SERBIAN TRICOLOR FLAG DISCOVERED IN CANADA: After more than a century, it has arrived at the military cemetery in Thessaloniki!

A war flag donated by the citizens of the French city of Toulon to Serbian soldiers during the Great War has arrived from Canada at Zejtinlik, the Serbian military cemetery in Thessaloniki.

Mladen Radaković, a native of Sombor who lives in Canada, handed the flag over to the museum there as a permanent donation during a ceremony marking the 108th anniversary of the breakthrough of the Salonika Front.

The tricolor was intended for the 6th Infantry Regiment “Crown Prince Alexander,” whose soldiers endured the Albanian Golgotha, recovered on Corfu, and played a decisive role in the breakthrough of the front. An inscription embroidered in French on the flag reads, “The citizens of Toulon to the 6th Infantry Regiment of the Serbian Army,” preserving the memory of the gift presented by French citizens to Serbian soldiers during the Great War.

For more than a century, the flag’s whereabouts remained unknown. Two years ago, a lead was discovered in a city in eastern Canada where ships carrying emigrants used to dock. The flag had belonged to a Serbian emigrant, and after his death, others carefully preserved it. The last owner had purchased it at an antique shop and listed it for sale on Facebook, unaware of its origins.

The listing caught the attention of Jean-François Baudon, a Frenchman living in Canada, who recognized the flag and identified the period to which it belonged. He bought it for his friend Radaković and gave it to him as a Christmas present. Dejan Mrkić, an associate of the Historical Archives in Subotica, recounts the story of its journey.

While researching the gift’s origins, the friends realized its historical significance and decided to donate the flag to the museum at Zejtinlik. Following a series of arrangements, the tricolor was handed over in Thessaloniki in September. A photograph from the ceremony captured Radaković standing with the flag alongside an honor guard of cadets.

The return of this historical relic to Zejtinlik ensures its preservation within the military cemetery complex in Thessaloniki. After a century of uncertainty, the flag of the 6th Regiment has become part of the museum exhibition, where it will continue to serve as authentic testimony to the Serbian-French alliance during the Great War.

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