From the very beginning the military was given a privileged position in the new state both in military and in political terms. However, the institution faced in the first place immense legitimacy problems. Paradoxically the military’s (Serbian) core consisted of the officer corps with a distinguished war record. Yet the predominantly Serb army and its transformation into a Yugoslav institution met significant obstructions both with Serbs and non-Serbs. Serbs were proud of their army which had completed the historical mission and expected it to guard these achievements in peacetime. The fragile Yugoslav construction had to be protected from both external and internal enemies. thirty five The latter were not difficult to identify since from the very beginning Yugoslavia was faced with harsh opposition and even violent upheavals. thirty-six The Serbian army had acquired a rich experience in domestic intervention in the pre-war period, but now the situation seemed very simple since the ‘enemies’ could have been identified through national and alleged political criteria.
The chief of your Standard Employees, the fresh popular Vojvoda Misic actually examined the difficulty within the Croatia and you may provided a disappointing statement during the Belgrade. Inside the look at the situation that have Croats is actually hopeless in which he advised a simple solution – to go away Croats in order to secede and to mark the fresh ‘just’ limitations between the two says along cultural and ‘historical’ standards. Definitely he previously planned the project out of a heightened Serbia rather than High Yugoslavia which could have been browsing allow the Serbs military quality. Regardless of if Queen Aleksandar rejected brand new proposal the brand new behavior of military regarding ‘new territories’ received it an adverse term. The fresh new tortures and you will severe reprisals of the civilian society worse the brand new entire opportunity of your brand new county-strengthening and you may wrecked the brand new institutional validity of ‘new’ army definitively:
First, the new officers off Slovene, Croat and you may Montenegrin supply must sign up for entryway toward armed forces, while it was not demanded about Serb officers
This was a blatant misappropriation of authority, quite contrary to the realities that led to the unification, and endangered great discomfiture, especially since the army applied brutal, coercive, and, as one historian dubbed them, Milos-style punishments, frequently even without the formality of a military court-ous of these was the practice of meeting out corporal punishment by blows with clubs or truncheons. 37
One of the most critical problems of the new state was institution building. While the other political institutions had to be created from scratch, the military was only to be transferred from the Serbian state. The units of the former Austria-Hungarian army were disbanded. The non-Serbs saw the military as a continuation of the Serbian army with the command language, insignia and all other details directly transferred from the Serbian Kingdom. The regime declared that it supported an open-door policy regarding the officers from the former Habsburg army. In reality, however, there were many problems to surmount, the question of loyalty having been in the background in the majority of cases. Furthermore, the position of the non-Serb officers was humiliating. They faced huge obstacles in terms of promotion, subordination, the question of rank etc. The figures show that they were also underrepresented, which does not necessarily imply that it was a result of a planned action. For instance, in 1938 only 10 per cent of the Yugoslav officers and only 31 per cent of 191 generals were Croats. 38
The new Croat and you will Slovene officers sensed advanced from inside the informative and elite conditions, when you find yourself uneducated Serbian officials had glorious battle details
There can be a huge pit within officials lifted into the other armed forces cultural environments, sufficient reason for a separate army ethos, cultural origin and you can, first and foremost, combat sense. The fresh new Serbian army choose to go using a bona fide Golgotha during the war in which most of the second men failed to survive. One postings in army hierarchy had started occupied because of the conflict heroes who have been never to surrender expensive attained ranking. Serbian officials observed the fresh inclusion of officials on (former) challenger army both because an enthusiastic insult on their brave opposition or since the an indication of kindness and you may forgiveness to your enemy’s combat sins. The fresh peasant-eg soldiers and you will officers got dating sites for Muslim adults an inferiority advanced about your ‘noble’ and you can better-knowledgeable Austria-Hungarian officials. A few of them have been badly harm, enjoying their combat units’ flags are replaced by Yugoslav about three-coloured banner. Petar Jovic, a good fighter in the Salonica Top and you will chairman of one’s Relationship of one’s 1912-1918 Volunteers told you:
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