It’s early August 1914.
Up on a hill the men of the 6th artillery regiment of Drina infantry division of the Royal Serbian Army
standby in their camp awaiting for orders
when they hear the cries of a child.
They watch in shock as a lone 8 year old boy runs towards them, tears streaming down his face.
The soldiers gather around, asking the child if he’s hurt, and where he came from.
Between tears the child stammers words, talking of men harming his entire family.
The soldiers listen in horror.
Furious, almost an entire division of the men lobby their general for permission to take revenge on behalf of the boy,
but he denies the request and stands firm.
They have a war to wage, and cannot break ranks for simple revenge.
But he is just as furious as his men, so he authorizes a single soldier, Milosh Mishovich, to perform a solo surprise attack.
In the dead of night, the boy leads the soldier back to his village,
where they find the enemy camp as well as village homes occupied by the enemy.
Together they sneak into the village and Milosh throws grenades into the occupied homes and tents.
Screams follow the explosions and the camp devolves into a panic,
Milosh and the boy flee the scene, undetected.
The boy’s name is Momchilo Gavrich.
The pair returned to the camp to much fanfare.
From now on the soldier, Milosh, would become Momchilo’s official caretaker.
Momchilo was happily adopted by the unit,
the soldiers made him a hand-sewn scarf and coat, which he would sport throughout the first year of the Great War.
He insisted to help
so he was assigned as a messenger for the artillery observer unit,
and even learnt how to perform cannon maintenance.
He became very well respected by the soldiers.
He was unflinching during combat, and just as brave as the best of them.
He was promoted to Corporal at the age of 9 years old and he received a proper uniform, albeit child-sized.
As time went on
Momchilo became more and more involved in the operations of the unit,
hauling messages and items,
maintaining weapons and trenches, and even pulling the firing cord of aimed and loaded artillery.
But it wasn’t to last.
In late 1915 Austro-Hungary, Germany, and Bulgaria
launched a two-pronged counterattack and the the Serbs’ front collapsed.
They were pushed back,
surrounded,
and forced to escape mainland Europe entirely, crossing the Albanian mountains to reach the sea.
Momchilo and Milosh faced a terrible hike, barraged by freezing winds and exhaustion.
Disease ran rampant on the men around them and the fallen lined the path.
Milosh feels weak, and tells the child
“Go forward, I’ll rest and then I’ll catch up.”
But Momchilo, understanding what was happening, refused.
Hugging the leg of his friend, he said, “I will not leave you.”
Hearing the child’s words,
with a heavy heart and colossal effort, Milosh stands back up and the slow torturous walk resumes.
He has to do it, for the child.
They successfully arrive at the boats and board them.
Milosh all but collapses on deck, completely exhausted, but both are still alive.
The Serbian army settled on the Greek island of Corfu where they spent several months recovering.
Throughout that time Momchilo attended a local school and got some semblance of a normal life,
but the war hadn’t ended, and by 1916 the Serbian Army was called to fight alongside the Greeks.
With his only caretakers being the soldiers,
Momchilo rejoined them, and the 10 year old headed for war one more time.
Throughout his second faceoff with the enemy, he continued his dutiful support of the frontline soldiers
running errands in the trenches.
One time he was spotted by the Chief of Serbian Army who questioned,
“What’s this brat doing in the trenches?”
to which a nearby soldier responded
“He’s no brat, but a soldier, trained both in his duties and discipline.
He fought with us through the Cer and Kolubara.”
He survived the war and was taken in by the British under a program to help war orphans.
His last order was “go to England, study, and live your life.”
Lance-Corporal Gavrich accepted the order and headed for a new life.
He was accepted at Henry Wright School, modern day Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham, in Kent.
He graduated just 6 years later in 1921.
When 16, he returned to Yugoslavia where he was reunited with 3 surviving brothers.
From there he moved to Belgrade where he got a driver license and graphic designer certificate.
He got a job at a papermill and met the love of his life, Kosara.
They married and had two children.
But that was not to be the end of his story.
In April 1941, a 35 year old Momchilo is drafted into the Yugoslav Army to fight off the German invasion.
He isn’t pleased with his unit;
the cannons are in a shockingly poor state
and his officers are nowhere near the quality of the ones he remembers from his childhood.
They have barely see any action before they are surrounded, and the commander immediately surrenders the company.
Momchilo is taken to a POW camp but he refuses to give up, eying ways to escape.
A few days later he runs for it and disappears into the night.
Walking all the way back to Nazi-held Belgrade he was reunited with his wife.
He met friends from his time in the papermill and they help him pretend he never left.
The Nazi authorities remained none the wiser even as they took over the mill.
The mill owners were forced under threat of imprisonment to provide the new local government with paper,
and Momchilo worked under the Nazi’s oppressive watch for two years,
occasionally providing security paper for resistance groups to forge IDs when possible.
But this arrangement would also be short lived.
In 1943 the Jewish owner of the papermill was rounded up by the Germans alongside all the papermill’s senior personnel,
including Gavrich, and they were taken to a concentration camp.
He spent a year there before fortunately being broken out by the Yugoslav partisans.
From there he lived a quiet life alongside his wife and children.
The small warrior of the Great War died in 1993,
aged 86.
If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the channel and watch more videos of ours.
Thank you!