Croatian-Slavonian Military Troops on European (Balkan) Battlefields During World War I

Abstract

During the Balkan wars in the Ottoman Empire, military and civilian preparations for the upcoming World War in the south of the Austro-Hungarian Empire have started. To be more precise, areas of Croatia, Slavonia and Osijek were already in the war mindset. Croatia was very interested in the events inside the Balkans, because the Austro-Hungarian empire has long expressed the Balkans Foreign Policy "Drang nach Osten" (drive to the east) as its strategic plan. At the same time, Serbia also wanted their expansion to the west and north. Peaceful border areas to the north of the Balkan war zones of Slavonia and Osijek already deployed Austro-Hungarian troops. In addition, all the other preparations for war were already in motion such as converting regular hospitals into war hospitals, creating shelters for refugees, and starting to live in the war state of mind that will start in a few months. People in the area also realized that this will be the war of the "final" showdown between Austro-Hungarian empire and Serbia and Montenegro. The daily press in Slavonia in Osijek has alternating sympathy and disapproval thrughout the wars in the Balkan areas. In the First Balkan War, they sympathise small Balkan states of the Ottoman Empire, and in the Second Balkan War, they sympathise ally Bulgaria, and also to some extent the Ottoman Empire. There are also interesting views from the Serbian minorities living in Slavonia and Osijek from 1912. to 1915. War psychosis gripped Osijek and Slavonia, especially when the assassination event happened in Sarajevo. At that time, Austro-Hungarian troops, as well as Croatian previously deployed to the Drina and Sava rivers at the border of Serbia, were awaiting the start of the First World War