Bust of Serbian Field Marshal Zivojin Misic || This is a small bronze bust of Serbian Field Marshal Zivojin Misic. In 1914, Misic came out of retirement to command the Serbian First Army, having won the Battle of Kolubara, and was promoted to Field Marshal because of this. He was appointed Chief of the Supreme Command in June 1918, leading the Serbian Army in the breakthrough on the Salonika Front in September 1918.

Set of postcards of Serbian Field Marshal Radomir Putnik Radomir Putnik was Serbia’s first Field Marshal. A career soldier of long standing, he was originally forced to retire by the King Alexander Obrenovic in 1895 for political reasons. When the Obrenovic’s were overthrown in the bloody, regicidal May Coup of 1903, Putnik was rehabilitated by the incoming King Peter, of the Karageorge Royal House. He led the Serbian Army to victory in both the First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 respectively. When the First World War began, Putnik was undergoing medical treatment in Austro-Hungary at the time, though Emperor Franz Josef granted him safe passage back to Serbia. When he returned, Putnik tried to resign from the Army on the grounds of ill health, but King Peter insisted on having him on the General Staff to oversee the strategic work of the other Generals. Putnik therefore had an important hand in the successful Battles of Cer and Kolubara, both in 1914. By autumn 1915, the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Bulgarian Armies attacked Serbia from all sides simultaneously, and Putnik was forced to lead the strategic retreat in the winter of 1915 that would see the Serbian Army withdraw through Albania and to the coast and thereon to Corfu for rehabilitation, recovery, and re-equipping. The Serbian Army returned on the Salonika Front in spring of 1916. This is a set of 24 postcards featuring the life and career of Putnik. Published in 1928 and edited by Brigadier-General Zivan Rankovic, the postcard packet reads ‘VOJSKA DOMOVINE’, which is Serbian for ‘Army of the Homeland’; also ‘VELIKI VOJNICI’, which means ‘Great Soldiers’. There is also a quote in Serbian Cyrillic from the poem/play ‘Mountain Wreath’ by the Prince-Bishop Petar Petrovic-Njegos, which reads: ‘ТВОЈ ЋЕ ПРИМЕР УЧИТИ ПЈЕВАЧА КАКО ТРЕБА С БЕСМРТНОШЋУ ЗБОРИТ’, which transliterates as ‘Tvoj ce primer uciti pjevaca kako treba s besmrtnoscu zborit.’, and which translates to ‘Your example will teach singers how one should speak of immortality’. The title also mentioned Putnik’s military title, that of ‘Vojvoda’ which, in Serbian, is Field Marshal. The postcards have short captions in Serbian Cyrillic. Putnik died of ill health in 1917 and, in 1918, Mount Putnik in Canada was named after him. || Packet containing 24 postcards about Serbian Field Marshal Radomir Putnik.

I have visited this former train station over the years. I have discovered that it served as the point of departure for hundreds of Canadian soldiers from nearby Camp Bordon, Ontario. The railway station was built in 1917 to serve both the town of Orillia in central Ontario and the military base (now called Base Borden), it was from here that men and women from all over Canada departed for the front after their military training. || Photo I took myself of the well-preserved train station in Orillia.