The Bravest Woman-Bomber Who Died Poor and Almost Forgotten
By: Maria Milojković
Tags: Life Lessons, Love, Women, History, Education

The Bravest Woman-Bomber Who Died Poor and Almost Forgotten

Milunka Savić went to war to save her brother from death

Milunka Savić in WWI (left) and as a Lance Corporal (right) | Image from Wikipedia, altered by the author

When French President Emmanuel Macron visited Serbia in July 2019, he went to the grave of Milunka Savić. At the time, 46 years had passed since she died in this small country in southeastern Europe. Funnily enough, Serbs forgot Milunka while she was still alive.

Because of her bravery, the French called her the “Serbian Joan of Arc“. Sergeant Milunka Savić is the woman with the most awards in the history of warfare. She received the British medal for the order of knights with the title the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. Additionally, she was wounded nine times in the two Balkan Wars and World War I (WWI).

Milunka was an illiterate girl from a land of farmers but in the pre-internet era, her courage became known throughout Europe. After WWI, she was the only woman to get the French War Cross with the gold Palm for acts of heroism in combat. She was also awarded the French Legion of Honor two times, the Russians gave her the Cross of St. George, and she also received several Serbian medals.

Still, her fellow countrymen almost forgot about this remarkable person. She ended up poor and deprivileged. A year before she died, a journalist interviewed the heroine.

An unseen reportage before Milunka’s death

In 1971, a columnist came to a shabby house in Belgrade (Serbia). It consisted of a room and a kitchen, with an outhouse in the small yard. A woman in her eighties and her handicapped daughter lived there as tenants. The old lady wore two scruffy jumpers and woolen socks.

When the journalist asked about her belongings, Milunka said:

“Many people used to come to see me. When they’d leave, they would take my photos.”

“Here, mom, this is you with your army buddies”, said her daughter Zorka. She took off Milunka’s photo from a military ceremony from the wall.

“Let me see it, I haven’t looked at it for a long time. If you had come six years ago, these people would still have been alive. Zorka, where is that picture of me with a flag?”

“I don’t know mom, that officer who came for a visit took it away.”

“And my medals?”

“They took them, too. A man came to us and said: ‘Come on, grandma, I’ll clean them all for you.’ And he never came back.”

“This year I got sick, and they have taken all my documents and newspaper articles about me. They practically took all my beauty. Without them, I feel as if I were dead.”

The journalist concluded her piece:

“Milunka and Zorka live isolated from the rest of the world: without newspapers because Milunka can’t see up close and Zorka is illiterate.”

The Yugoslav Communist Party prohibited the reportage for being too nationalistic. Milunka was the heroine from the Kingdom of Serbia, a country that didn’t exist anymore. However, the world didn’t forget her courage.

How a poor girl went to war

We don’t know the exact year of Milunka’s birth, but it was around 1890. She was born in a poor village Koprivnica (southern Serbia) as the oldest of four children. She had two sisters and one brother, Milan. None of them went to school.

Although she was a beautiful girl at 20, she didn’t think of getting married. In 1912, her younger brother got call-up papers with mobilization for the First Balkan War. Milunka decided to sign up instead of him. She cut her long dark hair, bound her breasts, and put on her brother’s clothes. In the Army, they registered her under the male name Milun Savić.

They placed her in the infantry and she soon received a medal for bravery. After almost a year of fighting in the First Balkan War, she went back home.

When the Second Balkan War started in 1913, she applied for the army again. She got wounded in the chest in the Battle of Bregalnica. When they took her to the hospital, doctors were in shock. Brave Milun was a girl! Field Marshal Radomir Putnik believed there was no place for women in the front line. He wanted to transfer her to the nursing corps. Milunka was insulted and insisted on going back and fighting for her country. The commander was hesitant but, in the end, he sent her back to the infantry. He didn’t reveal the true identity of soldier Savić to anyone.

The fearless woman from World War I

World War I started in 1914 and Milunka became a part of the elite Iron Regiment. She was a bomber in the horrific Battle of Kolubara. It caused over 20,000 casualties on each side (both Serbian and Austro-Hungarian). For her bravery, she received the Serbian Karadjordje Star with Swords.

In autumn 1915, Milunka was wounded in the head. She crossed Albania in the Great Retreat of the Serbian Army in the winter of 1915–16. In the withdrawal that lasted 45 days, over 240,000 people died in the snowy mountains. By the end of the retreat, only 150,000 people reached Greece. Milunka got to Salonica and received medical treatment in the British Field Hospital.

In her book Sisters in Arms Julie Wheelwright, senior lecturer at the University of London, writes about this woman’s bravery. At that time Flora Sanders, the only British female soldier in WWI, was also in the same hospital. She saw this stubborn Serbian girl who couldn’t walk. One day, she got out of bed. She still limped with crutches and left the hospital without the doctors’ permission. Nurses were astounded by such behavior. After they brought her back to a tent, Milunka set it on fire.

In 1916, in the Battle of the Crna Bend against Bulgaria, she single-handedly captured 23 enemy soldiers. For this feat, Serbia awarded her the second Karadjordje Star with Swords.

After the wars she became a different kind of heroine

News of her courage surpassed borders. After WWI finished, the French were so impressed that they offered Milunka accommodation and a French army pension. She rejected the offer and stayed in Belgrade without any permanent accommodation.

With no formal education, she was a manual worker after the wars. She worked as a cook, as a nurse, and in a military factory. In 1927, she became a cleaner in the State Mortgage Bank.

In her mid-thirties, she married a younger man and had a daughter, Milena. They adopted three more daughters: Milka, an abandoned girl she found on a railway station; Višnja, her younger cousin; and Zorka, a handicapped girl she took from an orphanage. However, the marriage didn’t last and Milunka raised the four girls all by herself.

Between the two world wars, the general public forgot her. Still, the great powers didn’t. They invited her to celebrations. She went in a Serbian folk costume decorated with war medals.

During the German occupation in World War II, Serbian General Nedić invited Milunka to a banquet attended by German officials. Milunka refused to go. As a punishment, they took her to the Banjica concentration camp, well known for executions. She was imprisoned there for 10 months.

In 1945, she got a state pension and continued to live in bad conditions. Whenever someone asked her about her wartime adventures, she’d reply: “I’m a soldier, not a storyteller.” She felt uncomfortable talking about her accomplishments.

Milunka was a soldier with a soft heart and she managed to raise about 30 children. She’d take them from her poor village and raise them in the capital city.

Later, she attended the World War anniversaries. Military officers found out about her brave actions. Finally, she got some recognition at home.

After the interview she gave in her small, decaying house in which her financial situation was disclosed, there was public pressure. The City Assembly gave her a small apartment. Unfortunately, it was on the fifth floor in a building without an elevator. She died the following year and was buried in the city cemetery. Forty years after her death, they transferred her remains to the Alley of Distinguished Citizens.