Background
Živojin Mišić was bom in the village of Struganik near Valjevo in western Serbia in July 1855.
Živojin Mišić was bom in the village of Struganik near Valjevo in western Serbia in July 1855.
The son of a peasant family, Misic trained to become an artillery officer, and in 1876-1878, while still a cadet, first saw combat in Serbia's war with Turkey; he fought as a battalion commander in the brief war with Bulgaria in 1885. Marked as a rising young talent, Misic studied in Austria in 1887, joined the General Staff in 1891, and went on to succeed Radomir Putnik as its deputy chief. While with the General Staff, he taught strategy at the Belgrade military academy.
The military revolt of 1903 temporarily halted Misic's promising career. Serbia's new leaders considered Misic hostile to their regime and pensioned him off. The Bosnian crisis of 1909 and the intercession of Misic s patron, General Putnik, brought him back to active duty as deputy chief of staff. Under Putnik, he worked to reorganize and modernize the Serbian army, and during the Balkan Wars of 1912/1913 saw his achievements put successfully to the test. Misic advanced to the rank of general after assisting Putnik to victory over the Turks at Kumanovo in October 1912; his reputation was bolstered in July 1913 at the battle of Bregalnitsa against the Bulgarians. Nonetheless, he was returned to inactive status that September.
Misic renewed active service at the start of the First World War and took up his familiar position as deputy to Putnik, the chief of staff and de facto commander in chief. Misic commanded the First Army during the difficult month-long retreat in November 1914, then took the leading role in December's counteroffensive. The First Army smashed the Austrian right, drove the enemy across the Kolubara, and led the victorious Serbs all the way back to the Save. For this feat, Misic was elevated to the rank of field marshal (voivode).
Misic's fierce aggressiveness came to the fore again during the grim fall campaign of 1915. As Bulgarian forces pressed in from the east, and as powerful Austro-German columns under Field Marshal von Mackensen drove down from the north, Misic became the leading dissenter from Putnik's policy of retreat. When Putnik, in late November, ordered his trapped armies to march westward across the Albanian mountains to the Adriatic, his prickly subordinate twice took the case for a new offensive to a council of war. Twice he was voted down.
Misic fell seriously ill during the freezing march to the sea. He recuperated in France, and in September 1916 reassumed command of the First Army. By then, the shattered Serbian forces had rested, refitted, retrained with French help, and formed part of General Sarrail's Army of the Orient on the Salonika front. Almost immediately, Misic led the First Army back to Serbian soil in the advance on Monastir: taking the strategic heights of Kajmakcalan on September 19 from the Bulgarians, Misic promptly faced an enemy counterattack, but rallied his forces with word that any retreat would be viewed as an act of treason.
On July 1, 1918, Misic was promoted chief of staff. Under the nominal command of Crown Prince Alexander, Misic was leader of the Serbian armed forces. By this time, he had become convinced that a properly prepared attack could break the long stalemate in the Balkans, and he pictured the Serbian army breaking the Bulgarian front at Dobro Pole, then driving into the upper Vardar valley. The voivode first convinced Alexander, then took his case to the new French commander, Franchet d'Esperey. The latter, a kindred soul who felt a decisive assault could indeed unhinge the Bulgarian line, gave Misic the go-ahead and placed local French forces at his disposal.
Misic pushed his troops forward on September 15; two days later, he held a salient twenty miles wide and six miles deep, all the while lashing his troops onward. A string of impressive victories followed, and Bulgaria capitulated on September 29. Nish and the road northward to the Danube fell in mid- October, taken in a bold advance by Misic's old First Army despite d'Esperey's doubts. The Serbian army returned to Belgrade on November 1.
Afterward Misic became a leading actor in the creation of a united South Slav state. Word arrived from Prime Minister Pasic in Paris calling on Misic to move Serbian forces as rapidly as possible into the southern provinces of the crumbling Austro- Hungarian Empire. Misic complied with enthusiasm, thus helping to shape the borders of the new kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
But Serbia s most distinguished surviving general spent barely two years in the new country he had helped bring into existence. Misic died in Belgrade on January 20, 1921. His mentor Putnik, who passed from the scene in late 1915, is perhaps his only rival for the title Cyril Falls has awarded Misic: "the ablest soldier of the Balkan countries."
