Bombardment of Belgrade (1914)

Following the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on 23 June 1914, the Austrian government alleging official Serb involvement, issued an ultimatum which expired on 25 July.Gordon Martel, The Origins of the First World War, Pearson Longman, Harlow, 2003, p. xii Serbia responded within the time limit but Vienna rejecting negotiation, declared the Serb response unsatisfactory, severed diplomatic relations with Serbia and ordered military mobilisation.{{cite book | last=Tunstall | first=G.A. | title=The Austro-Hungarian Army and the First World War | publisher=Cambridge University Press | series=Armies of the Great War | year=2021 | isbn=978-1-00-904391-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aKZOEAAAQBAJ}}

File:SS Bodrog 1914.jpg one of the three monitors that bombarded Belgrade.]]

A major weakness of Serbia was the location of its capital Belgrade, at the confluence of the Danube and the River Sava, immediately across from Austria-Hungary. In mid July, Austria's Danube Flotilla, a naval group of the Imperial and Royal Navy based upstream at Semlin (Zemun), received orders to prepare itself for combat. The flotilla was to be used as artillery support of the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces.{{cite book |last=Halpern |first=P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wK4_6LF60GsC&pg=PT381 |title=A Naval History of World War I |publisher=Naval Institute Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-61251-172-6 |page=381}} Around the same time, an Austrian monitor group was sent from Budapest and the deployment of gunboats, tugboats and patrol boats on the Danube started. The Sava monitor group (SMS Maros, SMS Leitha, hospital ship Traisen and the tug Traun), part of the Danube Flotilla but subordinate to the commander of the 7th Infantry Division, was sent to Brčko in northeastern Bosnia. The task of the flotilla was to prepare the crossing of troops on the Sava and the Danube.{{cite book |last1=Wulff |first1=O.R. |url=https://vk.com/@-175708837-austro-hungarian-danube-flotilla-in-world-war-1914-1918 |title=Die Österreichisch-ungarische Donauflottille Im Weltkriege, 1914–18 |last2=Sokol |first2=H.H. |year=1934 |page=}}

On 25 July a royal proclamation ordered the mobilisation of the Serbian Army, the call-up was rapid and efficient, as it had been executed several times in the preceding years, the Serbian government moved to Niš and the evacuation of Belgrade started.{{cite book | last=Mitrović | first=A. | title=Serbia's Great War, 1914–1918 | publisher=Purdue University Press | series=Central European studies | year=2007 | isbn=978-1-55753-476-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CI5Wm8771EYC}} The Serbian Danube Division was in charge of defending Belgrade but had yet to be deployed to the north of the city, no artillery or machine guns were in place to defend against a gunboat attack. A group of gendarmes, a Chetnik detachment under Vojislav Tankosić and a company from the 18th Infantry Regiment were the only units defending the Serbian capital.

On the afternoon of 28 July the declaration of war was communicated to the Austro-Hungarian High Command (AOK) and a telegram was sent to the Serbian government in Niš.{{cite book |last1=Rauchensteiner |first1=M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zip9EAAAQBAJ |title=The First World War: and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914–1918 |last2=Güttel-Bellert |first2=A. |last3=Kay |first3=A.J. |publisher=Böhlau Wien |year=2014 |isbn=978-3-205-79370-0 |pages=142–143}} A meeting organised by the commander of the 14th Infantry Brigade, Colonel Emil von Baumgartner, took place that evening. It was decided that a few minutes after midnight, three river monitors were to depart and secure the bridges over the Sava between Semlin to Belgrade.

Around midnight three Austrian tugs pulling barges loaded with infantry and escorted by a monitor, headed towards {{lang|sr|Donji Grad}}, the Serbian lower fortress. After coming under intense fire from a detachment of Serbian irregulars, the tugs and their barge gave up the landing attempt and headed upriver towards the railway bridge instead.{{cite book | last=Churchill | first=M.R. | title=The Story of the Great War, Volume 2: The World War | publisher=VM eBooks | year=2016 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xGiZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT278 | page=278}} Near 1 am, having anticipated that the Austro-Hungarians would attempt to cross the railway bridge that linked their country with the Hapsburg Empire, a detachment of Chetniks belonging to Major Tankosić's unit, dynamited the bridge over the Sava, while the monitors of the 1st Group were still manoeuvring.

File:Škoda 305 mm Model 1911 Mortar of the Austro-Hungarian army.jpg

At 2 am, two river monitors, SMS Bodrog and SMS Számos joined SMS Temes at a distance of {{convert|3.5|km|mi}} from Belgrade, opposite the Great War Island, at the confluence of the Danube and the Sava. The monitor group was under the command of frigate captain Friedrich Grund.{{cite book |last=Schumacher |first=H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fK94DwAAQBAJ |title=Die k. u. k. Donauflottille im Ersten Weltkrieg: Karl Wettstein, Offizier und Schiffsreeder |publisher=Böhlau Wien |year=2018 |isbn=978-3-205-20121-2 |language=de}} The gunboats started firing 12-cm fused shells onto the Serbian side.{{cite book |last=Sondhaus |first=L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8xHL01QG8cC&pg=PA246 |title=The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918: Navalism, Industrial Development, and the Politics of Dualism |publisher=Purdue University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-1-55753-034-9}} Lacking heavy artillery, the Serbs were unable to pierce the sides of the heavily armoured river boats.{{cite book | last=Fryer | first=C. | title=The Destruction of Serbia in 1915 | publisher=East European Monographs | series=East European monographs | year=1997 | isbn=978-0-88033-385-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tsJwAAAAIAAJ}} Once the monitors stopped firing to assess their impact, the Serbs started shooting at the river flotilla ships from the walls of Belgrade Fortress and from Great War Island. The monitors fired shrapnel in response, then moved closer to Belgrade Fortress, opening fire again with 12-cm fused shells, aiming for the radio station located in Kalemegdan Park and the neighbourhood of Topčidersko Brdo.

At 5 am Habsburg artillery located in Bežanija and Semlin, Austria-Hungary's eastern outpost across the Sava (today part of Belgrade), opened fire on the city and the Kalemegdan using Krupp Howitzer and Skoda 305 mm mortars.{{cite book |last=Marble |first=S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0fGcCwAAQBAJ |title=King of Battle: Artillery in World War I |publisher=Brill |year=2016 |isbn=978-90-04-30728-5 |series=History of Warfare |pages=231–232 |chapter=The Guns Of July}}

By 6 am on 29 July, a shell hit a building across Grčka Kraljica with no casualties reported,{{cite web |url=http://www.serbia.com/living-in-belgrade-in-the-early-days-of-the-great-war/ |title=Living in Belgrade in the Early Days of the Great War |access-date=11 Jan 2022}} more shells came and a secondary school, hotels, banks and a factory were reportedly hit. Shells continue to fall on Belgrade and Kalemegdan throughout the day hitting scores of buildings. The bombardment continued without a break for eight more days, hitting churches, schools, museums, hospitals, and other civilian targets in clear violation of Article 27 of the Hague Convention, of which Austria-Hungary was a signatory.

File:Beograd 1914.jpg]]

The reported casualties of the bombardment was Dušan Ðonović, a student and a member of Jovan Babunski’s Četnik group, and for the Austro-Hungarian's side Karl Eberling, the captain of the first tug and Mikhail Gemsberger his helmsman. As Eberling's tug ran aground panicked soldiers swam back to the shore or drowned.

On 29 July the Russian Government officially announced to Berlin that it had mobilised four military districts, on 30 July general mobilisation was ordered. On 31 July a state of imminent war was proclaimed in Germany and the mechanism of mobilisation and counter-mobilisation started. Constant shelling on Serbia's border towns and cities continued until the second week of August. On 12 August the Habsburg 5th Army’s VIII and XIII Corps supported by the 2nd Army’s IV Corps, all part of the Balkanstreitkräfte, crossed the Drina river from Bosnia and the first invasion of Serbia started.

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{{Bombardments of Belgrade}}

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Category:Belgrade in World War I

Belgrade

Category:1914 in Serbia

Category:July 1914

Category:July Crisis

Category:Naval bombing operations and battles of World War I

Category:Explosions in Serbia

Category:Explosions in 1914

Category:Naval battles of World War I involving Austria-Hungary