The feats and heroism of Serbian soldiers in the First World War always deserve to be mentioned. No matter how much history has shed light on many epics of our ancestors’ struggles, many stories once told are still waiting to be etched into the collective memory of our people. The heroic feat of Jevto Jevtović is one of those.
Jevto Jevtović (1892-1977) from Gojna Gora was a private in the army of the Kingdom of Serbia and a member of the 10th Šumadija Regiment, a veteran of both Balkan wars, a participant in the defense of Belgrade, and a warrior from Cer.
He is the only soldier of the Serbian army who, after the retreat across Albania, carried a mountain cannon on his shoulders, without throwing it into the abyss of Prokletije. And so the cannon, carried on a back, appeared in Durrës. Intact. When the French General Guillaumat heard this, he asked to see him. He saluted Jevtović and handed him his Legion of Honour.
The highlander, standing at attention, said to him through a translator: “I don’t need medals, I need ammunition, so I can return to Gojna Gora.”
The cannon, five shells, and Jevto Jevtović boarded a ship for Corfu, together with their comrades-in-arms, so that soon, the cannon and the wounded continued their journey to France, while Jevto remained on the Greek island with his father Sreten – a third-call reservist – and his two younger brothers, twins Ljubinko and Ljubivoje, to wait for the command to continue the warfare. During the war, Jevto kept a diary which was published in the Edition “The Warrior’s Word – Diaries of Peasant Soldiers,” Miodrag Jaćimović, 1980.
The carried cannon is kept today in the Military Museum in Marseille, France.
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Source: Nportal; Photo: Wikipedia/Arhiva Novosti