Serbia declares war on Germany

On 6 August 1914 Serbia declared war on Germany. The decision was taken by the government of Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, working in the country’s wartime capital, Niš. A week earlier Serbia had been attacked by Austria-Hungary, and Germany had stood behind Vienna’s policy since the start of the crisis. Formally the Serbian declaration took the form of a note in which the government declared the German minister’s mission at an end and handed him his passports, but in the chronicles of the war and in lists of declarations of war it figures as a declaration of war on Germany.

The note from Niš

The Serbian government had moved to Niš from Belgrade as early as 25 July, the day of its reply to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. The foreign legations were evacuated there too, among them the German one, headed since 1911 by Baron Julius von Griesinger. After the outbreak of the German-Russian war on 1 August Pašić did not wait long. On 4 August (22 July in the Julian calendar used in Serbia) he instructed the Serbian chargé d’affaires in Berlin, Dr M. Jovanović, to inform the German government that he had received instructions to leave, and to leave Germany immediately with the staff of the legation and the consulate.

On 6 August (24 July in the Julian calendar) the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a note to the German legation in Niš. It stated that, in view of the state of war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary and between Russia and Germany, the ally of Austria-Hungary, the royal government, “in view of the solidarity of her interests with Russia and her allies”, considered the German minister’s mission to be at an end and requested him to leave Serbian territory with the staff of the legation. The necessary passports were enclosed. The Serbian government later published the text in its collection of diplomatic documents, the so-called Blue Book.

On the same day Jovanović called in Berlin on the Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, Arthur Zimmermann, to break off relations formally. Zimmermann assured him that Germany had always cherished friendly feelings towards Serbia, and regretted that relations had to be broken off because of the grouping of alliances. He blamed Russia alone, as Serbia’s instigator. He claimed that if Russia had not ordered general mobilisation at the last moment there would have been no war, because Germany had used all its influence in Vienna in favour of an understanding, and Austria-Hungary would probably have been satisfied with the occupation of Belgrade.

A declaration without a common border

Serbia and Germany had no common border, and Germany had not previously declared war on Serbia. From a military point of view the declaration changed little: Serbia was fighting the Austro-Hungarian army on its borders along the Drina, the Sava and the Danube. It did, however, carry a clear political message. Belgrade was showing that it considered Germany jointly responsible for the war, because it was German support, expressed as early as the beginning of July, that had allowed Austria-Hungary to take a hard line towards Serbia. Zimmermann’s words, laying the blame on St Petersburg, showed how differently the two sides saw the beginning of the war.

The declaration of war also placed Serbia unambiguously on the side of the Entente. The note from Niš explicitly invoked solidarity with Russia and its allies. Within a few days Germany found itself at war with Russia, France and Britain, and Serbia joined the camp of its enemies as a full participant in the European war, not merely the victim of a local conflict. On the same day Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, and two days later neighbouring Montenegro entered a state of war with Germany.

The first fighting

In August 1914 Serbia was threatened only by the Austro-Hungarian army. On 12 August Austro-Hungarian troops crossed the Drina and began the invasion. A few days later the Serbs, commanded by Vojvoda Radomir Putnik, won the first Allied victory of the war at the Battle of Cer and drove the invaders out. Further Austro-Hungarian offensives in 1914 also failed, and the Serbian campaign of that year was a string of defeats for Vienna.

Consequences

Germany turned its attention to Serbia only in 1915. In the autumn of that year combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian forces under Field Marshal August von Mackensen attacked Serbia from several directions. The country was occupied, and the remnants of the Serbian army, together with the government and the king, retreated through the mountains of Albania to the Adriatic. The declaration of 6 August 1914 thus heralded a clash that came late but had tragic consequences for Serbia.