Moneta
Registered: August 2005 Location: Arizona USA Posts: 2,365
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I had to conclude there were no coin issues for 1914, the beginning of the Great War (WWI). I settled for a 1917, deep into the war and the huge hardships of the Serbian people at the hands of Austro-Hungarians and Bulgarians.
The assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, by a Serbian nationalist was followed by violent anti-Serb demonstrations of angry Croats and Muslims in the city during the evening of 28 June 1914 and for much of the following day. This happened because most Croats and many Muslims considered the archduke the best hope for the establishment of a South Slav political entity within the Habsburg Empire. The crowd directed its anger principally at shops owned by ethnic Serbs and the residences of prominent Serbs. [Wikipedia]
The Serbian Campaign of World War I was fought from late July 1914, when Austria-Hungary invaded the Kingdom of Serbia at the outset of World War I, until the war's conclusion in November 1918. The front ranged from the Danube River to southern Macedonia and back north again, and it drew in forces from almost all the combatants of the war.
The Serbian Army declined severely towards the end of the war, falling from about 420,000 at its peak to about 100,000 at the moment of liberation. The Kingdom of Serbia lost more than 1,200,000 inhabitants during the war (both army and civilian losses), which represented over 29% of its overall population and 60% of its male population. According to estimates prepared by the Yugoslav government in 1924, Serbia lost 265,164 soldiers, or 25% of all mobilized people. By comparison, France lost 16.8%, Germany 15.4%, Russia 11.5%, and Italy 10.3%. [Wikipedia]
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