Volunteer movement and guerilla warfare in occupied territories have a long tradition in Serbian liberation wars. Even during the First Serbian Uprising, together with frontal assaults against the Turks, renegade and uskok troops started to appear in the areas of today’s South Serbia, Raška, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which the uprising hadn’t reached. These troops harassed the Turkish military and fortifications and occasionally organised rebellions and uprisings behind the lines of the Serbian-Turkish front. Centuries long experience of fighting in these troops, called ‘chetas’, was turned into a military doctrine for the first time in 1848, by order of Matija Ban, in a text titled ‘The Rules of Chetnik Warfare’. Twenty years later, General Staff captain Ljubomir Ivanović used more modern foundations to define the rules of guerilla warfare in the Balkans in ‘Chetnik Warfare’, for the needs of the Department of the Army .
Uprisings and rebellions often occurred against the will and without the knowledge of Serbian political and military factors, as was the case with the Herzegovina Uprising 1876-1878. Poorly armed and often driven to rebellion by despair, fewer in numbers than the Turkish army, Serbian rebels were forced to act in a guerilla fashion, dispersed into smaller units – troops (chetas), instead of forming larger units. Fighters against the Turks in this, but also in the previous and the following insurrections, were called ‘ustanici’ (rebels), ‘ustashas’, ‘ustashi’, chetniks (depending on whether they entered the Turkish territory from Serbia, Montenegro or the Habsburg Empire), and ‘dobrovoljci’ or ‘samovoljci’ (volunteers). Ustanik, ustash or ustasha were the names for the rebels from the Turkish territory, dobrovoljci or samovoljci for those who joined the uprising of their own free will, while chetniks were all those who fought in troops in a guerilla fashion. Komitas (also kumitas in southern territories) is a somewhat later term used for fighters who were members of the National Liberation Committee.
In addition to the decades long terror of Albanian gangs over Serbs in Old Serbia, whose crimes were tolerated by the Turkish authorities, there was the terror of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) as of 1897, whose troops and assassins used murder and intimidation to threaten Serbs who lived south of the Šar Mountains into renouncing their Serbian identity and made attempts to assimilate them with Bulgarians. The terror intensified after the Ilinden Uprising in 1903, which led to the formation of defensive local Serbian troops in the areas of Poreč at Kičevo, Skopje Montenegro, Struški Drimkol, Azot at Veles and in the area around Kumanovo. At the same time, patriotic circles in Belgrade and Vranje, concerned about the survival of Serbs in Old Serbia and Macedonia, began to work on the formation of Serbian national-revolutionary committees, which would help, organise and unite the existential and national resistance of the Serbs who were in danger south of Serbian borders by collecting weapons, money and by mobilising and sending new troops. During August and September in 1903, following the initiative of Živojin Rafajlović, active captain in the Serbian army, Vranje Chetnik Committee was formed, which consisted, among others, of the intellectual and financial elite of this border town. Almost simultaneously, Dr Milorad Godjevac, investor Luka Ćelović, attorney Vasilije Jovanović and general Jovan Atanacković formed a national-revolutionary committee in Belgrade with the same aims and methods as the group in Vranje. The same as in Vranje, the Belgrade Committee gathered the cultural, political and spiritual elite of the capital. Among others, its members were Jaša Prodanović, Živan Živanović, Ljubomir Kovačević, Ljubomir Stojanović and Ljubomir Davidović. By connecting and then uniting the Vranje and Belgrade Committee during September 1903, Serbian Chetnik Organisation was formed. The Belgrade Committee took the lead as the central one, headed by its president Atanacković, while the Vranje Committee, led by Živojin Rafajlović, was reformed into the Executive Committee.
After the formation on the chetnik organisation in Serbia, following the humanitarian mission of the Circle of Serbian Sisters, trustees of the Belgrade and Vranje committees Savatije Milošević, Aksentije Bacetović Rujanac and sublieutenant Vojislav Tankosić initiated the formation of regional committees in Bitola and Skopje in 1904, linking them in terms of organisation with the committees in Serbia. Once this link had been made, people’s armed resistance to terror and Bulgarisation got better foundations, and from local isolated actions turned into an organised and united defence movement for the preparation of the future liberation from the Turkish occupation and unification with the Kingdom of Serbia.
During 1904, along with already existing troops under voivodes[1] Pavle Mladenović and Jovan Stanojković Dovezenski in the area of Kumanovo, troops under Spasa Prizrenac from the area of Skopje Montenegro, and troops under voivodes Micko Krstić and Zafir Premčević from the area of Poreč, new troops were formed in Old Serbia or were sent from Serbia, including the troops led by voivodes Stevan Nedić Ćela, Gligor Sokolović, Jovan Dolgača and Trenko Rujanović from the areas of Prilep and Veles, troops led by voivodes Temeljko Barjaktarević, Spasa Pavlović Garda, Vandjel Skopljanče and Djordje Ristić Skopljanče from the areas of Kumanovo and Kriva Palanka, troop under Kosta Milovanović Pećanac from the area of Skopje Montenegro, troop under Krsta Kovačević from the areas of Pčinj and Preševo and troop led by Djordje Cvetković from the area of Drimkol. During 1904, these troops organised, connected and armed Serbian villages, avoiding larger scale conflicts with the Turks, Albanians and IMRO troops. The troop led by Andjelko Aleksić, sent from Serbia to Poreč in May that year, confronted the Turkish army on the position ‘Šuplji kamen’ near the village of Čelopek, where, following their heroic resistance, they all died. In October 1904, a small troop led by Micko Krstić in Poreč had better luck and managed to defeat the united troops of the Bitola region which had attacked Serbian villages in Poreč, and succeeded in capturing their commander, Damjan Grujev.
The spring of 1905 brought increased combat and organisational activity of Serbian troops, but also higher losses in manpower. Two mountain headquarters were formed at the beginning of the year on the mountain of Kozjak at Kumanovo and in Poreč, for the East and West Vardar valley, the leaders of which, Serbian officers as a rule, coordinated the activities of Serbian chetniks and voivodes on the ground. Following minor skirmishes and fighting, IMRO’s troops were completely suppressed from Skopje Montenegro and from the larger part of Kumanovo and Kriva Palanka area. However, following a great victory over the Turkish army near the village of Čelopek, on 16th April 1905, Serbian troops in the East Vardar region found themselves under fire from the Turkish army. During 1905, in the fighting at Vuksan in Skopje Montenegro, at Petraljice, at Tabanovce in Kumanovo region, near Velika Hoča in Metohija and the village of Guglin in Kriva Palanka area, troops under voivodes Pavle Mladenović, Bogdan Hajnc, Brana Jovanović, Aksentije Rujanac, Dragomir Protić, Savatije Milošević, Lazar Kujundzić, Kosta Pećanac and Djordje Ristić Skopljanče were completely destroyed in the fighting against the Turkish army and the local Albanian militia. Only voivodes Kosta Pećanac and Djordje Ristić managed to survive these battles, but their troops were decimated so they were forced to sneak back to Serbia. That same year, Serbian troops in the West Vardar valley had great success. Existing troops led by Gligor Sokolović and Trenko Rujanović were reinforced by the troop under Poreč Command Post chief, Captain Sreten Rajković and voivode Jovan Babunski. In Azot at Veles and on the Babune mountains, these united troops repeatedly defeated and destroyed IMRO troops at Oreške livade, Mukos and in the area around the Serbian villages in Azot, after which the Serbian troops in Poreč, Azot and in villages around Prilep were in charge of the situation in this very important line of communications.
Serbian troops in the West Vardar valley continued to have success in 1906/1907. Despite the defeat of the Prilep troop under voivode Zmejko Blažević, troops led by Jovan Babunski, Jovan Dolgač, Trenko Rujanović and Gligor Sokolović managed to defeat joint IMRO troops from the Prilep, Bitola and Kičevo region, which were on their way to burn down Serbian villages in Poreč, at the ‘Kurtov kamen’ position in 1906 (as well as in 1904). Following the deaths of many Bulgarian voivodes and chetniks, Poreč was definitely saved, and the Bulgarians were not able to pose a more serious threat to it until 1912. The final defeat of the Bulgarian troops in the regions around Veles and Prilep came at the hands of Serbian voivodes Jovan Babunski and Vasilije Trbić at the village of Drenovo, in May 1907. In honour of this victory, after the battle, a song called ‘Get ready, chetniks’ was written. At the same time, Serbian troops in East Vardar valley were less fortunate in their clashes with the Turkish army and were decimated and defeated several times near the Kumanovo villages of Čelopek, Bajlovac, Jačinac, small village of Berovo, Kratovo Štalkovica, village of Paklište in the Preševo region and village of Pasjane near Gnjilane. In addition to the large number of chetniks, voivodes Jaćim Pavlović and Rade Radivojević also died in these battles.
By the summer of 1908, when the proclamation of constitutionality in the Ottoman empire ended Bulgarian and Serbian chetnik activities, and when Serbian and Bulgarian voivodes, after having been granted amnesty, surrendered themselves without consequences to the Turks, chetnik organisation Serbian Defence had managed to organise and arm a large number of Serbian villages in Old Serbia, thus freeing numerous Serbian settlements from being terrorised by IMRO and preventing the attacks of Albanian robber gangs.
Along with the events in Old Serbia, an organisation called the National Defence was formed in Serbia in 1908, as a reaction to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The name came from the proposal given by the famous Serbian comedy writer and great patriot, Branislav Nušić, which was unanimously adopted.
Among the founders of this organisation, whose definite official name would be Serbian National Defence, were the latter Serbian voivodes who would become celebrated in the Battles of Cer and Kolubara – Radomir Putnik, Stepa Stepanović and Živojin Mišić, as well as Vojislav Tankosić, Vojin Popović Vuk, Ilija Trifunović Birčanin and many other representatives of the military, political and cultural elite. Božidar Boža Janković, whose working motto was “Gather together, Serbs,” was then chosen as the first president of the organisation.
This organisation’s action programme was adopted during the inaugural session, and its key task, according to that programme, was to raise Serbian national awareness. In accordance with that, the recently disbanded chetnik troops from Old Serbia found their place in the National Defence, as part of its volunteer units which were preparing for the future, in the opinion of the Committee inevitable armed action. One of the tasks of the movement was to collect financial and other contributions, to supply the equipment and train the komita troops.
Therefore, the main task of SND was to steer activities in all the other directions of the defence of Serbian national interests.
In the years following 1908, other patriotic and nationalist organisations joined the National Defence in the effort to popularise libertarian ideas of the chetnik movement, especially with the youth. These included the Chetnik Action, Unification or Death – Black Hand, the League of Sober Youth, Serbian Falcons, the Circle of Serbian Sisters, Serbian Brothers, Association Dušan the Mighty (formed from a section of the Serbian Falcons). Chetnik warfare meant the activity of smaller units which avoided frontal attacks and attempted to inflict great losses on the opponent behind the lines. The principle of voluntarism was in effect during the recruitment of non-commissioned officers and officers from the army of the Kingdom of Serbia or volunteers from the aforementioned organisations, as well as from the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Montenegro, etc. According to the inherited rules of the chetnik organisation, chetniks were required to behave impeccably towards the civilians, to maintain order and be just in their actions.
Carrying light weapons (Serbian Mauser rifle, revolver, a dagger and several bombs), with a minimum of personal equipment, deployed in troops (depending on the mission they could be arranged in threes, twos or individuals), new volunteers, together with seasoned veterans, reactivated Serbian chetnik activities in Old Serbia in 1910, providing resistance to the terror of the new Young Turk regime in the Ottoman Empire. Troops resurfaced in Serbian villages, but there were no major combats, except for the conflicts at Šumata Trnica against the Turkish army and at Stracine, when voivode Petko Ilić died.
Preparations for the First Balkan War again saw the mobilisation of the chetnik veterans, both in Serbia and in Turkey. In the summer of 1912, former chetnik voivode and the chief of staff in the East Vardar region, Captain Vojin Popović Vuk, formed a Mountain headquarters in the Turkish territory and mobilised about two to three thousand chetnik-rebels from the areas of Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka and Kratovo around his small active troop. On the eve of the First Balkan War, five chetnik detachments were formed in the Serbian-Turkish border, which were the vanguard of the Serbian army in the coming war: Lapski, Gnjilanski, Lukovski, Lisički and Ferizovićki detachments were directed towards Kosovo, and two detachments on mountain Javor were directed towards Novi Pazar. Javor troops, led by former voivode Živko Gvozdić and Officer Panta Miladinović, crossed the border before the Serbian army and, after the start of military operations, assumed the role of the vanguard. Together with rebel Serbs who were being led by voivode Sreten Vukosavljević, these troops liberated Novi Pazar, Nova Varoš, Priboj and Kosovska Mitrovica before the Serbian army. Other detachments, except for Lapski under voivode and Major Vojislav Tankosić, acted as support to the regular units of the Serbian army. The detachment under Tankosić, which actually started the military operations at Merdare border post, after having broken the Turkish defences on the said position kept advancing in front of the Serbian army and freed Podujevo and Pristina. Following the outbreak of the war, Vuk’s detachment, which consisted of almost all of the voivodes from the time of chetnik campaign 1903-1911, cleansed all the Turkish posts from the Serbian border to Kumanovo and, once the First Serbian army crossed over to the Turkish territory, assumed the role of its vanguard. Members of Vuk’s detachment started the conflicts with the Turkish Vardar army at Mladi Nagoričen and, having engaged in battle at the position of Strevice, started the Battle of Kumanovo. The chetniks’ fierce resistance in this battle greatly contributed to the Serbian victory. After the battle, the detachment continued to act as vanguard and took considerable part in the Battles of Bakarno Gumno and Bitola. Together with the troops behind Turkish lines that were being led by Vasilije Trbić, Vuk’s chetniks ensured the quick capture of the Turkish territories, so the chetniks were the first to enter Veles, Prilep, Bitola, Ohrid, Kruševo and Struga. Chetnik military operations in the First Balkan War ended in Elbasan, where they disarmed the Albanian population and temporarily formed the Serbian government. In the Second Balkan War, the chetniks under the command of Major Vojin Popović Vuk acted as part of the Fifth Volunteer Battalion, which distinguished itself in the Battle of Bregalnica in 1913.
The outbreak of the First World War placed the veterans of chetnik campaign, both from the Balkan wars and newly mobilised chetniks, on the front lines of the defence. In the first battles in the last days of July 1914, chetnik squads under Vojislav Tankosić and Jovan Babunski, formed on their own initiative, defended Belgrade from the Austro-Hungarian attacks. In the early days of the war, four chetnik detachments were formed from chetniks and volunteers: Jadar, under the command of voivode Vojin Popović Vuk, Rudnik, under Vojislav Tankosić, Zlatibor, under Kosta Todorović and Gornjak, under the command of Velimir Vemić. In the Great War, as in the previous wars, chetnik units assumed the role of the vanguard and of detachments whose task was to defend their position desperately, until the very last man. Chetnik detachments took significant part in the Battes of Cer and Kolubara, on Mačkov kamen and in the battles for the defence of Belgrade.
During the battles in 1915, the doyen of chetnik warfare, Vojislav Tankosić, died so almost all the surviving chetniks were placed under the command of Vojin Popović Vuk, as part of the Volunteer squad, while a smaller number of chetniks was placed in the flying Gendarmes Detachment under Jovan Babunski. From the autumn of 1915 and from the position on the Serbian-Bulgarian border which they had previously taken, Vuk’s detachment exercised the role of the protector of Serbian army in retreat, eliminating vanguard Bulgarian komita units and Albanian gangs all the way to Shkodër, and from there onwards, during the retreat through Albania, the role of the conductors of starving and demoralised troops. Vuk’s detachment was among the last ones to land on Corfu in 1916, but it was the first Serbian unit to take their position in the Salonika Front in April that same year. During August, the detachment managed to withstand the offensive of the Bulgarian army. Once the Serbian offensive started and after the Gorničevska battle, having contributed greatly to the favourable outcome for the Serbian army, it was transferred to the sector by Kajmakčalan. Its role in the occupation of this position on 30th September 1916 was a decisive one. Detachment commander voivode Vuk died on 29th November 1916, during the occupation of Gruniški vis, an important position in that sector of the front. Following the death of voivode Vuk, the chetniks from his detachment became members of other regular units. In addition to Vuk’s, detachments under Babunski, voivode Aleksandar Cena Marković and Mihailo Josifović, Gostivar and Poreč voivode from the 1903-1908 campaign, were also active in the Salonika Front. During their activities in the Salonika Front, the three detachments carried out sabotage and intelligence missions both on the front line and behind it, contributing significantly to the success of the Allied forces.
Once the Salonika Front had been breached in 1918, Babunski, Josifović and Marković detachments advanced as the vanguard in front of the Serbian army, along with the newly formed detachment under Captain Mihailo S. Mihailović, and in cooperation with numerous smaller troops under Kosta Pećanac and other troop leaders in Serbia who hadn’t surrendered after a failed uprising in 1917. During their fast advance, these troops penetrated deep behind the lines of the retreating enemy, organising and directing rebels who appeared in large numbers after the breach of the front. Their sabotage and combat activities enabled to a great extent the speedy advance of the Serbian army and accelerated the moment of the final liberation of the occupied homeland. A particularly important task was to organise Serbian volunteers across America and to direct them to the ranks of the Serbian army. Thus, in 1917, just before the breach of the Salonika Front, Serbian National Defence, whose president was Mihailo Pupin, gathered and sent 20,000 volunteers from across the American continent.
In order to preserve the tradition of the Chetnik movement in the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the chetnik veterans from Serbia founded the Chetnik Association ‘For the freedom and honour of the Fatherland’ in 1921, with its headquarters in Belgrade and subcommittees across the country. The keepers of the tradition took care of the invalids and of the families of deceased chetniks and practised military skills in case of renewed chetnik battles in the south (kachaks and IMRO) or west of the Kingdom (the Italian factor and Croatian legion).
In 1924 there is a division in the organisation and two new ones are formed: the Association of Serbian Chetniks ‘Petar Mrkonjić’ and the Association of Serbian Chetniks for King and the Fatherland. The reconciliation and unification comes a year later and Puniša Račić, Serbian national worker and chetnik campaign veteran, becomes the head of the organisation and stays in that position until 1928. At the same time, in addition to these, other organisations continue to cultivate chetnik traditions throughout the country, such as JNNO (Yugoslav Progressive Nationalist Youth), the latter ORJUNA (Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists), especially in Dalmatia and Vojvodina. However, another spilt takes place and a number of ORJUNA members in Vojvodina and Belgrade join the idea to create SRNAO (Serbian National Organisation), which does not accept the Yugoslav idea.
The Dictatorship of 1929 leads to the dissolution of all associations and to a change in the name of the country into Kingdom of Yugoslavia. However, the Association of Chetniks for the freedom and honour of the Fatherland is soon restored and is headed by voivode Ilija Trifunović Birčanin until 1932, who, at the same time, was the chairman of the National Defence. Political and party differences will determine the future fate of the organisation, which will be led by voivode Kosta Pećanac from 1932 until the start of the April War in 1941. During Pećanac mandate there is another split and several old chetniks form the Association of Old Chetniks in 1933, led by voivode Ilija Trifunović Birčanin and voivode Dušan Dimitrijević.
[1] voivode (/ˈvɔɪˌvoʊd/) = A title given to a local ruler or official in various parts of central and eastern Europe, especially used to denote the principal commander of a military force