Serbs withdraw from Syrmia

On 11 September 1914 the chief of the Serbian staff, Vojvoda Radomir Putnik, ordered the offensive in Syrmia to be broken off and the troops withdrawn across the Sava. Only the day before the Serbs had taken Zemun, opposite Belgrade, and their First Army was fighting in front of Stara Pazova.

The threat from the west

The Serbian expedition across the Sava had been limited in character from the start. Putnik undertook it reluctantly, under pressure from Russia and France, and stipulated that in case of danger the troops would return home. The danger soon appeared. On the night of 7/8 September the Austro-Hungarian armies of General Oskar Potiorek crossed the Drina and the second invasion of Serbia began. One of them managed to seize bridgeheads on the Serbian bank, and the defending Serbian armies needed reinforcements.

This was exactly what Potiorek had counted on. He reckoned that the surest way to stop the Serbs in Syrmia was to strike at Serbia itself, which would force them to bring back their troops to defend the country.

The First Army’s retreat

Putnik’s decision met with opposition. Military commanders, as well as Regent Alexander and King Peter I, were against withdrawing from a region inhabited largely by Serbs. Putnik did not give way. The First Army’s retreat was directed by General Petar Bojović, who carried it out efficiently. On 12 September the Austro-Hungarian forces in Syrmia went over to the attack, but the Serbian rearguards held them off. According to Serbian sources the last units left Syrmia on 13 September, according to other works on 14 September.

The withdrawn divisions set off by forced marches west, to the Drina, where in the following weeks they took part in heavy fighting against Potiorek’s armies. The expedition into Syrmia brought Serbia no lasting gains, and it cost several thousand soldiers, mainly from the Timok Division, shattered at Mitrovica.