Serbia was divided into two separate occupation zones, an Austro-Hungarian and a Bulgarian zone, both governed under a military administration. Germany declined to directly annex any Serbian territory and instead took control of railways, mines, and forestry and agricultural resources in both occupied zones. The Austro-Hungarian occupation zone covered the northern three-quarters of Serbia. It was ruled by the Military General Governorate of Serbia (MGG/S), an administration established by the Austro-Hungarian Army on 1 January 1916 with a military governor at its head, seconded by a civil commissioner. Emperor Franz Joseph I appointed Johann von Salis-Seewis, an officer born in Croatia, as the first Military Governor General. The goal of the new administration was to denationalise the Serb population and turn the country into a territory from which to draw food and exploit economic resources.
In addition to a military legal system that banned all political organizations, forbade public assembly, and brought schools under its control, the Austro-Hungarian Army was allowed to impose
In September 1918, Allied forces, spearheaded by the Serbian Second Army and the Yugoslav Volunteer Division, broke through the Salonica front, leading to the surrender of Bulgaria on 30 September, followed by the quick liberation of Serbia and the retreat of all remaining Austro-Hungarian troops by the end of October. By 1 November 1918, all of pre-war Serbia had been liberated, bringing the occupation to an end.
On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. The preservation of Austria-Hungary's prestige necessitated a punishing attack on Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarian leadership deemed responsible for the murder. The Austro-Hungarian military leadership was determined to quash Serbia's independence, which it viewed as an unacceptable threat to the future of the empire given its sizeable South Slavic population.[1]
On 28 July 1914, exactly one month after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. That evening, Austro-Hungarian artillery shelled the Serbian capital of
During the first invasion of Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarian leadership euphemistically dubbed a
punitive expedition (German: Strafexpedition),[4] Austro-Hungarian forces occupied parts of Serbia for thirteen days. Their war aims were not only to eliminate Serbia as a threat but also to punish her for fuelling South Slav irredentism in the Monarchy. The occupation turned into a war of annihilation, accompanied by massacres of civilians and the taking of hostages.[5] Austro-Hungarian troops committed a number of war crimes against the Serbian population, especially in the area of Mačva, where according to historian Geoffrey Wawro the Austro-Hungarian army savaged the civilian population in a wave of atrocities.[6] During the short occupation between 3,500 and 4,000 Serb civilians were killed in executions and acts of random violence by marauding troops.[7]
Mass killings took place in numerous towns in northern Serbia. On 17 August 1914, in the Serbian town of Šabac, 120 residents—mostly women, children and old men, who had previously been locked in a church—were shot and buried in the churchyard by Austro-Hungarian troops on the orders of Feldmarschall-Leutnant Kasimir von Lütgendorf.[8] The remaining residents were beaten to death, hanged, stabbed, mutilated or burned alive.[9] A pit was later discovered in the village of Lešnica containing 109 dead peasants who were "bound together with a rope and encircled by wire"; they had been shot and immediately buried, even with some still alive.[10] Wawro writes that in Krupanj, men of the 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division, the exclusively Croat formation known as the Devil's Division,[a] bashed a group of old men and boys to the ground using rifle buttstrokes and then hanged any who were still breathing.[6]
These types of attacks were planned at the highest level, the ground for the escalation of violence was ideologically prepared by the commanders' verbal radicalism,
Paris Peace Conference of 1919,[13] Reiss recorded that the number of civilians killed in the invaded Serbian territory amounted to between 3,000 and 4,000, including a large number of women and children, in the region around Šabac he counted 1,658 burned buildings. According to historian James Lyon, "the Habsburg forces engaged in an orgy of looting, rape, murder, mass extermination, and other atrocities".[14] Reiss likened the Austro-Hungarian atrocities to the Rape of Belgium.[15]
American war correspondent John Reed, touring Serbia with Canadian artist Boardman Robinson, reported stories about the atrocities committed by Austrian soldiers against the civilian population "We saw the gutted Hôtel d’Europe, and the blackened and mutilated church in Šabac where three thousand men, women and children were penned up together without food or water for four days, and then divided into two groups – one sent to Austria as prisoners of war, the other driven ahead of the army as it marched south against the Serbians".[16]
Austrian historian Anton Holzer wrote that the Austro-Hungarian army carried out "countless and systematic massacres…against the Serbian population. The soldiers invaded villages and rounded up unarmed men, women and children. They were either shot dead, bayoneted to death or hanged. The victims were locked into barns and burned alive. Women were sent up to the front lines and mass-raped. The inhabitants of whole villages were taken as hostages and humiliated and tortured."[17] According to various sources, 30,000 Serbian civilians were executed during the first year of occupation alone.[18][19]
On 24 August, after delivering a major defeat to Austria-Hungary's invading "Balkan Armed Forces" (German: Balkanstreitkräfte) at the Battle of Cer,[11] the Royal Serbian Army liberated Šabac and reached the frontier banks of the Sava River, thereby bringing the first Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia to an end, and securing the first Allied victory of World War I.[20]
Repulsed invasions and Serbian victory
On 8 September 1914 the Austro-Hungarians launched a second invasion, a twin-pronged night attack across the Drina to secure a firm bridgehead. This time engaging all their forces the well-equipped Habsburg forces outnumbered the Serbs who were short of munitions two to one.
SMS Temes, which had shelled Belgrade on the first day of the war, was sunk by a mine on the Sava.[22] Although it suffered nearly 30,000 casualties and the invasion was temporarily halted, the Austro-Hungarian army retained a foothold in Serbia.[23]
Convinced that Serbia was near defeat, Potiorek regrouped and launched a third offensive on 5 November 1914. Potiorek exploited the Austro-Hungarians' superiority in artillery, including large calibre mortar, to capture Valjevo on 15 November and with support from a monitor group of the Danube Flotilla as well as aerial reconnaissance,[24] Belgrade on 30 November, forcing the Royal Serbian Army to retreat.[23]
The conquered territory was divided into five county commands (German: Etappenbezirkskommando). The Austro-Hungarian Feldmarschall of Croatian ethnicity Stjepan Sarkotić, commander during the first invasion of the 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division,[11] was appointed governor-general of Serbia by Emperor Franz Joseph on 24 November 1914.[6] Under Sarkotić's administration, multiple concentration camps were established in which tens of thousands of Serbs were interned,[7] in the town of Šabac alone, between 1,500 and 2,000 civilians were deported to internment camps in Hungary.[25] According to the historian Bastian Matteo Scianna, the Austro-Hungarian atrocities had a planned exterminatory character.[26]
In early December, the Royal Serbian Army launched a sustained counterattack, decisively defeating the Austro-Hungarians at the Battle of Kolubara and recapturing Belgrade a day after General Sarkotic's new military government had been established.[6] By 15 December, the Royal Serbian Army had captured Zemun, having crossed the border in pursuit of the Austro-Hungarians,[27]
Defeat at the hands of Serbia, a small Balkan peasant kingdom, wounded the pride of Austria-Hungary's military and civilian leadership.[28] One Austrian officer was reported as saying that Potiorek would be shot if he appeared among his own troops. [29] On 22 December, Potiorek was relieved of his command and replaced by Archduke Eugen of Austria.[30] Although Austria-Hungary had failed to defeat Serbia, the Royal Serbian Army had exhausted its military capability, losing 100,000 men in battle, and was forced to deal with a typhoid epidemic that further decimated the army and civilian population.[31]
German officials urged their Austro-Hungarian counterparts to launch yet another offensive against Serbia, despite the fact that the Austro-Hungarians were engaged in a costly second front with Russia to the east.[32] The Austro-Hungarian leadership would not consider invading Serbia again for almost a year, when Bulgarian participation in such an invasion was guaranteed.[33]
On 6 September 1915, Germany and Bulgaria entered into a
Serbian Macedonia, parts of northeastern Serbia, as well as a new loan of 200,000,000 gold francs[34] in return for Bulgaria's participation in an upcoming invasion of Serbia. The agreement was signed in the German town of Plessa.[35] The Central Powers enjoyed massive superiority in numbers and equipment, especially in artillery, along the nearly 1,000-kilometre (620 mi) front. Serbia and Montenegro could hardly muster half the number of soldiers as the Central Powers.[36]
On 5 October 1915, Austria-Hungary and Germany launched a joint invasion of Serbia. The offensive marked Austria-Hungary's fourth attempt to conquer Serbia, this time led by German General August von Mackensen. On that day, a heavy artillery bombardment from the border with Serbia began. The next day three German and three Austro-Hungarian Army corps crossed the Sava, attacking from the north as part of Army Group Mackensen.[37] On 9 October, Belgrade, Serbia's capital, was evacuated, on the same day, Austrian forces entered the neighbouring and allied country of Montenegro.[38]
On 14 October, with the bulk of the Serbian forces opposing combined invaders up north, two Bulgarian armies invaded southern Serbia from the east, advancing towards
Despite the treaty of mutual assistance with Serbia against a Bulgarian attack, King Constantine of Greece refused to let the Greek army enter the war to aid the Serbs or let the Allies use the Greek railroads devoted to supporting their mobilization.[41] On 27 October, the Germans entered the town of Knjaževac, the entire Serbian government moved its headquarters from Niš to Kraljevo;[42] on 2 November the Serbian government moved again this time from Kraljevo to Mitrovica in Kosovo. On 5 November, Niš was taken by the Bulgarians who had connected General Gallwitz's Eleventh German Army.[42] Avoiding encirclement and the trap set up by Mackensen, the Serbian army withdrew to Kosovo, on 22 November Putnik ordered a retreat.[43]
Within six weeks, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Germany had succeeded in conquering Serbia.
Adriatic coast. Ultimately, around 140,000 Serbian soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians were evacuated to the Greek island of Corfu, among them the entire Serbian government, as well as the Serbian royal family.[45]
The Royal Serbian Army retrenched itself in Greece, where it was reorganised and repurposed to combating Bulgarian and German troops on the Salonica front. Towards the end of 1915, Serbia was divided between Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, with both countries establishing military administrations in the territories they had occupied.[46]
Shortly after the retreat of the Royal Serbian Army, the country was divided into three zones. The Austro-Hungarian occupational zone stretched from the region west of the
Južna Morava in Kosovo and the Vardar Valley. The Germans took control of all railways, mines, forestry, and agricultural resources in Serbia.[47]
On 1 January 1916, the Austro-Hungarian High Command (German: Armeeoberkommando; AOK) ordered the formation of the Military General Governorate of Serbia (German: Militärgeneralgouvernement in Serbien; MGG/S), with Belgrade as its administrative centre. The Austro-Hungarian occupation zone was divided into thirteen approximately equal districts (German: Kreise), which were then divided into sixty-four boroughs (German: Brezirke), with the city of Belgrade as its own district.[48] The occupational administration was subordinate to the AOK under General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, and later under GeneraloberstArthur Arz von Straußenburg. The Military Governorate was headed by a General Governor with the rank of a corps commander.[49]
The first governor-general, Johann Graf Salis-Seewis, an ethnic Croat with experience fighting insurgents in Macedonia, had served as the commander of the 42nd Devil's Division after Sarkotić.[11] Salis-Seewis was appointed to the position in late 1915 by Emperor Franz Joseph, officially taking office on 1 January 1916.[48] The historian and Balkan specialist Lajos Thallóczy was appointed as the Military General Governorate's civilian commissioner, as well as Salis-Seewis's deputy. Thallóczy arrived in Belgrade on 17 January 1916.[50]
With the Austrians in charge of the military, the civilian administration was mostly made up of Hungarians and Croats. Four administrative departments were set up: military, economic, judicial, and political, with the latter, which had its own intelligence and police forces, under former Devil's Division officer and future Ustaše[b] leader Major Slavko Kvaternik.[52] Military intelligence (German: Nachrichtenabteilung) for the occupation zone was entrusted to Croat Lujo Šafranek-Kavić,[53] as the Austro-Hungarian army relied considerably on South Slav officers and Bosnian Muslims knowledge of the language for intelligence purposes.[54]
In December 1916, Thallóczy was killed in a train crash while returning from Vienna to Belgrade.[55] In January 1917, Teodor Kušević, a high-ranking functionary from Bosnia and Herzegovina, was appointed to replace him as the civilian commissioner. The function was given more prominence with new areas of responsibility including trade, police, religion, education, justice and finance.[48]
System of occupation
Rule of law
The first measure of the occupiers was to establish a new legal system to secure order, prevent guerrilla resistance and exploit the country's resources. MGG/S control over the population was accomplished in accordance with the "Directives for the Political Administration in the Areas of the General Military Governorate in Serbia" (German: Direktiven für die politische Verwaltung im Bereiche des Militärgeneralgouvernements in Serbien) and with the "General Principles for the Imperial and Royal Military Administration in the Occupied Territories of Serbia" (German: Allgemeine Grundzüge für die K.u.K Militärverwaltung in den beset-zen Gebieten Serbiens). Italian historian Oswald Überegger speaks of a "system of totalised, repressive occupation rule".[56]
The MGG/S intended to ignore Hungarian objections and integrate Serbia as a part of the empire, but as an area that would remain under direct military rule for decades after the end of the war and where political participation would be prohibited to prevent the emergence of a new Serbian state.[57]
Occupation forces
The MGG was safeguarded by a permanent Austro-Hungarian garrison consisting, in August 1916, of 35
battalions, a Landsturm regiment, six companies of patrol troops, 12 units of railway guards, four-and-a-half squadrons, five artillery batteries and two anti-aircraft batteries, totaling around 70,000 men, of which 50,000 were reserved for military operations.[58] Within the towns and villages of the twelve districts, 5,000 gendarmes were posted in groups of 20 to 30.[58] If needed, patrol companies also served as mobile combat reserves.[58]
To help police the civilian population and to track down partisans, the Austro-Hungarian leadership decided to recruit amongst ethnic minority groups positively disposed towards the Dual Monarchy.[59] With Thallóczy's encouragement, the Austro-Hungarian authorities permitted Kosovo Albanians to volunteer for service in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces.[60] Prominent Albanians in towns such as Novi Pazar and Kosovska Mitrovica declared their support and offered to recruit volunteers for the occupying authorities. According to the notes of Colonel Hugo Kerchnawe, the Muslims in the Sandžak and the Albanians in Kosovo "behaved very loyally and offered their support" to the empire,[61] Kerchnawe added in his report that "our interests ran parallel with the Muslims' interests."[62]
A special commission to organise recruitment was set up by Thallóczy, assisted by former Ottoman officers and Bosnian militia leaders. Over 8,000 volunteers were recruited this way,[63][64] despite the fact that the recruitment drive was a violation of the Hague Convention treaties that Austria-Hungary had signed,[65] which forbade the use of occupied populations towards a country's war efforts.[66] In March 1917, a home battalion was formed, supported by Bosnian gendarmes and led by former Ottoman officers.[59]
In the final phase of the Serbian Campaign, the Austro-Hungarian military had relied on paramilitaries consisting of Albanian clansmen from Kosovo and northern Albania as irregular troops,[67] organised early in the occupied territories Albanian pursuit fighting units were set up to assist Austro-Hungarians patrols track down Serbian guerrillas.[68] These counter-insurgency bands were based on their Bosnian counterparts, the Streifkorps, paramilitary groups made up of Muslim volunteers with experience fighting Serb guerrillas and a reputation for heavy-handed tactics.[69][c] District pursuit units were established in each district of the Austro-Hungarian occupied zone, each consisted of 40 men led by one officer.[68] The Bulgarian occupation authorities also used Albanian gendarmes and irregular troops within their occupation zones.[71]
Conflicts between the Central Powers
Annexation
The separation of power in Serbia quickly led to clashes between the civilian and military authorities, as well as between Austrian and Hungarian occupation officials.
Great Power status. Austria-Hungary's Joint Foreign Minister, Stephan Burián von Rajecz, supported the annexation of Serbia, but only if it would be allotted to Hungary.[72]
For Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza, Serbia was a Hungarian area of interest but under no circumstances did Tisza want an annexation and thus an expansion of the Slavic element in the Danube Monarchy.[56] In early 1916. Lajos Széchényi who represented both the Croatian and Hungarian components as envoy to the foreign ministry, accused Governor Salis-Seewies of favouring the Serbs as a Croat, then Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' envoy in Serbia, Lajos Széchényi, argued that Salis-Seewis' policies would lead to Serbia's annexation to the Dual Monarchy, which Thallóczy, following Hungarian prime minister István Tisza's directives, strongly opposed.[50]
In mid-February 1916, Thallóczy complained to Tisza about the number of Slavs in positions of authority, writing, "the governor is Croat, the chief of the general staff is Czech, the deputy governor is from the former military border and the new General Staff Officer Slavko Kvaternik is the son in law of Croatian independentist Josip Frank."[73]
Tisza refused to consider the annexation of Serbia as it would lead to a substantial increase in Austria-Hungary's Slavic population, and significantly reduce the proportion of Hungarians within the Dual Monarchy. He demanded instead that northern Serbia be colonized by Hungarian and German farmers.[72] After touring the three northwestern districts of Serbia together with Salis-Seewis and the visiting General Conrad, Tisza came to regard the Austro-Hungarian military's efforts in the occupied territory as a prelude to annexation.[55]
Tisza submitted a complaint to Burián asking for a thorough reorganisation of the Military Governorate, the removal of Salis-Seewis, whose administration he described as "Serbophile and economically incompetent",[74] and requesting the condemnation of those demanding that Serbia be annexed. Burián took the complaint directly to Emperor Franz Joseph. On 6 July 1916, the emperor decreed that Salis-Seewis and his chief of staff, Colonel Gelinek, were to be replaced by his former corps commander, General Adolf Freiherr von Rhemen and Colonel Hugo Kerchnawe, effective 26 July 1916. Rhemen remained in this office until the end of the war.[75]
Austro-Bulgarian confrontation
Tensions between Bulgaria and the Dual Monarchy started after Bulgaria extended its zone beyond the agreement signed on 6 September 1915; reaching into western Kosovo and Montenegro, on the Austro-Hungarian side of the treaty border, going as far as
Wilhelm himself repeatedly told Bulgarian king Ferdinand that Germany supported "the independence of Albania under Austrian protection".[76] Burián also reminded Ferdinand that at the "west of the treaty border began the Austro-Hungarian sphere of interest."[77]
According to the terms of the secret alliance between Bulgaria and Germany, the greater part of Kosovo, including the areas of
Đakovica, established as part of the Austro-Hungarian Military Governorate of Serbia.[79]
Tensions started over the respective zones of influence and military control in
Kačanik (Kaçanik, southern Kosovo), on the frontier with Macedonia, resulting in a military standoff.[80] General Conrad immediately halted all deliveries of war supplies and warned the Bulgarian High Command that unless local Bulgarian commanders abstained from interfering with the Austro-Hungarian administration, a conflict with his troops would be inevitable.[81]
On 15 March, the Austro-Hungarians issued an order to secure the districts of Prijepolje, Novi Pazar, and Kosovska Mitrovica to their governorate, three districts acquired by Serbia during the First Balkan War.[82] Bulgarian actions on the ground persisted, leading to a second crisis, with Conrad demanding diplomatic assistance against Bulgarian violations.[77] The German chief of staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, ordered Mackensen to mediate between the two parties, consequently Mackensen visited Sofia to meet Ferdinand and Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov. The proposed German compromise was accepted and, on 1 April 1916, an agreement on a demarcation line was signed between the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian high commands.[82]
The Bulgarians withdrew eastwards, retaining the district containing Prizren and Priština, but leaving Albania and western Kosovo to the Austro-Hungarians. The Ottomans, wary of Bulgarian designs on Albania, supported Austro-Hungarian aims to prevent Bulgaria's reach into Elbassan and keep Albania autonomous under Austrian influence.[83] The agreement gave Bulgaria administrative rights over areas of Serbia that were not in the original agreement. In return, in addition to the railways and mines already yielded to the Germans, Bulgaria agreed to give them access to the valleys east of the Velika Morava, the Južna Morava in Kosovo, as well as the Vardar Valley; effectively turning Macedonia and Kosovo into zones dedicated to German economic exploitation.[82][80]
Life under the occupation
Denationalisation and depoliticisation
The occupational authorities considered Serbian national consciousness an existential threat to Austria-Hungary. Thus, the policies of the Military Governorate were aimed at depoliticising and denationalising the Serbian population.[84] Public gatherings and political parties were banned, the Cyrillic script was termed "dangerous to the state" (German: staatsgefährlich) and banned from schools and public spaces, streets named after people perceived as being significant to Serbian national identity were renamed, the wearing of traditional Serbian clothing was proscribed and the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian. Additionally, all Serbian students had to be educated in the German language, according to Austrian academic standards and through teachers imported from Austria.[85]
Significant cultural institutions such as the Royal Serbian Academy, the National Museum and the National Library were closed down and looted of their historical artifacts and art collections. The University of Belgrade, as well as various publishing houses and bookshops, were closed down. Schoolbooks and books in French, English, Russian and Italian were banned. Political expression was severely limited with the prohibition of newspaper publication except for the official MGG/S propaganda newspaper Belgrader Nachrichten (published in Serbian as Beogradske novine), which featured letters and photographs purporting to show how well those who stayed behind in occupied Serbia were living. Such propaganda was intended to convince Serbian soldiers who came across the Belgrader Nachrichten to desert.[86][d]
Repression
In 1916, both Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria announced that Serbia had ceased to exist as a
political entity, and that its inhabitants could therefore not invoke the international rules of war dictating the treatment of civilians as defined by the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions.[87]
The occupational authorities carried out numerous summary executions with little or no legal process. Upon being found guilty by a military court, victims were usually shot or hanged. Martial law, such as Kriegsnotwehrrecht (the martial law of self-defense), was employed to quash dissent and severe preventive measures were undertaken against civilians.[88]
The occupational authorities were gripped by the fear of levée en masse and of civilians taking up arms. The Austro-Hungarian Army consequently employed the seizure of hostages from the general population and the burning of villages in punitive raids as a means of quelling resistance. These measures, as well as summary executions, were all permitted under section 61 of the Dienstreglement[e] (k.u.k army regulations).[88] Disarming the populace was done by holding village elders responsible for handing over a certain quota of weapons that were judged to be held before the war began.[90] The sentence for possession of a weapon was death by hanging. Military courts also tried civilians for newly defined offenses, including the crime of lèse-majesté.[91]
Civilians suspected of engaging in resistance activities were subjected to the harshest measures, including hanging and shooting. The house of an offender's family would also be destroyed.[92] Victims were usually hanged on the main squares of villages and towns, in full view of the general population. The lifeless bodies were left to hang by the noose for several days so as to clearly show the treatment reserved for "spies" and "traitors".[93]
Deportation and forced labour
The MGG/S, as well as the High Command in Vienna, considered sending civilian prisoners to internment camps as a preventive measure to discourage insurgent activities.[94] During the occupation, between 150,000 and 200,000 men, women and children were deported to various camps in Austria-Hungary,[95] it has been estimated they represented slightly more than 10 per cent of the Serb population.[96]
Since Serbia did not have its own Red Cross, Serbian prisoners did not have access to the aid the Red Cross provided to other Allied prisoners.[45] Moreover, Serbian prisoners were not considered "enemy aliens" but "internal enemies" by Austria-Hungary's Ministry of War. By defining them as "terrorists" or "insurgents", the Austro-Hungarian authorities were not obliged to disclose the number of captives they held, and which camps they were being held in, to Red Cross societies.[97]
Four significant waves of deportations occurred in occupied Serbia. The first occurred at the very start of the occupation, when Salis-Seewis rounded up 70,000 "dissidents", mostly able-bodied men, ex-soldiers, politically active individuals, as well as members of the political and cultural elite who had remained in the country after the retreat to Corfu. University professors, teachers, and priests, especially those who had participated in political, cultural or even athletic associations, were arrested and sent to internment camps.[98]
The second and largest deportations took place after
Toplica uprising, in the Spring of 1916 when armed resistance seemed to be spreading, more deportations took place. The fourth and final round of deportations occurred after the Allied breakthrough on the Salonica front in late 1918.[95]
In Bohemia, the camp at Braunau (modern-day Broumov, Czech Republic) held about 35,000 prisoners, almost exclusively Serbian, civilian, military prisoners, men, women and children.[96] According to a 1918 press report, an epidemic of dysentery almost wiped out all the children in the camp.[100] After the war, a mass grave was found behind the camp containing the remains of 2,674 people (these remains were later moved to the crypt of the Heinrichsgrün camp).[101] The camp at Heinrichsgrün (modern-day Jindřichovice, Czech Republic), held mostly Serbs, both soldiers and civilians, from the Šumadija and Kolubara districts of western Serbia. An average of 40 people died there every day.[101]