"Whoever gives up is a child", was shouted at 2100 meters above sea level when a group of 100 students of the third grade of the XIIIth grade of Belgrade Gymnasium fell into heavy fog and high snow during the ascent to the top of Kajmakčalan during the trip. On the way, they were accompanied by professors and other guests, so that the group numbered approximately 150 people. The main goal of the trip was the ascent to the highest peak of the Nidza mountain massif - Kaymakchalan, which is located at 2521 meters above sea level (during World War I. it was thought that the height was 2525 meters, hence the name of the peak "elevation 2525") on the border of today's Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Greece. The etymology of the name itself is related to the belief of local shepherds that the southern slopes of the peak, rich in lush grass, steal the cream from other pastures. The local Slavic population of the Orthodox religion called it St. Elijah, the Greeks gave it the name of a northerner - Voras, and the Bulgarian propaganda after occupying a seemingly impregnable position - Vrh Boris (after the then heir to the throne). Its dominant position over the Pelagonian basin was the key to penetration in the south-north direction and vice versa. No army could settle in Bitola - the center of the entire region, which lost a lot when it found itself on the border of Serbia and Greece in 1913 - if it did not master that dominant elevation.
110 years ago, there was a dug-in Bulgarian army that held positions against the newly arrived Serbian Third Army, which consisted of the Drina and Danube Divisions, and which cooperated with the Volunteer Detachment of Lieutenant Colonel Vojin Popović, far more famous as Duke Vuk. On this occasion, we will not dwell on the detailed description of military operations and the deployment of troops during the battle itself, but will try to convey the horrors of that battle, which was fought at an altitude of over 2000 meters, on a terrain where not a single tree or any other form of vegetation could be found except for grass and field flowers. We will look at the motives of the soldiers who attacked so bravely that they placed this battle on one of the pillars of Serbian memory of the First World War.
VIA THESSALONIKI TO AGIOS ATHANASIOS
The first destination of our trip was Thessaloniki, an ancient city that is connected to Belgrade by the Moravian-Vardar transversal road and represents the most natural and easiest way for sea transport of goods from the central Balkans to distant meridians. After the great fire of 1917, the city changed its physiognomy, narrow and cobbled streets were replaced by modern squares and boulevards and made Thessaloniki attractive as it is today. The city market has still retained the allure of the markets of the Eastern Mediterranean, and in the small taverns on its edge you can refuel with the specialties of Greek cuisine, which in no case should be equated with gyros and moussaka. And all this while a protest procession passes by, this time dedicated to supporting the Palestinian people. Numerous and violent protests and demonstrations in large Greek cities always remind me how much the descendants of the ancient Hellenes do not want to fall into apathy and leave their fate to the political elites who are always prone to corruption and lack of concern for the state they govern.
The road led us further to the village of Agios Athanasios, which until 1926 bore the name Čegan, and which today is dedicated to tourism. All buildings were built or reconstructed in the mountain spirit, in which the facades and interior are paved with local stone, nothing like Serbian mountain centers in the 21st century. During the Battle of Kajmakchalan, the village served as a logistics base for certain units, and the regent Alexander himself passed through it three times during his tour of the front line.
photo: risto Šuković, velikirat.nb.rsHARD FIGHTS AND GREAT SACRIFICES: The Serbian Army in Kajmakčalan
IT'S EASIER TO DIE FULL
"The attack on Kajmakčalan began on September 12, it was occupied for the first time on September 18, the peak was lost the same evening, but the Serbian infantry remained on its outskirts. It was completely lost on September 26, retaken on September 30, and on October 3, 1916, the entire Kajmakčalan massif was definitely mastered." These are the words of Igor Gojković in his extensive and thorough study Battle of Kajmakcalan succinctly described the rhythm of the battle raging for the "Gate of the Fatherland" or "Gate of Freedom", as the Serbian side called it during the battle itself. The reason was obvious: by mastering that peak, the view shot towards the territory of the then Kingdom of Serbia, which was occupied in the fall and winter of the previous year. Ivo Ćipiko, a Dalmatian from an Italian father and a Croatian mother, who started living in Belgrade in 1912, with the words "I got carried away and became a Serb", on the pages of the "Serbian Herald", which was published in Thessaloniki, conveyed his impressions from the front: "Several of our soldiers, wrapped in overcoats, serious, pensive, leaned over the rocky cliffs above the precipice and watched the sunlit cheerful space. There, far away in the sun, Bitolj - Serbia appears to the heroes". Despite the propaganda tone of the text, the description was accurate. The occupation of Kajmakchalan enabled the continuation of the allied army's offensive operations, and already in November, French-Russian troops entered Bitola. With the logic of war, which can often be extremely cruel, the sufferings of that city are just beginning because it was still within range of Bulgarian and German artillery, which would regularly bombard it until the end of the war.
photo: risto Šuković, velikirat.nb.rs...
Many participants of the battle left their memories of those days, and one of the most talented was Stanislav Kraków, who for his undoubted heroism during the wars of 1912–1918. cast a thick shadow with his role in Nedic's propaganda apparatus during the Second World War. Even so, his literary qualities remain undisputed, and we will use his descriptions of both the battle itself and his visits to the battlefield fifteen years later.
On September 18, Kraków's unit was ordered to move towards the enemy's trenches in pitch darkness: "Only flames illuminate elevation 2525, which, like a sacrificial pyramid, rises in front of us. In the two remaining companies, soldiers are opening cans. We need to eat because it is always easier to die full than hungry... The darkness, which usually robs people of courage, returns it to us. We no longer see the dead, nor blood." On the same night, he was wounded in the leg, and he was carried to the first dressing station by the musicians of the Drina Division, who during this battle were given the role of assistants in the ambulance. "I lie on the operating table and look around without excitement. One bucket is full of severed arms and legs. I suddenly shake. Maybe mine will be there too... Now I'm like in a torture chamber." He successfully recovered, returned to his position in Kajmakčalan in December of the same year, where during the lull he edits the manuscript paper "Rovovac", whose place of publication is "trovovska kosa 150 meters from Bulgaria".
ARTILLERY CYCLONE
Less than 110 years after these events, today's high school students felt the unpredictability and harshness of the Nidža mountain climate. We started the ascent at less than 2000 meters from the starting point of the cable car of today's ski center. The weather was windy but clear, and there was snow only on smaller parts of the slope. There was almost no grass, and the pastures themselves were dotted with cuts made by the water pouring down from the top. In some places we came across a stone hill that was the only one that could provide some breeze. The ascent was not steep, unlike the Macedonian side of the mountain, which is much more difficult to climb. But there was more and more snow, and we slowly entered the clouds. The youthful enthusiasm was in many ways restrained by the older participants of the ascent, who could not overcome the height difference at that pace. Not to mention the fact that some "old men" (during the First World War the colloquial name for third-callers) were so equipped that, in addition to their eyes, only their noses were sticking out of their clothes. Slowly but surely we were treading exclusively on snow, and the wind was getting stronger. Then it became clear to us why the Serbian soldiers warmed themselves in the following way in 1916: "There are hundreds of confiscated Bulgarian rifles under the rocks. The wood from the stock is dry. The dry wood crackles and the flames rise up... With the approach of dawn, all the fireplaces go out and the soldiers lean over the still-hot pipes to warm their stiff hands."
The ferocity of the fighting on September 18 is best illustrated by the use of ammunition on the Serbian side that day. "9.310 artillery shells of all calibers, 200.000 rifle and 250.000 machine gun rounds, 400 hand grenades, 450 hazen bombs, 380 illuminating rockets, 250 signal rockets and 800 signal bullets were fired." As the battle progressed, the Serbian side gained more and more advantage in artillery, the French send several batteries, and even their artillerymen engage in hand-to-hand combat, which was not usual. A Bulgarian source described the artillery preparation for the assault on the very top on September 30 with these words: "The crash of shells turns into the furious barking of hundreds of thousands of jackals. Chaos engulfs everything. A terrible artillery cyclone, like an ocean flood rushes to divide and destroy everything... Everything rumbles, everything shakes." The Bulgarian artillery could not match and the success was all the greater because a lot of guns were captured that day. After the successful assault, the head of the divisional medical service came out on the battlefield and left us the following note: "Entire trenches were filled with Bulgarian corpses; entire ranks ready for an assault lay on the field like bundles of fire; one tightly gripped a bomb in his hand and thus fell into an eternal sleep... It must have been a terrible massacre, because I found one of our soldiers and one Bulgarian soldier where they had come to grips with each other, and so death overtook them. Quite a significant number knife and bayonet stabbing among wounded soldiers, and even among officers, speak of the bitterness of hand-to-hand combat...". Such descriptions are constantly repeated, especially the shocking descriptions of the soldiers who died while "grabbing each other by the throat", and the tragedy becomes meaningless because they belonged to the same religion and a very close culture. Unfortunately, it took another world war for the Serbian and Bulgarian elite to realize that mutual destruction for the sake of fictitious dominance in the Balkans only leads to even greater tragedies, economic, cultural and technological regression. The losses on both sides were huge - the Drina Division alone had more than 3.800 soldiers thrown out of service, including 192 officers. One of them was reserve lieutenant Ilija Gospavić, whose brother Jovan also served in the same division. The Red Cross mistakenly informed the family that Jovan had died, and it took several months for the family to find out which brother remained on the "field of honor". Jovan's wife Ana writes to her husband in February 1917: "Dear Jovo, I was informed that you are not alive. After that terrible news, which threw me into the greatest despair, I received news from Mr. Jovanović that you are healthy. To reassure you, I am asking you to take a picture and send your photo...".
VULTURES
Like any well-equipped expedition, our group had a metal detector that was invaluable in finding material remains of the battle. Shotgun casings, pieces of barbed wire, larger shrapnel and parts of cans were found. It is expected that an exhibition will be held with these artifacts. We are not the first to come up with that idea, although our motives were completely different. Stanislav Kraków visited the battlefield where he was wounded in the fall of 1931, and there he encountered a group of grave robbers: "On a trench where Lt. Col. Marković fell, blown up by bayonets, I suddenly saw a man. I heard voices. At the bottom of the trench, several Kutsovlahs bent over their picks were digging and digging. They looked at me in confusion. The marauders were fleeing like hyenas from the presence of humans... Small footholds were dug all around Ashes in leather cases, our and Bulgarian skulls. One of them dug up the Bulgarian flask. They opened it and the flask left, still full of dirt. The brandy, which was in it, was buried in the ground for fifteen years. But they are looking for some gold coin were buried by a grenade or in a crowd buried. All the cemeteries were torn up by them. I leave them without saying goodbye, trembling with excitement and anger”.
photo: n. Kalezic...
After a few hours, we reach the memorial chapel, which can only be seen from ten meters away, the entire building is covered in frost, and the entrance to the chapel is barely possible due to the snow that has made its way inside and frozen there. We are talking about the middle of May. Near the chapel is a memorial ossuary that was built in 1935, when the bones of the remaining 118 Serbian soldiers were laid in a common grave. It should be kept in mind that a large part of the remains were transferred to Zejtinlik before that, and some families transferred the remains of their loved ones to Serbia immediately after the war. The chapel itself began to be built during the war, and was ceremonially consecrated on September 30, 1918, the day the armistice with Bulgaria entered into force. The bell tower was built later, as was the church memorial building. After the death of Archibald Rice, according to his will, his heart was placed in an urn and taken to the chapel where it rested in peace for some time. After the capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the Second World War, Kajmakchalan again found itself under the control of the Bulgarian army, whose members, in a barbaric act, broke the urn and threw it out of the chapel. After the war, a large part of the urn was found and returned to its intended place. Unfortunately, the vandalism does not end here, at the starting point of the climb there is a memorial board dedicated to the fallen Bulgarian soldiers, which is more recent and whose content should not be disputed. Some unworthy descendants of the giant-heroes from Tsera, Kolubara and Thessaloniki Front tried to break the board (marks of the hammer can be seen), but they failed. Cynics would hope that during that act they did not have nearly as many losses as the Drina Division in the fall of 1916.
SKY BLUE
The descent from the very top was also demanding, it was easier to sink into the packed snow, which in some places was higher than a hiking stick. The students jumped over the remnants of the mountain streams, which are often mixed with trenches that went in two directions, because the trench lines were connected by so-called "roads" through which the army could change position more safely. As we moved on, it started to clear up and at one point, one of the most impressive views I've ever seen in my life appeared in front of us: the Greek part of Pelagonia and Lake Ostrov. Kraków describes the same view in the following words: "And deep down in the first dusk mist, Ostrovsko lake was still blue, the last image of the land that fifteen years ago many people took from here from the heights before their sight was lost forever in the blue of the sky."
As we got closer to our buses, the meadows became greener and greener, and in many places the purple color of the field flower mrazovac, not to be confused with Natalija ramonda, which also grows on these slopes, dominated. The students of the third grade of the XIII Belgrade high school had the privilege to at least symbolically feel the efforts that their ancestors had to overcome in order not to return to their families, plum trees and meadows. There are no indifferences when a memorial chapel emerges from the fog, and there shouldn't be any. If for no other reason, it is because of the awareness that ordinary people made the greatest sacrifices for this society. Today's generations should not only remember them during commemorations, but should try their own best not to allow the "elites" to ruin the community for which they gave their lives. I almost forgot: a good part of the students from this trip have already acquired the right to vote, and the rest will get it in the following months.
