Politika
- Vojvoda Putnik
- Putnik as a Soldier and as a Man
This reading of Politika for 7 November 1926 covers two pieces about Vojvoda Radomir Putnik, Serbia's commander in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. In a signed column, P. M. Lazarević calls the Battle of Kumanovo in 1912 the test of the army's strength and spirit, qualities he says the leadership's recklessness had clouded with doubt in the 1885 war with Bulgaria. He argues that this first battle was psychologically decisive for the final success and calls it a brilliant victory. A second piece describes Putnik as a withdrawn, serious generalissimo who was gravely ill but made no time for treatment or rest, because the work of the state and the nation was his highest aim.
This reading covers two excerpts transcribed from the page image: part of P. M. Lazarević's signed column and part of the profile of Putnik as soldier and man. The OCR text was largely garbled and was not used. Small names in the masthead box and some column edges cut at tile borders remain uncertain. The names of the prisoners and of the orderly mentioned in the profile are not transcribed, because they cannot be read reliably.
Translation
Vojvoda Putnik
But Kumanovo was the touchstone for the strength and spirit of our army, for that strength and that spirit which the recklessness of the leadership had covered with a veil of uncertainty and doubt in the war with the Bulgarians in 1885. The first battle in the war of 1912 was a psychologically decisive element for our positions, and indeed for our final success. And that first battle, the Battle of Kumanovo, was our brilliant victory.
Putnik as a Soldier and as a Man
As generalissimo of the Serbian army, Vojvoda Putnik was always withdrawn, serious, absorbed in his thoughts. And those thoughts were always directed solely at the serious task that had been entrusted to him. Seriously, even very seriously ill, he had no time to think about his illness. Nor to see to its treatment and to his own rest. For him the work of the state and the nation was the highest aim.
Context
Why Putnik's remains lay in Nice until November 1926
Wikipedia's biography of Putnik states that after tensions and recriminations between the Serbian government and the High Command, the entire General Staff, Putnik included, was dismissed in January 1916. He then travelled to Nice, where the French authorities received him with honours. His emphysema worsened there, and he died on 17 May 1917 without ever returning home. The same biography says that in November 1926 his remains were repatriated to Serbia and interred with full honours in a chapel at Belgrade's New Cemetery. That places this 7 November edition in the month of the return. The Serbian Ministry of Defence adds that Putnik's descendants carried the remains from Nice and buried them in a separate grave within the New Cemetery complex. The two excerpts do not describe the reburial ceremonies. They are commemorative writing, published in the month the country received back the commander who had died abroad.
Kumanovo set against the defeat of 1885
Lazarević measures Kumanovo against the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. King Milan declared war on the new Bulgarian state on 15 November 1885, and after a short campaign the Serbs were utterly routed at Slivnitsa and Pirot. Putnik himself took part in that war. In October 1912, during the First Balkan War, the Serbian army won at Kumanovo, and Putnik was afterwards promoted to field marshal. The Serbian Ministry of Defence describes him as the first Serbian officer to receive the rank of vojvoda after that battle. The column presents the victory as proof of the army's strength and spirit and treats it as the psychological basis of the later triumph. Wikipedia adds a detail the column leaves out. Putnik's High Command expected the decisive clash on the Ovče Polje plateau north of Skopje, and because of communication problems it learned of Kumanovo only after the battle had been won.
The illness behind the portrait of the ailing commander
The second piece insists that Putnik was very seriously ill yet had no time for treatment or rest, and the biographical record confirms the illness. When Austria-Hungary declared war in 1914, Putnik was in Budapest being treated for chronic emphysema. After returning to Serbia he offered his resignation to King Peter I, citing his advanced age and declining health. During the retreat of 1915 he was carried in a sedan chair through the snow-covered mountains of Albania, and lung emphysema killed him in Nice in 1917. Wikipedia also records that contemporaries described him as reserved, disciplined and ascetic, which matches the withdrawn, serious figure in the paper. The assertion that he neglected his health purely out of devotion to the state is the paper's own commemorative judgment. The sources show a man who tried to step down on health grounds in 1914 and stayed in command.
Putnik's fall from favour under the Obrenović kings
The paper's picture of a man for whom the state's work was the highest aim gains depth from the years when the crown treated him as politically suspect. According to Wikipedia, Putnik's refusal to support a favoured protégé of King Milan led to tensions, and in 1895 he was forced to retire by royal decree amid allegations that he sympathised with Nikola Pašić's Radical Party. The service list in the same article dates his retirement to 26 October 1896. Either date falls roughly thirty years before this edition. Putnik was rehabilitated only after the 1903 coup against Alexander Obrenović, when the new king, Peter I, promoted him to general and appointed him Chief of the General Staff. The career that 1926 commemorated as a model of service to the state therefore included years of enforced retirement under the previous dynasty.
Original
Војвода Путник
Али Куманово је било пробни камен за снагу и дух наше војске, за ону снагу и онај дух, што их је лакомисленост вођства прекрила велом неодређености и сумње у рату са Бугарима 1885 године. Прва битка у рату 1912 године била је психолошки пресудан елеменат за наше позиције, па и за наш дефинитивни успех. А та прва, Кумановска битка, била је наша сјајна победа.
Путник као војник и као човек
Као генералисим српске војске, војвода Путник је увек био повучен, озбиљан, занесен у своје мисли. А те мисли увек су биле упућене само ономе озбиљноме послу који му је био поверен. Озбиљно, чак врло озбиљно болестан, он није имао времена да мисли на своју болест. Ни да се постара о њеноме лечењу и о своме одмору. За њега је државни и народни посао био највиши циљ.