There are nations that prove their greatness through territory, wealth, or population size. And there are those that history constantly puts through trials so great that in the end they are best described by the testimonies of people who do not belong to them at all.
When one reads how French writers, Russian tsars, American presidents, British prime ministers, German chancellors, Swiss scientists, and French marshals spoke about Serbia with respect more than a century ago, we see that their words are much more than beautiful quotes, they are the mirror of a nation and a time.
The story begins in 1876. While Serbia was fighting a difficult war against the Ottoman Empire, Europe was mostly silent. Then a voice was raised by one of the greatest writers of his era, Victor Hugo.
“Serbia is being slaughtered. Europe has a duty,” he wrote in his famous appeal, accusing the powers of that time of turning their heads away from the suffering of a small nation. In a time when there were no social networks or television, his text toured the continent and became one of the first major international calls to protect Serbs.
A few years later, another giant of European politics observed the Balkans with a much colder heart. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was not a romantic. He thought like a statesman. That is why he warned that a great European war would one day break out precisely because of “some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”
Sixteen years after his death, shots in Sarajevo set in motion the very thing he feared. Later, a legend also arose that Bismarck uttered “Serbia” on his deathbed. Historians have found no proof for this, but the very fact that such a story arose speaks to how deeply his warning remained etched in European memory.
When Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia in the summer of 1914, few expected that a small Balkan state would become a subject of debate in the parliaments of the world’s greatest powers.
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George then spoke openly that Serbia was not blameless, but that no European state had accepted so many difficult conditions as Belgrade had accepted. For him, the attempt to break Serbia militarily represented a dangerous precedent that would set the whole of Europe ablaze.
In Petrograd, Russian Tsar Nicholas II sent a telegram to Regent Alexander that would change history. He conveyed that Russia “will in no case remain indifferent to the fate of Serbia.” A few days later, mobilization began, followed by the First World War.
What followed, few could have imagined.
The Serbian army went through the Albanian Golgotha, lost hundreds of thousands of people, but did not perish. On Corfu it recovered, on the Salonika front it rose again and in 1918 broke lines that for years were considered unconquerable.
French Marshal Louis Franchet d’Espèrey spoke that the Serbs won their freedom by their own heroism. Georges Clemenceau pointed out that France would never forget Serbia, while numerous French generals claimed that it was precisely the Serbian soldiers who made a decisive contribution to the end of the war in the Balkans.
America did not remain silent either.
President Woodrow Wilson ordered that on July 28, 1918, the Serbian flag be flown over the White House. On the same day, he called on American schools to mark Serbia Day, as a sign of respect toward a nation that lost nearly a third of its population in the Great War.
Scarcely any state in the world has experienced such an honor from the United States of America.
A special place among all foreigners is occupied by Archibald Reiss.
A Swiss by birth, a scientist by profession, he came to Serbia to investigate war crimes. He stayed for the rest of his life.
His “Listen, Serbs!” is even today perhaps the most sincere work a foreigner has written about our nation. In it there is no flattery. Reiss praises Serbian courage, integrity, and ability to endure the greatest sacrifices, but equally openly warns about corruption, disunity, and the forgetting of one’s own values.
Over the decades, numerous historical legends were also born. To the German Emperor Wilhelm II words are attributed that “sixty-two thousand Serbian soldiers decided the outcome of the war,” to Talleyrand the thought that Europe through the Serbs would reconquer Constantinople, to Garibaldi admiration for the Serbian struggle for freedom, and to Winston Churchill the claim that no allied nation made greater sacrifices than the Serbs.
For some of these statements indirect sources exist, for others there is no reliable proof. But the very fact that they survived for more than a century speaks to how strong an impression Serbia left in European history.
The reputation of a nation does not arise because others praise it. It arises when by its deeds it forces others to speak about it.
That is why these words are not just a memory of the past. They are a reminder that international respect is never gained forever. It is won anew with courage, dignity, sacrifice, and the ability to remain on the right side of history even in the hardest moments.
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Source: Serbian Times; Photo: ChatGPT prompt by Serbian Times