It had to be tough being a leader of large army during this war.
Perhaps it had to be far tougher to be a leader of an army from a small nation trying to fight
off one many times larger.
If you can do that, you know you’re good, and one of the men who did was Stepa Stepanovic.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War bio special of Who did what in World War One?
Today featuring Stepa Stepanovic.
He was born in Serbian village of Kumodraz near Belgrade March 11, 1856, the 4th child
of Ivan and Radojka Stepanovic.
At this time Serbia was not an independent nation, but an autonomous province within
the Ottoman Empire.
The last Ottoman soldier would officially leave Serbia in 1867, but it would take the
Congress of Berlin in 1878 to make Serbia its own nation.
After elementary school, Stepa moved to Belgrade where he took classes and worked as a servant
to wealthy families.
At age 18 he joined the Belgrade Artillery Academy.
One of the other 29 cadets was the future Field Marshall Zivojin Misic, who would also
distinguish himself during the First World War.
By 1876, Stepanovic was a lance sergeant, but his education was interrupted by the First
Serbo-Turkish war that year.
Serbia’s goal was to liberate all parts of the Balkans where Serbs lived under Ottoman
rule.
Stepa was sent to the front where he fought in a series of battles, making a name for
himself as a soldier and becoming a sub-lieutenant.
At the village of Nishor, it was Stepa who first entered the Ottoman trenches and for
his bravery was awarded the St. Stanislav Third Class medal with Swords and ribbon.
Throughout his career he would say that it was the medal of which he was most proud.
After independence Stepa returned to Belgrade to finish his education.
He graduated in 1880 and was given a company command.
That same year he met Jelena, whom he would marry the following year and with whom he
would have two daughters.
He saw further action in the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885 and after that served in Kragujevac
and Valjevo, becoming a Captain First Class by the end of the decade.
Both he and his former classmate Misic took the exam for Staff Major-General in the spring
of 1892.
He successfully passed the exam and by 1901 was in Belgrade as a Headquarters Colonel
and Professor of Military History.
One thing to note about Serbia in the early 1900s, the Serbian political and military
situation was constantly in flux with sabotages, assassinations, and conspiracies between various
factions.
During the May 1903 coup, King Alexander was killed and King Petar I Karadjordjevic from
a rival dynasty took the throne.
Stepanovic, however, was apolitical and uninterested in the internal conflicts, which may well
have saved his career.
He was, though, a very strict disciplinarian who tolerated not even the slightest disobedience.
He also fought against the exploitation of soldiers by their superiors and all things
that had no place in the army, for example officers sending enlisted men out to get them
food or perform household chores.
His belief there was so unpopular with fellow officers that they tried to secretly have
Stepa arrested but he discovered their plot and had 31 of them arrested for conspiracy.
In 1907 he was promoted to General and in 1908 became Serbian Minister of Defense.
He began a program of general modernization and reorganization of the Serbian army, though
he was initially skeptical of modern arms.
Serbia purchased the bulk of its new equipment from France; there were very good relations
between the two.
Stepa was dismissed as Defense Minister in 1909, unofficially over public disagreements
over any actions of war that should be taken against Austria-Hungary for annexing Bosnia.
Stepanovic did not believe the time was right for opposing such a large nation; this was
not a popular sentiment.
He would again become Minister in 1911 and with his support Serbia concluded its alliance
with Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece as they began the First Balkan War against the Ottoman
Empire.
Stepanovic was commander of the Second Combined Serbian Army, which was one Serbian and one
Bulgarian division.
There were problems with him consolidating his command, though, as his Bulgarian division
refused to receive direct orders from him, but only through Bulgarian High Command.
Still, though, it was his forces that broke the siege at Adrianople, and Stepanovic who
was considered a hero.
“Standing alone like a statue, General Stepanovic suddenly transferred himself to the trenches
of his countrymen the peasants from 7th company... from time to time he clapped his hands and
shouted «Bravo, my sons!
Bravo, my heroes!»”
Adrianople fell in late March 1913 and this was nearly the end of that war, but when Serbia
and Greece divided Macedonian land between them that they had previously agreed to share
with Bulgaria, it led to the Second Balkan War that summer.
Stepanovic also saw action there, and after that weeks-long war ended his second army
was demobilized.
And then the following year Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and this war began.
As the July Crisis came to a head, Serbian Army Chief of Staff Radomir Putnik was on
a medical treatment holiday in Austria-Hungary, so it fell to Stepanovic for organizing the
mobilization of the Serbian army.
The main problems he faced were lack of ammunitions and terrible finances after the two Balkan
wars.
Still, he managed to mobilize 250,000 men in three armies and by August 10th they were
in position to receive the first Austrian offensive.
Putnik returned and Stepanovic took command of the Second Army.
Opposing him was Austro-Hungarian Imperial General Oskar Potiorek, who had never seen
a single day of battle and who thought defeating Serbia would be a “brief autumn stroll”.
Potiorek crossed the Drina River the 12th but straight from the start the Austrians
had big problems with the terrain and Serbian guerrilla fighters.
Stepanovic saw the strategic importance of the mountain Cer and ordered a surprise night
attack on the Austrians the 15th.
The following battle was extremely bloody, and in appalling weather, but after a couple
days, the Serbs broke the Austrians and by August 24th, there were no Austrian soldiers
left on Serbian soil.
The Battle of Cer was the first Allied victory of the war and Stepa Stepanovic was immediately
promoted to Field Marshal.
A second Austrian invasion attempt in September was unsuccessful, but by late October the
Serbian army was exhausted and nearly out of artillery shells.
The third Austrian invasion attempt began November 16th, the largest of the three.
The three Serbian armies, including Stepanovic’s Second, retreated further and further into
the country, and on December 1st, Belgrade fell.
However, weapons and artillery shells finally began arriving from France through Greece
and the counter attack began December 3rd.
Austria-Hungary was stunned and the second and third armies re-took Belgrade the 15th
and the Austrians were again forced to flee the country.
But there was a high price to pay.
Casualties were in the hundreds of thousands, not even including civilian victims of atrocities.
Also, there was a typhus epidemic that would rage for months and prevent any military adventures
in Serbia for most of a year.
In October 1915, the Austro-German-Bulgarian combined offensive into Serbia proved too
powerful to resist and the Second Army was broken at Nish.
We’ve talked a lot in the regular episodes about the Serbian exodus through the Albanian
mountains before finally regrouping on Korfu, so I won’t go into it here.
Stepanovic, though, would figure in the Macedonian campaign until the fall of 1918, which again
we’ll cover in regular Thursday episodes.
By the end of the war Stepa Stepanovic was a huge national hero.
He retired in 1920 and moved to the family home at Chachak.
He was uncomfortable with fame, and he thought his pension was way too high.
He gardened, played with his grandchildren, and took walks by the river, and Stepa Stepanovic
died April 27th, 1929.
His funeral was a huge event, with state, religious, and military honors.
Yugoslav King Alexander was there in person, and Stepanovic was buried with the French
Legion of Honor, the Greek Order of the Redeemer, the Russian Order of Holy George, the British
Order of Bath, the Serbian Order of Karadjordje, and of course his old St. Stanislav medal
from his youth.
Stepa Stepanovic’s influence on Serbian society is enormous.
You can see it today in all the streets, places, songs, schools, and more dedicated in his
memory.
He was a tough old bird all right, and his army was instrumental in winning the first
Allied victory of the war.
That he was still around fighting and commanding troops at the very end of the war is truly
impressive, especially when you look at the High commands of the other warring nations
and the fact that Serbia was overrun and occupied.
Look him up to learn more; he’s a good read and there’s a lot that we don’t have time
to cover.
Today was just a brief look at Stepa Stepanovic, an often-overlooked leader who should not
be quite so often overlooked.
We want to thank Igor Lazarevic for helping us with the research for this episode.
If you want to know more about the tensions between Serbia and Bulgaria, check our Bulgaria
special right here.
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
See you next time.