History of modern Serbia
[1] The Serbian Kingdom was proclaimed in 1882, under King Milan I. Serbia was one of the rare countries at the time that had its own domestic ruling dynasty on the throne (similarly to Italy).
The Karađorđevići inclined more toward Russia, gaining the throne in June 1903 after the bloody May Overthrow organised by a group of Army officers led by then-Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis.
Following Bulgaria's independence (October 1908) from Ottoman overlordship and a successful movement by Greek army officers (August 1909) to steer their government onto a more nationalistic course, Serbia joined with the other two countries and her Serb-populated neighbour Montenegro in invading (October 1912) Ottoman-held Macedonia and reducing Turkey-in-Europe to a small region around Constantinople (now Istanbul).
On June 28, 1914, a team of seven assassins awaited the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, at his announced visit in Sarajevo.
After Nedeljko Čabrinović's first unsuccessful attack, the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke and his wife Sophie Chotek.
[4] Major Tankosić confirmed to the historian Luciano Magrini that he provided the bombs and revolvers and was responsible for the self-avowed terrorists’ training, and that he initiated the idea of the suicide pills.
It was reported that Serbian reservist soldiers on tramp steamers fired on Austro-Hungarian troops near Temes-Kubin in Hungary, on July 27.
But during 1915 an epidemic of typhus decimated the Serbian army, and renewed invasion in early October, this time involving also German and Bulgarian forces, resulted in the occupation of the whole country.
Black Hand leaders were arrested, tried, convicted (confessing their roles in the assassination) and in three cases executed on false charges (overturned posthumously).
Military circles would henceforth be dominated by the royalist "White Hand" faction of Gen. Petar Živković, later prime minister (1929–32) of an extra-constitutional monarchical regime.
On November 25, the Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci, and other nations of Vojvodina in Novi Sad voted to join the region to Serbia.
The Banat region, which was part of occupied Serbia, had a special autonomous status and was governed by its ethnic German minority.
Besides the armed forces of the Serbian pro-Axis puppet regime, two anti-Axis resistance movements operated in the territory of Serbia: the royalist Chetniks and the communist Partisans.
Temporarily, in the autumn of 1941, the communist resistance movement created a short lived Republic of Užice in south-western Serbia,[13] but this entity was soon destroyed by the joint efforts of Axis troops and pro-Axis Serbian armed forces.
In 1944, the Soviet Red Army and Yugoslav Partisans expelled all Axis troops from Serbia and the area was included into the restored Yugoslavia.
