Arguably an influential character in the origins of the First World War, Vojislav Tankosic is at least worth looking into as anyone else of the time. He participated in the 1903 May Coup in Serbia, which led to the regicide of the Obrenovic dynasty. Tankosic himself, as a confederate of the nebulous Serbian Colonel Dragutin ‘Apis’ Dimitrijevic, for his part, executed Serbian Queen Draga’s two brothers. The Obrenovic dynasty was pro-Austrian, which had political and military ambitions in the Balkans, which was one of the reasons for the coup. The Karageorge dynasty, led by King Peter, and mistrusting of Austria, came in as the new Serbian royals family. King Peter had previously been in the French Foreign Legion and participated in the Franco-Prussian War and later led volunteer troops in the Hercegovinan Uprising of 1875-78. Without the 1903 May Coup, and with the Obrenovic’s still in power, the Austro-Hungarians would have found Serbia, at least from the very top, to be much more malleable regarding its objectives in the region. He studied at a military academy and later went to Vardar Macedonia, which was then an Ottoman province, as an agent to assess the region with a view to studying the feasibility of undertaking military action. The context to this is that, since the late 1300’s, Serbia had been a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, experienced ‘devshirme’, the ‘blood tax’, becoming one of the second class peoples within the Empire, and so on. The early 1800’s saw a couple of Uprisings, and by the mid-1800’s, guerrilla warfare had become part of Serbian military doctrine. The writer Matija Ban wrote ‘The Rules of Chetnik Warfare’, which was updated a couple of decades later by General Staff Captain Ljubomir Ivanoviv in his paper, ‘Chetnik Warfare’. The early 1900’s saw Serbia having become an independent Kingdom for a couple of decades and developing socially, internationally, and militarily, but there were still Serbian people within the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires who, along with Tankosic and some others within Serbia - and in significant numbers – would endeavour to work against those Empires. In modern parlance, asymmetric warfare was on the cards. After the 1903 May Coup, Tankosic went to Macedonia and organised guerrilla action in the Ottoman province of Macedonia for a couple of years. In 1905, he participated in a successful guerrilla victory in Celopek. He returned to Belgrade’s Military Academy for a couple of years after that, and thereafter was involved in border clashes with Bulgarian units. In 1908, Austro-Hungary annexed the province of Bosnia-Hercegovina from the Ottomans. Not owing anything either to Austria nor the Ottomans, Tankosic organised around 5000 volunteers in Bosnia in preparation for the war that he anticipated would break out between Austria and Serbia, but Serbia’s recognition of the annexation the following year pre-empted further effort by Tankosic on that front. Tankosic rose to the rank of Major in the Serbian Army after the First Balkan War, but he also simultaneously had the Chetnik rank of ‘Vojvoda’, which translated as leader. This is not to be confused with the regular Serbian Army rank of ‘Vojvoda’, which equates to Field Marshal. It is the same word, but the meaning is different. Tankosic was one of the founders of the ‘Unification or Death’ organisation, which was more popularly known as the ‘Black Hand’, which had the aim of unifying all Serbs into one land, and he also co-authored its constitution. He organised volunteers in the First Balkan War of 1912, where he led the Chetnik Laplje detachment. Other detachments were attached to the Serbian Army, but Tankosic’s unit independently acted as a forward unit, and his fighters were in the vanguard of the fighting and the war ended in victory for the Allies of Serbia, Greece, Romania, and Montenegro over the Ottoman Empire. The Chetnik units also were also referred to in some areas under the names of Komite or Comitadjis. In the lead up to the First World War, he trained the Black Hand volunteers who would go on to Assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, helped to transport them into and across Bosnia, and arranged for someone to provide them with weapons. After the death of Archduke Ferdinand, Austria gave Serbia a list of demands, one of which was the arrest of Tankosic. This Serbia did, though they subsequently released him after Austria declared war. At the outbreak of the war, four detachments were formed from existing Chetniks and volunteers. Tankosic commanded the Rudnik detachment, and was one of the early defenders of Belgrade. Building on the various military experience from 1903 onwards, his unit and those who were of parallel status formed the vanguard for attacks, as well as special operations on the enemy lines of communication, and participated in numerous actions through 1914 including the Battles of Cer – which was the very first Allied victory in the war - and Kolubara. In the autumn of 1915, Serbia was fighting Austro-Hungary, German, and Bulgaria simultaneously, and was making a strategic retreat that would take much of its army through Albania and on to the coast for evacuation. During the time of the Albanian Retreat, at the end of October, Tankosic was wounded and died a few days later in Trstenik, central Serbia. He was buried in some secrecy by his men, but the advancing Austrians found out about this and exhumed him and took pictures of Tankosic’s body to prove to their people, via their press, that this ‘bogeyman’ of theirs was indeed dead and here was the photographic proof and that it was intended as a kind of victory for the Austrians. After the war, Tankosic’s mother located his remains and he was buried in Belgrade. Tankosic did not live to see the aims of having his people live in one country, though that had been achieved after the war. His hand in the overthrow of the pro-Austrian Obrenovic Royalty, of organising revolt beyond Serbia’s borders both militarily and politically, of not being perturbed by the size of the task ahead, of training Gavrilo Princip and his cohorts and putting them in a position to carry out the deed that would spark the First World War, that is a remarkable amount of influence for one life. The postcard shows Vojislav Tankosic with some of his fighters. He is in the middle row, in the centre, with the beard.
Postcard of Serbian Major Vojislav Tankosic and some of his guerillas