Capital Punishment in the Serbian Army: The Case of Execution at Lake Plav in 1915

Abstract

This article attempts to reconstruct the key segments of the events that took place at Lake Plav on December 25th, 1915, when 21 Serbian soldiers were executed by order of Colonel Aleksandar K. Stojšić. The source base for this research had to rely on the memoirs and recollections of contemporaries due to the limited mention of this topic in official military correspondence. This unprecedented event signaled the appearance of a new type of war related violence in the Serbian army. Besides the issues of desertion, violence and punishment in the armed forces, this article also discusses the notions of sovereignty and citizenship in times of extreme hardships of war during the Great Serbian Retreat. Many Serbian soldiers who left their units in late 1915 tried to defend themselves by saying that the “military oath” was invalid because Serbia was “abandoned” or “lost”. Such a situation forced the military authorities to try to regain their shaken authority by “negotiating discipline” under completely new circumstances.