Nikola Pašić in Russia

The British chronology of the war records under 7 May 1916 the establishment of the Serbian government at Salonika. No other source confirms this entry. The British official history of the operations in Macedonia states that only in July did the Regent Alexander and the Serbian war ministry move to Salonika, while the prime minister and most of the cabinet remained on Corfu, which was the seat of government until the end of the war. The chief of staff of the Supreme Command, General Petar Bojović, according to Serbian studies arrived at Salonika with part of his staff at the end of May, when the transport of the army from the island was nearing completion. In the first days of May, moreover, the head of government was neither on Corfu nor in Macedonia, but in Russia.

With the Tsar and Sazonov

Since early spring the prime minister, Nikola Pašić, had been touring the Allied capitals. He accompanied the Regent Alexander on his journey to Rome, Paris and London, and when the Regent returned to Corfu in April, Pašić went on to Petrograd. The London weekly The Near East, which followed Balkan affairs, reported in its issue of 5 May that the Serbian prime minister had arrived there on Monday, most probably 1 May. A week later the same weekly wrote that on Thursday, that is 4 May, Tsar Nicholas II had received him in private audience at Tsarskoye Selo. The next day the foreign minister, Sergei Sazonov, gave a luncheon in the guest’s honour, attended also by the prime minister Boris Stürmer and the presidents of the Duma and the State Council.

The press did not report what was discussed. The matters Pašić had to settle in Russia were, however, well known. Serbia had lost its entire territory and was dependent on its allies, and Russia had from the start been regarded as its chief protector. The Serbs were worried by the promises the Entente had made to Italy on the Adriatic coast and by the negotiations with Romania, which in return for entering the war was demanding, among other things, the whole of the Banat, including the part inhabited by Serbs. According to The Near East, the Serbian minister in Bucharest, Marinković, also travelled to Petrograd to meet the prime minister, and Pašić himself intended to visit the Romanian capital later.

Volunteers from Odessa

The second matter concerned prisoners of war. Russian camps held tens of thousands of Austro-Hungarian soldiers of South Slav origin, Serbs from Bosnia, Vojvodina and Croatia, as well as Croats and Slovenes. In the autumn of 1915 the Tsar had agreed that units fighting alongside Serbia could be formed from volunteers among them. In Odessa the 1st Serbian Volunteer Division was just being organised, commanded by officers sent from the Serbian army. According to The Near East, Pašić left Petrograd on Wednesday, around 10 May, for Moscow, and from there was to go on to Kiev and Odessa. According to some sources, the Tsar himself inspected the division in Odessa in May.

The unit’s name soon became a matter of dispute. The Yugoslav Committee, representing émigrés from the Habsburg lands, wanted it to be called Yugoslav and to foster a sense of community among all the South Slavs. Pašić pushed through the name Serbian, and the officers from Serbia suppressed Yugoslav slogans in it, which later led thousands of volunteers to leave. By mid-August the division numbered nearly 18,000 men. In the autumn of 1916 it fought in Dobruja alongside the Romanians and Russians.

A government on an island

From Russia Pašić returned to London. The Serbian government meanwhile carried on working on Corfu, in the Hotel “Bella Venezia”, although the army was already in Macedonia. According to the British official history, by the end of May about 120,000 Serbian soldiers had assembled in Macedonia. In the summer the Regent, the Supreme Command and the war ministry were based at Salonika, and the prime minister and most of the ministers on the island. This division, with the government several hundred kilometres from the army, lasted until the end of the war.