Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/mzvkptld69
The role of the Belgrade intelligence and revolutionary-terrorist network in the Sarajevo assassination and Serbia’s co-responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War
Thomir Rajčić
orcid.org/0000-0002-6386-1532
; OŠ Kneza Mislava, Kaštel Sućurac, Split, Hrvatska
Abstract
In this article, the author continues his research to the level of co-responsibility of the Kingdom of Serbia for the First World War, through the reconstruction of the secret Belgrade intelligence and revolutionary-terrorist network. In this sense, the author reveals how the top of the government of the Kingdom of Serbia from 1905 directly supervised and financed the intelligence and revolutionaryterrorist network that operated in Ottoman Macedonia and that operated in Austro-Hungarian Bosnia and Herzegovina from October 1908, under the name of National Defence. The head of this network was the Serbian Minister of foreign affairs at the time, and influential people from the Serbian military and political leadership, as well as numerous diplomats and military officers who participated in its work. The Belgrade network organized intelligence and revolutionary-terrorist activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which also included the preparation of guerrilla actions similar to those in Ottoman Macedonia. Armed volunteers who went through chetnik training in Serbia were introduced into Bosnia and Herzegovina through special intelligence channels. Without this branched and well-established activity of the National Defence, it would be difficult to imagine the Sarajevo assassination, which underlines the coresponsibility of the top government of the Kingdom of Serbia for the European diplomatic crisis that exploded in late July and early August 1914 into the global conflict we know today as World War I. The article is mostly based on documents from the collection Dokumenti o spoljnjoj politici Kraljevine Srbije 1903.- 1914. [Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Kingdom of Serbia 1903-1914].
Keywords
Belgrade network; intelligence channels; National Defence; chetniks; responsibility of the Serbian government
Hrčak ID:
288034
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2022.
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