The Battle of Kosovo, 1999

[2RHPZ]

According to the experts this speech by Milosevic at Kosovo Polje in 1989 started whole Balkan hell:


Speech by Slobodan Milosevic, delivered to 1 million people at the central celebration marking the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, held at Gazimestan on 28 June, 1989

By the force of social circumstances this great 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo is taking place in a year in which Serbia, after many years, after many decades, has regained its state, national, and spiritual integrity. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to answer today the old question: how are we going to face Milos [Milos Obilic, legendary hero of the Battle of Kosovo]. Through the play of history and life, it seems as if Serbia has, precisely in this year, in 1989, regained its state and its dignity and thus has celebrated an event of the distant past which has a great historical and symbolic significance for its future.
Serbian Character -- Liberational
Today, it is difficult to say what is the historical truth about the Battle of Kosovo and what is legend. Today this is no longer important. Oppressed by pain and filled with hope, the people used to remember and to forget, as, after all, all people in the world do, and it was ashamed of treachery and glorified heroism. Therefore it is difficult to say today whether the Battle of Kosovo was a defeat or a victory for the Serbian people, whether thanks to it we fell into slavery or we survived in this slavery. The answers to those questions will be constantly sought by science and the people. What has been certain through all the centuries until our time today is that disharmony struck Kosovo 600 years ago? If we lost the battle, then this was not only the result of social superiority and the armed advantage of the Ottoman Empire but also of the tragic disunity in the leadership of the Serbian state at that time. In that distant 1389, the Ottoman Empire was not only stronger than that of the Serbs but it was also more fortunate than the Serbian kingdom.
The lack of unity and betrayal in Kosovo will continue to follow the Serbian people like an evil fate through the whole of its history. Even in the last war, this lack of unity and betrayal led the Serbian people and Serbia into agony, the consequences of which in the historical and moral sense exceeded fascist aggression.
Even later, when a socialist Yugoslavia was set up, in this new state the Serbian leadership remained divided, prone to compromise to the detriment of its own people. The concessions that many Serbian leaders made at the expense of their people could not be accepted historically and ethically by any nation in the world, especially because the Serbs have never in the whole of their history conquered and exploited others. Their national and historical being has been liberational throughout the whole of history and through two world wars, as it is today. They liberated themselves and when they could they also helped others to liberate themselves. The fact that in this region they are a major nation is not a Serbian sin or shame; this is an advantage which they have not used against others, but I must say that here, in this big, legendary field of Kosovo, the Serbs have not used the advantage of being great for their own benefit either. Thanks to their leaders and politicians and their vassal mentality they felt guilty before themselves and others.
This situation lasted for decades, it lasted for years and here we are now at the field of Kosovo to say that this is no longer the case.
Unity Will Make Prosperity Possible
Disunity among Serb officials made Serbia lag behind and their inferiority humiliated Serbia. Therefore, no place in Serbia is better suited for saying this than the field of Kosovo and no place in Serbia is better suited than the field of Kosovo for saying that unity in Serbia will bring prosperity to the Serbian people in Serbia and each one of its citizens, irrespective of his national or religious affiliation.
Serbia of today is united and equal to other republics and prepared to do everything to improve its financial and social position and that of all its citizens. If there is unity, cooperation, and seriousness, it will succeed in doing so. This is why the optimism that is now present in Serbia to a considerable extent regarding the future days is realistic, also because it is based on freedom, which makes it possible for all people to express their positive, creative and humane abilities aimed at furthering social and personal life.
Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.
Socialism in particular, being a progressive and just democratic society, should not allow people to be divided in the national and religious respect. The only differences one can and should allow in socialism are between hard working people and idlers and between honest people and dishonest people. Therefore, all people in Serbia who live from their own work, honestly, respecting other people and other nations, are in their own republic.
Dramatic National Divisions
After all, our entire country should be set up on the basis of such principles. Yugoslavia is a multinational community and it can survive only under the conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it.
The crisis that hit Yugoslavia has brought about national divisions, but also social, cultural, religious and many other less important ones. Among all these divisions, nationalist ones have shown themselves to be the most dramatic. Resolving them will make it easier to remove other divisions and mitigate the consequences they have created.
For as long as multinational communities have existed, their weak point has always been the relations between different nations. The threat is that the question of one nation being endangered by the others can be posed one day -- and this can then start a wave of suspicions, accusations, and intolerance, a wave that invariably grows and is difficult to stop.
This threat has been hanging like a sword over our heads all the time. Internal and external enemies of multi-national communities are aware of this and therefore they organize their activity against multinational societies mostly by fomenting national conflicts. At this moment, we in Yugoslavia are behaving as if we have never had such an experience and as if in our recent and distant past we have never experienced the worst tragedy of national conflicts that a society can experience and still survive.
Equal and harmonious relations among Yugoslav peoples are a necessary condition for the existence of Yugoslavia and for it to find its way out of the crisis and, in particular, they are a necessary condition for its economic and social prosperity. In this respect Yugoslavia does not stand out from the social milieu of the contemporary, particularly the developed, world. This world is more and more marked by national tolerance, national cooperation, and even national equality. The modern economic and technological, as well as political and cultural development, has guided various peoples toward each other, has made them interdependent and increasingly has made them equal as well [medjusobno ravnopravni]. Equal and united people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.
At the time when this famous historical battle was fought in Kosovo, the people were looking at the stars, expecting aid from them. Now, 6 centuries later, they are looking at the stars again, waiting to conquer them. On the first occasion, they could allow themselves to be disunited and to have hatred and treason because they lived in smaller, weakly interlinked worlds. Now, as people on this planet, they cannot conquer even their own planet if they are not united, let alone other planets, unless they live in mutual harmony and solidarity.
Therefore, words devoted to unity, solidarity, and cooperation among people have no greater significance anywhere on the soil of our motherland than they have here in the field of Kosovo, which is a symbol of disunity and treason.
In the memory of the Serbian people, this disunity was decisive in causing the loss of the battle and in bringing about the fate which Serbia suffered for a full 6 centuries.
Even if it were not so, from a historical point of view, it remains certain that the people regarded disunity as its greatest disaster. Therefore it is the obligation of the people to remove disunity, so that they may protect themselves from defeats, failures, and stagnation in the future.
Unity brings Back Dignity
This year, the Serbian people became aware of the necessity of their mutual harmony as the indispensable condition for their present life and further development.
I am convinced that this awareness of harmony and unity will make it possible for Serbia not only to function as a state but to function as a successful state.
Therefore I think that it makes sense to say this here in Kosovo, where that disunity once upon a time tragically pushed back Serbia for centuries and endangered it, and where renewed unity may advance it and may return dignity to it. Such an awareness about mutual relations constitutes an elementary necessity for Yugoslavia, too, for its fate is in the joined hands of all its peoples.
The Kosovo heroism has been inspiring our creativity for 6 centuries, and has been feeding our pride and does not allow us to forget that at one time we were an army great, brave, and proud, one of the few that remained undefeated when losing.
Six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet. However, regardless of what kind of battles they are, they cannot be won without resolve, bravery, and sacrifice, without the noble qualities that were present here in the field of Kosovo in the days past. Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural, and general social prosperity, finding a quicker and more successful approach to a civilization in which people will live in the 21st century. For this battle, we certainly need heroism, of course of a somewhat different kind, but that courage without which nothing serious and great can be achieved remains unchanged and remains urgently necessary.
Six centuries ago, Serbia heroically defended itself in the field of Kosovo, but it also defended Europe. Serbia was at that time the bastion that defended the European culture, religion, and European society in general. Therefore today it appears not only unjust but even unhistorical and completely absurd to talk about Serbia's belonging to Europe. Serbia has been a part of Europe incessantly, now just as much as it was in the past, of course, in its own way, but in a way that in the historical sense never deprived it of dignity. In this spirit we now endeavor to build a society, rich and democratic, and thus to contribute to the prosperity of this beautiful country, this unjustly suffering country, but also to contribute to the efforts of all the progressive people of our age that they make for a better and happier world.

Let the memory of Kosovo heroism live forever!
Long live Serbia!
Long live Yugoslavia!
Long live peace and brotherhood among peoples!

[RATKO]

One speech started the war? LOL

[2RHPZ]

Well, usually I don´t discuss my post over here, especially when they turn to the flames but my only contribution to this: This speech didn´t start the war by itself, of course. But it started process of selfrealization of Serbian nation in Kosovo and this had an influence back and forward to its speaker - Milosevic. I know, you can say that none from outside may evaulated your history. Anyway, we must admit that sometimes inner self opinion may be incorrect, right? BTW, these experts, I mentioned were Serbian.

[GazB]

That is hilarious... I mean the cultures and ethnic groups that made up Yugoslavia were so closely tied together that there have never been ethnic problems between them. It could only have been one speech by a politician that drove them to barbarity and war... otherwise they'd still be the best of friends now. I mean Tito held them together with love and compassion too.

[2RHPZ]

For those who are interestin to read whole story what happened near Pristina in 14th Century:

The Battle of Kosovo: Early Reports of Victory and Defeat
by Thomas A. Emmert

from Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle

In popular interpretation it was defeat at the Battle of Kosovo which brought about the disintegration of the medieval Serbian empire. Careful analysis of the post-Dusan era, however, demonstrates that the empire had already collapsed long before the battle. During the years of Tsar Uros's reign (1355-71) the authority which the Nemanjic dynasty represented was completely undermined by powerful lords who succeeded in governing their territories quite independently of their tsar. With Uros's death in 1371 the Nemanjic dynasty became extinct; and in the eighteen years which separate his death and the Battle of Kosovo the struggle for territorial aggrandizement among the nobility of Serbia only continued.

This struggle was made more complex by the increasing danger which the Ottoman Turks posed to the region. Already in September 1371, the Ottomans defeated the strongest Serbian lords in Macedonia in a major battle on the Marica River. This victory was perhaps the Ottomans' most important success before their conquest of Constantinople in 1453, for the valley of the Marica River opened their way to the rest of the Balkans. Less than two years after the battle on the Marica the Byzantine emperor had to accept a vassal relationship with Murad I, and the ever-retreating line of defense against the Turks moved northwest to the more central regions of Serbia.

The rise of the Ottoman Turks from a small warrior state on the Asian frontiers of the Byzantine Empire to a formidable empire of their own in both Asia and Europe is a phenomenal story. By the end of the thirteenth century most of Anatolia was in their hands. Osman, who gave his name to the dynasty and the state, had his capital in Yenisehir beginning in 1299. The capture of this city made communications difficult between Nicaea and Bursa, two of the important surviving outposts of Byzantium in Asia. Two years later he defeated the Byzantine army near Nicomedia, a strategic port city which protected the sea route to Constantinople. Gradually his forces reached the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Black Sea. Finally in 1326, as Osman lay on his deathbed, the Turks took Bursa and made it their first imperial capital.

Osman's son, Orkhan, only continued the expansion. Nicaea fell in 1329 and Nicomedia in 1337. Eager to mold his population into a state Orkhan soon proved that the nomadic warrior was ready to lay the permanent foundations for a successor state to Byzantium. By the middle of the fourteenth century the Ottomans were knocking at the gates of Europe. From their first base in Gallipoli they advanced slowly into the Balkans along the river valleys which led to the Danube. While there was resistance to the invasion, some simply accepted what seemed to be the inevitable and opened their doors to the new regime. It is even argued that the Turks represented a social revolutionary force, offering stability and central authority to areas which suffered the ill effects of feudal capriciousness.

Plovdiv fell to the Ottomans in 1363 and Kumucina in 1364. In 1369 they captured Adrianople, and Murad, Orkhan's son and successor, moved the capital there. With the defeat of the Serbian forces in Macedonia in 1371 the path was open to the old heart of Serbia. Within a few years only the Serbian principality of Lazar Hrebel janovid stood in the way of the Ottoman advance.

Prince Lazar built his court city of Krusevac in the northern regions of Serbia away from the heartland of Nemanjic Serbia. It was a necessary decision. After the battle on the Marica almost everything south and east of Kosovo was under Ottoman authority. Krukvac, however, was a comfortable distance form the Turks. As one of the last Christian refuges in the Balkans, his principality attracted large numbers of priests, monks, writers, architects, and artists from Bulgarian, Greek, and southern Serbian areas already subject to the Turks.

A new era of culture began to flourish in this frontier province which was to reach its fullest expression during the reign of Lazar's son, Despot Stefan Lazarevic. Lazar's success was due in part to adequate economic resources. The two most important mineral centers in Serbia - Rudnik and Novo Brdo - were under his jurisdiction; they were the economic basis of his power. Moreover, the support of the Serbian Church was an essential ingredient in Lazar's rise to political prominence, and that support was especially encouraged by Lazar's efforts to end the schism with Byzantium. The stage was certainly set for the restoration of central authority in Serbia under Prince Lazar. Unfortunately, however, time was not on his side; for the Ottoman armies continued their advance.

The first mention of any Ottoman movement into Lazar's territory is from a chronicle entry of 1381, when two of Lazar's subjects, Vitomir and Crep, defeated the Turks on the Dubravnica River near Paracin.[2] After that there is no record of any hostility between Lazar and the Turks until 1386. A chronicle entry for that year reports that “Murad set out against Prince Lazar and conquered Nis.”[3] Another isolated entry for the same year observes that "Emperor Murad fled in front of Prince Lazar from the Toplica River at Plocnik."[4] These early Turkish attacks were basically plundering expeditions organized to test the strength of the enemy forces, to exhaust those forces as much as possible, and to prepare for an eventual conquest of the area.[5]

In 1388 the Turkish army advanced into Bulgaria and forced Tsar Ivan Sisman to his knees. Bulgaria had become a vassal state of the Ottomans in 1376, but vassal status never prohibited the sultan from continuing his attacks against the subject land. Throughout the 1380s the Ottomans continued to grab pieces of southern Bulgaria, and in 1385 they captured Sofia from Sisman. The attack in 1388 may have been provoked by Sisman's attempt to end his vassal relationship with the Turks. Whatever the cause, the outcome was disastrous for the Bulgarians. They were forced to accept their vassal status once again and to surrender more territory to the Turks. The Ottomans were also permitted to establish military camps in Bulgaria and to use the territory freely for the movement of troops deeper into the peninsula.

The Turkish incursions into Bosnia and Bulgaria certainly made Prince Lazar aware that it was only a matter of time until he faced another Turkish assault on his own territory. When it came, however, it was anything but a minor border skirmish or plundering raid. The Battle of Kosovo on 28 June 1389 was a full-fledged battle in the heartland of old Serbia.

It was natural that the Turks would choose Kosovo as their next objective in their continuing conquest of the Balkan Peninsula, for it was a particularly strategic territory. Its natural boundaries are the mountains: in the north the summits of Kopaonik and Rogozna; in the south the Skopska Crna Gora and the Sar mountains; in the east the slopes of Prugovac, Mramor, Koznica, and Zegovac; and in the west the mountains of Nerodimka, Crnovljeva, Drenica, and Cicavica.[6] At the southern end of the plain is the watershed between the Aegean and Black Seas which barely separates the headwaters of the Vardar and Morava Rivers.

This watershed in itself gives Kosovo a strategic position, for the path which nature carved through the mountains of Serbia and Macedonia that is followed by these two rivers is the shortest north-south route across the Balkan Peninsula. . It connects the middle Danube with the Gulf of Thessalonika. Celtic tribes traversed this route as they advanced into Greece, and Romans used it to reached the Danube from Macedonia. Later it became one of the principal routes of attack for various barbarian peoples - most importantly the Slavs.[7]

During the late middle ages the plain of Kosovo was one of the most important crossroads in the Balkan Peninsula.[8] Linked in all directions with the rest of the peninsula, it was a strategically valuable prize to the conqueror of the central Balkan Peninsula - whether he be the Serb marching to the southeast or the Turk to the northwest. Moreover, the hills surrounding Kosovo contained the richest sources of mineral wealth in the entire peninsula. These factors combined to make Kosovo a particularly enviable target for Sultan Murad and the Ottoman Turks.

On 28 June 1389 the combined Serbian forces from the territories governed by Prince Lazar and Vuk Brankovic together with auxiliary troops sent by King Tvrtko of Bosnia faced Sultan Murad and his army on the field of Kosovo. It had been eighteen years since King Vukasin and Despot Ugljesa failed in their attempt to drive the Turks out of the Balkan Peninsula, and now the Serbian forces were definitely on the defensive. Given the divisiveness among Serbian lords which generally characterized the decades following Dusan's death, the fact that Lazar, Vuk, and Tvrtko were able to conclude an alliance against the Turks was reason for at least some optimism. No one, however, could have known that the struggle was to become a pivotal moment in the history of the Serbian people.

The historian is faced with a difficult problem when he attempts to discover what occurred in the Battle of Kosovo. There are no eyewitness accounts of the battle, and rather significant differences exist among those contemporary sources which do mention the event. There is little doubt that the confrontation occurred on the field of Kosovo on 28 (15) June 1389 between Christian forces led by Prince Lazar of Serbia and Ottoman forces led by Sultan Murad I. When it was over, both leaders were dead and Murad's son, Bayezid, returned to Edirne to secure his succession. The picture becomes very cloudy beyond these meager details. The early documents are not particularly concerned with armaments, tactics, size of forces, and the general course of the battle. Surprisingly enough, it is not even possible to know with certainty from the extant contemporary material whether one or the other side was victorious on the field. There is certainly little to indicate that it was a great Serbian defeat; and the earliest reports of the conflict suggest, on the contrary, that the Christian forces had won.

Rumors of the battle were disseminated as far as Constantinople, Florence, Venice, Barcelona, and Paris, but they appeared to emphasize just one particular bit of news: the death of the Ottoman sultan. While the West had been slow to judge the seriousness of the Ottoman advance into Europe, by the late fourteenth century there was a growing awareness of this new threat to the Christian world. The death of Murad was, therefore, a cause for celebration in the streets of occidental cities. In itself it was a kind of Christian victory.

Some of the earliest reports of the conflict were apparently encouraged by King Tvrtko of Bosnia. In a letter to the senate of the Dalmatian city of Trogir on 1 August 1389, he announced that he had defeated the infidel.[9] Some time that summer he also sent a message to the senate in Florence in which he informed them of his victory over the Turks on Kosovo. Although that message is not preserved today, the response of the Florentine senate to Tvrtko on 20 October 1389 gives us some idea of the news that was emanating from Tvrtko's court and elsewhere.

The Florentine letter is a critical document for our understanding of the battle because it provides certain information about the event for the first time. It correctly identifies Kosovo as the battlefield and June 28, St. Vitus’ Day, as the date of the battle. Most important, however, is its claim that the Ottoman sultan died at the hands of a Christian assassin:

Fortunate, most fortunate are those hands of the twelve loyal lords who, having opened their way with the sword
and having penetrated the enemy lines and the circle of chained camels, heroically reached the tent of Amurat himself.
Fortunate above all is that one who so forcefully killed such a strong vojvoda by stabbing him with a sword in the
throat and belly. And blessed are all those who gave their lives and blood through the glorious manner of martyrdom
as victims of the dead leader over hiss ugly corpse.[10]

In time the assassination would become the central act in the evolving record of the Battle of Kosovo. And while the Florentine description of the deed is quite different from later accounts which emerge in both Ottoman and Serbian sources, nevertheless, it provides a contemporary historical foundation for the idea that Murad was killed by a daring Serbian assassin.

Other brief contemporary references to the battle are found in notes of the senate in Venice;[11] in letters penned by the Byzantine orator and rhetorician, Demetrius Cydones;[12] in two works by the French writer, Philippe de Mezieres;[13] in an anonymous Florentine chronicle;[14] and in treatises by Beltram Minianelli of Siena[15] and the Castilian Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo.[16] In all of these the death of Murad is the primary focus of the authors' attention. The most unequivocal expression of a Christian victory is found in those accounts of the battle which do not mention Prince Lazar or, when they do, are not aware of his death at Kosovo. Sources which do know of Lazar's death as well as Murad's are generally ambiguous concerning the outcome of the battle. Even the anonymous Florentine chronicler, who speaks of a Turkish victory, is not convinced that it was a decisive triumph for the Turks. His emphasis on the Turks' great losses on the battlefield and along the route of retreat seems to suggest a Pyrrhic victory at best. Only many generations later, under the influence of Ottoman chronicles and histories, would Westerners begin to describe the Battle of Kosovo as a clear Serbian defeat.

The earliest Serbian sources for the Battle of Kosovo are also not particularly concerned with detailed battle description and analysis of the outcome. Rather they concentrate on Serbia's own loss - the martyrdom of Prince Lazar. These first Serbian references to the battle are found in a number of sermons, eulogies, and hagiographic works written after the event in memory of Prince Lazar.[17] The basic character of these works is panegyric, which reflects a continuation of the early literary tradition in medieval Serbia. The contents also reveal, however, a need to interpret for Serbia the rather turbulent events of the last half of the fourteenth century. Some have judged these writings harshly because of their apparent lack of historical data.[18] Such criticism is meaningless, however, when one is dealing with religious rhetoric. They were not meant to be objective accounts of the event. At the same time, however, and in the spirit of good religious rhetoric, each author believed that he or she was proclaiming the truth about Kosovo.[19]

A feeling of despair permeated Lazar's Serbia following the prince's death in 1389 and Milica's surrender to the Turks the next year. Conscious of the need to combat pessimism in Serbia and to provide hope for a brighter future, monastic figures wrote eulogies and sermons in praise of Lazar in which they interpreted the events of this troubled period for their own generation. Varied as these writings are in style, length, and content, the central theme in each of them is still the death of the Serbian prince. Lazar's death was interpreted as a martyrdom for the faith and for his people. In the eyes of his eulogists he sacrificed himself so that Serbia might live.

In Patriarch Danilo's Slovo o knezu Lazaru the prince sees martyrdom as a clear choice and one which he eagerly pursues for himself and for his men. Having assembled his army to tell them .of the Turkish invasion of his land, Lazar describes the ultimate prize which awaits those who struggle for the faith:

You, o comrades and brothers, lords and nobles, soldiers and vojvodas - great and small. You yourselves
are witnesses and observers of that great goodness God has given us in this life ....But if the sword, if wounds,
or if the darkness of death comes to us, we accept it sweetly for Christ and for the godliness of our homeland.
It is better to die in battle than to live in shame. Better it is for us to accept death from the sword in battle than
to offer our shoulders to the enemy. We have lived a long time for the world; in the end we seek to accept the
martyr's struggle and to live forever in heaven. We call ourselves Christian soldiers, martyrs for godliness to be
recorded in the book of life. We do not spare our bodies in fighting in order that we may accept the holy wreathes
from that One who judges all accomplishments. Sufferings beget glory and labors lead to peace.[20]

The intent of Danilo's rhetoric is clear. After the loss of so many on Kosovo and the uncertainty of the future for Serbia some truth must be revealed in the tragedy. The Serbian patriarch declares that the thousands of Serbian casualties are perfect examples of Christian martyrdom. They volunteered their lives in the cause of truth and for the sake of others.

In the anonymous Pohvalno slovo knezu Lazaru[21] the ultimate comparison is made to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ Himself. Lazar is the "unsleeping eye," "the unfaltering pillar of the Church," "the most lustrous of all stars," and "a savior." By his sacrifice he remains eternally among them as the good shepherd:

You are the good shepherd who offered his soul for us. How shall we praise you? With which language is it
worthy to celebrate you? Oh praiseworthy martyr, Lazar, come unseen to us and stand in our midst. Show us
the songs of praise so that we will not be like sheep who have no shepherd. You are our shepherd; you cared
for your flock which Christ the Lord gave to you. Do not surrender us to a shepherd whom we do not know.
Do not scatter your flock which you gathered and for whose sake you shed your holy blood.[23]

All of the portrayals of Lazar as a hero and martyr for the faith contributed to the establishment of a cult of the prince which took its place among the other great cults of medieval Serbia - those of St. Simeon and St. Sava. The cults helped to unite the Serbs in a strong religious and political unit. It appears that it was crucially important for the eulogists to establish some continuity between Lazar's Serbia and the Serbia of the Nemanjic dynasty.[24] Even though the church supported Lazar as Serbian autocrat in the tradition of the Nemanjidi, there is no proof that similar support existed outside the church. Therefore, the creators of the cult were eager to proclaim Lazar's divine‑right selection as successor to the Nemanjici.

While various writers used different images to establish Lazar's legitimacy, all of them emphasized the importance of God's will and providence in providing a peaceful transference of authority during the troubled years of the post-Dusan era. The anonymous author of Zitije kneza Lazara says that God led Lazar to the Serbian throne after Uros's death because of his "humility, righteousness, many virtues, and gentle habits."[25] Blessed by the archpriests, the entire priesthood, and the Serbian council he became autocrat of the Serbs.[26] In a eulogy for Lazar embroidered on his silk burial shroud, the nun Jefimija (Despot Ugljesa's widow) speaks briefly of God's special favor for Prince Lazar:

O new martyr, Prince Lazar. You were educated from your youth in all of this earth's beauty. And the strong
hand of the Lord designates you powerful and marvelous among his earthly lords. You ruled the land of your
fathers and found pleasure in all that was good.[27]

While the establishment of Lazar as legitimate ruler in Serbia and martyr for the faith is the primary focus of the early cult writings, the Battle of Kosovo is still an important theme in each of these works no matter how brief or indirect the descriptions may be. The writers describe the battle very simply as a struggle between the forces of good and evil Murad with his band of bloodthirsty beast and Lazar with his pious army of God-fearing Christians. The Turks are identified as Ishmaelites or Hagarites - an obvious and derisive reference from the Old Testament.[28] In Zitije kneza Lazara the Ishmaelites are "arrows released by God because of our sins," and Murad is "the beast who came like a roaring lion seeking to devour Christ's flock and to destroy our homeland."[29] In Patriarch Danilo's Slovo o knezu Lazaru Murad, the head of the Ishmaelites, is compared to Alexander of Macedonia and Xerxes of Persia. Having gathered a countless multitude of men from both eastern and western lands, Murad attacked "like the cruel lion."[30] To the writer of Prolosko zitije kneza Lazara Murad is the "evil, heathen Ishmaelite emir who, like a roaring lion, rose up and conquered many peoples."[31] Approaching Lazar's territory he went "mad with wild fury, closed his ears like the deaf adder, and lunged at them."[32]

Having clearly identified the enemy, the panegyrists are chiefly interested in recounting Lazar's death as he defends his Christian flock. One looks in vain for any careful description of the battle, but there is enough detail to fuel the controversy over the actual outcome of the struggle. In the earliest of the panegyric compositions there are confusing references to victory:

Armed with their prayers [those of St. Simeon and St. Sava] they went off to meet those evil ones
and won a shining victory. They cast off and defeated that evil Amir and cut off his odious head along
with those of a multitude of his followers. But, alas, it is impossible to speak in detail about that sad
event which happened to us. For then the pious, Christ-loving Lazar and a multitude of his noble
soldiers-opposed as they were because of their Christian faith were sent to Christ by those false
thinkers. And the ruler [Christ] decorated them all with the martyr's wreath which shone more
brightly than all the radiance of the sun.[33]



The argument has been made, rather categorically, that the idea of victory found here should never be interpreted as a real, strategic victory on the battlefield but only as a spiritual one.[34] Certainly the idea of martyrdom, which implies a spiritual victory for the individual who sacrifices himself for the faith, is central to these texts of Lazar's cult. Does it, however, preclude the possibility that a real, temporal victory over the Turks is also expressed in some of these works?

Radojicic believed so three decades ago and argued that the earliest texts clearly suggest a Serbian victory.[35] Djordje Trifunovic, on the other hand, argues that the attribute "shining" or "glorious" with which the author describes Lazar's victory is an obvious reference to the spiritual character of that victory.[36] Certainly many of the cult references to victory are expressions of Christian martyrdom. But in the Prolosko zitije kneza Lazara cited above and in other eulogistic works it would appear that the author addresses two kinds of victory. Lazar defeats Murad and wins a victory before he himself is killed. His death secures for him the martyr's wreath, which is a personal reward for his sacrifice. The wreath symbolizes the ultimate victory-eternal life.

Patriarch Danilo III, on the other hand, in his Slovo o knezu Lazaru appears to make no conclusion as to the final outcome of the battle:

Again the word [was given] to rise up in battle. Both sides became exhausted and the battle ended.
A countless multitude of both were killed - I am speaking of Serbs and of the enemy. And these were
lying on Kosovo Polje. The above mentioned Amorat received a mortal wound in the heart with a
sword and necessarily gave up his soul. And the victorious and godly zealot, the new martyr, Prince
Lazar, was cut down with a sword and met his blessed end.[37]

A careful description of the battle and its outcome was not the patriarch's main objective in this work. Nevertheless, it is interesting that this interpretation of the battle in which neither side apparently achieved the victory still found expression decades later. An anonymous chronicle from Dubrovnik toward, the end of the fifteenth century includes the following notation:

1389. On June 15, the day of St. Vitus, a Tuesday, there was a battle between the Bosnians and the
Great Turk. These Bosnians were Despot Lazar, king of Bosnia; Vuk Brankovic; and Vojvoda
Vlatko Vukovic. There were great losses of both Turks and Bosnians, and only a few returned to
their country. And Emperor Murad was killed as was the king of Bosnia. Because of the great losses
neither the Turks nor the Bosnians gained the victory. And the battle was on Kosovo Polje.[38]

Similarly, the anonymous author of one of the earliest Serbian chronicles makes no conclusion concerning the outcome of the battle. Like most sources the focus of the brief account centers on the deaths of Murad and Lazar:

That one [Murad] marched on with his troops of unbelievers, and this one [Lazar] would not allow
the destruction of godliness and the humiliation and the desecration of the relics and the cross. There
was a battle between them, and in this battle the infidel tyrant fell by the sword in the middle of the
battlefield together with many of his heathen soldiers; and one of his sons remained. And toward the
end of this battle - I do not know what to say in truth about this, whether he [Lazar] was betrayed
by one of his own or whether God's judgment was fulfilled in this - he [Bayezid] took him [Lazar] in
his hands, and after much torture he himself cut off his venerable, God-fearing head.[39]

It is important to note that neither this chronicle nor any of the other early Serbian accounts of the battle attributes Murad's death to the hand of an assassin. Here, for example, the author's lack of particulars makes it impossible to know exactly how the Turkish leader was killed; but the general sense of the statement seems to indicate simply that Murad, like many of this soldiers, was killed in battle. The theme of assassination, which appeared in the contemporary accounts of the battle from Florence and Siena and was also an important theme in all of the fifteenth century Turkish sources for the battle, would eventually become a central element in the Serbian epic.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this passage from the Serbian chronicle is the author's allusion to the possibility that Lazar was betrayed in the battle by one of his own men. It is significant that this is the earliest reference to treason found in any of the Kosovo sources. Betrayal becomes a more important theme in later descriptions of the battle and a dominant theme in the Serbian epic.

Fascinating as these early cult writings are, it should be obvious that they do not hold the key to understanding many of the particulars of the Battle of Kosovo. That was not the objective of panegyric literature. Most of these authors wrote at a time when Serbia had already submitted to Bayezid's authority, and the reality of that situation had to be considered. The establishment of a cult served the interests of Lazar's son and successor, and the cult literature emphasized themes and ideas which encouraged a sense of hope for the future of Serbia and her people. Already with these texts we can discern some of those themes which would give shape to the cult of Kosovo: the glory of pre-Kosovo Serbia; the necessity of struggle against tyranny; and the essential link between the Kosovo ethic and Christianity, which was expressed most clearly in the heroic ideal of self-sacrifice for the faith and for Serbia. The eulogists interpreted Lazar's death as a victory in the religious sense of the word and used the New Testament symbol of the crown as the reward for the martyr's sacrifice.[40] Lazar as martyr for the faith and for Serbia would redeem his people with his sacrifice.

At the same time, it is far from clear that the writers considered the battle a great Turkish military victory. The Serbs had sustained substantial losses in the battle, and yet Murad and a multitude of Turks had been killed and Bayezid and his army had retreated to Edirne. In reality much of Serbia managed to survive with a certain autonomy for another seventy years. Of course, Lazar's eulogists could not be aware of the long period of transition which would follow the conflict on Kosovo. What they were very conscious of was the fact that the battle robbed Lazar's principality of its strength and leadership. The anonymous author of Slovo o knezu Lazaru says that the death of Prince Lazar deprived Serbia of its defender; and when the "godless Ishmaelites" returned to Serbia again after a certain time, they succeeded in destroying the land and enslaving the people. The author interprets this later Turkish success as a second fulfillment of prophecy - the new Babylonian captivity.[41]

Such expression makes it clear that Lazar's death paralyzed Serbian `society. Serbia lost its strongest territorial lord, who seemed to represent the last hope against the Turk. He may have trampled down the Turkish sultan at the Battle of Kosovo, but he paid for it with his life and left Serbia without its God-appointed shepherd. In the eyes of Lazar's contemporaries, this was the great tragedy of Kosovo.

In time the Battle of Kosovo came to be seen as the source of all the misfortune Serbia was to suffer during her long years of subjugation to the Turks. The theme of defeat at Kosovo was necessary for the companion themes of hope and resurrection. Lazar and the Serbian people gave their lives freely for the faith and for the land; and because of this martyrdom at the hands of the heathen enemy the Serbs knew that God would protect His people and return them one day from their captivity. Thus it was that any impression of a Serbian victory or even an indecisive outcome was lost in the emerging legendary tradition of Kosovo.

Part of that tradition would eventually include the theme of righteous struggle against tyranny. While the desire to avenge Kosovo and liberate Serbia from oppression finds some expression in the early cult sources, the main inspiration for this powerful motif lies in the evolving legend of the assassination of Murad at the Battle of Kosovo. It was that legend which would give shape to the central ethos of Kosovo.

It is surprising that the assassination of Murad is not recorded in any of the Serbian cult sources for the battle. Why the Serbian authors would fail to speak of the assassin if they knew of him is unclear, and yet it is possible that they believed that any reference to the assassin would distract from their portrayal of Lazar's own selfless and courageous martyrdom. Whatever the reason for this silence, it appears from later sources that the story of Murad's assassination was clearly known in Lazar's principality.

This first Serbian account of Murad's assassination is found in Constantine the Philosopher's Life of Despot Stefan Lazarevic.[42] Constantine, a Bulgarian at the court of Lazar's son, Stefan Lazarevic, was largely responsible for the important literate culture that emerged during the time of his sovereign's rule. While his description of the Battle of Kosovo is similar to accounts found in the cult sources, it is his description of the assassination which is new:

And there was a battle on a place called Kosovo which happened as follows. Among the soldiers who
were fighting in the front lines was one of very noble birth who was slandered before his lord by certain
jealous ones and marked as disloyal. In order to demonstrate his loyalty as well as his bravery, this one
found the favorable time and rushed to the great leader himself as though he were a deserter, and they
opened the way to him And when he was near, he dashed forward at once and thrust a sword into that
very haughty and terrible autocrat, and then he himself fell there at their hands.
At first those around Lazar overcame and were victorious. But it was not yet the time of deliverance. Then
the son of that emperor rallied again in that very battle and overcame. And God allowed this so that this
great one [Lazar] and those with him might be wreathed with the crown of martyrdom. And what happened
after this? He attained the blessed end through decapitation. Before this, however, his dear comrades came
forward with many sad entreaties to die before him so that they would not see his death. This battle was in
the year 6897 [1389], the month of June, the fifteenth day.[43]

While the assassin is not named here, some of the most essential themes in the evolving tale of the assassination are clearly expressed by Constantine. The assassin is a nobleman who has been slandered before Prince Lazar by other jealous noblemen and is under suspicion of disloyalty. In order to clear his name and to show his knightly courage, he flees to the sultan, feigns desertion, and stabs the Turkish leader to death. In time this story would be embellished with detail, new characters, and vivid description; but the core of the account is still that which is first found in this work by Constantine the Philosopher. It represents the heroic image in the developing ethos of Kosovo.

This heroic image in the Kosovo tradition, although not absent entirely in the early cult writings dedicated to Lazar, appeared to evolve after the cult of Lazar as martyr lost some of its initial strength and visibility. As Rade Mihaljcic observes, the cult of Lazar was increasingly localized in Serbia so that eventually only the monastery of Ravanica continued a regular commemoration of the holy prince.[44]

On the other hand, the more forceful image of the Kosovo hero survived the end of the Lazarevic dynasty and the eventual collapse of the Serbian Despotate. That image found its expression in the evolving oral tradition of the Serbian, people. This epic expression of selective historical memory accompanied the Serbs as they migrated out of the territory of the Despotate to the central mountainous regions of old Serbia, Montenegro, Hercegovina, and Bosnia. In the decade following the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 more than three hundred thousand Serbs began this nomadic trek. And it was in these regions of the peninsula that the image of the Kosovo hero was cultivated and preserved. The figure of Murad's assassin found a home in the culture of exile, where his courageous deed could inspire respect and enthusiasm for continued resistance to the Turk. In this culture the patriarchal Serbian village the epic tradition developed its own periodization of history. Everything revolved around great events which were seen to be important turning points in the life of a nation. In this tradition, Kosovo became the crucial turning point in the popular consciousness and served as the dramatic watershed between independence and servitude.[45] Toward the end of the fifteenth century and in the early sixteenth century the records of several literate observers lend support to the conclusion that the assassination of Murad was already a central theme in the evolving oral history of the Serbian people.

The first writer to give the name of Murad's assassin was Konstantin Mihailovic from Ostrovica who wrote his Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle about 1497.[46] His description of the Battle of Kosovo was intended as an example of what happens when disloyalty rules the day. Lazar remains the most important figure in this description of the battle, but Mihailovic identifies "Milos Kobila"[47] as the assassin of Murad and gives careful consideration to the "disloyalty of evil people." His work reveals some of the legendary motifs about Kosovo in the very early stages of their development.

And then on Wednesday, the day of St. Vitus, there began a violent battle, and it lasted until Friday.
Lords who supported Prince Lazar fought bravely, loyally, and honorably at his side; others, however,
observed the battle looking through their fingers. Because of this disloyalty and dissension and the
jealousies of evil and wicked people, the battle was lost on Friday at noon.
And here Milog Kobila, Prince Lazar's knight, killed Emperor Murad…[48]

Most significant here is Mihailovic's assertion that disloyalty had something to do with the Serbian defeat. The f first hint of the possibility of treason on Kosovo had been raised decades earlier in the Serbian chronicle of Pec: "I do not know what to say in truth about this, whether he [Lazar] was betrayed by one of this own or whether God's judgement was fulfilled in this ...."[49] Within a century after Mihailovic the legendary tradition of Kosovo would place all of the blame for Serbia's defeat on the shoulders of one man: Vuk Brankovic.

Three decades after Konstantin Mihailovic’s Chronicle, Benedikt Kuripesic wrote a travel description of the Balkan peninsula in which he also included a description of the Battle of Kosovo.[50] Its primary focus is the assassination of the Turkish sultan by one whom he identifies as Milos Kobilic. Kuripesic's account contains some of the essential themes of the Kosovo legend: the suggestion that other Serbian lords slandered Milos before Prince Lazar, a last supper on the eve of the battle where Milos pledges his innocence to Prince Lazar and vows to avenge the slander, and the successful assassination of Sultan Murad by Milos in the sultan's tent.

Kuripesic is recording what he himself says he heard during his journey through the Balkans. Whatever his sources the account suggests that the popular tradition about Kosovo was well established in the early decades of the sixteenth century and was widely disseminated. The tale of Milos's courageous act in the Turkish camp had become such a central theme in the evolving myth of Kosovo that Kuripesic includes little else but the details of the assassination. And Kuripesic clearly delivered a message in his description. He interpreted the assassination as an example of true heroism:

Oh, Kobilovic, did not everyone think that you would get revenge on your displeased lord and your
jealous ones with their misfortune and that you would surrender them into the arms of the enemy? But
you got revenge in a Christian way and turned evil to good. You gave your life for your slanderers and
saved your homeland from the enemy's hand.[51]

It has been suggested that this assassination theme may have found its way into the Serbian tradition from Turkish sources. Before the appearance of Mehmed Nesri's detailed description of Kosovo in 1512, there were a number of other Turkish writings in which some attention was given to the battle. Since the Turks were profoundly affected by the death of their sultan in battle, it is understandable that all of the early sources would report the circumstances of his death. Their version of the assassination, however, is rather different from the description we find in the evolving Serbian tradition.

Essentially two versions of the assassination exist in the early Ottoman sources. In one version the murder takes place after the battle is already over.[52] Murad was on the field of Kosovo awaiting the return of his army, when suddenly one of the Christians, covered in blood and apparently hidden among the enemy dead, got up, rushed to Murad, and stabbed him with a dagger. At that moment the sultan became a martyr for the faith as well.[53] In the other version, the Christian forces were scattered and put. to flight after a countless number of deaths on both sides.[54] As Murad's soldiers pursued the enemy army, the sultan found himself completely alone on the field. Suddenly one of the Christian noblemen arose from among the corpses lying on the battlefield. He had promised himself as a sacrifice and approached Murad, who was sitting on his horse. Pretending that he wished to kiss the sultan's hand, he stabbed the sultan with a sharp dagger. The Ottoman begs assembled themselves after Murad's assassination, agreed to raise Bayezid to his father's throne, and executed Yakub, Bayezid's brother. Then they began the battle with the Christians once again, captured Lazar and his son, delivered them to Bayezid, and executed them upon Bayezid's orders. After this the Ottoman soldiers killed some of the unbelievers with the sword, and scattered those who remained Finally the Turks returned to Edirne and placed Bayezid on the throne.

Despite the differences in the Ottoman sources, it seems more important to note what it is they have in common. And that is clearly the assassination of Murad, no matter where it is found in the narrative. Moreover, while they all consider the battle a Turkish victory, there is little attempt to magnify the significance of that success. Neither the earliest account by Ahmedi nor a description one hundred years after the battle makes any reference to plunder or other exploitation from the victory. Given the death of their leader and the decision to return immediately to Edirne, it was perhaps a pyrrhic victory at best.

It is only in 1512 that a highly detailed description of the Battle of Kosovo appeared among the Turks. This account by Mehmed Nesri, however, would become the major resource for subsequent descriptions of the battle, not only in the Ottoman world but in Western Europe as well. Nesri has been described as a doctrinaire writer whose primary purpose in his writing was to arouse his readers' religious fervor and military virtue.[55] He clearly intended to describe a significant Ottoman victory at Kosovo and thus exaggerated much of his narrative in order to magnify the success of the Turks. By eliminating most of the colorful embellishment, we can easily summarize its content.[56]

In Nesri's view Lazar was a vassal of the Turks who had to be punished because he turned against his lord. That punishment was the object of the Battle of Kosovo. In order to protect his land Lazar gathered a huge army, asked his knights for advice concerning the appropriate action against the Turks, and then sent an envoy to reconnoiter the Turkish army. The Turkish sultan consulted with his own men as well and was told that they could win if they succeeded in drawing the Christians out of their tight battle formation. Shortly thereafter, Lazar's envoy returned and informed the prince that they had little to worry about, since the Christian forces had three times as many men as the Turks. When Murad and his son Bayezid then surveyed the battlefield they discovered a Christian army of five hundred thousand, which was at least twice as large as their own forces. Amazed by the size of this enemy army Murad asked Bayezid and others if they should place a line of camels in front of their ranks. They all advised against that tactic, primarily because they believed that God would protect them and give them the victory. Moreover, if the camels became frightened by the enemy, they might stampede into the Turks' own ranks. The night before the battle while his soldiers slept, Murad prayed until dawn. He offered himself to God as a sacrifice for the faith and for the victory of his own men. The Christians, on the other hand, spent the evening in drunken revelry. When Lazar suggested that they consider a night attack on the unsuspecting Turks, everyone rejected the idea.

At dawn the next day the Turkish camp was alive with excitement as they placed themselves in battle formation. The Christians arranged themselves as well, although they were still drunk and talking nonsense. Lazar's army began the battle with a cannon volley which did not land close enough to do any damage. This was followed by an archery attack, but the arrows also fell short of the Turkish lines. The Turks responded with cannon and arrows, and then suddenly the Christians surged against the Turkish left flank. They completely defeated it and pushed their way to the rear of that flank. At the moment of possible defeat Bayezid rallied the Turkish right flank and began a counterattack against the Christians which ended in a victory for the Turks. The description of the assassination follows:

After the heathen was defeated Murad was perplexed because he still had been given no sign that he
would die a martyr. But as he and some of his courtiers were surveying a mound of dead bodies, [there
was on that field] a heathen known as Milod Kobila. This damned soul was an excellent and great knight.
At a feast given by Lazar he lead said, "I will go and kill the Turkish lord." He had hidden on his body a
steel dagger. Arriving with this goal in mind, he got into a fight with the gazis and was wounded. Then this
heathen, wounded and completely covered with blood, hid himself in that mound of dead bodies. When
Gazi Murad happened upon this one, the heathen stumbled and came toward the Lord. When the guards
tried to stop him, Gazi Murad instead declared, “Doubtlessly he has a wish. Let him come forward."
This damned one had the dagger hidden in his sleeve. He came forward pretending that he would kiss the
sultan's foot, but suddenly he stabbed him. When that which is fated to be happens, the eyes are blinded.
He was destined to die here. At that hour his soul, a heavenly bird like an angel, soared to the heavens. He
was a warrior for the faith and now he died a martyr's death. That heathen was immediately cut into pieces
on the spot. Over the sultan they quickly erected a tent.[57]

Then Lazar and his son were captured and executed, and Bayezid ordered the execution of his own brother, Yakub Celebi. The next morning Bayezid was placed on the throne.

Nesri's account had something in common with the popular Serbian tradition circulating in the central regions of the Balkan peninsula. Most importantly, Nesri was aware of the assassin's name and his vow on the eve of the battle to prove his loyalty to Lazar. Nesri's interpretation, of course, removes a bit of the glamour from Milos's act. Since Murad had promised himself as a sacrifice for the faith, Milos becomes a kind of agent of God's providence. Moreover, the act is accomplished after the battle is over and the Turks have won. Regardless of such differences, however, it appears plausible that Nesri was familiar with the popular Serbian tradition of Kosovo and adopted some of it for his own work.[58]

The detailed information that is found in Nesri's description of the Battle of Kosovo has allowed military historians, particularly Petar Tomac and Gavro Skrivanic, to analyze the strategy, battle formation, tactics, and general course of the battle.[59] Such analysis, while based on Nesri, is also influenced by a general understanding of warfare in the late fourteenth century and by the fragments of evidence which exist from other battles at that time. As such their study is useful although unsubstantiated by much concrete evidence from the contemporary data.

Certainly the later sources, especially Nesri, describe a stunning Serbian defeat. As we have seen, however, that most crucial element in our understanding of the Battle of Kosovo cannot be supported by the handful of extant contemporary sources. And certainly the legacy of the seventy years which separate the battle from the final collapse of Serbia in 1459 confirms that the Battle of Kosovo was far more important in legend than it was in reality.

On the basis of available evidence it does appear that the Turks fled in haste to Edirne after the battle. Bayezid had to secure his authority in the East for several reasons: his father's death, his brother's murder, and the readiness of his neighbors to seize lands in Anatolia. Thus Princess Milica and her young sons continued to rule in Krusevac, and Vuk Brankovic governed his extensive territory from his center in Pristina. Milica did not, however, enjoy a long period of peace. Her territory suffered from internal disturbances, an ever‑present threat from Hungary, and further Turkish incursions. In October 1389, Dubrovnik offered Milica and her family asylum if things became unbearable in her principality. The Hungarians attacked in November 1389, and occupied Borat and Cestin; and although they returned home soon of ter, their threat remained. Finally, when the Turks began to increase their pressure on Milica's eastern border, the princess agreed to pay tribute to Bayezid and, sometime in 1390, gave him her last daughter, Olivera.

Vuk Brankovic continued to defend his territory against the Turks and, like Milica, was guaranteed refuge in Dubrovnik. In January 1392, he was forced to surrender Skoplje to Bayezid and to pay tribute to him. These agreements to pay tribute and to supply troops when needed, however, did not symbolize total conquest by the Turks. By paying tribute the Balkan states temporarily preserved their existence. They enjoyed autonomy, were protected from extensive plunder by the Turks, and continued to live according to their own traditions and religion. This policy allowed the Ottoman state time, to consolidate its authority, to advance into new territories, and to prepare carefully for the final conquest of each of its vassal states.

In 1402 Lazar's successor, Stefan Lazarevic, accompanied Bayezid in an attack on Tamerlane, who had reached the eastern borders of the Ottoman state in Anatolia. The Ottoman army was defeated in a battle at Angora on 28 July 1402, and Bayezid was captured. Stefan managed to escape with his army and stopped in Constantinople sometime in August. There he received the title of despot from John VII Paleologus, Manuel II's co-ruler in what little remained of the Byzantine Empire. Stefan returned to his despotate, recognized the authority of Sigismund of Hungary, and built his new capital in Belgrade, which was given to him by Sigismund.

Under Stefan Lazarevic's rule, the process of reunification of Serbian lands began. Stefan received Vuk Brankovic's territory from the Turks in 1397, which precipitated a period of enmity between the Brankovici and the Lazarevici that was not completely settled until 1413 when peace was made between Stefan and his cousin Djuradj. In 1421 when the last Balsic, Balsa III, died, the land of Zeta was bequeathed to Stefan. Venice did not recognize Stefan's right to this land, and a war began between them which lasted until an agreement was made in August 1423. Stefan retained control over the internal territory of Zeta and the coastal cities of Budva, Bar, and Drivast.

The first decades of the fifteenth century were a period of relative prosperity in Stefan's despotate. Many new monasteries and churches were built in the northernmost lands, which now represented the core of the Serbian state; and a new period of literary and cultural activity flourished. Stefan was accepted as a strong, central leader, and the separatism among individual lords was finally ended.

Stefan, who was childless, was succeeded upon his death in 1427 by Djuradj Brankovic. By an agreement with Hungary, which recognized Djuradj's right to the succession, Belgrade was returned to the Hungarians. Thereafter, Djuradj built the strong fortress of Smederevo on the banks of the Danube west of the mouth of the Morava. In 1439 the Turks conquered Smederevo; and almost all of Serbia with the exception of the area around Novo Brdo and the territory of Zeta fell into Turkish hands. In 1443, however, Djuradj joined the Hungarian-Polish king, Vladislav Jagiellon, and John Hunyadi in a crusade against the Turks. Their successes forced the Turks to restore Djuradj's authority over the lands of the despotate (August 1444). But that was the last reprieve. The situation began to decline again, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In 1455 the southern areas of Serbia with the important mining centers of Novo Brdo and Trepca were taken, and on 20 June 1459 Smederevo itself fell. Seventy years after its legendary battle on the field of Kosovo, Serbia had succumbed to the Turks.



Footnotes

1. Cf., for example, Lord Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries (New York, 1977), pp. 41-42.

2. Ljubomir Stojanovic, "Start srpski rodoslovi i letopisi," Zbornik za istoriju, jezik, i knjilemost srpskog naroda, XVI (1927): 214.

3. Stojanovic, "Start srpski rodoslovi," p. 215.

4. Stojanovic, "Start srpski rodoslovi," p. 215.

5. Cf. Gavro Skrivanid, Kosovska bitka (Cetinje, 1956), pp. 10-17.

6. Kosovo is a plain, extending generally SSE‑NNW. It is approximately eighty-four kilometers long and fourteen kilometers wide and has an average elevation of 530 meters. Concerning Kosovo's geography, see G. Skrivanic, Kosovska bitka, pp. 53-54; Emil Cergov, Rimljani na Kosovu i Metohiji (Belgrade, 1969), p.13; "Amselfeld," Der Grosse Brockhaus, I (1928): 411.

7. Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), pp. 21-22.

8. See K. Jirecek, "Trgovadki putevi i rudnici Srbije i Bosne a srednjen vijeku," Zbornik Konstantina Jireceka, I (Belgrade, 1959), pp. 275-85, 300-3.

9. See M. Braun, "Kosovo: Die Schlacht auf dem Amselfelde in geschichtlicher and epischer Oberlieferung," Slavisch-Baltische Quellen and Forschungen, VIII (Leipzig, 1937), pp. 9-10. Letter found in Lucius, De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae, V (Vienna, 1758), p. 248.

10. V. V. Makusev, “Prilozi k srpsko j istori j XI V i XV veka," Glasnik srpskog ucenog drustva, XXXII (1871) 176.

11. S. Ljubic, Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridionaliurn, Vol. IV: Listine o odnogajih izmedju juffnoga Slavenstva i mletadke republike (Zagreb, 1874), pp. 269-70.

12. R.J. Leonertz, Demetrius Cydones Correspondance, II (Citta del Vaticano, 1960), no. 396, pp. 350-51; no. 398, pp. 352-53. See the discussion by S. Cirkovic, "Dmitrije Kidon o kosovskom boju," Zbornik radova vizantoloskog institute, XIII (1971) 213-19.

13. Songe du vieil Pelerin, text found in Fonds Francais, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, N. 22.542. And Epistre lamentable et consolatoire, text found in Chroniques de Froissart, edited by Kervyn de Lettenhove, XVI (Brussels, 1872), p. 510. Mezieres' sources are discussed by M. Dinid, "Dva savremenika o boju na Kosovu," Glas srpske kraljevske akademije, CLXXXII (1940) 133-48.

14. Cronica Volgare di Anonimo Fiorentino dall' anno 1385 al 1409, Vol. XVII, Fasc. 152 of Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, edited by L.A. Muratori (Citta di Castello, 1917), pp. 77-79.

15. Ruina Damasci text included in Dinic, "Dva savremenika," pp. 146-47.

16. Vida y hazanas del Gran Tamorlan con la description de las Tierras de su Imperio y senorio escrita por Ruy Gonzales de Oavijo, camerero del muy alto y podereso senor Don Enrique Tercero Deste Nombri Rey de Castilla y de Leon. Con un itinerario de to sucedido en la embajada que por dicho senor rey hizo aldicho principe Ilamado por otro nombre Tamurbec, ano del nacimiento de mil y quatrocientos y tres. See the English translation of de Clavijo's work: Clements R. Markham (trans.), Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo to the Court of Timour at Samarcand, A.D. 1403-1406 (London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1859).

17. In approximate chronological order the early Serbian sources for Kosovo includes

a. Prolosko zitije kneza Lazara (Anonymous), in Dj. Radojicid, “Pohvala knezu Lazaru sa stihovima," Istorijski casopis, V (1955):251-53.

b. Slovo o knezu Lazaru (Patriarch Danilo III), in V. Corovic, "Siluan i Danilo II, srpski pisci XIV‑XV veka," Glas srpske kraljevske akademije, CXXXVI (1929):83-103.

c. Zitije kneza Lazara (Anonymous), in S. Novakovic, "Nesto o knezu Lazaru," Glasnik srpskog uffenog druftva, XXI (1867) 159-64.

d. Slovo o knezu Lazaru (Anonymous), in A. Vukomanovic, "O knezu Lazaru," Glasnik drustva srbske slovesnosti XI (1859) 108-18.

e. Pohvala knezu Lazaru (Jefimija), in L. Mirkovic, "Monahinja Jefimija," Hrigcanski zivot, I (9-10) (1922):539-40.

f. Sluzba knezu Lazaru (Anonymous), in Srbljak, II (Belgrade, 1970), pp. 143-99.

g. Pohvalno slovo knezu Lazaru (Anonymous), in Dj. Danidid, "Pohvala knezu Lazaru," Glasnik drustva srbske slovesnosti XIII (1861):358-68.

h. Natpis na mramornom stubu na Kosovu (Anonymous or Stefan Lazarevic), in Dj. Sp. Radojidid, "Svetovna pohvala knezu Lazaru i kosovskom junacima," Juffnoslovenski filolog, XX (1953-1954) 140-41.

i. Vrse mislni knezu Lazaru (Andonius Raphael of Lepanto), in L j. Stojanovic, "Stars srpski hrisovul ji, akti, biograf i je, letopisi, tipici, pomenici, zapisi, i drugs," Spomenik, III (1890), pp. 81-88. Corrections made by V.V. Kachanovskii, Istoriia Serbii s' poloviny XIV do kontsa XV v. (Kiev, 1899), pp. 349-59.

These works received their most scholarly analysis as literary works in a study by Djordje Trifunovic: Srpski srednjovekovni spisi o knezu Lazaru i Kosovskom boju (Krutevac, 1968).

18. See A. F. Gil'ferding', Bosniia, Gersegovina i Staraia Serbiia (St. Petersburg, 1859), p. 277; V.V. Kachanovskii, Istoriia Serbii pp. 38-41; Ruvarac, O knezu Lazaru (Novi Sad, 1888), pp. 7-8; and N. Novosad, "Sv. Lazar' kniaz' serbskii," Zhurnal Moskovskoi patriarhii VII (1964):67-70.

19. In his work, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, Matthew Hodgson discusses the distinctive rhetoric of religion. "Absolute demands," he argues, "deliberate rejection of worldly reason, sometimes paradoxes or even obscurity, become a persuasive factor in the enunciation of a new religious message." This applies as well to the rhetoric of the Kosovo hagiographic literature. Cf. Hodgson, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), p. 6.

20. Text as published in Corovid, "Siluan i Danilo II," pp. 89-90. Cf. Trifunovic, Srpski srednjovekovni pp. 71-72.

21. Text as found in Danicic, "Pohvala knezu Lazar," pp. 358-68. See Trifunovic, Srpski srednjovekovni splsi pp. 254-58.

22. Danicic, "Pohvala knezu Lazaru," p. 367.

23. Danicic, "Pohvala knezu Lazaru,' p. 360.

24. The German scholar Frank Kampfer argues that the cult writings, taken as a whole, represent "the intellectual inventory of Serbian society after Kosovo." Cf. Kampfer, "Podetak kulta kneza Lazara," O knezu Lazaru (Belgrade, 1977), p. 266. Kampfer suggests that the identity between land and dynasty in Serbia had to be eliminated. The society of Lazar's principality knew that their land was not the same territory as Nemanjic Serbia. To tie Lazar to the Nemanjidi would establish a sense of continuity in Serbian history. If Serbia continued beyond the death of Dusan, then it could continue beyond the tragedy of Kosovo. Cf. Kampfer, pp. 265-69.

25. Stojan Novakovic, "Nesto o knezu Lazaru," p. 159.

26. Novakovic, "Nesto o knezu Lazaru," pp. 159-60.

27. According to the edition of the text published by L. Mirkovic, "Monahinja Jefimija," p. 539. Cf. the contemporary Serbian translation in Dj. Sp. Radojidid, Antologija stare srpske knjilevnost (Belgrade, 1960), pp. 97-98. See the entire study by L. Mirkovic: "Monahinja Jefimija," Hriscanski zivot, I, nos. 7-8, 9-10, 11-12 (1922) 452-59, 529-43, 632-43.

28. The terms come, of course, from Hagar, Abraham's slave concubine, and Ishmael, her son. "And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son and shall call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction./ And he will be a wild man: his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him: and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." Genesis 16:11-12.

29. Novakovic, "Nesto o knezu Lazaru," p.162.

30. Corovic, "Siluan i Danilo II," p. 88.

31. Radojidic, “Pohvala knezu Lazaru sa stihovima," p. 251.

32. Radojidic, “Pohvala knezu Lazaru," p. 251. Cf. Psalms 58:4. `Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear."

33. Radojidic, “Pohvala knezu Lazaru sa stihovima," p. 252.

34. See Trifunovic, Srpski srednjovekovni spisi p. 35.

35. Radojidic, "Pohvala knezu Lazaru sa stihovima," p.248.

36. Trifunovic, Srpski srednjovekovni spisi p.366.

37. Corovic, "Siluan i Danilo II," p. 94. The text says that Lazar was "cut down with a sword in the lanita." While it is difficult to give the precise meaning of the word "lanita," Trifunovid says that most agree that it is a term for the lower part of the head, perhaps the face or jaw. Trifunovic, Srpski srednjovekovni spisi pp. 52-53.

38. Annales Ragusini Anonymi Vol. XIV of Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridionallum (Zagreb, 1883), p. 48. In spite of the apparent confusion concerning the identity of Prince Lazar, it is interesting that some one hundred years after the Battle of Kosovo one can find such a straightforward interpretation of the battle as an indecisive venture.

39. Known as the chronicle of Pec (Pecki letopis), its actual title is Zitia i nadel'stva sr'bskhy' gospod; kol po kim' koliko car'stvova (The lives and reigns of the Serbian lords: who ruled after whom and for how long). Stojanovic, "Stars srpski hrisovulji," pp. 93-97.

40. New Testament literature is full of references to the crown of righteousness as the Christian's ultimate reward. The Apostle Paul wrote: "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:6-8

41. Vukomanovic, "O knezu Lazaru," p. 112.

42. Zitile i zizn' pris’nopom’nimaago, slovustaago, blagoc'stivaago gospodina despota Stefana. Text is according to a manuscript from the second half of the fifteenth century, published in 1875 by V. Jagid, "Konstantin Filosof i njegov Zivot Stefana Lazarevida despota srpskoga," Glasnik srpskog udenog drustva, XLII (1875) 223-328; relevant material on Kosovo: pp. 260-61. Cf. J. Safarik, "Zivot Despota Stefan Lazarevica," Glasnik srpskog udenog drustva, XI (1870):363-428; M. Braun, Lebensbeschrelbung des Despoten Stefan Lazarevic von Konstantin dem Philosophen (The Hague, 1956, see also St. Stanojevic, "Biografie Stefan Lazarevic's," Archiv for slavische Philologie, XVIII (1896):409-72; IU. Trifunov, "Zhivot' i deinost' na Konstantina Kostenetski," Spisanie na Bulg. akademiia na naukite i iskustvata, LXVI (1943), pp. 223-92.

43. V. Jagic, "Konstantin Filosof," pp. 260-61.

44. Mihaljcic, Lazar Hrebeljanovic: Istorija, Kult, Predanje (Belgrade, 1984), pp. 177-84.

45. Cf. Vaso Cubrilovid, Istorija politidke misle a Srbiji, XIX veka (Belgrade, 1958), pp. 38-39.

46. Konstantin Mihailovic iz Ostrovice, Janicarove uspomene ili Turska hronika, edited by Djordje Zivanovic (Belgrade, 1966), pp. 105-7.

47. For a discussion of the many names by which Milos Obilic appears in historical sources, see the interesting article, Dragutin Kostic, "Milos Kopilic-Kobilic-Obilic," Revue Internationale des Etudes Balkaniques; I-II (1934-1935) 232-54.

48. Konstantin Mihailovic iz Ostrovice, Janicarove uspomene, p. 105.

49. Stojanovid, "Stars srpski hrisovulji," p. 96.

50. Benedikt Kuripetic. Putopis kroz Bosnu, Srbiju, Bugarsku i rumeliju 1530 (from the German by Djordje Pejanovic [Sarajevo, 1950]). It was first published in Serbian by Ceda Mijatovid in "Vidovdan" (Beograd, 1863). Cf. Alojz Smaus, "Kuripegidev izvestaj o kosovskom boju," Prilozi za knjilevnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor, XVIII (1938) 509-18.

51. Kuripesic, Putopis, p. 35.

52. See Miodrag Popovic, Vidovdan i casni krst (Belgrade, 1976), pp. 22-31. Popovic believes that Milos and the story of the assassination came from the Turkish tradition. The Serbs then gave him his noble attributes.

53. See sources by Alunedi (Iskender-name) from first decade of fifteenth century and by Sukrullah (Behtet ul-tevarih) from 1457. Ahmedi's text given in A. Olesnicki, "Turski izvori o Kosovskom bo ju," Glasnik skopskog naucnog drustva, XI V (1934), 6062; for Sukrullah, see Olesnicki, pp. 73-75.

54. See works by Oruc (Tevarih I Al-i Osman) from the middle of the fifteenth century and by an anonymous historian (Tevarih I Al-i Osman) from the first years of the sixteenth century. For Oruc, see Olesnicki, pp. 62-67 and for the anonymous historian, see Olesnicki, pp. 67-70.

55. See Olesnicki, "Turski izvori o Kosovskom boju," pp. 79-80.

56. Text in Gliga Elezovic, Ogledalo sveta ili istorija Mehmeda Nesrije (Belgrade, 1957), pp. 33 T7. Nevi's work was to become a standard reference for the Battle of Kosovo even into the twentieth century.

57. Elezovic, Ogledalo sveta,

[2RHPZ]

57. Elezovic, Ogledalo sveta, pp. 69-71.

58. Cf. Nenad Ljubinkovic, "Opts kosovskog bo ja kod turskog istoridara Mule Negri ja i nage narodne pesme," Glasnik Muzeja Kosova i Metohije (Prittina, 1961), pp. 161-71.

59. See Petar Tomac, Kosovska bitka, (Belgrade, 1968); and Gavro Skrivanic, Kosovska bitka (Cetinje, 1956).


This article is from Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle, eds. Wayne S. Vucinich and Thomas A. Emmert (Minnesota Mediterranean and East European Monographs v.1, 1991).

PLEASE, NO FLAMES! THANK YOU.

[APOCALYPSE]

dhwdhwa

[Deuterium]

The Albainians are at fault if you look carefully thier the ones asking for independance, they came from Albainia now read what Srbian historians have said why they came AND want to take Kosavo which they will try in the near future and ww3 will start if nato tries to interfear remember back in 99 after Kosavo war ended Russia signed a "MILITARY" pact with Srbia can you see the Third world war on the horizon now cag? I know you can't but I can assured you it's comin.

Put down the Slivo my friend. You've had too much. That stuff will rot your head... Oh well never mind.

[APOCALYPSE]

Good don't belive me just keep living your life as if nothing is going to happen.

[Royal]

That is hilarious... I mean the cultures and ethnic groups that made up Yugoslavia were so closely tied together that there have never been ethnic problems between them. It could only have been one speech by a politician that drove them to barbarity and war... otherwise they'd still be the best of friends now. I mean Tito held them together with love and compassion too.

Is this sarcasm or are you really that ignorant and stupid?

1389 and the field of blackbirds were not a loss for the Serbs. At worst the battle was a draw (both commanders were killed) at best it was a Serb victory. Lazars son continued as 'king' for some years after the battle - hardly a catastrophic loss.

The Serb kingdom was certainly already in decline, a process that continued for some time after 1389. The real problem is the lack of contemperous accounts (and the usual Balkans fog of slivo and bravado) has caused the whole thing to be mythologised in the way that battles from the same era in western europe such as Crecy in 1346 or Agincourt in 1415 have not.

[Freibier]

The Albainians are at fault if you look carefully thier the ones asking for independance, they came from Albainia now read what Srbian historians have said why they came AND want to take Kosavo which they will try in the near future and ww3 will start if nato tries to interfear remember back in 99 after Kosavo war ended Russia signed a "MILITARY" pact with Srbia can you see the Third world war on the horizon now cag? I know you can't but I can assured you it's comin.
I assure you one thing:
Before risking a third World War for POS Serbia, the ruskies will drop you like a hot potato.

[2RHPZ]

TWENTY-FIVE LECTURES ON MODERN BALKAN HISTORY

http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/

[Deuterium]

TWENTY-FIVE LECTURES ON MODERN BALKAN HISTORY

http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/

[APOCALYPSE]

Not only is it sarcasem but plain nievity the intelegent question is who's land does this belong to? then you'll find out why those Albainians moved it to Kosavo and that the Srbs are right, you don't know what your saying , you have to prove on militaryphoyos.net that Russia didn't sign a military pact before you say a lame comment like the Russki'a will drop you first, you don't impree me non of you with your knowlede, by the way don't bother to try and win the crowd by trying to say things like "look he can't even spell words right and he's trying to lether about War in Kosavo history" I've learned from Americans them selves how to discuern American Propaganda, these are real Americans who support the Constitution and not political correctness so SAVE IT, you wanna learn Srbian-Kosavo history read it from Srbs not from outsiders that say this is what happend in Kosavo in my opiniun, by the way if you feel they got along than you should get out of usa cuz most of the Natives don't the
"white man" there all that stuff you see on tv about we together is all propaganda so why don't you prove yourself and show the world you really do live ina justice way and get out, I already know the same answer you'll give, you'll give all tyoe of elaborate reasons why you won't but the plane truth is you don't wanna leave cuz you live in a erra of( "things have changed it's not like that anymore" ) lies

[Deuterium]

Not only is it sarcasem but plain nievity the intelegent question is who's land does this belong to? then you'll find out why those Albainians moved it to Kosavo and that the Srbs are right, you don't know what your saying , you have to prove on militaryphoyos.net that Russia didn't sign a military pact before you say a lame comment like the Russki'a will drop you first, you don't impree me non of you with your knowlede, by the way don't bother to try and win the crowd by trying to say things like "look he can't even spell words right and he's trying to lether about War in Kosavo history" I've learned from Americans them selves how to discuern American Propaganda, these are real Americans who support the Constitution and not political correctness so SAVE IT, you wanna learn Srbian-Kosavo history read it from Srbs not from outsiders that say this is what happend in Kosavo in my opiniun, by the way if you feel they got along than you should get out of usa cuz most of the Natives don't the
"white man" there all that stuff you see on tv about we together is all propaganda so why don't you prove yourself and show the world you really do live ina justice way and get out, I already know the same answer you'll give, you'll give all tyoe of elaborate reasons why you won't but the plane truth is you don't wanna leave cuz you live in a erra of( "things have changed it's not like that anymore" ) lies

When you can wash the STAINS of blood from your "nation's" flag from the thousands of men women and children that your "Nation" systematically and deliberatley murdered for the sake of a pure and ethnically cleaned greater Serbia, my friend, we might start listening to your rants. Until then, keep washing.

[APOCALYPSE]

Thats what I thought would be your just change the SUBJECT!! when you TOTALY been disproven, don't ever challege the truth bud you'll lost by the way I'm not even Srbian/Russian. just a concerned angry happy of whats going to happen in the future citezen type of guy.

[Deuterium]

Thats what I thought would be your just change the SUBJECT!! when you TOTALY been disproven, don't ever challege the truth bud you'll lost by the way I'm not even Srbian/Russian. just a concerned angry happy of whats going to happen in the future citezen type of guy.

You're right and I'm just a soldier who spent 18 months on 4 rotations in the Balkans, Bosnia and Kosovo talking daily with the locals, Serbs, Croats, Albos, Romas, and Bosniacs. I wish to god I didn't know anything about the Balkans. Unfortunately I had to WASTE 18 months of time away from my family to baby-sit a society that couldn't get along with each other. You are no better than the people that deny the Holocaust. NO sane person that has spent any time in the Balkans would make statements like you do.

[APOCALYPSE]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that? can ya tell me a stupid civilian? p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.

[hank]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that? can ya tell me a stupid civilian? p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.

No it does not. I just read it again in case, why I can't figure out. Our Constitution says no such thing. What is your point even if it did?

hank

[Freibier]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that? can ya tell me a stupid civilian? p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.
Put away the crack pipe, NATO could wipe its ass with Serbia anytime and NO ONE would lift a finger for the SOBs there.

[Brzeczyszczykiewicz]

p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.

rofl rofl rofl

[mack pl]

p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.

rofl rofl rofl
a my NA TO jak na lato :lol:

[DLodge]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that? can ya tell me a stupid civilian? p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.
You're out of your f******* mind. This business about the Constitution is even crazier than your lunatic belief in a moon-landing hoax.

[Deuterium]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that? can ya tell me a stupid civilian? p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.

Okay I'll bite. Cite your source.

[APOCALYPSE]

Before I site The source, how come Russia made a military pact with Srbia? JUST FOR COSMETIC PURPOSES, can YOU prove Russia never did? answer the question with an answer and not a QUESTION.

[hank]

Before I site The source, how come Russia made a military pact with Srbia? JUST FOR COSMETIC PURPOSES, can YOU prove Russia never did? answer the question with an answer and not a QUESTION.

Are you saying you are about to cite the United States Constitution?

hank

[APOCALYPSE]

You got that 100% correct ;) , WILL SOME ONE ANSWER THE QUESTION WERE DID THE ASTRONUTS GET THE FLAG THEY SUPPOSEDLY PUT ON THE MOON, WHY DID THEY SHOW A NICE LONG PANARAMIC VIEW OF SPACE HU? BECAUSE THE LONGER THEY KEEP SHOWING SPACE ON T.V. SPACE CHANNELS TO THE PUBLIC PEOPLE WILL GET USED TO SEEING SPACE AND IT WILL BECOME LIKE HOW PEOPLE GOT USED TO CARS AFTER THEY WERE INVENTED THEN AFTER THE UPHORIA/EXCITEMENT OF SEEING SPACE CALMS DOWN PEOPLE WILL START ASKING SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS WERE ARE THE OTHER PLANETS WERE ARE THE OTHER SUNS OF THE GALEXY HOW COME YOU DON'T SHOW THE FLAGE ON THE MOON USING HUBBLE AND OTHER SATALITES, THEY WILL GIVE AN EXUSE (" WERE TO BUSZY STUDING IMPORTANT THINGS RIGHT NOW") HEY RIGHT THEY WOULD JUST SAY THAT TO " SHUT THE PUBLIC UP" SO WRE DID THEY GET THE FLAG???

[hank]

You got that 100% correct AMERICAN!! ;)

Bring it, I have my copy in hand.

hank

[R935]

I can just LMAO when I read statements from some people. I come from YUGO and I believe that gives me some knowledge on the topic which I will now share with you. Tito was not loved, but was rather a dictator that held whole YUGO under his single party, president for life rule. Even though in the eyes of the world, and some of you here, Serbs bare the most guilt for what happened I can assure you that all sides committed atrocities in what was a stupid, no reason war. Sure Serbs did have more firepower but when even the sides involved in conflict can’t say how much was the opposite side responsible – I don’t see how the outsiders could. And to you Deuterium, if you are what you claim to be, I would like to thank you and all the others for your efforts. It takes lot more courage than some people can imagine to serve as a peacekeeper.

BTW I believe that life is returning to normal after all the happening and that people are now seeing the how senseless the war was.

Regards
R935

[APOCALYPSE]

Oh realy NOW you got me FIERED UP, R935 I'll pay for your personal round trip ticket to Srbia and I'll pay for your PERSONAL round trip taxi fair to Kosavo, lets go hu? I'll pay for everything will see if every thing is o.k. you'll return back in one humdred pieces speak up on my offer?

[Deuterium]

You got that 100% correct ;) , WILL SOME ONE ANSWER THE QUESTION WERE DID THE ASTRONUTS GET THE FLAG THEY SUPPOSEDLY PUT ON THE MOON, WHY DID THEY SHOW A NICE LONG PANARAMIC VIEW OF SPACE HU? BECAUSE THE LONGER THEY KEEP SHOWING SPACE ON T.V. SPACE CHANNELS TO THE PUBLIC PEOPLE WILL GET USED TO SEEING SPACE AND IT WILL BECOME LIKE HOW PEOPLE GOT USED TO CARS AFTER THEY WERE INVENTED THEN AFTER THE UPHORIA/EXCITEMENT OF SEEING SPACE CALMS DOWN PEOPLE WILL START ASKING SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS WERE ARE THE OTHER PLANETS WERE ARE THE OTHER SUNS OF THE GALEXY HOW COME YOU DON'T SHOW THE FLAGE ON THE MOON USING HUBBLE AND OTHER SATALITES, THEY WILL GIVE AN EXUSE (" WERE TO BUSZY STUDING IMPORTANT THINGS RIGHT NOW") HEY RIGHT THEY WOULD JUST SAY THAT TO " SHUT THE PUBLIC UP" SO WRE DID THEY GET THE FLAG???

I believe it's been theorized that the flag blew down upon assent stage launch. We won't know until we go back.

Firstly the flag had a horizontal bar attached to it at the top. This was done so that the flag would stand out from the flagpole. NASA appreciated that there would be no wind on the moon, so any normal flag would just hang limply and unattractively down the pole. To make things look better they added a bar that stood out at 90 degrees from the pole. The flag was really hanging from this, rather than from the pole. The bar was also not quite the full width of the flag, so that it was slightly furled to give a 'wave look' to it.

The moon's surface, once you get past the thin layer of dust, is very hard. So getting the flagpole to stick in was a tough job. The footage shows the astronaut twisting the pole back and forth in order to try and get it further into the ground. This movement made the attached bar and flag flutter.

The flagpole itself was light aluminium that is quite springy. Even once the astronaut let go the pole would continue to vibrate. This in turn would shake the bar and flap the flag. Without any air to dampen this it would continue to do so for longer than you might expect.


Why don't we just point Hubble or some other big telescope at the moon to show the moon landing sites? Wouldn't that settle the argument once and for all?

If only it was that easy! The biggest problem with this is that they simply are not powerful enough. The lunar landers are very,very,very small in astronomical terms and they're pretty far away as well. There isn't a telescope in existence that could take a picture of one.

There are lots of mathematics we could show to demonstrate this, but's it's very complicated and we don't fully understand it anyway. But here's our abridged dumbed-down version.

Size of Lunar Module. Let's be really generous and say 10m square.
Distance between Hubble and Moon. About 350, 000km.
This works out as an visual angle of (10m)/(3.5 x 10^8m) * (180/PI) = 1.6 x 10^-6 degrees = 6 milliarcseconds.
The WFPC2 'telescope' on Hubble has the following resolution: 800x800 pixels of a 35 arcseconds field of view with a pixel scale of 46 milliarcseconds. Actually resolution in practice is a little below this.
So what does this all mean? Well, roughly speaking, it means that the lunar lander would have to be 15 times larger before it would even cause a dot on a Hubble picture.




We stole the following off a NASA discussion board. We would usually just link to it, but discussion messages have a habit of expiring and this was too good to lose. Ed Cheng explains there's a law of physics that would prevent Hubble seeing the Lunar Module, and it's to do with the size of its light collecting mirror.

The wavelength of visible light is around 550x10^-9m (i.e. very very small).
The diameter of Hubble's mirror is 2.4m.
Highest ever physically possible resolution = 1.4 x 550 x 10^-9 /2.4 m = 3.2 x 10^-7 radians
At a distance of 350,000km this works out as about 124 metres. As Ed says, roughly the size of a football field.
So even if Hubble's camera had a greater resolution, it still couldn't see the Lunar Module.

[Flagg]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that?


Are you saying you are about to cite the United States Constitution?


You got that 100% correct

This is like driving past a car wreck......I can't help but "rubber neck" to see the carnage

[Metak]

Kosovo's Nazi Past: The Untold Story

By Carl Savich

1. Introduction: Genocide in Kosovo

During World War II and the Holocaust, Kosovar Albanians killed 10,000 Kosovo Serbs and expelled 100,000. Kosovo-Metohija was made a part of a Greater Albania by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Hitler and Mussolini realized the Greater Albania ideology established by the 1878 League of Prizren. Albanian-settled areas of the Balkans---Kosovo-Metohija, western Macedonia, southern Montenegro---were incorporated in a Greater Albania. The Greater Albania Kosovar Albanian nationalist movement murdered Kosovo Serb civilians and took over their lands and houses. Kosovo Serb women were raped. Kosovo Serb Orthodox priests were arrested, tortured, and murdered. Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were attacked and destroyed. Serbian monuments, cemeteries, and gravestones were desecrated and demolished. The Greater Albania nationalist movement formed the Balli Kombetar, the Albanian Kosovo Committee, and the Skanderbeg Nazi SS Division, two-thirds of whose members were Kosovar Albanian Muslims. Kosovar Albanian Muslims played a major role in the Holocaust, the murder of European Jews. Kosovar Albanian Nazi SS troops participated in the roundup of Kosovo Jews who were later killed at Bergen-Belsen. What occurred in Kosovo during World War II was genocide. The mainstream accounts of World War II have censored and covered up the Kosovar Albanian role in the genocide against Kosovo Serbs and the role of Kosovar Albanians in the Holocaust. The Nazi past of Kosovo remains an untold story.

2. Fascist Italy and Kosovo

Albania was peremptorily and hurriedly recognized as an independent nation by the Great Powers in 1912 as a reaction to the First Balkan War to prevent Serbia from acquiring access to the Adriatic Sea and to prevent Montenegro from annexing Albanian territory settled by Montenegrins. Albania had never existed as a united and independent nation before.
The London Peace Conference of July 29, 1913 established international recognition of Kosovo as part of Serbia and also recognized the borders of Albania as an independent state. Under the April 26, 1915 Treaty of London, the Allied Powers sought to induce Italy under prime minister Antonio Salandra to enter World War I on the side of the Allies by granting Italy Albanian territory as well as German-settled territory from Austria, the Southern Tyrol, and the Dalmatian coast. Under the Treaty, Italy was granted "sovereignty" over the major Albanian port of Valona, the island of Saseno, and the surrounding territory.
Italy thus had expansionist goals in Albania and the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia. On October 31, 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III asked fascist political leader Benito Mussolini to come to Rome to form a new government after fascist leaders marched on Rome demanding that power be given to them. Mussolini became prime minister of a coalition government and established a fascist regime in Italy. In May, 1925, the new fascist Italian government signed a treaty with Albania that granted Italy the right to exploit the mineral resources in Albania, established the Albanian National Bank under Italian control, and gave Italian shipping companies a monopoly.
On December 13, 1924, Ahmed Beg Zogu, who was backed by Yugoslavia, seized power in Albania by overthrowing the regime of Fan Noli. On January 31, 1925, Zogu was elected president of Albania for a seven year term. In 1928, Zogu established a monarchy and emerged as King Zog I, "the King of the Albanians".
Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy sought economic and political control of Albania and to establish a sphere of influence in the Adriatic Sea region throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
By 1937, Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, sought to bring Albania under direct Italian control. Ciano orchestrated the Italian foreign policy with regard to Albania in particular and the Balkans in general.
Following World War I, Italy and Albania supported Albanian terrorist activity against Yugoslavia, particularly the kachak guerrillas who were based in Albania but operated in Kosovo and Metohija. The kachak guerrillas engaged in a terrorist war against Yugoslavia to make Kosovo a part of Albania. The kachak movement was thus a secessionist conflict, a conflict to change the borders of Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro. The Serbian-Albanian conflict in Kosovo-Metohija was always motivated by secession, about making Kosovo a part of Albania. This was the Greater Albania nationalist ideology established by the 1878 League of Prizren. Because Albania itself was politically, economically, and militarily weak and powerless, however, this nationalist ideology meant, in practical terms, not the takeover of Kosovo by Tirana by military force, but the takeover of Kosovo by Kosovar Albanians who would make Kosovo an Albanian land. Whether Kosova was formally or legally united to Albania proper was moot and irrelevant. What was foremost was to establish ethnic Albanian control of the Kosovo region. When all the Orthodox Serbs had been killed or expelled from Kosovo and their Orthodox churches and cemeteries destroyed, the practical realization of a Greater Albania would result, whether legally recognized or not. In other words, what Albanian nationalists sought was a Kosovo taken over by ethnic Albanian Muslims who would expel the Serbian Orthodox and other non-Albanian populations and eradicate any non-Albanian cultural or religious monuments or symbols. It entailed the total and complete extermination and eradication of any non-Albanian population or culture or religion in Kosovo. The Greater Albania nationalist ideology presupposed genocide, biological and cultural and religious.
Kosovo was used by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to destabilize Yugoslavia. Ciano wrote: "We must lull the Yugoslavs. But later, our politics must energetically deal with Kosovo. This will keep the irredentist problem alive in the Balkans, engage the attention of the Albanians and be a knife aimed at the back of Yugoslavia."
Ciano was determined to occupy, annex, or acquire Albania for Italy. Albania was always an object of fascist Italian expansion and influence. Ciano even proposed to Yugoslav prime minister Milan Stojadinovic to partition Albania between Italy and Yugoslavia. Prince Paul, however, refused: "We already have so many Albanians inside our frontiers and they cause us so much trouble, that I have no wish to increase their number."
On March 25, 1939, Italy issued an ultimatum to Albania demanding the right to occupy the country. On April 7, following the rejection of the ultimatum, Italy invaded and occupied Albania and made it an "autonomous" possession of Italy, joined in a "personal union" with Italy under Italian King Victor Immanuel III. The Albanian National Assembly voted to unite Albania with Italy. King Zog and his wife Queen Geraldine fled with the newly born Crown Prince Leka to Greece, then to London. Queen Geraldine later said in an interview that the reason Zog fled was because Yugoslavia would not allow Albania to establish guerrilla bases or supply lines on Yugoslavian territory. To justify the invasion, the Italian news accounts of the time manufactured a propaganda story that Zog had invited Italian troops to safeguard his regime. Zog allegedly planned to use the forces to invade Kosovo according to these accounts. The Italian occupation forces installed Shefket Verlaci as the new Albanian prime minister.
Mustafa Kruja replaced Verlaci as prime minister at the end of 1941. In January, 1943, Kruja resigned. He was replaced by the Eqrem Bey Libohova government, which lasted for three weeks. The Maliq Bushati government, which replaced it, lasted three weeks itself. The Italian "lieutenant-general" or governor, Francesco Jacomoni, was dismissed and replaced as well at this time. In May, 1943, Libohova was appointed for a second time to head the Albanian fascist government.
When Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943, there were 7 to 8 Italian garrison divisions in Albania, consisting of 100,000 troops. Nazi Germany then occupied Albania and established a new "national committee". The new Albanian prime minister under German sponsorship was Rexhep Mitrovica.
In June, 1944, Fiqri Dine replaced Mitrovica, who had resigned.
In August, 1944, following Fikri's resignation, Ibrahim Bicaku was the last Axis-installed prime minister of Albania, before the German evacuation of the country.
Following the surrender of Yugoslavia on April 16, 1941 to the Axis Powers, the bulk of Kosovo and Metohija was immediately annexed to Albania. The western part of Macedonia, known as Illirida in the Greater Albania nationalist lexicon, was similarly annexed to Albania, as was territory from Montenegro. What emerged was a Greater Albania as envisaged by the 1878 League of Prizren made possible by the military intervention of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

3. Greater Albania Emerges

Following the annexation of Kosovo and Metohija, known as New Albania, by Albania, Albanian political leaders sought to integrate the Serbian province by establishing Albanian control over the region and by expelling or killing the Serbian Orthodox population. Albanian political leaders advocated the genocide of the indigenous Serbian population of Kosovo. Albanian prime minister Mustafa Kruja, in a June, 1942 speech made in Kosovo, then called the "New Albania", stated:
The Serbian population of Kosovo should be removed as soon as possible…All indigenous Serbs should be qualified as colonists and as such, via the Albanian and Italian government, be sent to concentration camps in Albania. Serbian settlers should be killed.
The pre-war Muslim Jemiet party founded a new political organization with an irredentist orientation called the Lidhja Kombetare Shquiptare, which sought to Albanize and Islamicize the province.
Ferat-bey Draga, a prominent Kosovo Albanian leader, stated that the "time has come to exterminate the Serbs" and that "there will be no Serbs under the Kosovo sun."
Austrian diplomat Hermann Neubacher, the Third Reich's plenipotentiary for southeastern Europe and Balkans diplomatic troubleshooter for Nazi Germany, noted the policy of genocide by Kosovar Albanian political leaders: "Shqiptars were in a hurry to expel as many Serbs as possible from the country. From those expelled local tyrants often took a gift in gold for permission to emigrate."
In a speech on the subject of Greater Albania before the Italian Royal Academy on May 30, 1941, Kruja stated that "with the victory of the axis powers and establishment of the new world order, Mussolini and Hitler will ensure the Albanian people a national state that will cover its broadest ethnic borders and be indissolubly linked with fascist Italy."
The Italian diplomat Carlo Umilta, the civilian aide to the commander of the Italian military occupation forces, stated that the Italian forces intervened on many occasions to prevent massacres of Kosovo Serbs by Albanians. Umilta stated that "the Albanians are out to exterminate the Slavs." An Italian army report stated that the Albanians are "hunting down Serbs" and that the "Serbian minority are living in conditions that are truly disgraceful, constantly harassed by the brutality of the Albanians, who are whipping up racial hatred."
Kachak irregulars or guerrillas from Albania poured into Kosovo-Metohija with the Italian occupation forces. The Italian fascist authorities created a local Albanian police in Kosovo, the Vulnetari. Albanian language schools were established, Albanian or Shqip was made the official language, the Albanian Lek became the official currency, the civil administration and governmental offices were staffed by Albanians, and Albanian newspaper and radio stations were established. Pec, Djakovica, Istok, and Orahovac were annexed to Albania at the start of the occupation. Kosovo and Metohija, known as New Albania, became incorporated into a Greater Albania.
Kosovo and Metohija were politically integrated into Albania, Shqiperia or Shqipnija. Albanian political representatives from Kosovo and Metohija met at the Albanian parliament in Tirana and were made part of the Tirana regime. Kosovo was now Kosova/Kosove, an Albanian district of northern Albania.
In April, 1941, the first week after the attack on Yugoslavia, Kosovo Serbs were immediately attacked. Retreating and withdrawing Yugoslav army units were attacked by Albanians who were not disarmed and who seized weapons from military depots and weapons warehouses or armories. Yugoslav troops were robbed or killed and their houses were burned and destroyed and were left empty and deserted.
The entire Albanian population joined in the attacks against Kosovo Serbs. According to Gavril Kovijanic, a professor in Pec, in 1941, Albanians destroyed 65% of the Serbian houses in Pec and 95% in other areas of Metohija. Serbian cemeteries and gravestones were desecrated and destroyed, trees and crops were cut down, and fields were destroyed, meant to starve out the Serbian population to force them to flee. The Albanians looted, robbed, burned Serbian houses and property; there were mass executions of Kosovo Serbs; Serbs were tortured, beaten, and humiliated; and there was the torture and killing of Serbian children and the rape of Kosovo Serb women.
Dimitrije Sekularac, a Kosovo Serb refugee from the Drenica parish, described on July 20, 1941 how he fled from Kosovo with his wife and children to escape the mass murders and genocide. Sekularac stated that as the Yugoslav armed forces and civilian administrative authorities were retreating from Kacanik in southern Kosovo, they were attacked by Albanian deserters of the Yugoslav army who used their weapons against the Yugoslav forces. These Albanian deserters burned houses and killed Serbian civilians.
Kosovar Albanians began killing Serbian civilians in the villages around Pec, where Sekularac and his family fled from. He appealed to the German occupation forces, who occupied the region at that time, for protection of the Serbian population but the German commander told him that he didn't have enough troops.
Prizren was under Italian military control at that time. The police was entirely made up of Italian members for a year following the occupation. Then a mixed Italian and Albanian police force was created. Around Prizren, new Serbian settlements and houses were uprooted and destroyed and the Serbs were expelled to Serbia and Montenegro. The Serbian land and properties were taken over by ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo Serbs were killed in the villages around Prizren in the first months of the war. Kosovo Serb Djordje Jovanovic, who had been the former president of the Damjanska district, was known to have been killed at this time.
Branislav Leskovac, 23, and Zivota Jovanovic, 24, gave eyewitness accounts of the occupation of Prizren in the early stages of the war and occupation. On April 17, 1941, Italian forces entered Prizren following the surrender of the Yugoslav army. The fascist Italian troops were greeted enthusiastically by the Albanian population because Ciano had promised them the creation of an ethnically pure, Albanian Kosova, incorporated into Greater Albania.
On about April 20, 1941, the first mass arrests and roundups of the Serbian population occurred when 20-30 Serbs were arrested and taken into custody. They had been part of the Yugoslav civil administration. They were imprisoned in the Prizren administrative/municipal/city hall building where they were beaten with guns and hoes. After a few days passed, five were led out and summarily executed. Those murdered were two brothers named Marjanovic, Andrija Fisic, Samardzija and Popovic, and one other person named Kokolja. Kokolja and Fisic were killed with knives and before they died their eyes were gouged out.
Kosovo Serbs were interned in prisons and concentration camps in Tirana and other sites in Albania. In March, 1942, about 40 Serbs were interned in Prizren.
Arrests of Serbs intensified when Albanian leaders visited Kosovo. When the fascist prime minister of Albania, Mustafa Kruja, made an official visit to Prizren in June, 1942, 30 Serbs were arrested.
Kol Bib Mirakaja, the secretary of the fascist party of Albania, made a visit in July, 1942, along with Italian governor Francesco Jacomoni, when more arrests of Serbs occurred and when they intensified.
In the summer of 1942, Serbs were rounded up and deported to internment camps in Tirana, Albania, where one Serb prisoner is known to have died.
In November, 1942, a fourth roundup of Kosovo Serbs occurred in Prizren when 25 Serbs were arrested and held in prison for five and a half months, until May 31, 1943. They were beaten and abused during this time.
On April 1, 1943, 25 Kosovo Serbs were taken to the Italian prison at Porte Romano near Draca. There were 900 Serbs in this prison camp, 600 of whom were from Gnjilane alone. The rest of the prisoners were from Prizren, Pec, Urosevac, Pristina, and Lipljan. The prisoners stayed at the Porto Romano prison until September 16, 1943 when the prisoners were released following the Italian surrender. Those from Gnjilane were transported by boat for Trieste. The boat sank, however, in the Adriatic Sea and almost all the prisoners were killed or drowned. Several survivors recounted this story in the middle of March, 1944 when they were in Urosevac.
When the Germans occupied Kosovo in 1943, they unleashed the Albanian police against the Kosovo Serb population. Murders and expulsions of Kosovo Serbs were intensified. While the Italians restrained the Albanians, the German policy was to turn the Albanians loose on the Serbian population to murder, rob, and loot Serbian settlements. The German occupation forces sought to gain favor with the Albanian population in this way.
Following the Italian surrender on September 8, 1943, Albanian interior minister Dzafer Deva came to Kosovo and reorganized the police force which was made up of balists, Greater Albania nationalists of the Balli Kombetar (BK, National Union).
On December 9, 1943, in Prizren, Kosovo Serb Stevan Bacetovic, a cafe owner, was taken from his house and he was murdered and his body was thrown in a garbage dump. Serbian houses and settlements around Prizren were torched and burned. Serbian women were raped in their houses. In 1944, the two sisters named Berzanovic were known to have been raped by Albanian attackers.
In September, 1943, Serbian houses had been robbed and looted and Serbs were murdered, while 800 were imprisoned.
In the Istok parish in Metohija, 102 Serbs are known to have been murdered by Albanians, as recorded by iguman Sava. Andrija Popovic, the Serbian Orthodox priest of the Istok parish, was murdered, as were priests Vladeta Popovic and Nikodim Radosavljevic of the Gorioca monastery. These are the names of the Kosovo and Metohija Serbs killed by Albanians as recorded in the parish record: Radivoje and Staleta Rasic, Ljupce Krstic, Dimitrije Mirkovic, Radovan Vulic, Radivoje Patric, Milosav Curic, Milisav Cirkovic, Vojislav Lusic, Vukola and Bogosav Antic, Vule and Nevenka Vojinovic, Vladimir Patric, Staleta Krstic, Milosav Carevic, Stana Vulic, Nikodim and Obrad Buric, Blagoje Bojic, Savo and Ilija Zuvic, Bogic and Stamena Zuvic, Ivko and Uros Pumpalovic, Radosav, Bogosav, and Zivko Pumpalovic, Radivoje Betic, Radomir, Sretko, and Stanoje Brajkovic, Milos, Petar, Djordje and Bogosav Asanin, Milic Maksimovic, Dimitrije Zuvic, Rako Deverdzic, Panta Pumpalovic, Milovan and Koja Asanin, Trajko and Sreto Brajkovic, Petronije, Simeon and Tomo Terzic, Dimitrije Krstic, Milos Popovic, Vojo Bojovic, Novica, Drasko, Voja and Vitomir Barjaktarevic, Jovan and Andrija Zivkovic, Vule and Sretko Raicic, Staleta, Milovan, Radosav, Petar, Krsto, Radomir, Mika, and Mata Sedlarevic, Krsto Burovic, Milenko Krsmanovic, Dara and Pero Burasevic, Radun Bekovic, Sreto Veljovic, Nedeljko Boric, Krsto Miljkovic, Petko Zaric, Milan Gocevic, Milenko and Janko Ristic, Maksim Popovic, Milica Zaric, Radovan and Buro Radicevic, Dragomir and Milos Darcevic, Cirko Djodjevic, Boka Vojinovic, Radisav Stanojevic, Milos Minic, Miro and Mileta Pitulic, Zdravko Nikolic, Trivo Grkovic, Vasilije and Radojko Martinovic, Milovan and Koja Asanin, and Trajko and Sretko Brajkovic.
In the Lipljan parish, the priest Borislav Kevkic, recorded the names of 62 Serbs who were murdered by Kosovar Albanians in the Lipljan and Donja Gusterica region: Spasa Milicevic, was killed on the road by a gun shot in 1941; Bogdan Cvejic, was killed in Pristina; Zafir Spasic, was killed in his own home; Velibor Markovic, 19 years old, was killed; Djordje Aksic and his wife Mirjana were killed the same day; Ilija Radenovic was killed at his house with a gun; Jovan Denic and his son Jordan were killed together with a gun; Nikola Lazic was killed on the road; Zivo Dimic was killed in the night; Veselin Matic was killed in 1942; Serafin Milivojevic was killed near his village; Milan Lazic was killed in the fields; 19-year-old Stojko Smiljic was killed in an unknown place; Milorad Stojanovic, who was 18 years old, was killed in an unknown place; Vojin Gudzic was killed near Dobrotina; Radomir Trajkovic was killed at Slovinja; Milan Jovanovic was killed outside the village; Ilija Rusimovic was killed between Dobrotina and Lipljan; Alexander Stolic was killed with a gun in his house; Gligorije Perenic was killed in the forest near the village; Stojan Miric was killed in 1942; Jevta Milkic was killed on the road; Velibor Milenkovic was killed on the road; Trajko Simic was killed in the fields; Serafin Cvejic was killed on his own fields; Blagoje Filic was killed in his home with his son Milorad; Miodrag Jovic was killed in Janjeva; Andrija Samardzic was killed in 1943; 22-year-old Luka Djokic was killed in the fields; 22-year-old Zivko Milicevic was also killed; Filjko Tanaskovic, a refugee, was killed in the fields; Mile Draskovic, was executed in Staro Gracko; Nedeljko Milicevic was killed in Gracko; Ilija Markovic, 22 years old, was killed; Damnjan Drljaca was killed in Suv Dol; Milutin Aksic, a high school student, was killed with a gun near the railroad track; Aksa Ilic was killed in the fields; Krsta Lalic was killed at night in 1943; Petar Kuzmanovic, a railroad guard, was killed in 1944; Marko Markovic, a railroad guard, was also killed; Mile Markovic, in N. Rujca; Anto Denda died after severe a beating; Jovo Lalosevic was killed in Suv Dol; Cveta Bulajic, Bosiljka Ozegovic, and Dusan Krtinic, all children, died from the explosion of a bomb; Blagoje Ilic died in battle; Nikola Papic and Vlado Bokic died in Suv Dol from a bomb explosion; Rajko Doslic, Bozidar Milkic, Stojan Vasic, Danica Novakovic and Danilo Ilic died in 1945 in battles with balists in Drenica; Nikola Bogunovic died from a beating in 1944; Cedomir Vucic and Aleksandar Kostic died in Drenica after battles with balists; Miladin Velic, wounded from a gun shot wound, died in 1945; Radomir Stojkovic died from a beating in Glogovica in 1945.
The German occupation forces were brutal towards the Serbian population of Kosovo, aiding and abetting the murders and expulsions carried out by their Albanian Kosovar proxies. The Italian forces were more sympathetic to the plight of the Serbian population.
In 1942, the Italians interned a large group of Kosovo Serbs. Facing imminent military collapse, in the summer of 1943, the Italians began transferring the civil administration in Kosovo to local Albanian Muslims. When Italy surrendered on September 8, 1943, a military and political vacuum resulted in Albania proper and Kosova. German forces poured into Kosovo and Albania from Serbia proper to occupy the area and to safeguard the fascist Greater Albania statelet founded by Benito Mussolini.

4. Serbian Orthodox Priests Systematically Murdered and Orthodox Churches Attacked in Kosovo

Albanian nationalist forces immediately attacked Serbian Orthodox Churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and monuments in Kosovo-Metohija because these were symbols of the Serbian historical presence in Kosovo which were an obstacle to the creation of a Greater Albania. Serbian Orthodox priests were targeted for torture and murder by Kosovar Albanians.
In 1941, 14 Serbian Orthodox priests and a nun were killed in Kosovo-Metohija. First the Serbian Orthodox priests Andrija Popovic of the Istok parish and Nikodim Radosavljevic of the Gorioca Orthodox monastery were murdered to terrorize the Serbian population of Kosovo and to force them to flee and to abandon their houses and land.
In October, 1941, the Serbian Orthodox priest, Abbot Damaskin or Damascene Boskovic, was tortured and murdered by Albanian forces. He was the prior of the Devic monastery. Abbot Boskovic was beaten, tortured, forced to walk over thorns and stones, and then shot to death. To show their arrogance and disdain, his Albanian murderers then photographed his murder, showing a heavily-armed Albanian paramilitary or quasi-police in a white skull cap shooting Abbot Boskovic on the ground.
The Devic monastery was then burned down and destroyed by the Kosovar Albanian attackers.
Fr. Luka Popovic, Fr. Uros Popovic, and Slobodan Popovic were killed while delivering the Orthodox holy liturgy service. The priest Krsta Popovic was killed in 1944, by Albanian balists. The Serbian Orthodox priest Aleksandar Perovic was killed in Podujeva in October, 1944 by Albanian police. Where he is buried is unknown. Jovan Zecevic, the iguman of the Pec patriarchate was killed by balists in Albania.
The Serbian Orthodox priest of Kosovska Mitrovica, Momcilo Nesic, was taken by German forces and executed in Banjica in 1943. The priests Cedomir Bacanin and Tihomir Popovic were executed in the night of November 28, 1942 in the Kosovska Mitrovica prison. The priest German from the Decani monastery was interned in Albania where he was executed. A priest from Decani, Stefan Zivkovic, was killed in the village of Zociste near Velika Hoca by an Albanian soldier on January 8, 1945.
The priest Stajko Popovic from Prizren was killed on April 17, 1943 in Kacanik by Bulgarian forces.
In the Rashka-Prizren eparchy, the priests Uros Popvic and Lika Popovic and the nun Pelagija were killed by Sandzak Muslims. The fates of three or four priests of this eparchy are unknown.
The priest Slobodan Popovic from Djakovica was killed on February 8, 1942 by Communist Partisan forces. The priest Mihailo Milosevic from Pec was executed on December 9, 1944 by Partisans. The priest Dragoljub Kujundzic from Urosevac was executed on November 30, 1942. Other Kosovo priests executed by the Partisans were Radule Bozovic from Pridvorica, Tihomir Balsic from Pec, Mitar Vujisic from Vitina and Simeon Gojkovic from Babin Most.
Kyr Serafim Jovanovic, the Bishop of Rashka and Prizren, fled from Prizren to the Decani Monastery. He was subsequently arrested and deported to the concentration camp in Albania proper where he was tortured and subjected to humiliation. He died from his injuries following this prison abuse on January 13, 1945 and was buried in Tirana. Bishop Serafim had been born in Prizren where the Serbian Theological Seminary or College had opened in 1871. He attended the Prizren Orthodox Seminary and later the Moscow Spiritual Academy where he was ordained an Orthodox monk on June 16, 1902 in the Church of St. Alexander Nevski of Skodra. He then became a professor at the Orthodox Seminary in Prizren. On December 23, 1920, he became a bishop of Zletovo-Struma in Macedonia. On October 29, 1928, he was elected a bishop of the Rashka and Prizren Diocese.
In Metohija, all Serbian Orthodox churches were destroyed to the ground in Serbian settled villages, which in April, 1941 were burned and the Serbian residents killed and driven out. Many churches were destroyed, demolished, robbed, or damaged.
These Serbian Orthodox churches were burned and destroyed in the following Serbian villages during the Greater Albania period of 1941-44: Bistrazin and Seremet in the Djakovica district, in Donja Ratisa, Pacaj, Nec, Ponosevac, and Rastavica. In the Djakovica district, in the village of Brnjaca near Orahovac, and in Cikatova in Glogovac, and the St. Peter Orthodox Church from the 14th century in the village of Korisa near Prizren.
Albanians robbed and demolished churches in Vitomirica near Pec, in Kacanik, in Veliki Belacevac near Pristina, the church of Saint Nikola in the village of Banja near Srbica, and the Saint Nikola church in the village of Banjoka near Vucitrn, and churches in the villages of Rastavica and Ratisa near Decani, in the village of Siga near Pec, in Crkolez near Istok, in Pomazatin near Pristina, the church in Podujeva, the church behind the village of Stimlja near Urosevac, and the monastery of Saint Mark in Korisa near Prizren, The Gracanica monastery and the Sokolica monastery were burglarized. The Samodreza church was damaged and frescos and icons were destroyed, and papers torn up.
In the St. Peter and Paul church in Istok, the Albanian leadership held 100 Serbians prisoner in the 1943-44 period from Istok and the surrounding villages for many months and would not let them leave, forcing them to use the bathroom in the church. The Gorioca monastery was also used as a prison in the mass arrests and roundups of Kosovo Serbs.

5. The Pristina Internment Camp for Jewish Refugees from Serbia

In 1942, the Italian occupation forces in Pristina established an internment camp or prison for Jewish refugees from Serbia proper. Jewish refugee families from Belgrade and other parts of Serbia were held in the Pristina internment camp for ten months.
The Mandil family was interned in the Pristina camp in 1942. The Mandil family consisted of Mosa, his wife Gabriela Konfino, their son Gavra, and their daughter Irena. The Mandil family lived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia at that time. Gavra had been born in Belgrade on September 6, 1936. Two years later, his sister Irena was born, at which time the family resettled in Novi Sad in Vojvodina in northern Serbia, where Mosa opened a photo studio. His father-in-law, Gavra Konfino, had earlier been the official Belgrade photographer of King Alexander Karadjordjevic of Yugoslavia.
Following the German, Italian, Albanian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, the Mandil family fled south to the "Italian-controlled province of Kosovo", which then was part of Albania, a Greater Albania created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) incorrectly and misleadingly referred to Kosovo as an "Italian-controlled province" during World War II. In fact, Kosovo was incorporated into Albania proper, thus creating a Greater Albania. The USHMM seeks to cover up or obfuscate the fact that Kosovo-Metohija was annexed to Albania.
The Mandil family was imprisoned for ten months with other Jewish families from Serbia in the city of Pristina, then part of Albania. Mosa was photographed with his wife Gabriela and son Gavra in the Pristina prison. Mosa made use of his photography experience and photographed the Italian prison guards and staff at the Pristina prison. In return, Mosa expected more lenient treatment. Several of the Jewish families subsequently complained about the overcrowded conditions in the prison. The Italian prison officials submitted the complaints of the Jewish prisoners to the German command. The German authorities responded, however, by executing half of the Jewish prisoners in Pristina.
Mosa Mandil then interceded with Italian officials to save the remaining Jewish prisoners by requesting their transfer from Kosovo to Albania proper. The Italians then moved the Jewish prisoners from Pristina to Kavaja in Albania proper by trucks.
Following the Italian capitulation and the German incursion into Albania, the Mandils moved to Tirana, hoping to find safety in numbers in the capital city. Mosa found work in the photography studio of Neshed Ismail, an Albanian who had worked for Gavra's grandfather in Belgrade. A sixteen-year-old Albanian apprentice, Refik Veseli, was also employed in this studio.
The Mandil family, along with the Be Yosif family, hid in the mountain village of Kruja from the German occupation forces from November, 1943, until October, 1944, when the German forces withdrew from Albania.
After the war, the Mandil family returned to Serbia, residing in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, where Mosa re-opened his photo studio. In 1946, Refik Veseli joined the Mandil family in Serbia by finishing his professional training in Novi Sad with Mosa.
In 1948, after the founding of Israel and the emergence of the communist regime of Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia, the Mandils emigrated to Israel.
The Altarac family was another Jewish family from Serbia interned at the Pristina prison. The Altarac family consisted of Majer and his wife Mimi Finci and their son Jasa and Lela. Majer had been a prominent architect in Serbia/Yugoslavia. Jasa had been born in Serbia in Belgrade on January 1, 1934. The Altarac family was wealthy and highly assimilated in Serbian society, but the family retained many Jewish traditions, including the yearly celebration of Passover with Majer's family in Sarajevo.
The Altarac family home in Sarajevo was destroyed during a German bombing raid during the Passover in April, 1941. Jasa's sister Lela and his grandmother were both killed.
After the bombardment by the Luftwaffe, Sarajevo was occupied by German troops and Croatian and Bosnian Muslim forces, who destroyed the Sarajevo synagogue and began the mass murder of Bosnian and Croatian Serbs and Jews and Roma.
The Altarac family escaped from the newly-formed Croat/Bosnian Muslim state, the Ustasha Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska (NDH), the Independent State of Croatia, established by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, which incorporated Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Altarac family fled to the city of Sabac in Serbia, where they were sheltered by the Serbian family of Miloje Markovic, one of Majer's foremen.
In July, 1941, the Altarac family moved back to Belgrade. Upon their return, the family had to register with the police, and Majer was taken for forced labor. Majer sought to obtain travel documents from Ermino Dorio, a business partner, that would allow the Altarac family to move to the Italian-occupied zone of Yugoslavia, the former Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija, then part of Albania. The Altarac family fled without these documents when they could not be obtained in time.
The Altarac family first went to Skopje, Macedonia, then part of a Greater Bulgaria, where they were given lodging by a Jewish family named Amarilio. Majer was recognized in the streets of Skopje and feared that he would be reported to the police because of his illegal presence there. The Altarac family could no longer stay in Skopje because of the risk of exposure and arrest.
Majer fled with his family to Pristina in "Italian-occupied Kosovo", then part of Greater Albania. Initially, the Altarac family lived with a Kosovo Serbian family in Pristina, who sheltered the Altarac family. Subsequently they settled with a Jewish family. As Serbian-speaking Jews from Belgrade, the Kosovar Albanian Muslim population would be hostile to the Altarac family. This explains why they were sheltered by a Kosovo Serb family in Pristina. By contrast, non-Kosovo Albanians in Albania proper were more sympathetic. The Kosovar Albanian nationalist leaders sought to eradicate not only Kosovo Serbs, but Serbian culture and the Orthodox religion and language. As speakers of Serbian and part of Serbian society, the Altarac family could only expect hostility from Kosovo Albanian Muslims, who perceived Kosovo Jews as part of the Serbian society and culture. The goal of the Greater Albania nationalist movement, the 1943 Second League of Prizren, the Balli Kombetar (BK), the Albanian Kosovo Committee, was to create an ethnically pure Albania Kosova/Kosove. Ethnic homogeneity was a key objective of the Greater Albania nationalist groups in Kosova/Kosove.
The German occupation forces put increased pressure on the Italian occupation officials in Pristina to turn over the growing numbers of Jewish refugees from Serbia. In order to appease the German command, the Italian forces concentrated all the non-resident Jewish families in one location. The Jewish families were first placed in an abandoned school, and later, transferred to Pristina's main prison. The refugee families were allowed to stay together in family units. They were also separated as a group from the regular prisoners. They were allowed to go out in the prison courtyard during the day.
The Altarac family became acquainted with the Mandil family, another refugee family from Serbia. Mosa Mandil, who was a professional photographer from Novi Sad, was able to obtain lenient treatment from the Italian prison commander by taking photographs of Italian officials and authorities. Mosa obtained permission to go to the market each day which enabled the Jewish refugee families to receive enough food to maintain their health.
But by the late spring of 1942, the German command demanded that the Italian occupation forces in Pristina turn over the Jewish refugees from Serbia in their custody. The Italian authorities turned over 51 Jewish prisoners in Pristina to German authorities. These Jewish prisoners were subsequently killed. Jasa Altarac's aunt Frida and cousin Dita, who were part of this group, were killed.
On July 8, Italians occupation authorities in Pristina interned the remainder of the Jewish prisoners in several different locations in Albania proper. The Altarac and Mandil families were among a group of 18 prisoners from five families that was sent by truck to Kavaja. In Kavaja, the Jewish families were required to report to the police station every day. The five families--- the Altarac, Mandil, Azriel, Borger, and Ruchvarger families---rented several apartments on the top floor of a building that they referred to as the "Red House."
In September, 1943, the Altarac family moved to Tirana. This was the period when Italy surrendered and German troops were then forced to occupy Albania proper, Kosovo-Metohija, and western Macedonia, which then made up Greater Albania. They hid in a small apartment in Tirana. Jewish refugees from Serbia Sida Levi and her son Mikica, were cousins from Belgrade who joined the Altarac family. Mimi Altarac sold garments in order to earn money for the family.
The Altarac family hid in a country house in Kamza in February, 1944. Mimi Altarac and their cousins fled to Tirana in August, however, when they heard that German authorities were in the region. German officials arrived and detained Majer and Jasa after their departure. They hid the fact that they were Jews from the German officials. Majer and Jasa then joined Mimi in Tirana when they were released.
The Altarac family returned to Belgrade after the withdrawal of German forces from Tirana in the fall of 1944. They stayed in Serbia until 1948, when they immigrated to then Palestine. Jasa Altarac married Enica Franses, a Jewish survivor from Skopje, Macedonia, in 1960.

6. Greater Albania and the 1943 Second League of Prizren

When Italy surrendered on September 8, 1943, Germany reoccupied Kosovo-Metohija and Albania proper by deploying the XXI Mountain Corps led by General Paul Bader and made up of the 100th Jaeger Division, the 297th Infantry Division, and the 1st Mountain Division. German policy was to strengthen Albanian Greater Albania nationalist and extremist groups and sought to recruit Kosovar Albanians into German occupation forces.
The Italian occupation forces, by contrast, sought to hold in check the Albanian extremist nationalist groups who sought to completely cleanse Kosovo of Orthodox Serbs by deporting all Serbs and by killing them en masse. The Germans on the other hand, turned the Albanian nationalist groups loose. The Germans immediately understood that the way to ensure Kosovar Albanian cooperation and support was to lend German support for Greater Albania.
The way to recruit and enlist Kosovar Albanians in the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS was to exploit the Albanian nationalist ideology of Greater Albania and an ethically cleansed Kosovo, an ethnically pure Albanian Kosova. The German occupation thus resurrected the 1878 First League of Prizren by creating the 1943 German-sponsored Second League of Prizren. The First League of Prizren established the Albanian nationalist ideology of Greater Albania, the goal to unite Albania proper with all Albanian-inhabited regions of the Balkans, which included not only Kosovo-Metohija, but Western Macedonia or Illirida, northern Greece or Chameria, southern Serbia, and southern Montenegro.
On September 16, 1943, Djafer Deva, a member of the Balli Kombetar (BK, National Union), organized the Second League of Prizren "in cooperation with the German occupation authorities". Attacks against Kosovo Serbs increased and intensified. Over 10,000 Kosovo Serbian families are estimated to have been driven out of Kosovo during the German occupation. The 1943 Second League of Prizren, the Albanian Kosovo Committee, and the Balli Kombetar were crucial in the creation of the 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg".
On March 19, 1944, Bedri Pejani, the president of the Second League of Prizren, wrote Heinrich Himmler a letter requesting that Himmler organize Albanian formations in the Waffen SS. Himmler wanted to recreate the Albanian Legion of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Himmler wanted to revive the German-Albanian cooperation from the Habsburg period when Austria-Hungary was a sponsor of Greater Albania. Himmler was also buttressed by recent anthropological research by Italian historiographers who had found that the Ghegs of northern Albania and Kosovo-Metohija were Aryans, the herrenvolk, the master or chosen race, who had preserved their racial purity for over two thousand years. Himmler thus needed manpower for the Waffen SS, he wanted to revive the Austro-Hungarian Legion, and he wanted to exploit the Aryan blood of the Ghegs of Kosovo. Himmler planned to form two Waffen SS Divisions made up of Kosovar Albanians. Bedri Pejani wrote to Himmler:
Excellency, the central committee of the Second Albanian League of Prizren has authorized me to inform you that only your excellency is united with the Second Albanian League, that you should form this army, which will be able to safeguard the borders of Kosovo and liberate the surrounding regions…
Bedri Pejani
Hans Heinrich Lammers, chief of the Reich Chancellery, sent Pejani's letter to Himmler, who wrote Lammers about the planned formation of the two new Kosovar Albanian SS Divisions:
Most respected party friend Lammers! I received your letter of April 29 together with the letter of the president of the central committee of the Second Albanian League of Prizren. At this time one Albanian division is being formed. As things now stand, I plan to form a second division, and afterwards an Albanian corps will be formed…
Heil Hitler! Yours very faithfully, H. Himmler

7. Albanian Battalion in Bosnian Muslim Handzar Nazi SS Division

There were 300 Kosovo Albanian Muslims in the Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen Gebirgs Divison der SS "Handzar/Handschar", an Albanian Battalion in Regiment 28, I/28. This Albanian Battalion in Handzar would form the core of the later Kosovar Albanian Skanderbeg SS Division.
Albanian Muslim squad leader Nazir Hodic was a prominent member of the Handzar Waffen SS Division. Ajdin Mahmutovic was another Albanian Muslim member of Handzar, who was seventeen when he joined the Handzar SS Division. He recalled on June 14, 1996: "I was only seventeen years old when I joined (the SS), I found the physical training to be quite easy."
Himmler ordered that the Bosnian Muslim troops in Handzar wear the Ottoman Turkish fez because it was the national attire of the Bosnian Muslims and because Bosnian Muslim Regiments of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Army had worn fezzes. Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk had outlawed the Ottoman fez in the 1925 Hat Law, but Bosnian Muslims either had not noticed or did not care. The Ottoman Turkish fez continued to be the national attire of the Bosnian Muslims. Ataturk outlawed the fez because it was associated with and was symbolic of the Ottoman Empire; Ataturk sought to establish a secular republic in Turkey. Moreover, the Ottoman fez was associated with a reactionary and militant form of Islam that Ataturk rejected in favor of a secular state.
Himmler, by contrast, wanted to achieve the opposite. He wanted to revive the militant and jihadist nature of Islam and of the Ottoman Empire. Himmler told propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels that he had "nothing against Islam because it educates the men in this division [Handzar] for me and promises them heaven if they fight and are killed in action; a very practical and attractive religion for soldiers!" Himmler wanted fanatical, blind obedience, and soldiers who would sacrifice in the name of religious or ideological belief.
Himmler thus made the fez the conspicuous symbol of the Handzar SS Division. Himmler allowed officers in Handzar, however, to wear the Waffen SS mountain cap or Bergmutze as part of the walking-out uniform or Ausgehanzug. There was a field-gray fez that was to be worn as part of the service uniform, and a maroon or red fez for officers to be worn as part of the walking-out or parade uniform.
On July 30, 1943, Herbert von Obwurzer, who was put in charge of the formation of the division, ordered that the "fez or the Bergmutze could be worn on duty." Von Obwurzer had commanded a regiment on the eastern Front and been a member of the SS Division "Nord". The members of the Bosnian Muslim Handzar Division wore the fez or the Bergmutze, both Bosnian Muslim and German members.
The Ottoman Turkish fez was appropriate as the national attire of Bosnian Muslims but not for the Kosovar Albanian Muslims in the Handzar Division. The national attire of the Kosovo Albanians was a white woolen skull cap.
Himmler sought to solve this problem by having the SS Main Office headed by Gottlob Berger issue a specially-made Kosovar Albanian skull cap. Himmler decided that "a different type of headgear was necessary for the division's Albanians" in a November 26, 1943 letter to Oswald Pohl, the chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Main office (WVHA).
Himmler proposed a white skull cap for Albanian Waffen SS troops that would revive the skull cap worn by Albanian Muslims in the Albanian Legion that had been part of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Army. The Waffen SS Main Office approved the issuance of a specially-made Albanian gray skull cap or Albanerfez, Albanian fez. A field gray model of the Albanerfez was made by the SS Main Office and distributed for the service uniform for the Albanian troops in the Albanian battalion, I/28, in Handzar, in early 1944.
There was some doubt whether an Albanian gray skull cap was ever actually issued to the Albanian Waffen SS troops. Photographic evidence, however, establishes conclusively that a gray skull cap was produced by the Waffen SS for Albanian SS troops, which had the Totenkopf or Death's Head skull and bones insignia of the SS under the Hoheitszeichen insignia of Nazi Germany, an eagle holding a Nazi swastika. SS Brigadefuehrer and Generalmajor of the Waffen SS Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig, the commander of the Handzar Division, was shown in several photographs wearing a gray Albanian skull cap or Albanerfez. The NCO of the I/28, Rudi Sommerer, was photographed alone wearing the gray skull cap and in a photograph with Nazir Hodic, the Albanian squad commander in I/28. Walter Schaumuller, a commander of 5./28, was photographed wearing the Albanerfez during Unternehmen Osterei or Operation Easter Egg on April 12, 1944 south of Mitrovici. There are also several photos of Albanian Waffen SS troops in Skanderbeg wearing the Albanerfez. Austrian Erich Braun, the operations officer of Handzar, and Rudi Sommerer, an NCO from I/28, acknowledged that the SS never issued white skull caps, but specially-made gray ones, in letters dated November 27 and September 21, 1992.
In April, 1944, the I/28 Albanian Battalion in the Handzar Division was transferred to the newly-forming 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" (albanische Nr. 1) in Pristina in Kosovo. The Albanerfez or gray SS skull cap was no longer worn in the Handzar Division but became part of the uniform of the Kosovar Albanian Skanderbeg Waffen SS Division.
SS-Ostuf. Carl Rachor of Handzar rated the military ability of the Albanian and Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS troops favorably. In a letter of September 14, 1943, he wrote that "the enlisted men, particularly the Albanians, shall become outstanding soldiers."
Albanian troops in the Handzar Division participated in several important battles of the division in 1944 in Bosnia. Before launching its first offensive action, Unternehmen Save or Operation Sava, the assault into northeastern Bosnia across the Sava River, Sauberzweig wrote a letter to the Handzar troops: "We have now reached the Bosnian frontier and will (soon) begin the march into the homeland… The Fuehrer has provided you with his best weapons. Not only do you (have these) in your hands, but above all you have an idea in your hearts---to liberate the homeland….Before long, each of you shall be standing in the place that you call home, as a soldier and a gentleman; standing firm as a defender of the idea of saving the culture of Europe---the idea of Adolf Hitler."
Sauberzweig also ordered that as Handzar units crossed the Sava River, each commander was to read a prepared message which emphasized that the "liberation" of "Muslim Albania" was to be a goal, directly appealing to the Albanian troops in the Division:
As we cross this river we commemorate the great historic task that the leader of the new Europe, Adolf Hitler, has set for us---to liberate the long-suffering Bosnian homeland and through this to form the bridge for the liberation of Muslim Albania. To our Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, who seeks the dawn of a just and free Europe---Sieg Heil!
The motto of the Division was then invoked, "Handzaru---udaraj!" ("Handzar---Strike!"). Each member of the Division was also given a portrait photograph of Adolf Hitler as Hitler's "personal gift" to the troops.
Elements of the Handzar Divison crossed the Sava River on March 15, 1944. Regiment 27 crossed the river at Bosanska Raca using assault boats. The rest of the division crossed at the Sava Bridge at Brcko following an intense artillery barrage. The division suffered only light casualties.
Rudi Sommerer, an NCO from the Albanian Battalion in Handzar, 6./28, recalled the assault in a January 4, 1993 letter:
Our company crossed the Sava at dawn. We were the first unit in our sector to cross, and made enemy contact immediately. We suffered several dead, among them Rottenfuehrer Mrosek, a comrade of mine with whom I had served in Finland. The Partisans immediately pulled back into the forests.
The flat Pannonian Plain allowed for a rapid advance by Regiment 27 through Velino Selo to Brodac. Bijeljina was taken on March 16. The regiment then consolidated its position in the city. Regiment 28 bore the brunt of the fighting as it advanced through Pukis and Celic and Koraj at the Majevica mountains. Sauberzweig later recorded that II/28 "at Celic stormed the Partisan defenses with (new) battalion commander Hans Hanke at the point" and that the enemy forces withdrew after running out of ammunition and suffering heavy casualties.
On April 12, 1944, the Handzar Division launched Unternehmen Osterei or Operation Easter Egg in northeastern Bosnia with two pincer assaults. Regiment 27 captured Janja and advanced through Donja Trnova and the Ugljevik mines. The Albanian Regiment 28 on the other hand advanced south through Mackovac and Priboj. The first battalion was ordered to seize the local Majevica heights and "suffered considerable casualties in the fighting." German NCO in I/28 Rudi Sommerer recalled the role of the Albanian Muslim troops in the battalion in this attack in letters dated November 23, 1992 and January 4, 1993:
My Albanian squad leader, Nazir Hodic, took five of his men and stormed a Partisan position in the hills. They overran the knoll, killing several of the enemy without incurring any friendly losses.
This was the Albanian Battalion's last engagement with the Handzar Division. On April 17, 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered the formation of the Skanderbeg SS Division in Kosovo, then part of a German-sponsored Greater Albania. The Albanian I/28 was detached from the Handzar division and transported by railroad to Pristina in Kosovo where a new battalion was created from SS personnel and officers and NCOs from other Waffen SS formations along with Albanian recruits and conscripts from Kosovo and Albania proper. According to Gottlob Berger, the head of the SS Main Office, in a letter to Himmler of April 13, 1944, the Albanian troops in Handzar "were quite sad about leaving."

8. Kosovar Albanian Nazi SS Division Skanderbeg

Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler planned to create two Albanian Waffen SS Divisions and two Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS Divisions. In a May 22, 1944 letter to Artur Phleps, the former commander of the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", Himmler outlined his plans to form two Albanian SS Divisions:
My goal is clear: The creation of two territorial corps, one in Bosnia, the other in Albania. These two corps, with the Division "Prinz Eugen", as an army of five SS mountain divisions, are the goal for 1944.
Himmler ordered the formation of the Kosovar Albanian Skanderbeg Nazi SS Division on April 17, 1944, following the approval by Adolf Hitler. The Skanderbeg Division was made up of 6,491 ethnic Albanian troops, two-thirds of whom were from Kosovo-Metohija, or Kosovars. The core of the new division was the newly transferred I/28 Albanian Battalion from the Bosnian Muslim Handzar SS Division from Bosnia-Hercegovina. To this Albanian core were added German troops and officers and Ncos, Reichsdeutsche from Austria and Volksdeutsche officers, NCOs, and enlisted men who were transferred from the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen". The Skanderbeg Division consisted mostly of Albanian Muslims of the Sunni and Bektashi sects of Islam and several hundred Albanian Roman Catholics. The total strength of the Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division was 8,500-9,000 men.
The first commander of the Skanderbeg division during its recruitment and formation stages was SS Brigadefuehrer and Generalmajor of the Waffen SS Josef Fitzhum, the Higher SS leader in Albania. Fitzhum supervised the formation of the new division from April to June, 1944. The combat commander of the division was SS Standartenfuehrer August Schmidhuber, who assumed command in June, 1944. Schmidhuber had transferred to the Skanderbeg Division from the Prinz Eugen SS Division, then stationed in Bosnia-Hercegovina. In August, 1944, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Alfred Graf assumed command of the reorganized remnants of the division, formed into a Battle Group or Kampfgruppe until May, 1945.
Kosovar Albanian troops in the Skanderbeg SS Division deserted when they had to fight anti-occupation guerrilla troops. Instead, these Kosovar Albanian SS troops concentrated their efforts on murdering Serbian civilians, women as well as children, and driving out Kosovo Serbs and taking over their houses and lands.
Following the 1943 Second League of Prizren and the revival of the Greater Albania nationalist ideology by Nazi Germany, Kosovo Serbs were again targeted for mass murder and deportation. A new wave of killings and expulsions and seizures of Serbian land and property occurred. An estimated 10,000 Serbian families were driven out of Kosovo by the Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division. In their place, Albanian settlers and colonists from northern Albania were brought in to take over the Serbian land. In Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo, pro-Kosovar Albanian activist and advocate Miranda Vickers, who would later work as an analyst for George Soros' International Crisis Group (ICG) and is "ICG's Senior Albania Analyst", a self-styled "Albanian expert", was compelled to acknowledge this fact:
Until the first months of 1944 there were continued waves of migration from Kosovo of Serbs and Montenegrins, forced to flee following intimidation… The 21st SS 'Skanderbeg Division' (consisting, as already mentioned, of two battalions) formed out of Albanian volunteers in the spring of 1944, indiscriminately killed Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo. This led to the emigration of an estimated 10,000 Slav families, most of whom went to Serbia…replaced by new colonists from the poorer regions of northern Albania. How many Kosovo Serbs were killed during the Greater Albania occupation period of 1941-44? A contemporary World War II U.S. intelligence report stated that 10,000 Kosovo Serbs were killed in the first year of the occupation. No exact figure has been accurately determined for the number of Kosovo Serbs killed during the Greater Albania period, the Italian/German occupation period, 1941-1944. The number can conservatively be deduced to be between several thousand at a minimum to over 10,000 as a maximum.
How many Kosovo Serbs were expelled? The World War II Commissariat for Refugees in Belgrade registered 70,000 Kosovo Serb refugees during the Italian/German occupation of Kosovo. This figure is a reasonably accurate minimum figure. Kosovo Serb refugees who did not register or who fled to other regions of the former Yugoslavia, such as Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, were not accounted for. A conservative estimate of up to 100,000 Kosovo Serb refugees takes into account the refugee wartime records and those refugees missed in the reports.
During the Greater Albania period in Kosovo's history, when Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini made Kosovo part of Albania, over 10,000 Kosovo Serbs were killed and 100,000 Kosovo Serbs were expelled. What occurred in Kosovo then was a planned and systematic genocide against the Serbian Orthodox population, a biological and a cultural genocide sponsored by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. War crimes and crimes against humanity were committed against the Serbian Orthodox population of Kosovo, and against the Kosovo Jewish and Kosovo Roma populations.
But this genocide in Kosovo is nowhere to be found in mainstream accounts of Yugoslav or Balkans history and remains an untold story. The genocide in Kosovo is censored and deleted from historical accounts of World War II and the Holocaust. You can look for it, but it is nowhere to be found. "The researchers at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. do not even know that Kosovo was part of Albania during the Holocaust. The Museum researchers list Kosovo as a "Serbian province" during the Holocaust. But this is incorrect and misleading. Kosovo-Metohija was part of Albania from 1941 to 1944. The Holocaust Museum seeks to falsify history and to exculpate Albanian leaders during the Holocaust by seeking to spin doctor events during World War II. It must never be forgotten that the USHMM is funded by the US State Department and that the primary sponsor of Greater Albania today is the US government and media and US economic interests. So there is considerable pressure on the USHMM to falsify the history of Kosovo and Bosnia. After all, how would it look if it was revealed that the long-suffering Kosovar Albanians had formed a Nazi SS Division that had played a major role in the Holocaust, in the murder of Jews, of Kosovo Jews, and the murder of Kosovo Serbs and Roma? How do you spin doctor the fact that the Kosovar Albanians engaged in a planned and systematic policy of genocide and mass murder against Kosovo Serbs? You really cannot do it. The only option is censorship and falsification and obfuscation. And that is what the USHMM has done. History becomes just something you manipulate and distort and censor, like everything else.

[Metak]

9. Operation Draufganger and Massacres of Serbian Civilians

On July 28, 1944, the Skanderbeg SS Division and the 7th Prinz Eugen SS Division attacked the village of Velika in the Lim valley. Skanderbeg and Prinz Eugen were alleged to have massacred 428 Serbs of which 120 were children and burned down 300 Serbian houses. This was during a German military operation known as Unternehmen Draufganger or Operation Daredevil.
The Axis Order of Battle consisted of the following Nazi formations: the Kosovar Albanian 21st SS Skanderbeg Division, the 14th SS Regiment from the 7th SS Division "Prinz Eugen", the Kampfgruppe Bendl, the Kampfgruppe Stripel, parts of the Brandenburg Regiment, and the 5th SS Police Regiment. Operation Draufganger was aimed at the 2nd Assault Corps NOVJ (Drugi Udarnicki Korpus NOVJ) which was formed on October 11, 1943 from the 2nd Proletarian Division and the 3rd Assault Division and was conducted in the Andrijevica area in the Lim valley area between Montenegro and Kosovo-Metohija. The action was conducted from July 18 to 26 to prevent the breakthrough of the Operative Group of the Division into Serbia. The Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division was broken or decimated during the operation while other units suffered significant casualties and the German plan failed.
SS Brigadefuehrer Otto Kumm commanded the Prinz Eugen SS Division during this action. He would command the division from January 30, 1944 to January 20, 1945. He was replaced by SS Oberfuehrer Schmidhuber who would return to command the Prinz Eugen SS Division after Skanderbeg was reorganized as a Battle Group on January 20, 1945 to the end of the war on May 8, 1945. Prinz Eugen and Skanderbeg were part of the 5th SS Corps of 2nd Panzer Army, commanded by Lothar Rendulic, which was part of Army Group F.
In an attack on the village of Velika in the Lim valley, Kosovar Albanian troops in the Skanderbeg SS Division murdered Serbian civilians, women, and children. Milunka Vucetic personally witnessed the murder of the three-year-old Serbian child Tomislav Vucetic, who was then skinned alive by Kosovar Albanian troops in the Skanderbeg SS Division:
I approached the house of Milovan Vucetic. Around afternoon an army from Ivanpolje came into the area. We decided to take them bread, salt, which we had.
When the army approached, I saw how in the olive grove Tomislav, the son of Milovan Vucetic, played. Two soldiers took him, a third ran over…one took out a knife and began to skin the child alive from his eyes downwards. I could not watch what occurred. I began screaming and his mother Leposava-Lepa ran over to protect him. She was killed.
Another survivor of the massacre, Radoje Knezevic, recalled the role of the Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division:
I was only 11 years old when Hitler's Division "Skanderbeg" and "Prinz Eugen" burned down the village of Velika and killed about 428 persons. Our family paid a heavy price that day. On that day my mother Stojanka was killed and then her body burned. The same fate befell my two brothers Nedeljko (5 years old) and Ratko (11 months old). My sister Raba (18 years old) was killed as she was trying to protect her mother and young brothers, And she too was burned.
Divna Vucetic, a survivor of the massacre, recalled:
I heard news of massacres in the surrounding villages so I became concerned for the safety of my children, the two eldest of whom I sent into the woods…I held in my lap my one year old son, Boza. On the threshold my daughter Persida approached, who was only three years old, and after her my two nieces, four year old Kata and three year old Nata, and daughters Cvete and Dusana Vucetic….A soldier approached with a gun…I told him that I wanted to bring him bread, as I was ordered to. He replied to that: "Germany has bread!" He spoke our language [Serbian] perfectly. He then shot at me, killing my son Boza in my lap, and wounding me in the right hand.
The division tagesbefehl or daily command report of the commander of the Skanderbeg SS Division, Schmidhuber, read as follows for June 25, 1944:
Operation 'Draufganger' was completely successful. It tied up strong enemy elements and diverted the partisan leadership from conducting their planned operations. The army has expressed its recognition for the efforts made by the participating troops and their commanders.
The Skanderbeg SS Division daily report for July 1 read as follows:
Special recognition goes to the excellent commitment of the reinforced 14th Gebirgsjager Regiment under the command of Ostubaf. Gross…
Kumm, the commander of Prinz Eugen, concluded: "Thus, Operation 'Draufganger' was over. It did prevent the planned movement and attack by the enemy, while also hindering the supply distribution from the Berane airfield. However, the great concentration of so many enemy divisions remained a problem!"
The remaining regimental units were then redeployed through the Cakor Mountain pass between Berane in Montenegro and Pec in Metohija on August 1. The II/14 was transported to Pec in Kosovo-Metohija. On August 2, they moved into the Rashka area on the Ibar. SS-Ostuf, Karl von Krempler was in command in the Rashka region of Serbia.
Kumm recalled the battles in Rashka/Sandzak during Operation Rubezahl: "Von Krempler, the 'Sandschak Prince,' and his Muslims did hold out in a mountain fortress against the enemy assault, but the majority of the combat capable 'Turks' were with their Divisions 'Handschar' and 'Skanderbeg.' The German assault on Rashka/Sandzak was commanded by Artur Phleps (who commanded "Group Kommando Sandschak) and consisted of the 7th SS Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, the 1st Mountain Division, the Handschar Division (which participated in the initial stages then was transferred to the 2nd Corps to protect the crossing of the Drina River in eastern Bosnia), and the Skanderbeg Division.
Kumm described the Skanderbeg Division as follows: "From the southeast, out of Albania, was committed Oberfuehrer Schmidhuber and his 21st SS Gebirgs Division 'Skanderbeg,' an Albanian freiwilligen division. Not much was expected from the commitment of this division---it had just gotten over the creation phase. There was no relying on these troops, other than their German cadre."
On June 18, the German assault concentrated on establishing a bridgehead over the Lim River in the Prijepolje-Sjenica-Razdacinja area. Kumm wrote: "The objective set for the operation by the commander of the 21st SS Division 'Skanderbeg,' Oberfuehrer Schmidhuber, was to destroy the strong enemy concentrations in the Berane area (today Ivangrad) and prevent the airfield from being used by the Allies to fly in supplies for the partisans."
The report from the II/14 battalion commander was as follows: "Pec lay in a deep pocket, surrounded by the mountains of the north Albanian Alps. Although the leader of the Serbian Orthodox National Church seats one of his patriarchs here and there are beautiful old domed churches evident, there are also minarets in the village…Before Operation 'Draufganger' was broken off, the situation reflected: 'Strong enemy forces, two well-equipped partisan corps, are assembled in the Berane-Andrijevica area either to secure the Berane supply airfield and eventually support an Allied landing, or break through to the east and meet the Russian formations in the eastern Balkans.' We moved first to the south into the source region of the Lim and took up positions around Gusinje, a border town next to Albania, in preparation for an attack."
The German forces then retreated from Andrijevica and aborted the planned assault on Berane and withdrew along the Cakor mountain pass through Gracanica and Murina along the Lim River. The report from the battalion commander noted: "Oberfuehrer Schmidhuber reminded us that the situation on our side had to be cleared up somehow. At the regimental command post we decided to attack the Stit…It was rumored that the 1st Gebirgs Division was committed from Pec to the Cakor pass."
The enemy forces were pushed back to the north in the Rashka area of Novi Pazar. This ended Operation Draufganger.
On or about August 11, 1944, in reprisal for an attack east of Kukes, the Skanderbeg SS Division, which was then under the jurisdiction of the XXI Mountain Corps, hanged six "hostages".
Kurt von Geitner, the Chief of Staff of the Military Commander of Serbia and the Military Commander of the Southeast, from August, 1944 to October, 1944, was subsequently indicted for war crimes after the war. Alexander Lohr was the commander of Army Group E. He was tried and executed as a war criminal after the war. Lohr planned the April 6, 1941 bombing of Belgrade by the Luftwaffe that killed 17,000 Serbian civilians.

10. Kosovar Albanians and the Holocaust

Kosovar Albanians played a major role in the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, or the Holocaust. This Kosovar participation in the mass murder and genocide of Kosovo Serbs and Jews has been covered-up by the mainstream historians and media in the so-called West. The US government has falsified, covered-up, and spin-doctored away the significant role the Kosovar Albanian Muslims played in the mass exterminations of Kosovo Serbs and Jews during the Holocaust. This Kosovar genocide remains an untold story of World War II, a massive cover-up.
In 1941, 550 Jews lived in Kosovo. The Jewish presence in Kosovo went back for over five hundred centuries. During the Holocaust, 210 Kosovo Jews were killed, or 38.18% of the Jewish population of Kosovo. Kosovar Albanians played a major role in the murder of the Kosovo Jews, a role that has been hitherto suppressed and covered-up.
The first operation of the Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division occurred in Pristina on May 14, 1944. It was a raid on Kosovo Jews. The mass arrests and roundups of Kosovo Jews followed, conducted by Kosovo Albanian Muslims.
The Albanian Kosovo troops in Skanderbeg raided apartments and homes where Kosovo Jews lived, looted their possessions, and rounded them up for deportation to the Nazi death camps. Kosovo Jews were subsequently assembled in makeshift jails. The Kosovar 21st SS Division Skanderbeg apprehended 281 Kosovo Jews, which included men, women, and children. From May to June, 1944, the Skanderbeg troops rounded up a total of 519 Kosovo Serbs and Jews.
When Pristina was first occupied by German troops in 1941, the property of Kosovo Jews was seized, and along with Kosovo Serbs, Kosovo Jews were conscripted for forced labor.
In the northern Kosovo city of Kosovska Mitrovica, Jewish shops and stores were closed and Kosovo Jews were forced to wear a yellow band. The seizure and confiscation of Jewish property was organized and conducted by the Gestapo and by members of the Albanian Committee.
On May 20, 1941, prominent Kosovar Muslim leader Dzafer Deva, the political leader of the Kosovska Mitrovica district, ordered the seizure of Jewish property. Jewish businesses in Kosovo were subsequently taken over and "supervised" by members of the Kosovar Albanian Committee. The seizure of Jewish property in Kosovo was carried out by Kosovar Albanians Mamut Perijuc, Ramiz Mulic, and Osman Ibrahimovic, the leader of the commission which oversaw Jewish property, who worked in conjunction with the Gestapo.
Osman Ibrahimovic ordered the destruction of the Jewish synagogue and the destruction of documents and papers in the Jewish archive.
In Pristina, the seizures of Jewish property and anti-Jewish measures were undertaken by the local Kosovar Albanian civil administration and the members of the Albanian Kosovar Committee. Maljus Kosova was the president of the Albanian Kosovo Committee, while Dzemal Beg Ismail Kanli was the head of the police. Rasid Memedali and Rifat Sukri Ramaan were also members of the Committee.
Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Kosovo placed responsibility for the first and second internments of Kosovo Jews on the local Kosovar Albanian leaders. In the Jewish historical archives of Yugoslavia: "From May 25 to July 2, 1944 the Division 'Skanderbeg' apprehended 510 Jews, Serbs…They were put in jails, while 249 were sent as forced laborers to the Reich."
In Kosovo: A Short History, Kosovar Albanian advocate and propagandist Noel Malcolm was forced to grudgingly admit that Kosovar Albanian Muslims of the Nazi SS Division Skanderbeg in the Djakovica region of Kosovo engaged in "the round-up and deportation of 281 Jews to the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in May, 1944 where they were gassed. Malcolm was forced to concede that Kosovar Muslim Albanians and Roman Catholics had participated willingly in the mass murder of Kosovo Jews. Malcolm consciously and methodically censored, suppressed, and covered-up the genocide conducted against the Serbian Orthodox population and the mass murders of Serbian orthodox priests and the systematic destruction of Serbian Orthodox Churches and monuments and cemeteries.
Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, in the seminal analysis of the Holocaust, The Destruction of European Jewry (1961), documented the role of Kosovar Albanians in the mass murder of Kosovo Jews:
The roundups spread from the mainland of Greece to neighboring Albania. In April, 1944, the commanding general in Albania reported that SS Division Skanderbeg (Albanian collaborators) had arrested 300 Jews in Pristina ("new" Albania, in Yugoslav territory, near the frontier of the domain of the Befehlshaber in Serbia). Between May 28 and July 5, 1944, the SS division rounded up another 510 "Jews, Communists, partisans, and suspicious persons" in the Albanian area. From that group, 249 were deported.
Hilberg based his information from the military report, militarbefehlshaber Sudost, signed by Chief of Staff Kurt von Geitner to Army Group F on April 16, 1944, copies of which were sent to OKH or General Headquarters, the 2nd Panzer Army, the German Plenipotentiary General in Albania, the German General Plenipotentiary in Croatia, the Luftwaffe Commander in Croatia, and the V SS Mountain Corps and a report of the XXI Mountain Corps of July 13, 1944.
The Kosovar Albanian role in the Holocaust has largely been suppressed and covered-up in the mainstream accounts of the Holocaust.

11. Conclusion: Playing Tricks on the Dead

The Nazi and fascist past of Kosovo is carefully censored and covered-up by the US government and media and the establishment academic elites. But occasionally the truth slips through their carefully constructed facade of infotech reality and free world independent media. Then all the irony and absurdity leaps out. "History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead." That is what Voltaire maintained. But history also plays tricks on the living. It is the Kosovo Serbs who are the victims of genocide in Kosovo. Over 230,000 Kosovo Serbs, Roma, and Jews have been expelled from Kosovo since the illegal NATO occupation of the Serbian province. Over a thousand Koovo Serb civilians have been murdered, including women and children. Serbian priests have been attacked and murdered. Over 150 Serbian Orthodox churches have been destroyed and Orthodox cemeteries desecrated. The US government, media, and so-called political analysts and think tanks have deluded themselves and have manipulated the facts. The Kosovo crisis has always been about the creation of a Greater Albania, which in practical terms meant a Kosovo controlled by Albanians and cleansed on all non-Albanians, Kosovo Serbs, Roman, and Jews. The Kosovo conflict was always about the secession of Kosovo-Metohija and the creation of a Greater Albania. Ironically, the justification for the military intervention by the US and NATO was to prevent a genocide in Kosovo. But in fact, the US and NATO allowed Kosovar Albanian nationalists to achieve a Greater Albania through genocide. In short, the US and NATO were merely finishing the job started by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, achieving the practical realization of the Greater Albania ideology. There is a historical continuity from World War II as is shown by the following instance. In an NBC news report from June 18, 1999, a correspondent described the return of German troops to Prizren again for the first time since 1944, revealing Kosovo's hidden Nazi past:
I was at dinner with a kind Kosovo Muslim family the other night when talk turned to the German NATO troops that rolled into town to make the city the headquarters of its peacekeeping district. The patriarch of the family, a man old enough to remember the last time German troops rolled into Prizren, said they all felt safe now. 'The German soldiers are excellent,' he said. Then he added, 'I should know, I used to be one.' Then he raised his arm in a Nazi salute and said, 'Heil,' and laughed merrily.
The uniforms and the acronyms have changed from the Waffen SS to NATO and the political sponsors have changed from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and Heinrich Himmler to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair and Madeleine Albright, but the Greater Albania ideology remains exactly the same, identical to that enunciated by the 1943 Second League of Prizren, and the 1878 First League of Prizren.

Bibliography

Fischer, Bernd J. Albania at War, 1939-1945. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999.
Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1961.
Ivanov, Pavle Dzeletovic. 21. SS Divizija Skenderbeg. Beograd: Nova Knjiga, 1987.
Jevtic, Atanasije. Stradanja Srba na Kosovu i Metohija od 1941. do 1990. godine. Belgrade: Janus, 1990.
Kane, Steve. "The 21st SS Mountain Division", Siegrunen: The Waffen-SS in Historical Perspective, 6, no. 6, issue 38, October-December 1984, pp. 21-30.
Kumm, Otto. Prinz Eugen: The History of the 7 SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen". Winnipeg, Canada: J.J. Fedorowicz, 1995.
Lepre. George. Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1997.
Michaelis, Rolf. Die Gebirgs Divisionen der Waffen SS. Erlangen, Germany: Michaelis Verlag, 1994.

[Metak]

>double post<

[Freibier]

Those atrocities in the 40's were horrible.
While your at it, wanna write a liitle about the serbian genocide in the 90's ?

[Metak]

Albanians are those who commited genocide at Kosovo in the 90s, not Serbs. You can see here what those savages have done to Serbs in recent years (link contains very graphic images!):
http://www.pogledi.co.yu/galerija/kim/

[Tom The Hunter]

Albanians are those who commited genocide at Kosovo in the 90s, not Serbs. You can see here what those savages have done to Serbs in recent years (link contains very graphic images!):
http://www.pogledi.co.yu/galerija/kim/

So serbs killed no civilians in Croatia, Bosnia and Cossovo?
Thanks!
You make me understand what the brainwash is!

[Tom The Hunter]

The Skanderbeg SS Division, formed at March 1944, totally 3 thousand men.

Serbian SS, 15 thousand men, formed at 1941.

Serbian behaved worst than S from 1991 to 1999.
Their President is in trial for crimes against humanity.
And you say it's not true!
My God! :roll:

[Tom The Hunter]

Serbisches Freiwilligen Korps der SS was formed Nov 1944 when the command of Srpska Dobrovoljacki Korpus (Serbian Volunteer Corps) was transferred to the Waffen-SS.
Srpska Dobrovoljacki Korpus, SDK, (Serbian Volunteer Corps) was formed Sep 1941 as the Srpska Dobrovoljacki Komanda (Serbian Volunteer Command). Most of its members came from the fascist Zbor party. It was renamed SDK Jan 1943.
It retreated from Serbia to Slovenia Oct 1944.


Commanders:

General Kosta Musicki 16.Sep.1941-27.Mar.1945
General Damjanovic 27.Mar.1945-04.May.1945

Order of Battle (Jan 1943)
1. Battalion
3 x Companies
2. Battalion
3 x Companies
3. Battalion
3 x Companies
4. Battalion
3 x Companies
5. Battalion
3 x Companies

Order of Battle (1944)
1. Regiment
3 x Battalions
2. Regiment
3 x Battalions
3. Regiment
3 x Battalions
4. Regiment
3 x Battalions
5. Regiment
3 x Battalions

Manpower strenght:

Feb.1942: 3513
Okt.1943:10500
Okt.1944:6500
May.1945:3000

[Metak]

Albanians are those who commited genocide at Kosovo in the 90s, not Serbs. You can see here what those savages have done to Serbs in recent years (link contains very graphic images!):
http://www.pogledi.co.yu/galerija/kim/

So serbs killed no civilians in Croatia, Bosnia and Cossovo?
Thanks!
You make me understand what the brainwash is!

How did you make that conclusion, I didn't say that Serbs didn't kill civilians. In every war civilians get killed, just see how many innocent civilians died in Iraq, Avganistan, etc.

[Metak]

Serbisches Freiwilligen Korps der SS consisted mainly of Germans(Volksdeutchers) who had lived in Serbia before the war, not of Serbs except few traitors.

[Tom The Hunter]

Serbisches Freiwilligen Korps der SS consisted mainly of Germans(Volksdeutchers) who had lived in Serbia before the war, not of Serbs except few traitors.

I think that the greatest problem of all balcanics, is that you ALL have not the civil courage to accept in realistic way and with honesty your responsbilities!

[Tom The Hunter]

I just made a research in Internet.
They were 3 thousand Albanians in SS, and 56 thousand in the antifascist war. It's true that some Albanians commited attrocities against Serb civilians, but I read how Serbian Government behaved with Albanian from 1913 to 1941. 400 thousand were obligated to immigrate in Turkey and Albania, thousand upon thousand were killed and dissapeared.
This by the strategy of extermination concepte by Vasa Cubrilloviq, one of the greatest terrorists of the story. He was one of the persons, that take part to murder of Prince Franz Ferdinand at 1914, that made explose the WWI.
This atempt was organizated from the terrorist organization Black Hand, by importan serb militaiers, including Colonel DargutinDimitrievic, the chief of serbian counterintelligence.
So WWI was caused by serb terrorists, and not from psicopathic Gavril Princip, but by the leadership of Serbian State!

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWblackhand.htm

1. THE FIRST PROJECT OF VASA CUBRILOVIC ( it seems that the thinks of Cubrillovic were taken from Mein Kampf)

In the years preceding the World War II, the Albanian National Question would become one of the most problematic issues in the Serb politics and of great concern to Serb foreign policy. In fact, Serb politicians would be more preoccupied with the Albanian Question during these years than in any other period after the Balkan Wars of 1911-1913. The reasons for their concern were primarily of a domestic nature-among the numerous and complicated factors, one has to single out the intense ethnic conflict between diverse nationalities and Serbs within Serb-dominated Yugoslavia-but other reasons, such as the delicate position of Yugoslavia in the new European system and new alignments in the Old Continent contributed heavily to the constant paramountcy of the Albanian National Question in the Serb plans.

It is worth noting that while beginning with the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918 and until mid-1930's, the Albanian question had been a problem falling exclusively within the jurisdiction of Serb Military, Royal Police, and especially of the Colonization Commission which was the responsible authority for the expulsion of Albanians and the settling of the Serb colons in Kosova. After mid-1930s, the Albanian National Question became a main preoccupation of other state, political, scientific and cultural institutions in Serbia. The starting point for any consideration of the Albanian problem was posed in this way: the various attempts to achieve ethnic cleansing of the Albanian territories occupied during and after the Balkan Wars had not been as successful as it was expected. Despite enormous efforts to expel Albanians, according to Serbs, there were still too many Albanians living there. To their dismay, and despite of numerous campaigns of expulsion, the number of Albanians had increased. There were even more than when they had been when Serbs occupied these Albanian territories. Given the extremely complicated the political and inter-state relations in Europe-and it was obvious that global relations of this kind were getting even more complicated in the mid-thirties-Serb policy-makers argued from a geo-political and a strategical point of view that the increased number of Albanians could become a dangerous destabilizing factor for Yugoslavia. The coming to power and at the head of Italian fascist state of Mussolini and later the increased dictatorial power and ambitions of Hitler in Germany turned upside down the alliances and the fragile continental equilibria. In Europe were created various new political, economical and military alliances as well as well-defined spheres of influence. Serb policy-makers felt that under these circumstances, Yugoslavia-in their opinion a state fit to rule the Balkans-if not openly threatened, was clearly disregarded as even a political force capable of maintaining the equilibrium in Balkans. On the other hand, to Yugoslav policy-makers Albania appeared to be stronger than it really was. The reason for this mistaken perception can be found in the close alliance between Italy and Albania, an alliance that made Albania seem to be a Protectorate of Italy although this was a questionable opinion. On the other hand, Croats, Slovenes, and, to a certain degree, Bosnian Muslims were increasingly expressing their dissatisfaction with their status as second class citizens in a Yugoslavia which was dominated politically, economically, and militarily by Serbs.
Due to the reasons and circumstances described above, the Serb policy-makers, which by this time were conducting their domestic and foreign policy under the Yugoslav label, made the Albanian Question their priority and sought to solve it as soon as possible, in a final form and to their satisfaction. According to their publicly expressed opinions, the Albanian question was the most thorny and the most vital question for the future of the Yugoslavia and its future existence as a state. At this time, the Albanian question became one of the most disputed topics in the political and cultural life of Serbia occupying entire pages of newspapers and journals. However, at an official level, the treatment of the Albanian question was left at the hands of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia, and of two very powerful Serb think tanks: The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Serbian Cultural Club. This was not an uncoordinated effort where each institutions conducted research on its own account. Representatives of various Serb and Yugoslav Ministries and institutions such as Ministry of Interior, Yugoslav Army General Staff, Ministry of Agrarian Reform, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Policy, and of course, Serbian Academy of Sciences were invited to actively participate in the meetings organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia. In these meetings the question was formulated openly and clearly: What should be done to organize and achieve the expulsion of all the Albanians without damaging further the precarious political situation of Yugoslavia?

Distinguished members of Serb political and intellectual elite of various academic backgrounds, such as historians, ethnologues, journalists, writers, politicians, priests, officers, economists and sociologists were invited to participate n the meetings organized by the Serb Cultural Club. More than anything else, at this time, the Serb Cultural Club, which was a semi-official organization, was transformed in a club concentrated on the exchange of projects and ideas that offered a solution to the Albanian question. In different written essays and discussions, Serb officers, politicians, and intellectuals participating in the meetings of the Club sought to answer the question already mentioned before: What should be done to solve the Albanian problem in a final and satisfactory way? Regardless of the differences in the projects offered and means suggested by them to solve the Albanian question, authors such as Gjoka Perina, Milosav Jelicic Atanasije Urosevic, Orestie Krstic, Borivoje Panjevac agreed on one point: Albanians should be expelled and their territories must be colonized with Slavs once and forever. According to the discussant Perina, the final solution of Albanian question would be 'an immortal achievement of our Serb people.'

However, the most complete program presented to the Serb Cultural Club in which the means and methods of solving the Albanian question are defined was the project or the Memorandum presented by Vasa Cubrilovic. This Memorandum was the most complete political program dealing with Albanians mainly for two reasons: first, its author had an excellent understanding of political situation of the time and second, he had a good understanding of Albanians and their culture and mentality. Cubrilovic-a historian, a future member of Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Member of Russian Academy of Sciences-would become known also as a politician after the W.W. II. Meanwhile, while he was writing The Expulsion of Albanians, Cubrilovic was known and honored as a great chauvinistic Serb nationalist. He had been member of organizations such New Bosnia which had organized l'attentat against the life of the Austrian Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia in 1914. The incident served as the casus belli of the W.W.I. Although the memorandum The Expulsion of Albanians was presented at the Serbian Cultural Club on March 7, 1937, it would remain unknown to the Albanian and Yugoslav public opinion for a long time to come. At the time when the memorandum was written, but even for many years later, Serb policy-makers would be very careful not to disclose its existence. They were acutely aware of the fact that the distribution of a racist project aimed at the elimination of an entire population from its own ethnic territories-a very rare project in the European history indeed-would have political consequences that would damage its international standing and reputation.
A careful reading of The Expulsion of the Albanians reveals that although Vasa Cubrilovic was born and grown up in Bosnia, he knew the Albanian question as well as the other Serbian historians only dreamed about knowing it. Before starting to work on his memorandum-just as other Serb "experts" of Albanian question had done before him-Cubrilovic had studied extensively Albanians, he had traveled in their territories and studied their culture. Cubrilovic opens his memorandum with a severe critique to the Serb government for its failure to solve the Albanian question. Then he goes on to present the strategical, economical, political and nationalist reasons why, according to him, the Albanians should be expelled. Finally, he discusses in detail the methods and the means to be used in this expulsion.

The historian Vasa Cubrilovic deems necessary to criticize Serb State because it has not expelled collectively all the Albanians a long time ago. The Yugoslav, or better to say, the Serb State was found guilty because during the massive expulsion of Albanians after 1918 from the territories with a mixed population, where Albanians had lived for centuries with Serbs and Montenegrins, the methods used by Serb state were too Western, and according to Cubrilovic, too democratic to achieve the desired goal. Cubrilovic reminds the Serb power-holders that they had forgotten too soon after the Balkan Wars that the Serb nation lives in Balkans, a region where not only the power and the status are won by force and by sword, but where every piece of land and every home is won and defended only by force and by sword. According to Cubrilovic, differently from other Balkan states that after 1912 had solved or were solving the question of ethnic minorities through their collective expulsion, the Serb government applied the slow method of a gradual colonization, a very ineffective method indeed. Since it had failed to achieve the collective expulsion of Albanians, the Serb government had failed also to achieve the much needed colonization of the abandoned territories. Precisely for these reasons, even the gradual method applied during the expulsion proved to be so ineffective during the colonization. It is true, admitted Cubrilovic, that the Serbian state has created a huge bureaucracy responsible to achieve the colonization. However, the bureaucracy was too huge, composed of corrupted and incompetent officials who have misused the large sums of money and extensive means at their disposal to achieve the colonization. Serb officials and politicians have forgotten the experience taught to them by previous rulers, such as Knjaz Milos, his son Knjaz Mihailo and Jovan Ristic, who did not create separate ministries to oversee the agrarian reform, who did not have supreme agrarian inspectors, but who, nevertheless expelled all Albanians from the Southern Serbia in 1877-1878. Following those methods, those rulers "cleared Serbia from the foreign elements and inhabited it with their own people."

In his critique to the Serb state, Cubrilovic concludes that Serb politicians do not understand why the expulsion of Albanians is a matter of utmost importance for Yugoslavia. According to him, to say that in many aspects the Albanian question is a vital issue for the Yugoslavia would not be an overstatement. According to Cubrilovic-and he was expressing the views of the circle who appointed him to compile the memorandum-The Expulsion of the Albanians is of primary strategic importance for Serbs, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, and why not? The expulsion of Albanians is a vital matter to the all South Slavs who live in Yugoslavia. Albanians are the only nation that has been able to stand within the Serb state heartland. "The Albanian wedge-that's how he calls the territories inhabited by Albanians on the both sides of the Shar Mountain-is deep inside the Serb heartland and it isolates Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins from each other." As Cubrilovic says, this Albanian wedge "has divided our lands of the Old Raschka from the Macedonia and the Vardar Valley; this wedge in the form of a triangle "inhabited with the anarchic Albanian element" during the Nineteenth century "has been an obstacle to the cultural, economic and educational relationship between our Northern and Southern parts of the state." We (Serbs), continued Vasa Cubrilovic, cannot claim that we are masters of these territories so long as they are inhabited with Albanians. If we fail to recreate the vital and uninterrupted link between Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia in its entire width from Drin to Southern Morava then we never will be able to claim mastery of Balkans.

Cubrilovic insists that the destruction and annihilation of this Albanian triangle or triangle has a vital strategic importance for Serbia but also for the Yugoslavia. Considered from a strategic and a military standpoint, the Albanian triangle occupies the most important part of the territory because it controls and occupies the valleys and Balkan rivers that flow towards the Aegean and Black Sea. Who controls this strategic position controls also the Central Balkans. More than anything else, it controls the central Balkans through the line Morava-Vardar. Not by mere chance the most important battles that in the past have decided the future of Balkans, such as the War of Nemanja against the Greeks (Byzantines); the war of Serbs (in reality, the war of Balkan coalition) against the Turks in 1389; the battle of Huniadi (in reality, the battle of Scanderbeg in Pollog) against the Turks in 1446 have taken place in this area. According to Cubrilovic, "in the twentieth century only that state which is populated by a single people (his people) can be secure in the possession of its territory." For this reason, it is our unavoidable duty that such important strategic position not be left under the control of "a hostile and foreign element" such as Albanians. Only with the reversal of the ethnic composition of the territories around the Bjeshket e Sharrit, [in original Sar Mountains]-which is to be translated as the Expulsion of the Albanians-we can be sure that these areas will be once and for all part of the Yugoslav territory.

The strategic importance of the domination of the Albanian triangle does not end here. With The Expulsion of the Albanians from that triangle is cut once and for all the connection between the Muslims in Bosnia and those of Novi Pazar with the Islamic world. After the expulsion of Albanians as an Islamic element, the Muslims of Bosnia and Novi Pazar would become a national minority, the only religious minority in Balkans. Once they would become religious minority they would be assimilated easily. The Expulsion of Albanians from the areas of the Albanian triangle is strategically important for another reason: the expulsion of Albanians would create Lebenraum (vital space) to that "turbulent pastoral element that for centuries has contributed essential features to our race"-and here Cubrilovic has in mind the Montenegrins. According to him, the known energetic Montenegrins would best serve the Serbian common good if they are encouraged to turn towards southeast, towards Kosova and the Pollog Valley and relocate there. Cubrilovic insists that the expulsion of Albanians is a very strong pre-condition to avoid a dangerous irredentism that could explode within twenty to thirty years and that would put the Yugoslav (Serb) domination and ownership of all that territory in question. And yet, Vasa Cubrilovic is very well aware that the violent expulsion of a whole population could be a catalyst to a strong reaction by Albania, Albanian friends, and by world public opinion. Regarding the first source of reaction Cubrilovic is not worried whether Albanian state would react or not. We should let Albania know, said Cubrilovic, that we would not hesitate to use every means at our disposal to achieve a definite and final solution to this problem." We also know, continued Cubrilovic, that as always, Austria and Italy would be against us. A reason to be worried, according to Cubrilovic, is if France and England, the allies of Serbia oppose to the project. However, suggests Cubrilovic, to France and England "must be given the cool and resolute answer that the security of the Morava-Vardar line is in their interests, a thing which was confirmed during the last great war [WW I] and it will be made more secure, both for them and for us, only when we completely dominate the regions around the Shar Mountains and Kosovo from the ethnic aspects."

The question, then is, how to eliminate the Albanian triangle? According to Cubrilovic's point of view presented in the demonic and infernal memorandum The Expulsion of the Albanians, the only way to give a final solution to the Albanian question is to expel Albanians, en masse and collectively in Turkey and Albania. To achieve this, the Yugoslav state must undertake several measures and achieve the most efficient coordination of political, statal, military and police actions. First, the state must begin a propagandistic campaign aimed to create a psychosis of expulsion among Albanians themselves. Through oral and written communication, in the streets, in the meetings, in journals and conversations, this campaign should be describing in details the endless beauties of the lands where the Albanians would be transferred. It is necessary to lavishly praise the life in these lands where the Albanians were to be transferred. The encouragement of the Albanian dedication to the transfer in Turkey and Albania, insisted Cubrilovic, must be accompanied with very intense political pressure exercised by the state: the life of Albanians should be made miserable through the use and the passage of tricky laws but also within and out the framework of law. Albanians should be fined and imprisoned through ruthless application of police dispositions; they must be punished for cutting trees and for letting their dogs outside their courts; they must be forced to work without pay; we should refuse to recognize their deeds on property, be that house or land; we should add taxes and all other private obligations; we have to deprive them of their grazing lands and especially of their communal lands; we should prohibit them from obtaining licenses to open coffee-houses, groceries and to exercise professions; they must be expelled from the state jobs when they have one but also from the jobs in the private sector; we have to destroy the walls and hedges around their houses; we have to prohibit them from selling their livestock by requiring them to have a veterinarian license and then refuse to issue one; we must destroy their graves; we must prohibit their marriage with certain women; we have to maltreat their clerics; they must be imprisoned. To the Serb and Montenegrin colons we must give arms; the terrorizing actions of the Chetniks must be revived; we should bring Montenegrin highlanders to cause conflicts with Albanians and later these conflicts should be explained to the world as fights within Albanian clans, local riots must be incited to create pre-conditions for the Serb state to bloodily subdue them-in effect eliminate Albanians-with the complicity of the military force. There is another measure that "Serbia has been employing successfully after 1878;" using undisclosed persons to burn entire Albanian villages and quartiers in towns.
Cubrilovic stresses the importance of the organizational factor. True, the encouragement of Albanians to transfer to Turkey and Albania, is important; and yet, even more important is the efficient organization of this transfer. A good organization of expulsion would convince other people that are undecided and hesitate to transfer. Having a good understanding of the Albanian people's life, Cubrilovic counsels his employers that the first move should be to expel the Albanian peasants. According to Cubrilovic, "In the first place, resettlement should begin in the villages and then in the towns. Being more compact, the villages are more dangerous. Then, the mistake of removing only the poor should be avoided; the middle and rich strata make up the backbone of every nation, therefore they too, must be persecuted and driven out. Lacking the support which their economically independent compatriots have, the poor submit more quickly." All those who accept to go must be helped to do without hesitation. Thus, it is important to simplify the bureaucratic process; the state should pay them the value of their property as fast as possible; they should be given documents and even to be helped to come to the nearest train station; measures should be taken to secure separate trains for them to Salonic and from Salonic, we must procure ships to send them in Asia; Serb state must pay for their food and their ticket would be offered for free. "Only in this way it is possible to create that flow of displaced Albanians which will empty our South of them."

The rest of the project The Expulsion of Albanians, Cubrilovic dedicates to the question of colonization, and in particular, to the techniques of achieving it. To the Yugoslav government, Cubrilovic suggests to colonize the Albanian lands with Montenegrins and Serbs. Why with Montenegrins? The answer offered by Cubrilovic is that since they are rude, aggressive and merciless, "the Montenegrins are the most appropriate instruments to overcome [and uproot] them [the Albanians]." Why with Serbs? The answer is that Serbs are good farmers. Serbs chosen from the poorest areas will teach Montenegrins how to work the land and so all will become colons, tied to the land, rich and dedicated Serbs.

To achieve the colonization in time and at the desired degree, as well as to eliminate mistakes committed in the previous colonization campaigns, all the matters should be left at the hands of the General Staff of the Serb Army. Only the Army knows what measures to take to safeguard the borders and only the Army is capable of doing what is needed. The General Staff must directed the colonization process through the Council on Colonization. On the other hand, the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the University of Belgrade must conduct the scientific study of the whole process of the colonization. This should be done in a separate institution, the Institute of Colonization that must be created jointly by the two aforementioned institutions. It is understandable that the Police would have a major role to play both in the expulsion and the colonization phases. For this reason, the policemen must have emergency power and authority to decide whatever they see fit and deem necessary not only during the first phase of the expulsion of Albanians but also during the second phase, the colonization of Albanian ethnic territories by Serbs and Montenegrins. It is in this way that the renowned Serb historian, winner of the most prestigious awards for scientific research concludes his demonic project, intended to send all the Albanians, an entire nation, to the other world.

2. THE YUGOSLAV-TURKISH CONVENTION ON THE EXPULSION OF ALBANIANS

The Memorandum of Cubrilovic, The Expulsion of the Albanians, was written at a time when the Yugoslav (or Serb diplomacy) was working feverishly to reach an agreement with Turkish Government on the transfer of the "Turks" in Turkey. The highest Serb officials would have several meetings-some public and most behind closed doors-with Turkish officials until a deal was made in 1938. Although its long title is An Agreement on the Rules of Emigration of the Turkish Population from the District of Southern Serbia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in reality that agreement was made to sanction the expulsion of Muslim Albanians. This could be deduced even from a diagonal reading of those articles of the agreement where the regions from where will be removed the "Turks" are defined. These regions are the Banovinas of Vardar, of Zeta and of Morava, exactly those areas that in the Memorandum of Cubrilovic would be defined as Albanian wedge, the triangle within the Serbian heartland. On the other hand, the fact that the agreement regards exclusively Albanians is seen clearly from the secret message sent from the Yugoslav Representative in Turkey to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslav Kingdom in Belgrade. In this message, explicitly stated is that the agreement is concerned exclusively with the Expulsion of Albanians. This agreement foresaw the expulsion of 40.000 "Turkish" families, but the Serb public opinion was not satisfied with that amount. Upon the publication of this number, the dissatisfied Belgrade press requested to the Government that instead of a mere 40.000 Albanian families, the government should reach an agreement to expel at least 400.000 Albanian families. Therefore, it is not surprising to find out that the Commander of the Third Serbian Army proposed to his superiors in Belgrade to install new military garrisons in the areas where the Albanians are over ninety percent of the population. His declared intentions were to insure the application of the Expulsion of Albanians and the colonization of those areas by Serbs and Montenegrins. "We should put every efforts and use every means at our disposal that strong and compact Albanian enclaves be destroyed as soon as possible. This could be achieved by inserting in their midst colonists whose number must reach at least 50 percent of the population in any given area. Unless we reach this objective, none can admit that the expulsion of the Albanians has been conducted in an efficient manner."

The Agreement explicitly stated that the property of the expelled Albanian peasants, including arable and grazing lands and their homes, would become property of the Yugoslav Government. The Yugoslav government could dispose of this property in the way it sees fit-it might sell or present it to the Serb and Montenegrin Colons-as it is explicitly stated in the Agreement, "according to the Law on Colonization of the Southern Serbia." Just as in the Memorandum of Cubrilovic, The Expulsion of the Albanians, even in the Agreement is clearly stated that the expellees would travel by train to Salonic and from Salonic, they would travel by sea. All their travel expenses would be covered by the Yugoslav government.

Aiming at encouraging the "voluntary" transfer of "Muslims," the Agreement stresses the concession that all the sons of the families that would agree to transfer within the terms of the Agreement were not going to be conscripted, while all the sons of the families that lived in the areas covered by the agreement would not be conscripted during the coming year. The Yugoslav government was interested in the expulsion of Albanians, so much so that it agreed to pay to the Turkish government 15.000 dinar-a huge amount of money at the time-for every transferred family. The Agreement on the Rules of Emigration of Turkish Population From the Region of Southern Serbia in Yugoslavia, which was an agreement to expel Albanians-as we have already argued- would not be ratified due to the difficult political circumstances at the years preceding the W.W. II. However, even when this agreement was still in a draft form, the Yugoslav government began the forcible transfer of Albanians. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia had ordered the Yugoslav employees in diverse custom offices and checkpoints that Albanians who visit Turkey be refused reentrance in Yugoslavia. This was done through a distinct seal stamped on their passports on their way to Turkey. Thanks to that seal, on their return to Yugoslavia, the police forbid them to enter Yugoslavia. Immediately after the prohibition to return in Yugoslavia, the Albanians would ask for their family to leave, too. Meanwhile, Yugoslav officials were contemplating even more large scale plans on the expulsion of Albanians from their ethnic territories, of such dimensions that the expulsion of a mere 40.000 families would seem a children's game.

3. THE PROJECT OF IVO ANDRIC

If the historian Vasa Cubrilovic in his memorandum, The Expulsion of Albanians, focuses on the Problem of Albanian within Yugoslavia, in other words he considers this problem mainly as a domestic issue, the writer Ivo Andric focuses on the Albanian question as a foreign policy issue. The project written by Andric in 1938 is a very interesting project not only due to its interesting theme but also due to the notoriety of Ivo Andric himself. Widely considered as the greatest Serb writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1961, Andric was a member of the Serb Academy of Arts and Sciences. At the time when he wrote the project, requested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia, Andric was a high ranking official in this Ministry, in fact, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was one of numerous Serb writers who thanks to their reputation as creative people and their knowledge of West pursued a diplomatic career. Andric had begun his diplomatic career in 1921 as a counselor of the Yugoslav Representation in Vatican and later as vice-consul in Graz and Marseille. Later on, Andric worked in the General Consulate of the Yugoslav Kingdom in Paris, then as Secretary of the Yugoslav Embassy in Madrid, Secretary of the Permanent Yugoslav Delegation at the League of Nations in Geneva. He held important assignments such as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia and finally Minister Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary Envoy at the Yugoslav Embassy in Berlin where he remained until June of 1941-after Hitler attacked Yugoslavia-and Andric upon his request, returned to the occupied Belgrade.

Andric was known as a cultivated person with a rich background in History and the politics of the region, but also as an experienced diplomat in the international politics and a writer with impeccable nationalist credentials. Due to the rare combination of such excellent qualities in a single person, Andric was chosen and trusted with the writing of a memorandum suggesting policies that if pursued by Yugoslavia would solve its Albanian Question. His task to write this memorandum would be very delicate, in particular, due to the need to define policy towards Italy which was very influential on Albania. It should be noted that during this time, high Yugoslav officials were having meetings with their Italian counterparts and needless to say their exchanges focused specifically on Albania. It is during this time, that the Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs Milan Stojadinovic, a former Prime Minister, met several times with the Italian Foreign Minister, the Count Galeazzo Ciano. In the several meetings they had, Milan Stojadinovic insistedly requested from Count Ciano "to substitute the King Zog with another figure-a more dignified figure-although he (Stojadinovic) did not know who this figure might be." It was a time when Stojadinovic requested from Ciano that Italy and Yugoslavia divide Albania among themselves and Count Ciano did not speak about a division but about a correction of Albania's borders with Yugoslavia.

The political project of Ivo Andric is an analysis of the Serb policies and then of the Yugoslav policies regarding the Albanian question starting from the Balkan Wars of 1912 up to the 1939. The project of Ivo Andric is a careful political evaluation of the events and turning points regarding the attempts of Serbia and Montenegro-later Yugoslavia-but also of Greece and Italy before, during, and after the Balkan Wars to divide the Albanian territories and remove Albania from the political map of Balkans. However, in his project, Andric aimed at demonstrating something else. His main goal was to show how the Serb policy, or more formally, the Yugoslav policy, had failed in its attempts to keep Italy, a European power as far as possible from the Balkan Peninsula. Failing in this crucial point, according to Andric, Yugoslavia could not remain the only power in the Balkans, a strategic role assigned to Yugoslavia in its inception by its creators and protectors, England and France and coveted by Yugoslav politicians.

Highly preoccupied that the Italian role in the Balkans might be more influential and determinant than Yugoslavia's, Ivo Andric regretted the fact that Yugoslavia had not been engaged in a policy of dividing Albania but was concentrated on pushing its borders to Shkodra and Drin. Moreover, Andric deeply resented and regretted the failure of Serbian attempts to encourage clan struggle in Northern Albania at the time of the Conference of Ambassadors held in London in 1912-1913. Andric poignantly mentions the Serbian failure to help create the Independent State of Mirdita, a state which would be defended by armies of Serb, Croat and Slovene Kingdom and whose foreign interests would be represented by Belgrade governments as foreseen in the agreement reached between Belgrade and Prenk Doda, the Captain of Mirdita.

Himself a writer of historical novels, Andric reminds Yugoslav diplomats that there is a lot to be learned from history. Offering them valuable pieces of advice Andric suggests that they must adjust their contemporary policy according to the teachings of these lessons. In his view, the policy of Nikolla Pasic, who had insisted that his representatives at Tirana must follow the principle "Serbia is for an independent Albania, granted that Albania remains a weak state and its political life is fractured and factionalized" was an inapplicable foreign policy line. Under the present circumstances, according to Andric, the conduct of foreign policy along these lines is ineffective. Since the foreign policy followed by Pasic is not at the best interests of Yugoslavia of the time, Andric suggests that Yugoslav politicians should insist on reaching an agreement with the Italian government. This agreement would have had to respect reciprocal vital interests in the region. Italy has vital interests in Vlore and Yugoslavia must not and should not constitute a threat to those vital interests. On the other hand, the vital interest of Yugoslavia was to secure the safety of its southern borders especially in those territories like Kosova, that were inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Albanians. Andric argued that special attention must be paid to the security of borders separating Montenegro from Shkodra. Since Italian foreign policy has become very active in the region, argued Andric, there is no doubt that Italy would not hesitate to expand its influence over Albania and Bulgaria. If things move in this direction, continues Andric, Yugoslavia must insist on a division of Albania between itself and Italy. According to Andric, "this is an indispensable and unavoidable course of action that we cannot fail to pursue and that we must pursue at any cost; out of two evils we must chose the lesser evil and make the best we can make under the circumstances."

How does Ivo Andric, the writer and the diplomat, solve the Albanian question? What is his plan to divide Albania? According to Andric, Yugoslavia had to insist on the changing of the Albanian borders. The suggested new borders would fall exactly in the same area proposed and requested to the Conference of Ambassadors of 1913 by the Serb representatives: between the rivers of Mat and Black Drin. With this new kind of borders, not only Serbia would gain and expand territorially, but, from a strategic point of view, Montenegro and Kosova would be safer. At the same time, insisted Andric, Yugoslavia must insist on the annexation of Pogradec and Golloborda as well as of the villages that fall between the Lake of Prespa and the city of Korça. The annexation of Shkodra would be important from the economic and moral point of view: bringing the whole Northern Albania within Yugoslavia would make possible a sea outlet in Adriatic for the Northern Serbia. Furthermore, the annexation of Shkodra would create favorable conditions that through investments and irrigation, would add some very productive lands to rugged mountainous Montenegro. Even more interesting is for Andric, the perspective of dividing Albania especially when one is reminded that with that division, "we would eliminate once and for all an attractive center for the Albanians in Kosova. Under the new circumstances Albanians in Kosova would be assimilated very easily. The question of the expulsion of the Muslim Albanians in Turkey would be made much easier simply because there would be no counter-reaction to prevent it."According to Andric, the division of Albania between Yugoslavia and Italy was the best way to solve the question of Kosova and the Albanian question in Yugoslavia. One part of the Albanians would get assimilated and the other part would be expelled to Turkey. This is the way how the future Nobel prize winner solves the Albanian question. It must be noted that his solution does not differ in substance from the solutions offered by other Serb thinkers and implemented time and again by the Serb state. In the minds of Serb politicians and diplomats, the solution of Albanian question always boils down to the same argument: Albanians must be exterminated or expelled collectively from their own Albanian ethnic territories once and forever.

4. THE PROJECT OF IVAN VUKOTIC

Only two or three days after Andric presented his project for the solution of the Albanian question, the same problem was considered at length by another high ranking official of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ivan Vukotic. Vukotic was a close collaborator and as we will argue later, he belonged to the same school of thought as Andric. Nevertheless, his project contains ideas and suggestions that differ substantially from Andric's. There is no doubt that the project of Ivan Vukotic as another analysis aimed to help in the formulation of the Yugoslav policy towards Albania and Albanian question was requested from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to Vukotic, Yugoslav foreign policy must insist on the division of Albanian territories between Yugoslavia and Italy. If the expansionist policy goals of Ivo Andric would be satisfied with the mere acquisition of Northern Albania to the rivers of Mat and Black Drin, Vukotic insists that Yugoslavia must occupy not only the Northern but a large part of Central Albania too. If Andric had argued that the division of Albania between Italy and Yugoslavia is the "lesser and an indispensable evil," for Vukotic, the annexation of Northern and Central Albania "is in the vital interest of our people, a realization of our natural aspirations and a fulfillment of our centennial expectations." Vukotic does not hesitate to find pride in the fact that, "in all our political and diplomatic activity, and in all the alliances and our Balkan policy, we have persistently and consistently fought against the Albanian attempts to create an independent state. The main reason for our objection to the creation of an independent Albanian state has been the obvious realization that such a state would be created only against us and as a means to prevent the fulfillment of our national aspirations." Vukotic regrets very much the fact that Serb politicians and statesmen could not achieve the divison of Albania among Balkan powers in 1914-(Vukotic has in mind the newly created Albanian independent state in 1912), and despite the fact that Serbia and Montenegro had been able to annex almost the half of Albanian territories inhabited predominantly and overwhelmingly by Albanians, Vukotic asks why some Serb politicians of the time did not follow the advice of Nikolla Pasic to divide Albania between Yugoslavia and Italy in 1913. The answer offered by Vukotic is quite clear: a division of Albania between Italy and Yugoslavia would have brought Italy in the Balkans. At that time, nobody thought that Italy would strengthen so quickly as it did under Mussolini. A weak Italy would not have had been able to enter in the political configuration of Balkans quickly, and especially, without the consent of Yugoslavia. Foreign policy makers of the time thought that Serbia had enough time to strengthen its positions in Albania. Their expectations were to achieve a transformation of Albania in a Serb satellite state and thus, keeping Albania far from the Italian sphere of influence would have been much easier. Not only the Serb expectations proved to be inaccurate but in fact did happened just the opposite. Italy managed to do precisely what Yugoslavia failed to do; Italy slowly but surely increased its influence on Albania. Since it is in the vital interest of the Yugoslavia to limit the Italian influence only to a part of Albania, it follows that it is in Yugoslavia's interest to search for an accord that would sanction the division of Albania between Yugoslavia and Italy. According to Vukotic, it is imperative that Yugoslavia insists on a division of Albania. A division of Albania, whose strategic and geographic position is an obstacle to the economic development of Yugoslav state, would shorten the Yugoslav border by almost 300 kilometers (210 miles). Furthermore, a division of Albania would secure Serbia an extensive outlet on the Adriatic Sea. The division of Albania between Italy and Yugoslavia is extremely important for another reason reminded Vukotic. Albania serves as a point of reference for many Albanians who live in Yugoslavia. The annexation of Northern Albania and of a considerable part of Central Albania would help suffocate the dangerous Albanian irredentism in Southern part of Yugoslavia. This is the only possible way, according to Vukotic, to besiege the militant Albanian elements from east and from the West and thus, create favorable conditions for their assimilation.

What must Yugoslavia do? Vukotic answers to this question by suggesting that if previous Serb politicians and statesmen had requested the annexation of Albanian territories to the river of Shkumbin-in Vukotic's opinion this objective was set to satisfy the Serb-Slav interests but not the geopolitical and state interests-the new Yugoslav Albanian border should fall along the line Strugë-Librazhd-Elbasan-Durrës. For Vukotic, the annexation of Northern Albania and of a part of Central Albania would improve the strategic position of Yugoslavia. The effect of such annexation would be good for the economy too. Besides that, the heartland of Serbian regions would be linked with the Vardar and Zeta Banovinas, and finally, "The Albanian irredentism would disappear altogether with the Albanian state-created by our enemies." In this way, after the Nobel prize winner Ivo Andric-who was careful enough to cover his intentions of getting rid of Albanians by using a diplomatic language-another Serb intellectual and diplomat sought to remove from the map of Balkans a state member of the League of Nations, to whose Conventions and Agreements, Yugoslavia was a signatory and to which it will appeal after the war. This Serb intellectual insists on eliminating a state and a people-half of whose population and territories Serbia and Montenegro had already occupied before. In less than two years from the Memorandum of Cubrilovic, to the catalog of the Serb political and nationalist programs aimed at the extermination of Albanians another very influential project is added to the mindset of Serb policy-makers.

5. THE PROJECT OF STEVAN MOLEVIC

Written in 1941, this project has been largely regarded by the nations and nationalities of former Yugoslavia and their intellectual elite as the most criminal and demonic Serb nationalist project. As a very important part of the chauvinistic Serb ideology and aspirations in the twentieth century, the title of the project is very significant: The Homogenous Serbia. The author of this project, Stevan Molevic was a Serb lawyer born in Bosnia. He was known as the ideologue of the Cetnik movement of Draza Mihailovic. He was a member of the National Central Committee of this movement, and later he rose to the prominent position of Vice-Chairman of this Committee and finally he became Secretary General (Chairman) of the National Executive Central Committee of Chetnik Movement. Stevan Molevic is author of several political documents of the Chetnik Movement of Draza Mihailovic such as Deklarata 1 and 12 in 1943; A Message to Muslims and the other political program: Our Way and many other documents. After the W.W.II, under pressure from Croats and others, Molevic was sentenced to 20 years in prison but he was released by the Communist regime without serving his term.

There are many reasons why the project of Molevic is considered uniquely important and why it stands out and is singled out from the numerous political programs within the Serb political tradition. In no other Serb political program-including even the Project (Nacertanije) of Ilia Garasanin-has the idea of Greater Serbia come out so brutally as it did in the project of Molevic. In no other Serb political program-except in the Memorandum of Cubrilovic, The Expulsion of Albanians-has the naked genocidal goal of the domination and extermination of other peoples and nations as well as the territorial ambitions of the Serb elite been presented so brutally. And finally, the project fully justifies its ominous title, The Homogenous Serbia. In this project, without the slightest consideration for other people and for human life and human rights, it is sought the solution to the major dominant preoccupation of the Serb policy and of the Serb state: How to create the Greater Medieval Serbia and unify all territories claimed by Serbs? Ideas, goals, ambitions and aspirations in the Stevan Molevic's project (which in other Serb political projects might have been indirectly hinted at) are concisely presented, and clearly formulated openly, mercilessly, with a chilling determination, without the slightest regard for the other peoples living in the Yugoslavia. The project of Stevan Molevic differs from all the other political projects even from the angle he views the Serbian problem. If all the other authors considered here and many before them had sought the solution of the Serb problem based on the historical or political experiences, Molevic relies exclusively on the ethnic principle. If other authors see the preservation of Yugoslavia as the best and the most complete solution of the Serb problem, Molevic thinks that the greatest mistake in the Serb state-formation and state-building was committed in 1918 when the much-expected favorable historical moment came to set the borders of the Greater Serbia. Failure of set the borders of the Greater Serbia, as Molevic defines it, is at the root of the present problem. For Molevic, the mistakes committed in 1918 could be repaired at the end of the W.W. II. "These borders-suggests Molevic-must be set now and they must include all the territories inhabited by ethnic Serbs. There must be a sea outlet for all the Serb territories that are near to the sea." Within this Greater, Homogenous Serbia, must not only be the areas with a Serb majority but without exclusion all the areas where Molevic believes any Serb lives, within whom Molevic includes members of other ethnies such as Montenegrins, Macedonians, that for him are nothing else but purely Serbs. Furthermore, to the Homogenous Serbia must be guaranteed all the necessary and strategic lines of communication and creation and security of economic ties of its regions-independently of the fact on whose territories they might be needed to go through. This should be done to secure to the Homogenous Serbia the independence and the economic political and cultural development for the future without the obstacles and inhibitions that at the present have not allowed it. The Greater Serbia, defined by Molevic as Homogenous Serbia had to be composed of the following territories: in the East and Southeast, it would include Serbia proper with Albania and Macedonia, annexing Vidin in the Romania and Kystendil in Bulgaria. In the South, it would include Montenegro and Herzegovina together with Dubrovnik (the ancient city of Ragusa) and the northern part of Albania (in case Albania was not any more an independent state). In the West, the Homogenous Serbia should include the Banovinas of Vrbas, Northern Dalmatia, Serb parts of Lika, Kordun, Bania and Slavonia. To this Western part of Serbia that would have 46 districts and some 1.500.000 inhabitants, had to be added Zara with surroundings and with the islands and islets in its proximity to secure its port and its harbor on the Adriatic Sea. In the North, to the Northern Serb region, along of the Banovina of Danub, it had to be added without any exception the districts of Vukovar, of Shid and Ilok and later the communes of Vinkovci, Laze, Mirkovci, Novi Jankovci and the town of Osijek with its surroundings. To the Northern region one had to be sure not to forget to add Baran, Pec, Eastern Banat, Timisoara and Resica. To the Middle Serb Region had to be returned the presently separated districts-Travnik, Brcko and Foinica. What will happen to the Muslims, Croats and Albanians that could refuse to become a part of Greater and Homogenous Serbia? This question was answered by Molevic in a letter he sent to another Serb Cetnik ideologue, Dragisa Vasic: "to create a Greater and Homogenous Serbia, Croats must be expelled to Croatia and Muslims of Bosnia and Sandjak and Albanians must be sent to Turkey and Albania." Similarly to the ideology of the Medieval Serb Kingdom, but also similarly to the Project of Garasanin, and to the Idea of Greater Serbia of former Prime Minister Nikolla Pasic, in the Stevan Molevic's project, Serbia is a state that has a historical mission to fulfill in the Balkans. Since we live at a time that requires "the unification of the smaller states in larger units, alliances and confederations," the Homogenous Serbia-always within the borders set according to Molevic- had to be united to Slovenia and Croatia in a Yugoslav Federation and later there might be any contemplation of approaching to Bulgaria. But, within this new Yugoslavia, (if after the war would be possible to remake it) and in the Balkans in general, Serbia must be homogenous. 'Since Serbs were the first people in the Balkans that opposed to the German expansion from West to the East, they have won the right to lead Balkans. Serbs are not giving up -they should not and must not give up-this mission that is beneficial to their own future and to Balkans in general (...) Serbs must be the dominant race in Balkans, and to achieve this goal they must be, first of all, the dominant nation in Yugoslavia." As we can see from the previous expose, in the Project of Molevic there is not said much about Albanians and Albania proper. Nevertheless it is clear from what has been said above that in the Homogenous Serbia, the Albanian question would be solved once and for all through the use of methods so extensively used before: through the expulsion of Albanians from their own ethnic territories and the collective banishment to Turkey. If after the W.W. II it was to be granted autonomy to Albania-a state created in 1912 and including less than half of territories inhabited from Albanians and less than half of Albanian population currently living in Balkans-that autonomous state had to be dominated by Serbia just as other states that could not have and did not have the historical mission of Greater Serbia. If Molevic had to say this much about Albania in 1941, in the Cetnik Conference held in the town of Sehovice in Bosnia at the end of 1942, the Cetnik Army of Draza Mihailovic promised to occupy the half of Albania and to let Greeks take the other half.

In Yugoslavia, and to a certain extent even in other Balkan states it was believed that the vision of a Greater Serbia of Stevan Molevic had been buried at the bloody memories of the W.W. II. Not so. The macabre ideology of the Homogenous Serbia is the same ideology that nourishes and inspires the policy of the contemporary Serb state and Serb policy-makers. The project of Stevan Molevic has influenced and has defined the political agenda of the Serb state today. This political program is the corner stone of the political programs of the Serb political parties in Bosnia and Croatia, let alone in Serbia proper and Kosova. The project of Molevic has become the theoretical and ideological justification for the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosova and Sandjak: the Homogeneous Serbia that could not be made at that time is being made today.

6. THE SECOND PROJECT OF VASA CUBRILOVIC

In November 1944, just when the W.W. II was coming to an end, the author of the project The Expulsion of Albanians, Vasa Cubrilovic, wrote another project. This time, though, he does not focus only on Albanians and Albanian question but on the question of ethnic minorities in Yugoslavia. His project was entitled The Problem of Minorities in New Yugoslavia. It is understandable that Vasa Cubrilovic did not write this project without a request from political and state authorities. If today we cannot say with some certainty that this project was requested by the highest Communist party and State authorities, at least we know that this project was written with the encouragement of Serb political circles who would manage to influence policy of Yugoslav state and pass onto it the intense preoccupation with the problem of non-Slavic ethnic groups in the Old Yugoslavia such as Albanians, Hungarians and Germans. The ideological and political framework of The Problem of the National Minorities in the New Yugoslavia is the same as that of the project The Expulsion of Albanians: how to achieve the ethnic cleansing of the Yugoslavia from the non-Slavic populations. According to the view of Cubrilovic expressed in this project, the W.W. II among many other things had forced Yugoslavia to deal with the old problem of national and ethnic minorities. This problem was so acute and important for Cubrilovic, not so much due to the number of minorities that are far less than the South Slavs but due to the strategic importance of the territories where they live and especially due to the geopolitical relationships that there areas had with their national states-in other words, Cubrilovic is worried for political and strategical reasons.

As a well-known historian, Cubrilovic, deemed it necessary to remind the highest representatives of the partisan (communist) hierarchy about the following: the historical experience has proved that neither in Yugoslavia nor in other states of Europe, the ethnic minorities cannot be assimilated with democratic policies. Moreover, it cannot be avoided the voicing of their constant demands for separation from a state dominated by other ethnie. All privileges-as he defines the civil liberties and human rights of the members of the ethnic minorities-are used by, and have always served them to destroy the states where they live. This is seen, continues Cubrilovic, all over the Europe and it is seen especially during the W.W. II in Yugoslavia, where members of the ethnic minorities joined Germans and Italians in their fight against Yugoslavia. Their support of the occupiers of Serbia justifies and makes possible their violent and collective expulsion from the New Yugoslavia. This is a proof-insists Cubrilovic, that we cannot hope that members of ethnic minorities, especially members of minorities that are numerous in number, can become faithful citizens of the New Yugoslavia. For them, Yugoslavia was and remained a state that oppresses them. These nations and minorities always will dream about unification with the other part of their nations in their nation-states, and precisely for this reason, they will strenuously oppose us in every decisive historical circumstance and situation. "It is has been seen, continues Cubrilovic, that there are no measures-no matter how conciliatory they might be that would definitively eliminate the attempts of some ethnic minorities to unify with their nation-states." Translated in other words, this means that national minorities, especially the Albanian, the Hungarian and the German minority would in long run become a problem, and to be more precise, these minorities would represent a constant and imminent danger to the security of Yugoslavia. The only way to liberate the New Yugoslavia from this problem, or from this constant danger, insisted Cubrilovic, was to undertake a violent and forcible expulsion of minorities from their territories. This is the main reason proposed by Cubrilovic, clearly of a nationalist and political character, that necessitates the solution of the problem of ethnic minorities in that way. This is not the only reason that necessitates the expulsion of the ethnic minorities. The most important reason why the members of these three larger ethnic minorities in Yugoslavia should be expelled is of a geo-strategical character. Until the Albanian triangle in the Bjeshket e Sharrit [Sar Mountains]- that in the first project The Expulsion of Albanians was defined as "the Albanian wedge" keeps cutting the direct link and connection between Serbia and Montenegro on one side and between these two and Macedonia on the other side and until the German and Hungarian dominated block in Vojvodina will control the land roads and water roads that link Balkans with Central Europe, Yugoslavia would not have the security it sought. Cubrilovic wrote that if the Yugoslav powerholders want to reconnect the Slavic link between Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia then we should get rid of the Albanian triangle; if they want to control the territorial and water roads to Central Europe and Balkans and not leave that important strategic position to Germans and Hungarians then they should also get rid of the Hungarian triangle. In short: to secure the New Yugoslavia from a strategic point of view "national minorities blocks located in the important strategic positions must be broken and eliminated." The third reason, (also a very important one) why all three nationalities must be expelled from the territories where they live is purely economical. Kosova and Fusha e Pollogut, both ethnically and traditionally dominated by Albanians have the best arable land while Kosova proper is also very rich in rare minerals. If we want to use the rich mines and the agricultural richness of Kosova and Dibra (now in Western Macedonia), then argues Cubrilovic it is absolutely necessary that Albanians be expelled collectively and definitely from there. Vojvodina was known as the grain producer of Yugoslavia. However, a large number of its farms was owned by Germans and Hungarians. If we want to own this great grain producer territory, insisted Cubrilovic, then Germans and Hungarians must be expelled from Vojvodina. Furthermore, if we expel 500.000-600.000 Hungarians and Germans from Backa, Banat and Srem, and these are replaced with members of Slav nationalities, then we can hope that Vojvodina would be ours once and for all.

After laying out the political, economical, and geo-strategic reasons for the forcible expulsion of the Albanian, Hungarian and German minorities from Yugoslavia, and especially after legitimizing and justifying this expulsion with the common argument of collaboration with the enemy of Yugoslavia, Vasa Cubrilovic proposed measures to be taken and methods to be followed to achieve the realization of this expulsion, in reality this genocide of minorities. Just as in the first memorandum The Expulsion of Albanians, even in the second memorandum, Cubrilovic is convinced that ethnic cleansing of minorities could be efficient only if it is done through a collective and one time expulsion. Cubrilovic suggests that the best time to solve this problem of immense political, national, geo-strategic and economical importance is during the War. Why so? Problems that during peace time take tens of years or centuries to be solved, during wartime are solved in a month or in a single year." If we do not want to repeat previous mistakes that allowed minorities to become as numerous as they were at the end of the W.W.II, says Cubrilovic, the Yugoslav Army, "systematically and mercilessly must cleanse from national minorities all areas we wish to inhabit with members of our nation." Just for this reason, proposed Vasa Cubrilovic, it was necessary that within the General Staff and the High Command of the National-Liberation Army and the partisan brigades be immediately created a secret and a separate structure that would be responsible and charged with the ethnic cleansing of the national minorities during the W.W. II. Specialists of the ethnic problems should be employed in these structures. These structures, after the war, could be transformed in a separate Ministry that besides the problems of ethnic cleansing would be occupied with the problem of the colonization of their territories. The State interest required that territories and areas cleansed by minorities be inhabited as soon as possible by Serbs so that Europe and everybody else being in front of a fait accompli could not do anything.

Just as in 1937, the year when Cubrilovic wrote The Expulsion of Albanians, even in 1944 when he wrote The Problem of Minorities in The New Yugoslavia, especially with regard to the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian, German, Hungarian minorities, Cubrilovic is acutely aware that a forcible expulsion, rightly known as genocide, might be opposed by the democratic public opinion in the world. Just for this reason, Cubrilovic rushed to convince the politicians to whom he addressed the memorandum that Allies have agreed that the question of minorities in this war should be solved with their expulsion. For example, the Big Brother, the Soviet Union has solved the problem of national minorities by expelling them from their territories even before the W.W. II begun. Koreans and Chinese that lived in the Far East were transferred by Soviets to Turkmenistan; Karel people was expelled from the areas bordering Finland while in 1940, about 150.000 Germans were expelled from Bessarabia and Ukraina; even now, reminded his readers Cubrilovic, Soviet Union is expelling Polish people and settling in these areas with Ukrainians and Bellorussians.

Although the secret project of Vasa Cubrilovic The Problem of National Minorities in the New Yugoslavia would not be allowed to be seen by scholars even many years after the war was over-and even then it would be allowed to be seen only from historians having a special permission to work in the Archives of the Yugoslav Army-the realization of his recommendations would be visible during the last year of the war and even in the immediate post-WW II. For example, during the last war operations in Vojvodina, people belonging to the German minority would disappear mysteriously while the rest of them would be forcibly expelled. The number of Hungarians would shrink and now they are tens of thousands less than they were at the time. The fate of Albanians would be much worse and that is the subject of the next chapter of the book.

In conclusion, what can be said about the political and nationalist Serb programs treated in this essay? It does not seem that an analysis of their arguments would be necessary; their contents and their goals speak too clearly about the nationalist ideology that

[Tom The Hunter]

Black Hand

(from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWblackhand.htm)

In May 1911, ten men in Serbia formed the Black Hand Secret Society. Early members included Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, the chief of the Intelligence Department of the Serbian General Staff, Major Voja Tankosic and Milan Ciganovic.

The main objective of the Black Hand was the creation, by means of violence, of a Greater Serbia. Its stated aim was: "To realize the national ideal, the unification of all Serbs. This organisation prefers terrorist action to cultural activities; it will therefore remain secret."

Dragutin Dimitrijevic, who used the codename, Apis, established himself as the leader of the Black Hand. In 1911 he sent a member to assassinate Emperor Franz Josef. When this failed, Dimitrijevic turned his attention to General Oskar Potiorek, Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Dimitrijevic recruited Muhamed Mehmedbasic to kill Potiorek with a poisoned dagger. However, Mehmedbasic returned to Belgrade after failing to carry out the task.

By 1914 there were around 2,500 members of the Black Hand. The group was mainly made up of junior army officers but also included lawyers, journalists and university professors. About 30 of these lived and worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Three senior members of the Black Hand group, Dragutin Dimitrijevic, Milan Ciganovic, and Major Voja Tankosic, decided that Archduke Franz Ferdinand should be assassinated. Dimitrijevic was concerned about the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Ferdinand's plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs. Dimitrijevic feared that if this happened, an independent Serbian state would be more difficult to achieve.

When Dragutin Dimitrijevic heard that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was planning to visit Sarajevo in June 1914, he sent three members of the Black Hand group, Gavrilo Princip, Nedjelko Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez from Serbia to assassinate him. Nikola Pasic, the prime minister of Serbia, Pasic heard about the plot and gave instructions for the three men to be arrested. However, his orders were not implemented and Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.

Several members of the Black Hand group interrogated by the Austrian authorities claimed that three men from Serbia, Dragutin Dimitrijevic, Milan Ciganovic, and Major Voja Tankosic, had organised the plot. On 25th July, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian government demanded that the Serbian government arrest the men and send them to face trial in Vienna.

On 25th July, 1914, Nikola Pasic, the prime minister of Serbia, told the Austro-Hungarian government that he was unable to hand over these three men as it "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law". Three days later Austro-Hungarian declared war on Serbia.

During the first two years of the First World War the Serbian Army suffered a series of military defeats. Nikola Pasic, who blamed the Black Hand for the war, and in December 1916 decided to disband the organisation. Dragutin Dimitrijevic and several of the Black Hand leaders were arrested and executed the following year.

[Tom The Hunter]

Serbisches Freiwilligen Korps der SS consisted mainly of Germans(Volksdeutchers) who had lived in Serbia before the war, not of Serbs except few traitors.

yes yes I know! Serbians are saints!
But please learn to lie!
The Voldeutches were considered GERMANS, and served in GERMAN UNITS, SS or other Armed Forces!
Himmler would not permit that a Volksdeutche could serve in a unit named SERBICHE, under the comand of a general named Kosta Musicki
or Damjanovic

[Metak]

-If life was so hard for Albanians in Serbia as you wrote they would stop migrating from Albania to Kosovo & Metohia.
-17 year old Gavrilo Princip who had assassinated Austrian archiduke and other members of his group were from organisation Mlada Bosna - Young Bosnia, not Black Hand as you wrote. That event was Austro-Hungarian and German excuse for planned war against Serbia, do a little research before you post something.

I will not comment rest of your post, it's completly rubbish made by albanian propagadists. I can post some articles to beat those lies you've posted but won't because it's pointless to argue with you considering that you had ruined every topic with your hate when your nicks were albanian, shqip and others. I'll ignore your posts on this topic because you have nothing good to contribute except stupid insults.

[Tom The Hunter]

-If life was so hard for Albanians in Serbia as you wrote they would stop migrating from Albania to Kosovo & Metohia.
-17 year old Gavrilo Princip who had assassinated Austrian archiduke and other members of his group were from organisation Mlada Bosna - Young Bosnia, not Black Hand as you wrote. That event was Austro-Hungarian and German excuse for planned war against Serbia, do a little research before you post something.

I will not comment rest of your post, it's completly rubbish made by albanian propagadists. I can post some articles to beat those lies you've posted but won't because it's pointless to argue with you considering that you had ruined every topic with your hate when your nicks were albanian, shqip and others. I'll ignore your posts on this topic because you have nothing good to contribute except stupid insults.

Yes, but young bosnia terrorist organisation, was controlled by the Black hand, a terrorist organisation formed and composed by serb high rank officials.
As Al Qaeda controlls smaller terrorist organisations.

and this links are not albanian.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWblackhand.htm)
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/comment/blk-hand.html
http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=382705
http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/balkan_causes.htm

[APOCALYPSE]

Tommy your answers sound sssssoooooooooo STUPID I just can't belive YOU belive what your saying!!

[WoodChipper]

Prizern is awesome, beautiful wemon, and friendly. The rest of the country is a s--t hole.

[Ichhabe]

Don't understand why you guys bother to even try to make sense with the Serbs, Croats and Albanians on this forum. They are all victims of propaganda. They have heard their leaders lies so many times that it is like the gospel for them.

[Freibier]

Don't understand why you guys bother to even try to make sense with the Serbs, Croats and Albanians on this forum. They are all victims of propaganda. They have heard their leaders lies so many times that it is like the gospel for them.
Word

[Tom The Hunter]

Tommy your answers sound sssssoooooooooo STUPID I just can't belive YOU belive what your saying!!

I am only bringing well known documents on serbian terrorism and its risk for the mankind!
Perhaps I am so stupid as I discuss with you!

[Tom The Hunter]

Don't understand why you guys bother to even try to make sense with the Serbs, Croats and Albanians on this forum. They are all victims of propaganda. They have heard their leaders lies so many times that it is like the gospel for them.

I give a **** to all the Balcans. I am Swiss, and no balcanic propoganda atacks to me!
But I see some documents, how serbian terrorist organisation, composed by serbian high rank officers, killed Franz Ferdinand, and I think it was a terrorist act, making explode the WWI and as direct conseguence WWII!

[APOCALYPSE]

there is 2000 whiteballs in the barrel and 5 blue balls you try and brainwash the world by trying to trick people to only look at the blue balls, then you take another step and try and (trick with words) that the majority of the ANTI ALLYS AND ANTIGOOD GLOBAL deeds of Yugoslavia are Serbs, (the blue balls) and only a very small % of Serbs were anti hitler and antigenocide, (the whiteballs) this is what you sound like, no physical, satelitical, PROOF Of ethnic cleasing by Serbs, against croats,muslims, they tried to seperate before an approvel by standing Yugoslav gov and they got crushed, there is so much airial footage by western military sources that show Yugoslav Army fighting ARMED SEPERATISTS, how come they don't show aireal footageS of all the (what is it 100k then natochanges thier mind and says it's 800k) inocent croats-muslims Serbs killed hu? can you even ask an "INTELLAGENT-COMMON SCENSE question like that? or do you only tell your children "don't beleilve what you see and hear on t.v. Johnny>

[CannibalSquirel]

I don´t want to be rude but the fact that one person, or a group of individuals, are not originary from one particulary zone doesn´t mean you can simply kill them all or refuse them the rigth to live in their houses.

...

Am I rigth?

[APOCALYPSE]

You neither can nor have answered my ? why? because there was NO proof and you can't comprehend nato just lied.

[DLodge]

Nevermind. Arguing with APOCALYPSE is an exercise in futility.

[2RHPZ]

Tactics employed by the Yugoslav army to limit NATO air strikes effectiveness

An overview of tactics employed by the Yugoslav army to limit the effectiveness of the NATO air strikes:

_Yugoslav air defenses tracked U.S. stealth aircraft by using old Russian radars operating on long wavelengths. This, combined with the loss of stealth characteristics when the jets got wet or opened their bomb bays, "made them shine like flying buses" on radar screens.

_Radars confounded precision-guided HARM and ALARM missiles by reflecting their electromagnetic beams off heavy farm machinery, such as plows or old tractors placed around the sites. This cluttered the missiles' guidance systems which were unable to pinpoint the emitters.

_Scout helicopters would land on flatbed trucks and rev their engines before being towed to camouflaged revetments several hundred meters away. Heat-seeking missiles from NATO jets would then locate and go after the residual heat on the landing sites.

_Yugoslav troops used cheap heat-emitting decoys such as small gas furnaces to simulate nonexistent positions on Kosovo mountainsides. B-52 bombers, employing advanced infrared sensors, repeatedly blasted the empty hills.

_The army drew up plans for covert placement of heat and microwave emitters on territory NATO troops were expected to occupy in a ground war. This was intended to trick the B-52s into carpet-bombing their own forces.

_Dozens of dummy objectives, including fake bridges and airfields, were constructed. Many of the decoy planes were so good that NATO claimed that the Yugoslav air force had been decimated. After the war, it turned out most of its planes had survived unscathed.

_Fake tanks were built using plastic sheeting, old tires and logs. To mimic heat emissions, cans were filled with sand and fuel and set alight. Hundreds of these makeshift decoys were bombed, leading to wildly inflated destruction claims.

_Bridges and other strategic targets were defended from missiles with laser guidance systems by bonfires made of old tires and wet hay, which emit dense smoke filled with laser-reflecting particles.

_U.S. bombs equipped with GPS guidance proved vulnerable to old electronic jammers that blocked their links with satellites.

_Despite NATO's total air supremacy, Yugoslav jets flew combat missions over Kosovo at extremely low levels, using terrain masking to remain undetected by AWACS flying radars.

_Weapons that performed well in Afghanistan — Predator drones, Apache attack choppers and C-130 Hercules gunships — proved ineffective in Kosovo. Drones were easy targets for 1940s-era Hispano-Suisa anti-aircraft cannons, and C-130s and Apaches were considered too vulnerable to be deployed.

[Tom The Hunter]

Not only is it sarcasem but plain nievity the intelegent question is who's land does this belong to? then you'll find out why those Albainians moved it to Kosavo and that the Srbs are right, you don't know what your saying , you have to prove on militaryphoyos.net that Russia didn't sign a military pact before you say a lame comment like the Russki'a will drop you first, you don't impree me non of you with your knowlede, by the way don't bother to try and win the crowd by trying to say things like "look he can't even spell words right and he's trying to lether about War in Kosavo history" I've learned from Americans them selves how to discuern American Propaganda, these are real Americans who support the Constitution and not political correctness so SAVE IT, you wanna learn Srbian-Kosavo history read it from Srbs not from outsiders that say this is what happend in Kosavo in my opiniun, by the way if you feel they got along than you should get out of usa cuz most of the Natives don't the
"white man" there all that stuff you see on tv about we together is all propaganda so why don't you prove yourself and show the world you really do live ina justice way and get out, I already know the same answer you'll give, you'll give all tyoe of elaborate reasons why you won't but the plane truth is you don't wanna leave cuz you live in a erra of( "things have changed it's not like that anymore" ) lies

When you can wash the STAINS of blood from your "nation's" flag from the thousands of men women and children that your "Nation" systematically and deliberatley murdered for the sake of a pure and ethnically cleaned greater Serbia, my friend, we might start listening to your rants. Until then, keep washing.

Good! :hug:

[Tom The Hunter]

The U.S. Constitution says U.S troops are not sopposed to fight out side of the western hemesphere so how come there hasn't been ANY Amendments to that? can ya tell me a stupid civilian? p.s. don't go back you'll be killed by the Mighty Rus army if nato attacks Srbia again. no offence just a serious addvice.

Perhaps Russia can atack NATO, the momet that russians are not starving!
till these very very away moments....

[Tom The Hunter]

You got that 100% correct ;) , WILL SOME ONE ANSWER THE QUESTION WERE DID THE ASTRONUTS GET THE FLAG THEY SUPPOSEDLY PUT ON THE MOON, WHY DID THEY SHOW A NICE LONG PANARAMIC VIEW OF SPACE HU? BECAUSE THE LONGER THEY KEEP SHOWING SPACE ON T.V. SPACE CHANNELS TO THE PUBLIC PEOPLE WILL GET USED TO SEEING SPACE AND IT WILL BECOME LIKE HOW PEOPLE GOT USED TO CARS AFTER THEY WERE INVENTED THEN AFTER THE UPHORIA/EXCITEMENT OF SEEING SPACE CALMS DOWN PEOPLE WILL START ASKING SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS WERE ARE THE OTHER PLANETS WERE ARE THE OTHER SUNS OF THE GALEXY HOW COME YOU DON'T SHOW THE FLAGE ON THE MOON USING HUBBLE AND OTHER SATALITES, THEY WILL GIVE AN EXUSE (" WERE TO BUSZY STUDING IMPORTANT THINGS RIGHT NOW") HEY RIGHT THEY WOULD JUST SAY THAT TO " SHUT THE PUBLIC UP" SO WRE DID THEY GET THE FLAG???

It is too complicated for me!
Let us speak on PRACTICAL QUESTIONS!
So they had to permit to kill civilians and you rest unpunished!
World knows that WWI and as a direct conseguence WWII was made exploded by serbian terrorists, managed by serbian secret service!
So you are too dangerous with your crazy leaders, and it was neccessary to kick your ass!
From 1991!

[Tom The Hunter]

Tactics employed by the Yugoslav army to limit NATO air strikes effectiveness

An overview of tactics employed by the Yugoslav army to limit the effectiveness of the NATO air strikes:

_Yugoslav air defenses tracked U.S. stealth aircraft by using old Russian radars operating on long wavelengths. This, combined with the loss of stealth characteristics when the jets got wet or opened their bomb bays, "made them shine like flying buses" on radar screens.

_Radars confounded precision-guided HARM and ALARM missiles by reflecting their electromagnetic beams off heavy farm machinery, such as plows or old tractors placed around the sites. This cluttered the missiles' guidance systems which were unable to pinpoint the emitters.

_Scout helicopters would land on flatbed trucks and rev their engines before being towed to camouflaged revetments several hundred meters away. Heat-seeking missiles from NATO jets would then locate and go after the residual heat on the landing sites.

_Yugoslav troops used cheap heat-emitting decoys such as small gas furnaces to simulate nonexistent positions on Kosovo mountainsides. B-52 bombers, employing advanced infrared sensors, repeatedly blasted the empty hills.

_The army drew up plans for covert placement of heat and microwave emitters on territory NATO troops were expected to occupy in a ground war. This was intended to trick the B-52s into carpet-bombing their own forces.

_Dozens of dummy objectives, including fake bridges and airfields, were constructed. Many of the decoy planes were so good that NATO claimed that the Yugoslav air force had been decimated. After the war, it turned out most of its planes had survived unscathed.

_Fake tanks were built using plastic sheeting, old tires and logs. To mimic heat emissions, cans were filled with sand and fuel and set alight. Hundreds of these makeshift decoys were bombed, leading to wildly inflated destruction claims.

_Bridges and other strategic targets were defended from missiles with laser guidance systems by bonfires made of old tires and wet hay, which emit dense smoke filled with laser-reflecting particles.

_U.S. bombs equipped with GPS guidance proved vulnerable to old electronic jammers that blocked their links with satellites.

_Despite NATO's total air supremacy, Yugoslav jets flew combat missions over Kosovo at extremely low levels, using terrain masking to remain undetected by AWACS flying radars.

_Weapons that performed well in Afghanistan — Predator drones, Apache attack choppers and C-130 Hercules gunships — proved ineffective in Kosovo. Drones were easy targets for 1940s-era Hispano-Suisa anti-aircraft cannons, and C-130s and Apaches were considered too vulnerable to be deployed.

DIFFERENT FRENCH AND GREEK HIGH RANK OFFICERS, TREATED THE NATO, AND PASSED VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONS TO YOUGOSLAVIAN SS ARMY!
ONE FRENCH OFFICER NAMED MAURICE, WAS CONDEMNED BY A FRENCH MILITARY COURT! :bash:

[Poontang_Dan]

Tom, I don't really know you that well but did you just kinda like lost it? :petting:

As to the "subject" of this thread, which I agree with most is outta your royal horses ass. To all those serbskies and shqiptars: This will not help your people, this will not help your country, this will not bring you your land back, this will do nuthin else but prove people that you're not learning anything from your mistakes and you sure as hell ain't ready for the western civilized society.

[APOCALYPSE]

I'll tell you all the reason Dlodge here said "never mind argueing witk Apocalypse" cuz there is no satelite recordings of Serbs killing civilians who were not physicaly helping Croation armed bandits, it just hasn't sunk in his head yet ( and most probably never will)

[Marsuitor]

Hasn't it occured to you lot that Apoc here is just some standard type **** troll here to wind people up? Ignore him... :roll: