It passed more than the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War in 1914-1918. Proportionally, in the war, Serbia suffered the most among countries involved in the conflict as it lost one-fourth of its population followed by 50 per cent of industrial destruction. The first war crimes or even the genocide occurred on the territory of Serbia. On the other hand, the first Allied victory against the Central Powers also happened in Serbia – the 1914 Battle of Cer in the Machva District with the administrative centre of Shabac.

Before and during the Great War the town of Shabac and the district of Machva bordered Bosnia-Herzegovina, at that time Austria-Hungary, on the Drina River, in the north-western part of the Kingdom of Serbia. Before the war, the area of Machva District was developed in both industrial and cultural aspects, with many features according to the Central European pattern (the first piano in Serbia appeared in the town of Shabac in the 19th century).

However, everything changed when the Great War broke out with Austro-Hungarian military aggression on the Kingdom of Serbia in August 1914. The town of Shabac fell into the hands of the Dual Monarchy on August 12, 1914. Cer Mt. near the town of Shabac became the place where the first battle (August 16-20, 1914) was fought in the Great War against the Central Powers.

The operations of the Austro-Hungarian-Balkan troops started on August 12, 1914, to crush and occupy Serbia with the “blitzkrieg” to ensure overland links with the Ottoman Empire. The Austro-Hungarian General Oscar Potiorek decided to use the Fifth Army to attack Serbia, without waiting for the Sixth Army to be ready for these operations. However, the operation was to start and even end before the Second Army of Austria-Hungary could move from the Sirmium (Srem) region (today in Serbia), and head to Galicia.  

In the battle of Cer, the Second Serbian Army under the command of the General (later Voyvoda/ Field Marshal) Stepa Stepanovic defeated the Fifth and segments of the Sixth Austro-Hungarian Army under General Oscar Potiorek (an ethnic Slovene). Many Bosniaks (Muslim), Croats and Slovenes (Roman Catholic) and Serbs (Orthodox) from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia were mobilized by force.

Some military detachments fighting in West Serbia included one-fourth Serbs and around 50 per cent Croats from Austria-Hungary. Thus, the war involved conflict between Serbia and the South Slavs in the Dual Monarchy and caused long-term discord and animosity. Thereafter, a well-equipped Austro-Hungarian army sent to Serbia to punish it for its alleged participation in the Sarajevo assassination (June 28, 1914) simply ceased to exist. That was the first victory of the Entente Powers in the war (the Kingdom of Serbia was an associate member of the Entente Powers).

The Serbian army in the Battle of Cer lost 260 officers and around 16,000 non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Austria-Hungary lost around 600 officers and 23,000 non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Around 5.000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers were taken as prisoners of war. The Austro-Hungarian army left behind approximately 50 guns and howitzers and a large number of light weapons, ammunition, and equipment. The victory in the Battle of Cer ended the Austro-Hungarian military operations on the Montenegro (Crna Gora) front. Following the occupation of Pljevlja in Montenegro, the Austro-Hungarian troops were forced to retreat.    

Unfortunately, during the Battle of Cer, the whole Machva District witnessed monstrous crimes against the Serbian civilian population at the hands of the army of Austria-Hungary – crimes that were labelled as genocide. The most brutal Austro-Hungarian military unit was the Croatian 42nd Division, the “Devil Division,” which also served the future leader of Socialist Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980). Large numbers of civilians of Machva District were brutally executed and many others were taken into captivity in prisoner-of-war-camps in Austria-Hungary. The town of Shabac was barbarically destroyed by bombings and sacked by soldiers.

A notable aspect of the war in West Serbia in 1914 was that the Austro-Hungarian army did not respect any laws of war or provisions of the Hague Conventions concerning the conduct of war. On entering West Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian troops left total devastation in their wake and treated the civil population in rural and urban areas extremely cruelly. In their first attack in August 1914, they executed some 4.000 elderly people, women, and children, in the regions of Machva, Jadar, and Posavina.

In just 12 days in August 1914, the Austro-Hungarian army massacred at least 3,000 civilians in Machva District which was at the forefront of the enemy’s attack. The town of Shabac before the war had a population of around 14,000 people, but in 1918, after the war, it had only 7,000, a decline of 50 per cent. After the Great War, because of its human and material sacrifices, the town of Shabac received three military decorations: 1) The Croix de Guerre with a palm branch; 2) The Czechoslovak War Cross; and 3) The Order of the Star of Karadjordje with swards of the fourth grade.  

We may mention that the orders given to the Austro-Hungarian soldiers and their brutality are evidence that the war was not waged just against Serbia as a state, but against its citizens and even more against the entire Serbian nation. Proof of this is the order given by General Horstein, Commander of the Ninth Army Corps of Austria-Hungary, issued as his troops entered Serbia.  

Finally, the 1914 Battle of Cer, as the first Serbian and Allied military victory in the Great War, increased the confidence and faith of Serbia and the Entente in further victories and the final defeat of the Central Powers that happened in November 1918.