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The Serbian
Army was not really interested in increasing the numbers of its siege
artillery, since their neighbours had not serious fortification in the future
theatre of war: the only fortresses the Ottoman Empire had were peripheral
areas, like Albania (Skadar), Epirus
(Janina) or Thrace
(Edirne). As
for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the only forts it had in Bosnia-Herzegovina
could be destroyed even by 120mm or 150mm guns. Therefore Serbia had simply no need of a powerful heavy artillery.
When in 1907
the commander of the artillery proposed to buy 17 – 12 cm long guns, 20 – 15 cm long guns, 36 – 15 cm howitzers, 12 – 15 cm mortars and 12 – 24 cm mortars, the proposal
was rejected since field howitzers were regarded as more useful.
At the
beginning of the Balkan Wars, besides a little number of 120mm Schneider guns
purchased in 1897, had only 65 obsolete guns: most of them were old
muzzleloader rifled or even smoothbore guns, almost unusable in 1912. They
were shared among the existing fortress, were they armed some position
batteries.
The principal
defensive works were :
- the old forts
along the Sava (Sabac) and Danube
river (Belgrad, Semedria,
Kladovo) of little or no use in a modern war;
- the fortress
of Nish : an old citadel with
seven bastioned forts, two groups of old Turkish fortification near Vinik and Goriza with four
forts (Mithad Pasha, 3 km north-east of the city;
a fort near Mramor, 7 km west; Andi Pasha, 4
km south-west, and a fort 4 km west of the road to Pirot), and three modern forts (Kamara,
Markovo-Kale and Detljak);
its task was to bar and protect the valley of the Morava river, supported by Aleksinatz, 30
km nord-west, Deligrad, 12
km northwards, and by several strongpoints
on the slopes in front of Topolnica and on the
height north of the Nisava river;
- the fort of Krusevatz,
baring the valley of the Morava river, 15 kn north of its outlet;
- the fortress
of Pirot,
with five forts, some redoubts and some batteries, all of very weak profile,
built in 1885, during the war against Bulgaria;
- the entrenched
position of Zajechar,
with three groups of defensive works : northern group with three forts (Kravarnik, 3
km far from the town; Koilovo
and Vlashko Bardo)
between Cherna and Timok
rivers; eastern group with three forts (Bachishte, Pladnishte, Zabel), between Timok and Mitniza rivers;
southern group, with three forts (lunette Nr. 3, redoubt Nr. 4 and lunette
Nr. 5, 1 km
far from the town) and an old detach work (redoubt Nr. 2) between Timok and Cherna rivers;
- the field fortifications of Vranja, with twenty earthworks
of various strength.
The modern
forts were earth lunettes, with two long fronts meeting in a very oblique
angle, two short flanks and a close defensible bastioned gorge. They were
height up to 4.5 m,
were sourronded by ditches, 4-8 m wide and 4 m deep, and strengthened by
many traverses and by casemates, often provided with concrete rooms. Each
fort could garrison from 1 to 1½ companies with 12
guns. In September 1908 the works placed on the eastern frontier were
repaired and reinforced by engineer reservists, but the plan to convert Nish into a modern entrenched position was not carried
out, due to financial problems. The mountain pass were defended by “karaulas”, i.e. fortified frontier posts.
They were
armed with a mix of old guns and mortars, some of them dating back to
Russian-Turkish War (1877-78) and Serbian-Bulgarian War (1885). There were
also some La Hitte muzzle-loader guns (dating back
to 1850s), nearly obsolete, but Serbian credit difficulties prevented the
acquisition of modern fortress guns for the frontier fortifications. In 1891
the Serbian government accepted the Russian offer of 30 old breech-loading
bronze siege guns and 6 howitzers, even if they at that time they could be
regarded as outdated.
At the
beginning of the World War some fortress guns were used in the defence of Belgrad, but many guns were captured in Nish
and Vranja. They were of little utility in a modern
war and it is very unlikely that they were used by Bulgarian Army.
In 1907 the
Serbian fortress artillery was reorganized in 27 batteries, that were grouped
in three fortress artillery units: 14 batteries in Nish,
6 in Pirot and 7
in Zajechar, but, since the
oldest guns were stored in depots and decommissioned as useless, the force of
fortress artillery units was reduced as follows :
Nish had 9
batteries with :
2 four guns
batteries armed with 9pdr (106.7mm) steel guns M. 1867 (Bulgarian, captured
in 1885);
3 four guns and
1 three guns batteries armed
with slow firing 120mm Schneider-Canet M. 1897 guns;
1 four guns
battery armed with 15 cm
Serbian guns;
1 two guns
battery armed with 12 cm
steel Krupp guns (Turkish, captured in 1878);
1 three guns
battery with 15 cm Krupp guns on coastal
carriage.
Pirot had two batteries :
1 two guns
battery armed with 12 cm
steel Krupp guns (Turkish, captured in 1878);
1 four guns
battery armed with 15 cm
Serbian guns;
Zajechar had only 1
battery with four 15 cm
Serbian guns.
In addition
the fortress artillery had another 80 artillery pieces:
12 – 8 cm (78.5mm) Krupp steel
guns C/64 (Turkish, captured in 1878);
13 – 9 cm (91.5mm) Krupp steel
guns C/61 (6 bought in 1871, the rest captured in 1878 at Nish);
19 – 12 cm (121.4mm)
muzzleloader bronze guns M. 58/63 system La Hitte;
36 – 12 cm (121mm) muzzleloader
bronze mortars M. 58/63 system La
Hitte.
The guns
system La Hitte
were removed from the Army list with the Decree of 11 April 1909.
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