The God of Justice - Serbia AAR

Two years after releasing itself from Austrian grasp, Serbia stood before the new Ausgleich. Many saw this as an opportunity to fortify Serbian independence. Vojvoda Petar Bojovic, a hero of the Great War has led Serbia as Regent for quite some time. In early 1937, he decided that the events that are about to come would allow him to revive the Serbian monarchy. In mid January 1937, Bojovic called Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic to prepare for the restoration of monarchy. On January 27th, the decision was confirmed, and plans for the official coronation had begun.
On February 9th, King Aleksandar was officially crowned, and Kingdom of Serbia proclaimed. This naturally enraged Austrians, but they were far too week and occupied with their own internal conflicts.


As the coronation happened one day before the scheduled elections, many saw the opportunity for King Aleksandar to pressure for Absolute Monarchy. However, faithful to his democratic ideals, King Aleksandar stepped up into the Skupstina ( National Assembly of Serbia ) and called for fair and open elections on February 10th.


The day of elections was something Serbia hasn't seen for a long time. Waves of patriotism and national pride had swapped every city of Serbia. Belgrade, Nis, Kragujevac...every town was covered with Serbian flags and pictures of the new king. Even in the streets of Serbian cities outside of Serbia, waves of patriotism were of the charts. Skoplje, Pristina, Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Novi Sad, Pirot, Cetinje, Skadar...all bathed with red, blue and white colors. Eventually, a new government was formed by People's Radical Party - the most liberal party in Serbia. Dr Ivan Subasic was named prime minister, and Milan Stojadinovic minister of armaments.


Quicker then anyone thought, King and government consolidated the countries position in global affairs. A new national program was adopted, and a constitution was drawn up. King and government agreed that Serbia should look firstly to escape the economic misery, and then pursue the policy of Greater Serbia - policy of unifying all Serbs under one banner and in one Kingdom. The plan along with the constitution were adopted in Skupstina with absolute majority. This was once again a provocation for the government in Vienna, but even now, Serbia met little to no resistance. The Danubian Empire was getting weaker by the day, and on February 17th, was seen as the day of its collapse.


The territories that Serbia claimed were indeed wast. Alongside Kosovo region (occupied by Albania, the occupation that Serbia officially never accepted), Serbia claimed: from Bulgaria - Pirot region and Vardar Macedonia (also known as Old Serbia), from Austria - Montenegro, Raska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Hungary - west Banat, Backa, Srem, Slavonija, Dalmacija and Croatia. After issuing these territorial demands, Serbian government called upon all Serbs in the region to work for once purpose - uniting into one Serbian Empire.

Chapter II - The Ausgleich and Serbian restoration

In the mid February, all of Austrian lands were looking towards Vienna and Ausgleich talks. The talks were to begin on February 10th, a day after royal restoration in Serbia. Politicians from Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, Galicia and Bohemia hurled to Vienna to negotiate the new form of the Danube Empire. Many in Serbia and Romania saw this Ausgleich as the final one, that will lead Austrian Empire into its demise. On the other hand, Kaiser Otto had different plans. He presented his plan for the federalization of the monarchy, instead of the present dualism. That would reorganize the Empire and complete power to Vienna, while Budapest would lose its sovereignty over Croatia. The Ausgleich lasted for 7 days, and Austrians, backed by mighty German Empire, had forced Hungarians into cooperation. Hungary accepted federalization, and one day later, the assemblies of all 6 parts of the monarchy adopted the solution. The lack of courage of Hungarians disappointed Serbs, who hoped for more firm stance of Budapest. Still, the consolidation of power in Vienna could only mean more trouble, since now the leaders of Serbia expected that Austria will try to force Serbia into this ill monarchy.


Three days after the official declaration of the new federated empire, Serbia proclaimed restoration of its own state. On February 21st, King Aleksandar gave a speech in Skupstina. He once again proclaimed Serbia's wish to expand, and unify with all of Serb populated areas. However, he also called for Serbian people to help rebuild the country from the mess left by the Austrians. He announced a period of reformation, and liberalization of Serbian economy, and restoration of Serbian military might. The speech gave him even more popularity, but it also served its true purpose. That is to repel any possible attempt of Austrians to reintegrate Serbia into its empire. Several days later, Austria decided to leave Serbia alone, and direct its foreign policy somewhere else. This stand off showed that even after federalization, Austrian Empire is still week, unable to confront Serbia on its own. Serbia won this "war", but conflicts with Austria were surely not even close to over...


While in Serbia democracy was in blossoming, the state of matter was completely different in Romania. After the Bucharest peace treaty, Romanian government was couped by Iron Guard, extreme nationalist party, which took all power in Romania. This left Romanians to live under ruthless dictatorship, and royal family was banned to Serbia. However, with royal restoration in Serbia, royal family of Romania saw the opportunity to restore the parliamentary monarchy. Trough series of events, Serbia helped the monarchist to form a base of operations in Beserabia , in far northeast of the country. Soon, the monarchist succeeded to instigate a rebellion, and took over the whole north of the country - Beserabia and Moldova. Thus Romanian civil war began. Serbia immediately sent help to the monarchists - supplies, weapons and even volunteers.


Still, there are more than few problems at home front, and Serbian government was preparing for mass reformation, that was to prepare the country for expansion, and more than likely, total war...

NikephorosSonar said:

I question the continued rule of the king if the People's Radical Party is the party that has won power.

Click to expand...

Well, in Serbia NRS (People's Radical Party) was monarchistic, and wasn't socialist (despite its name). It was earlier led by Nikola Pasic - legend of Serbian politics. He was socialist at the beginning of his career, but latter realized the impossibly of his ideas, so he turned to pragmatism. Although very liberal, NRS still honored traditional values and could match conservatives in UK or Russia.

Teivel said:

I've never seen the Austrians go straight for the federation option, what does that actually mean? Are all the constituent states puppets rather than shared between Austria and Hungary?

For a moment as i was reading i thought they'd gone with the centralise->Danubian Federation path which annexes the entire thing into a superpower blob with cores on everything. That kind of Austria would be the death of Serbian ambitions but the lack of Cores tell me that didn't happen here.

Click to expand...

federation just means that all the parts of the monarchy are Austrian puppets and are in alliance with Austria. Untill 1939-1940, I will be able to destroy the sick monarchy on my own

Chapter III - Economic reforms and Congress of Belgrade

As the King and government promised, Serbia entered an age of reformation and economical boom. In April, on the 13th session of the new government, Serbian leadership was to make a choice. Economy of Serbia has been devastated during the years of Austrian occupation, and the rare industries that existed were demolished. Mainly agricultural country, the only Serbian economic output was food. The state of agriculture was more than terrible, and industry was non existent. Government saw two ways to resurrect Serbian economy: ether to invest into existing agriculture and try to improve it, or to shift all the funds into creation of new and powerful industrial nation. Eventually, the "Regions plan" of Dr Milan Stojadinovic was accepted, and government directed enormous amount of money to industrialization. This would eventually result in rebirth of Serbian economy and reducing the unemployment rate down to 8% until the end of 1938.


In June 1937. King Aleksandar called upon all high officers of Serbian army to government building. It was clear for a long time that Serbian army needed reconstruction. Not only the new equipment and larger number of conscripts, but also to once and for all establish Serbian military doctrine. During the Weltkrieg, Serbian army concentrated on defensive warfare. Although it did give results in two major victories on Cer and Kolubara, it ultimately brought Serbian army to an early end. Still, many officers support this doctrine, and are willing to make it official. However, other officers in Generalstab consider other options. In order to expand, Serbia needs to attack, and it will surely need offensive warfare. Some of the officers support that doctrine, but another option was at table. General Milan Nedic brought and interesting solution to Serbian problems. Nedic spent last 3 years on training in German Empire, and he encountered one new doctrine while he was in Berlin. It contains of lightning warfare using tanks as main weapon that will thrust into enemy lines. The Germans called it the Blitzkrieg - the Lightning War. King Aleksandar and the government accepted Nedic's proposal, and Serbia became first country in the world to officially adopt Blitzkrieg doctrine.


In late July, Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church sent an open letter to Serbian government and King Aleksandar. It stated that SPC needs to have legal status in Serbia, and asked for constitutional amendment that would introduce Orthodox Christianity as national religion. King Aleksandar accepted as did the government, and on August 18th Skupstina adopted the Church law with 245 for, and 5 against. Thus Orthodox Christianity became official religion of Kingdom of Serbia. That made Serbia second country in the world with orthodoxy as national religion - the first was Russia.


On August 21st Serbia announced the opening of Belgrade Congress - a series of political meetings that took place in Belgrade and some other Serbian cities. The prime purpose of the congress was to establish a military and political alliance with Romania and Greece - two countries that Serbia shares the same goal with, destruction of Bulgaria. Still, Romanian civil war ended with Iron Guard victory, and relations between the two countries were not on high level. However, with the meditation of Greece, two sides made a compromise, and a Belgrade pact was established few days latter. Serbia, Romania and Greece formed a powerful pact directed against Bulgaria. The winds of war were again hoovering over Balkans...


However, on September 4th Serbian government received an ultimatum. The German Empire sent warning to Serbia that German Empire guaranties the borders on the Balkans, and that Bulgaria is still a German ally. The letter practically meant that if Serbia attacked Bulgaria, it would probably mean a war with Germany as well. On September 7th, leaders of Belgrade Pact met in Nis, and discussed the German threat. The meeting lasted for 3 days. On early morning on September 10th, a Serbian priest was killed by Bulgarian soldiers in Skoplje. This caused riots all throughout Macedonia and Pirot region. Serbia couldn't wait any more. In early morning of September 11th, Serbia started liberation of Macedonia...The Balkans was, again, covered in blood.