Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914

Western interpretations of World War One mention the Balkan peninsula only in reference to the Sarajevo assassination. From Sarajevo, historians shift focus to the Great Powers' diplomacy, and then to the Eastern and Western fronts, seemingly forgetting that the war began in the Balkans. Serbia is mentioned only in connection with Sarajevo and the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum; Montenegro is mentioned as a footnote to Serbia.;On those occasions when the Balkan peninsula is mentioned, it is usually in the context of Churchill's ill-fated Gallipoli landing, and less frequently, in connection with the Thessaloniki Front after 1916. The first Entente victory of the war, in which Serbia soundly defeated the Austro-Hungarian Army at the Battle of Mt. Cer (August 16-19, 1914), is not mentioned. Neither is Serbia's short-lived invasion of Austria-Hungary in early September. The most significant Serbian victory of the war, the Battle of Kolubara (December 3-12, 1914), which completely destroyed Austria-Hungary's Balkan Army, is mentioned only rarely in the specialized literature dealing with the war, or in the larger field of Military History.;The resulting void in Western historiography leaves the casual reader with one of two impressions: that in 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Empire either immediately overwhelmed its smaller southern neighbor by shear weight of numbers, or that the region remained quiet and uneventful throughout the early years of the war. This study attempts to answer that question and fill the void in western historiography by focusing on the diplomatic and military events of the Balkan Front during the first year of the First World War, 1914.