[Ravnagora]

Mihailo Papazoglu is the ambassador of the Republic of Serbia to Canada.

Sarajevo, Bosnia, 28 June 1914: After some 400 years under Turkish Ottoman and almost 40 under Austro-Hungarian occupation, people of some dozen nationalities shared the same dream of freedom. Gavrilo Princip was among them when he fired two shots at Austria-Hungary’s Crown Prince. For many of his countrymen he is a freedom fighter.

Belgrade, Serbia, 28 July 1914: Just one month later, the first artillery shells in First World War began to fall on the city’s Danube and Sava river banks and neighbourhoods under the hot, burning summer sun. For Serbia this is the end of a month-long diplomatic prelude that started with Mr. Princip’s shots, followed by a written 48-hour ultimatum delivered to Serbia, a nation of 5 million, by Austro-Hungary, an empire of 52 million. There was nowhere to hide. The declaration of war was sent by a telegraph message. The term “blitzkrieg” had not yet been coined, but a punitive military campaign in the Balkans was imminent.

You’ve probably never heard of Dusan Donovic. A sixteen-year-old Serbian Army volunteer shot in Belgrade by gunfire from an Austrian Danube flotilla vessel that day, he was the first victim of WWI. He died like 1,250,000 other Serbs – a death toll amounting to 28 per cent of population, both soldiers and civilians. Maybe you’ve heard of George Lawrence Price? Born in Falmouth, Nova Scotia, aged twenty six, fatally shot by a German sniper at 10:58 a.m. on November 11, 1918. He died just 2 minutes before the armistice that ended the war, making him the last victim of WWI. He died like 61,000 fellow Canadians. Like 17 million people in Europe and around the world.

In between, we Serbs fought. For one year on our soil, on our frontiers, mostly alone. The first allied victory took place in Serbia, in the mountains of Cer. Then the second one in Kolubara, almost like the battle of Vimy Ridge. This success drew worldwide attention to Serbia and won the Serbs the sympathy of both neutral and Allied countries, as it marked their first victory over the Central Powers. The next year we had our share of defeats. Belgrade, the capital, was the last stand for more than 2,600 Serbian Army soldiers, aware of the fact that their names had already been erased from the list of the living by the Serbian Army’s headquarters – left behind as an ultimate sacrifice. Not to be forgotten. Ask any kid in Serbia today about this episode of war – they know it!

[SpaceBar]

Hero or terrorist, Princip completely changed the world around us.

[1rudeboy]

What’s with Serbs and their thinking that murderers are heros?

[buridan]

Serbia was a state sponsor of terrorism at that time.

[Ravnagora]

Ping!

[Sam Gamgee]

Um, wasn't it the Serbs who brought Austria upon themselves through acts of terror. The Serbs were just as much the aggressors as the Austrians swallowing up their own neighbors after fighting the Ottomans. And they did quite nicely out of WWI, basically growing from tiny Serbia to a massive Yugoslavia. They played a very fine game, especially getting fellow “slavs” the Russians to fight in their name.

[ozzymandus]

Hey, that’s great. Serbs celebrate assassins and terrorists.

[Billthedrill]

With respect, Princip was a young fool and a lousy shot (his friends had mocked him for it) who got very lucky and the world, unlucky. He shot an unarmed man and woman, the one man in the Austro-Hungarian government who might most have benefited Serbian independence, and left that government in the hands of Franz Joseph, the man least likely to have benefited Serbian independence and the most likely to do precisely what he did, start a war over the issue. The woman Princip shot died trying to shield her husband from a murderer. This cold butchery was not the action of a "hero" in any sense.

It is not, I am sure, the general Serbian view that the Serbian blood that flowed over the next four years (and it did, horrifically) had a place on his hands, but it is mine. You are welcome to differ and I respect that.