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National Militia (Serbia)
National Militia (Serbian: Народна војска, Narodna vojska) was the most numerous part of the Serbian Army between 1861 and 1882. It was a territorial militia composed of all able-bodied men of the Principality of Serbia aged 20 to 50, formed into territorial units, who were obliged to do military training on Sundays in their towns and villages under the command of a few professional officers. Poorly trained, ill-equipped and undisciplined, these militia units performed poorly during the Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) and were disbanded in 1882.[1] In 1883, some of the former National Militia units rebelled against the Government, but were defeated in the short-lived Timok Rebellion.[2][3] FormationAs Principality of Serbia gained its autonomy within the Ottoman Empire as a vassal state in 1830, a small Serbian Regular Army was established in order to protect the peace within its borders. It was armed and uniformed in the European fashion, trained by the former Austrian and Russian officers: by 1860, it had no more than 3,500 professional soldiers.[4] In 1861. Prince Mihailo Obrenović (1860–1868), adopted a new Law on the National Militia, which included military service for men between the ages of 20 and 50 who were trained locally.[5] In August 1861, a law was duly passed making all able-bodied men between the ages of twenty and fifty liable for military service. Those between twenty and thirty were to train on Sundays and holidays, while the rest were reservists, obliged to train on a monthly basis. Within ten years, Serbia could field a massive force of some 90,000 men out of a population of one and a quarter million. The construction of an army at lightning speed was accompanied by tremendous patriotic fervour: songs hailing Serbia's great military traditions; articles predicting an imminent revolutionary war which would sweep the Turks out of Europe and keep the Austrians at bay; and endless slogans. ‘Educated Serbs even liked to boast of being a modern Sparta, the Piedmont of the South Slavs or, better yet, the Prussia of the Balkans’, as a historian of modern Serbia has remarked. In this respect, the militarization of Serbia, based on the peasantry, fostered a novel nationalist ideology in which the masses, and not just the bureaucratic elite, played a historic role. But it also created a dangerous illusion, as sheer numbers did not make an army. Discipline, clothing, medical support, proper logistics and, above all, an abundant supply of weapons and well-trained officers did. The new Serbian military could fulfil none of these requirements, as the country was to learn dramatically during the First Serbian-Ottoman War of 1876. By the time of his assassination in 1868, Prince Michael was almost certainly aware of these deficiencies, as he had invited foreign delegations to assess his army. Their observations were uniformly dismissive.[1] OrganisationPeople's Militia was divided into the "First Class" (men under the age of 35) and the "Second Class", organized into territorial battalions (62 in number) and regiments (17, one in each county). There were also 17 squadrons of cavalry, 17 pioneer units of 60 men each, and 6 artillery batteries (1,200 men). In 1861, First Class could field about 50,000 men, the Second about 40,000. Every county had its own military department, with several regular officers and NCOs, who organized recruitment, supplies, armament and training of National Militia. Military training was done on Sundays and holidays: battalions trained for two days every other week, and regiments 15 days a year. NCOs and officers under the rank of captain were selected from the common people, mostly peasants, by the county elders, battalion and squadron commanders were selected by the Minister of War, and regiment commanders were appointed by the Prince. In 1866, new military schools were opened in Belgrade and Kragujevac, to provide Militia officers with basic training in tactics, fortification and topography.[4]  County seats of the Principality of Serbia in 1876. Each county provided two brigades (before 1870. a regiment) of infantry and a squadron of cavalry for the National Militia. Brigades wore the name of their respective counties. Smaller green dots are seats of military districts (srez) within the counties: each district was to provide two battalions of infantry and a company of cavalry.
EquipmentFirearmsMilitary service was without pay, and militiamen were expected to provide their own weapons and clothing. In 1862, the Serbian People's Militia existed on paper only: less than a half of the militiamen had serviceable rifles, mostly old Austrian and Otoman flintlock muskets.[4] Since 1856, Serbia had its own weapons factory in Kragujevac, which produced light bronze cannon and copper percussion caps, and by 1862 have converted some 15,000 old flintlock muskets into percussion rifles. In 1863. Serbia received some 31.000 (or 39.200) old percussion muskets from Russia (Russian musket model 1845): these muskets were converted to rifles in Kragujevac and became the standard weapon of the National Militia, known in Serbia simply as the Russian rifles.[4][7] In 1867, the first Serbian breechloading rifles (Green model 1867) were made in Belgrade Arsenal, by converting some 27,000 cheaply bought Austrian decommissioned Lorenz rifles. In 1870, the Serbian army adopted new, much better breechloading rifle (Peabody model 1870), converting some 28.000 imported Belgian percussion rifles.[4][7] UniformsIn 1876, units of the First Class were given state-issued uniforms (hats, coats, trousers and greatcoats) and were armed with breechloading rifles (mostly newer Peabody model 1870). Units of the Second Class were supposed to be at least partially uniformed (hats and greatcoats), but in practice mostly wore their own civilian clothes: few were armed with older Green model 1867 breechloading rifles, but most had only Russian and Belgian percussion muzzleloaders.[6] Battle performanceSerbian National Militia was put to test for the first time in Serbian-Ottoman Wars (1876-1878) with mostly disappointing results. Carl von Mayers, a German officer who spent the First Serbian-Ottoman War in the Ottoman headquarters in Niš on the main theatre of war (as a military correspondent), gave a detailed analysis of the Serbian militia's battle performance: he said the infantry was bad, the cavalry non-existent, and the artillery, on the contrary, very good:[8]
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