Ottoman-Empire

The Serbian revolution was a long and complex historical process, undertaken by the oppressed Christian serfs (Raja) of the Ottoman Empire, intending to obtain rights of social dignity, national recognition and political autonomy at the beginning of the 19th century. As a rebellion of a disenfranchised group of society with a clear aim for acquiring national statehood, it inspired revolutions of other Christian peoples of the Turkish Empire, Greeks and Romanians before all. This major endeavor of Serbian history lasted for almost three decades and featured different methods of fighting. Therefore, some historians claim the Era of the Diplomatic Struggle (1815-1830) as a more fruitful period of the revolution than the previously fought uprisings (1804-1815). Although this might be an interesting point, the role of the armed efforts of Serbian insurgents in opening the door for diplomatic negotiations with the Sultan and Muslim nobility remains indisputable. In the following lines, we will see how the famous battles of the two Serbian uprisings created the ground for the ensuing political negotiations with the Turks.

Originally imagined as a small-scale agrarian rebellion against the oppressive, unlawful rule of Turkish provincial authorities in the Belgrade Pashalik, the First Serbian Uprising soon became an event of great prominence in European diplomacy. A small jacquerie on the northern borders of the once-powerful Ottoman Empire sparked a series of national revolutions among the Christian peoples of the Balkans. After ten years of severe fighting, magnificent victories and cruel defeats, Serbian insurgents finally succumbed in autumn of 1813, after the fall of Belgrade. Regardless of that, after the Uprising, the path to eventual success was traced and the revival of the Serbian national state was only a question of time.

Background

In the early 20th century, the world found itself in a global conflict. World War I, or the Great War as it was known at the time, lasted from 1914 to 1918, pitching Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) versus the Entente/Allied Powers (Russia, France, Britain, and later the US), with a myriad of smaller allies on both sides. Without going into the question of reasons and causes of the war, many fighting at the time thought of it as a “war to end all wars”, a notion which proved to be too idealistic. Part of this was caused by the faultiness of the peace treaties that came after it.