Great Retreat (Serbia)

Great Retreat (Serbia)
Part of the Second Serbian campaign of World War I
Serbian soldiers and pack animals crossing the Rugova Canyon near Peć during the Great Retreat.
Operational scope	Strategic withdrawal
Location	Kingdom of Serbia, Albania, and Montenegro, leading to the Adriatic Sea 42°22′56.69″N 19°58′51.29″E / 42.3824139°N 19.9809139°E / 42.3824139; 19.9809139
Planned	Serbian Army High Command
Commanded by	Field Marshal Radomir Putnik
Objective	Retreat to the Adriatic Sea for evacuation
Date	25 November 1915 (1915-11-25) – 18 January 1916 (1916-01-18)
Executed by	Royal Serbian Army Accompanied by civilian refugees and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war
Outcome	Serbian forces and refugees evacuated to Corfu
Casualties	Serbian soldiers[1] 77,455 dead 77,278 missing Serbian civilians[2] 160,000 dead Austro-Hungarian POWs[3] 47,000 dead

The Great Retreat, also known in Serbian historiography as the Albanian Golgotha^[4] (Serbian: Албанска голгота, Albanska golgota), refers to the retreat of the Royal Serbian Army through the mountains of Albania during the 1915–16 winter of World War I.

In late October 1915, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria launched a synchronised major offensive, under German leadership, against Serbia. Early that same month, France and Britain landed four divisions arrived at Salonika, respectively under General Maurice Sarrail and General Sir Byron Mahon, to assist their outnumbered Serbian ally caught between the invading forces. The Royal Serbian Army fought while retreating southwards with the plan to withdraw into Macedonia to link up with Entente forces. After the defection of Greece, the Bulgarian forces stopped the Franco-British relief force in the Vardar Valley, the Serbs found themselves swept together in the plain of Kosovo by the converging Austro-Hungarian, German, and Bulgarian columns.^[5]

To escape the invaders' encirclement, on November 23, 1915, the government and supreme command made the joint decision to retreat across the mountains of Montenegro and Albania. The objective was to reach the Adriatic coast, where they would reorganise and reequip the Serbian Army with assistance from the Allies. The Serbs then retreated across the mountains in three columns; the retreat took the remnants of the army, the King, hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees, and war prisoners. Between November 1915 and January 1916, during the journey across the mountains, 77,455 soldiers and 160,000 civilians froze, starved to death, died of disease, or were killed by enemy raids. Austrian pilots used the new technology of the time, dropping bombs on the retreating columns in what has been called 'the first aerial bombardment of civilians.'^[6]

Out of the 400,000 people who set out on the journey, only 120,000 soldiers and 60,000 civilians reached the Adriatic coast to be evacuated by Allied ships to the island of Corfu, where a Serbian government-in-exile headed by Prince-Regent Alexander and Nikola Pašić was established. Another 11,000 Serbs would later die of disease, malnutrition, or exposure sustained during the retreat. The retreat remains a significant event in Serbian national history and is often symbolized as the Albanian Golgotha, representing great suffering followed by the nation's eventual victory and unification. Strategically it allowed the Serbian army to regroup in Salonika, where it contributed to the final Allied offensives and played a key role in securing the country's liberation.^[7][8]