken the side of the Entente.

Guns above the Bay of Kotor

Although the Montenegrin army numbered only a few tens of thousands of men and was poorly armed, the country had one important asset: its position. Mount Lovćen rose directly above the Bay of Kotor, home to the most important Austro-Hungarian fleet base in the southern Adriatic. Montenegrin artillery placed on the slopes of Lovćen could shell the port of Kotor and the fortifications around the bay.

Austria-Hungary responded by shelling the Montenegrin coast, including the port of Bar, then known as Antivari. On 16 August, near that port, the French fleet sank the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Zenta. In autumn 1914 Montenegrin troops, commanded among others by General Janko Vukotić, advanced together with the Serbs into eastern Herzegovina and Bosnia.

The fall of the kingdom

Montenegro fought on until early 1916. In January, after the fall of Serbia, Austro-Hungarian troops took Lovćen and occupied Cetinje, and the country capitulated. King Nicholas I went into exile, first to Italy and then to France. He never returned to the throne: in November 1918 an assembly in Podgorica proclaimed his deposition and the union of Montenegro with Serbia. The country became part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Significance

Montenegro’s declaration of war mattered little to the course of the war in Europe, but it shows well how quickly the Austro-Serbian conflict drew in further states. Within a week of the declaration of war on Serbia all the great powers of Europe were fighting, and in the Balkans Serbia gained an ally that tied down part of the Austro-Hungarian forces on the Adriatic.