[1][2] It is a standing bronze male figure in the nude with a falcon in the left hand and a sword in the right (as symbols of peace and war),[2] modelled by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, set on a pedestal in the form of a Doric column on a tall cubic base, designed by the architect Petar Bajalović.

[3] The statue looks forward across the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, and over the vast Pannonian plain, towards the very distant Fruška Gora mountain (until 1918 a domain of Austro-Hungarian empire), it is probably the most powerful, most popular visual symbol of Belgrade.

In August 1913 Belgrade city council made the decision to mark this momentous event by erecting a monument to Victory.

Headed by the mayor Ljubomir Davidović, the council decided to rename the Terazije square and build the fountain with the monument in it.

[2] On 19 October 1913[4] the city contracted with Meštrović and he set to work on the fountain but, being an Austro-Hungarian subject, he had to leave Belgrade at the outbreak of the World War I.

Background information about the fountain and its more detailed description were brought out by the newspaper Vreme:[6] ...a large basin (shell) the outer side of which would be decorated with a relief depicting warriors on galloping horses.

[...] The column would be girdled with spaced hoops to which Turkish head masks would be affixed, and each would spout a jet of water into the basin below...

Conceived as a colossal athletic male nude set up on a tall column, the monument symbolically represents the iconic figure of victory.

In iconographic terms, the personification of the triumph of a victorious nation can be traced back to classical antiquity and its mythic hero Hercules.

During the occupation by Austrian, German and Hungarian troops, all was destroyed except for the statue of the Victor and lion masks, which were away in Bohemia for casting.

[2][4] The exact appearance of the fountain is known from the photographs of Meštrović's original drawings taken in his Zagreb studio by the sculptor Veselko Zorić.

[10] The project of erecting the fountain in Terazije was revived after the First World War, but the available funds could only cover the casting costs for the Victor and lion masks.

[4][9] Yet, in 1923 the city council and Meštrović reached an agreement that he should do the monument in Terazije, but the sculpture remained in the storehouse for the next 4 years.

Still, the design was endorsed by numerous members of Serbian academia, like Bogdan Popović, Stevan Hristić, Branislav Petronijević, Ksenija Atanasijević, Zora Petrović, Beta Vukanović or Stanislav Krakov, but also by certain women organizations and parts of the clergy.

There were various, jokingly suggestions, like the proposition for the super-high pedestal so that its nudity won't be visible from the ground or that, since it is already nude, it may be placed in a swimming pool.

But aware that our “temporarily” tends to last too long, I have made an agreement with the Belgrade architect Bajalović for a more solid pedestal for the statue.

Also, by this time the city decided to scrap the fountain and the lion heads at the monument's base due to the money reasons.

The Arts Commission, formed by the city, decided in September 1927 to relocate the monument and place it "on the ridge of the Belgrade Town, at the mouth of the Sava and the Danube".

This decision of the city council coincided with the completion of the Sava Avenue and the Great Stairway in Kalemegdan Park as well as with the celebration of the anniversary of the Salonika front breakthrough.

It was in commemoration of that event's 10th anniversary that on 7 October 1928[9] the freshly refurbished part of the Sava Avenue was inaugurated and the Victor unveiled.

Still, the monument hasn't been fully straightened and remained in partially tilted position, as the piles were pushed into the soft section of the rampart and the subsidence of the terrain continued.

That delayed the works on the plateau itself, which were finished in September 2016: the new marble plates were placed, so as the decorative lights, while the problem of draining the atmospheric waters was solved, but the monument itself (both the pedestal and the sculpture) were not renovated.

[9] That same year the Belgrade University Civil Engineering Faculty concluded that the "tilting is a process which continues and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping".

The stone on the statue's round bas on top of the pedestal crumbled almost completely, while the steel parts rusted.

[13][16] After transportation to Smederevo, it turned out that the statue is even in the worse condition than previously estimated, including terrible statics and loosened sword and eagle.

[18][19] Though this was the usual practice in the Balkans in general (the old, reused materials are called spolije), art historians are surprised that a tombstone was used as the pedestal.

[20] To prevent further tilting of the column and to make static of the foundation firmer, eight rebar bars were drilled into the ground.

[8] After the creation of a new state and a new spiritual climate in the aftermath of the First World War, the concept of the Herald of Victory (which was the original name of the statue)[9] as the crowning motif of the fountain as a monument to freedom and liberation from the centuries-long Ottoman occupation lost its originally intended sense and its name came to reflect its new dedication to the Salonika front breakthrough and the victory of the Serbian army in the First World War.