Momčilo Gavrić (soldier)

Momčilo Gavrić (Serbian: Момчило Гаврић;    ) was a Serbian child soldier, and the youngest soldier to serve during both the Serbian Campaign and World War I at just 8 years old,[http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/drustvo/aktuelno.290.html:451827-Momcilo-Gavric---
najmladi-vojnik-Prvog-svetskog-rata Momčilo Gavrić - najmlađi vojnik Prvog svetskog rata] ("Večernje novosti", 31 August 2013) and was even awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat for participating in the Great Serbian Retreat and walking across the mountains of Albania with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army during the harsh and brutal winter of 1915-1916. Momčilo Gavrić also served in the Royal Yugoslav Army during the World War II when Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany; he was subsequently also a Nazi concentration camp survivor and a survivor of the prisons of the Yugoslav Communist authorities where he was tortured and labeled as a "enemy of the people" after World War II.

 Biography 
Momčilo Gavrić (Serbian: Момчило Гаврић) was born on or around  to a Serbian peasant family in the rural forest village of Trbušnica, near the slopes of the mountain Gučevo, in the Mačva Region of the northwestern Kingdom of Serbia (in the modern-day Loznica Municipality, Mačva District, Republic of Serbia). Momčilo was the eighth of eleven children of Alimpije Gavrić and his wife, Jelena "Elena" Gavrić.
 World War I 
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, Austro-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assaination of the archduke and invaded Serbia the next month on 28 July, thus starting both the Serbian Campaign and World War I. During the first invasion of Serbia of 1914, Austro-Hungarian soldiers completely occupied the Mačva Region and most parts of northwestern Serbia, where the village of Trubšnica (where Momčilo Gavrić and his family lived in) is located, and committed the brutal and heinous atrocities against the Serbian civilians; during the atrocities, Austro-Hungarian soldiers occupied the village of Trubšnica and commited mass murders against the inhabitants of the village in early August 1914; during the massacre, Momčilo Gavrić's father, mother, three sisters, four of his seven brothers, and grandmother, in addition to many people from the village, were brutally tortured, maimed, and hanged in the early morning hours of August 1914, by ethnic "Swabian" Croat Austro-Hungarian soldiers belonging to the Croatian 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division (also nicknamed the "Devil's Division"), who entered the village (reportedly drunk and intoxicated) to commit the brutal massacres, and the villager's homes were plundered and burned down. Eight-year-old Momčilo Gavrić and two of his elder brothers managed to survive the massacre of their village, because they were not in the village when the massacre took place – just hours before the Austro-Hungarian soldiers entered the village and commited the massacre, his father had sent his son Momčilo to his paternal uncle Vladimir who lived in another village to borrow a cart, and two of his other sons to get food and supplies, so that he could escape with his family after Austro-Hungarian troops approached the village and headed in it's direction; when Momčilo later returned to his village and home, he discovered and saw the brutal scene of the massacre; he saw the mutilated body of his father hanging from a tree, and the brutally mutilated bodies of his mother, four of his brothers, his three sisters, and his grandmother covered entirely in blood (with even their eyeballs and ears torn out), and laying in his yard, as well as the mutilated bodies of his neighbors and others in the village left near the road. Momčilo Gavrić then discretely saw that the Austro-Hungarian soldiers who commited the brutal massacre and killed his family and neighbors, were hanging out and drinking strong rakija in his family's barn. Left without a family, neighbors, or even a house, and completely stunned and horrified, Momčilo Gavrić fled the village and ran almost two miles south of his village to the mountain Gučevo where he was earlier told by a relative or friend that a unit of the Royal Serbian Army was stationed there. Upon arriving in the mountain Gučevo, Momčilo Gavrić found the unit and was discovered and rescued by the Royal Serbian Army soldiers belonging to the 6th Artillery Regiment of the Drina Division. Momčilo Gavrić told the soldiers and their Major Stevan Tucović (1882–1933), the younger brother of Serbian socialist and politician Dimitrije Tucović (1881–1914), of the situation and the brutal massacre that the "Swabians" [Austro-Hungarian soldiers] commited against his family and his village, and almost all of the soldiers in the 6th Artillery Regiment demanded of their Major Stevan Tucović for permission for them to attack and defeat the Austro-Hungarian soldiers in Momčilo's village to avenge the boy's family and also for Momčilo Gavrić to join their unit, but he stood firm and refused to allow them to attack the enemy soldiers in Trubšnica; because the Serbian Drina Division were assigned to fight the Austro-Hungarian troops in the Cer Region, the soldiers in the division could not disobey the orders of the chief of the Royal Serbian Army and detour their route and attack elsewhere, just for a act of simple revenge; but Major Stevan Tucović, who was angered and saddened of the tragedy the boy experienced and felt great pity and sorrow for him, reluclantly agreed to assign Momčilo Gavrić into his unit and recruited him as a soldier the same day, and assigned, Miloš Mišović, a tall Serbian scout from Zlatibor serving in his unit, to be Momčilo Gavrić's caretaker and also reluctantly agreed to let two of his soldiers, the eight-year-old Momčilo Gavrić and his caretaker Miloš Mišović to go back to his village and secretly launch a solo surprise attack at the Austro-Hungarian soldiers stationed there. The same evening, upon the orders of Major Stevan Tucović, Momčilo Gavrić took revenge by leading his caretaker Miloš Mišovic, through the forest and showing him where the Austro-Hungarian soldiers stationed themselves in his village, while Major Stevan Tucović and the rest of his soldiers in his unit waited at their base near the Gučevo mountain, for a report. Upon arriving in the village, Miloš Mišović launched the surprise attack at the Austro-Hungarian soldiers and threw explosives and bombs at the base where the Austro-Hungarian stationed themselves and were drinking, while Momčilo Gavrić watched from behind; the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, who were visibly drunk, intoxicated, and completely unaware of the situation and attack, were not able to fight back against the bombardment, and, almost immediately, were all killed and defeated. After completing the attack, Momčilo Gavrić and Miloš Misović quickly left the village and returned back to their base near the mountain Gučevo, in the early morning hours at dawn, and Momčilo Gavrić and Miloš Misović were both immediately applauded by the soldiers of the 6th Artillery Regiment and their Major Steven Tucović, upon their arrival. Major Stevan Tucović ultimately ordered the soldiers in his unit to allow Momčilo Gavrić to regularly fire from the cannon three times a day, to avenge the brutal massacres of his family and village. Momčilo Gavrić was praised and respected by the soldiers in his unit, for his courage and willingness to serve his country as a true patriot. In late 1914, after the Serbian Army defeated the Austro-Hungarian Army at the Battle of Cer and the Battle of Kolabura and liberated the western parts of Serbia, previously under Austro-Hungarian occupation, (including the Mačva Region), Momčilo Gavrić was promoted and given the military rank of a corporal by Major Stevan Tucović, and Momčilo Gavrić was also given a military uniform for the first time, after Momčilo Gavrić bravely fired from a cannon during the end of the battle of Cer and killed several Austro-Hungarian soldiers near their military base. Major Stevan Tucović was stunned when he discovered that it was eight-year-old Momčilo Gavrić who fired from the cannon and killed the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, when he asked his soldiers who fired from the cannon and killed the enemy soldiers. Later, a brutal typhus epidemic broke out in Serbia in February 1915, further severely affecting and destroying Serbia and killing many people there, including those in the Royal Serbian Army and those in Momčilo Gavrić's division; Momčilo Gavrić got sick from typhus and almost died, but managed to slowly recover from his illness and ultimately survive. Later in 1915, Germany and the Tsardom of Bulgaria also invaded and attacked Serbia and helped the Austro-Hungarian Army in attacking Serbia; Serbia and the Royal Serbian Army were surrounded, attacked, and greatly outnumbered by their enemies, and their front had quickly collapsed; the Royal Serbian Army were subsequently forced to escape Serbia and even mainland Europe altogether and, from December 1915 to February 1916, they fled mostly on foot through the mountains of Albania amidst severely harsh blizzards and a extremely harsh winter, in what became known as the Great Serbian Retreat (also known as the Albanian Golgotha) to reach the shores of Albania and the Mediterranean Sea; Momčilo Gavrić, then nine years old, spend more than four weeks walking (alongside the rest of the Royal Serbian Army) amidst the harsh blizzards through the mountains without proper supplies or even enough food and in a long and exhausting hike, during which many of them froze to death, died from hunger or a lack of proper supplies, or simply commited suicide; during the brutal retreat across the mountains, his caretaker Miloš Mišović (who saved most of his food for the nine-year-old Momčilo Gavrić) felt completely exhausted and weak, and collapsed on the path and told Momčilo Gavrić to continue walking with the other soldiers and commanders of the division without him; however, Momčilo Gavrić refused to leave his caretaker and he reportedly told him that he would not leave him and would die on the mountain with him, if he must do so; hearing his words, Miloš Mišović got up and reluctantly agreed to finish the brutal and torturous walk on the mountains to the city of Durrës in Albania alongside him; upon reaching Durrës, Momčilo Gavrić and the soldiers and commanders in his division boarded a ship in the port of the city and they went to the island of Korfu in Greece, where they spend several months recovering from their brutal retreat across the mountains; upon reaching the Greek island of Korfu, Momčilo Gavrić was awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat for his participation in retreating with surviving soldiers and commanders of the Royal Serbian Army across the mountains of Albania amidst the blizzards and the harsh winter, during which many soldiers and commanders lost their lives. Momčilo Gavrić even met with and saluted Peter I of Serbia, who was back then the king of Serbia, and who was reportedly stunned when he learned that a nine-year-old boy was a soldier in the Royal Serbian Army and that the boy participated in the Great Serbian Retreat and walked across the mountains of Albania with the Royal Serbian Army; Momčilo Gavrić was also taught how to write and read by a teacher there. Later, after leaving the Greek island of Korfu and arriving in mainland Greece, Momčilo Gavrić and the soldiers and commanders of the Drina Division were transferred to Thessaloniki, Greece, to help the Greek Army there. Because Major Stevan Tucović felt that Momčilo should get some education, he gave Momčilo a brief leave of absence from his military service and had Momčilo sent to Sorovits to study at the primary school there, as a external student. After Momčilo hastily went through four grades at his primary school, Momčilo Gavrić left the school and returned back to the 6th Artillery Regiment of the Drina Division of the Royal Serbian Army, where he resumed his military service. In 1916, Momčilo Gavrić, then ten years old, and the Royal Serbian Army were transferred with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army to Kajmakčalan, where they fought at the Battle of Kajmakčalan against Bulgaria. In the Battle of Kajmakčalan, the Serbian Field Marshal Živojin Mišić was stunned when he discovered and saw a ten-year-old boy (who was Momčilo Gavrić) wearing a military uniform was in the trenches, and inquired about it. Major Stevan Tucović explained the situation to the Field Marshal Živojin Mišić; the ten-year-old boy was a corporal in the army named Momčilo Gavrić, and a orphan whose family and neighbors were brutally massacred by Austro-Hungarian troops and his and their houses plundered and burned down, and who was with the Royal Serbian Army since even before the Battle of Cer, and that he even participated in the Great Serbian Retreat and even walked across the mountains of Albania with the Royal Serbian Army. After hearing about the boy's accomplishments in the army and the fact that his family and village were brutally massacred by the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, Field Marshal Živojin Mišić ordeded Major Stevan Tucović to promote Momčilo Gavrić and give him the high military rank of a lance sergeant in the Royal Serbian Army; Momčilo's promotion and accomplishements were read out to the all divisions of the Royal Serbian Army, on the order of Field Marshal Živojin Mišić. Eventually, after the Serbian Army won the Battle of Kajmakčalan and defeated Bulgaria, the Royal Serbian Army was able to return back to Serbia and defend their people and nation; Momčilo Gavrić and the soldiers and commanders of the Drina Division had to march on yet another long and brutal hike entirely on foot back to Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia, where upon arrival, Momčilo Gavrić was given a tour of the city and was even said to have reportedly been given a knife and a watch by German-Swiss professor Archibald Reiss, who was commissioned by the government of Serbia to investigate mass atrocities and massacres of Serbian civilians commited by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the war. In 1918, the last year of World War I, Momčilo Gavrić, then twelve years old, and the Royal Serbian Army were subsequently transfered to Slovenia where they helped and defended the Slovenian Army and fought against Italy at the Battle of Karavanke, where Momčilo Gavrić was severely wounded in the arm and was honorably discharged from military service as a lance corporal with military honors and with the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat in the Royal Serbian Army; he was subsequently transferred to a hospital in Belgrade to recover there.

 After World War I 
Serbia became part of the newly-formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 21 December 1918, slightly more than one month after World War I had officialy ended. Now that the World War I had ended, Major Stevan Tucović made sure that the severely wounded twelve-year-old Momčilo Gavrić would recieve aid from a British mission that was helping orphaned children of the First World War in Serbia. After recovering from his severely wounded arm, Momčilo Gavrić was then sent to the United Kingdom, where he studied at the Henry Wreight Grammar School in Faversham, Kent, and also studied and learned English and French, for three years. After Momčilo Gavrić graduated from the school in 1921, at the age of 15, he returned back to Yugoslavia the same year, after the Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić ordered the return of all Serbian-born children to Yugoslavia. When Momčilo Gavrić and all the other Serbian-born children returned back to Yugoslavia and arrived in Belgrade, they were stunned to discover that instead of being given comfort by government officials, they were met in at the train station in Belgrade, which became the capital city of Yugoslavia, with Yugoslav gendarmes and soldiers carrying rifles, with the task and order of sending the Serbian children back to the towns they came from. After Momčilo Gavrić returned back to Trbušnica, his village, Momčilo met and was reunited with his two older surviving brothers, who, like him, survived the massacre of their family and village by the Austro-Hungarian soldiers in August 1914, and also joined the Royal Serbian Army and became soldiers; however, after World War I had ended, after the two brothers were demobilized and discharged from the Royal Serbian Army, they had nowhere to go, as the Austro-Hungarian soldiers killed their family and neighbors and plundered and burned down their house, and they became homeless and fell into extreme poverty. Momčilo Gavrić stayed with his two elder brothers for a brief while and helped them as best as he could, but he eventually left his brothers and decided to start his own life elsewhere. Momčilo Gavrić went to live in Sabač and later in Belgrade, and he survived by taking many odd jobs to support himself over several years. 
In 1929, at the age of 23, after reaching the age of military conscription in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Momčilo Gavrić was conscripted and recruited into the Royal Yugoslav Army and he became a soldier again. When he was in the military barracks in Slavonska Požega, Momčilo Gavrić explained to the commander that he already served in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War as a child, and that he was wounded during his military service, and that he was even awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat for his participation in the Great Serbian Retreat across the mountains of Albania amidst severe blizzards, in which many soldiers and commanders of the Royal Serbian Army lost their lives and that he endured a lot of hardship and pain; therefore, Momčilo Gavrić asked the commander to relieve him from military service; however, the commander, who was a ethnic Croat, got furious and ordered that Momčilo Gavrić sign a confession stating that he lied and did not serve in the army during World War I; Momčilo Gavrić refused to lie, and was arrested and sentenced to prison for two and a half months. After he left prison and completed yet another period of military service, Momčilo Gavrić returned back to Belgrade and completed his graphic design and driver's training. 
In 1932, Major Stevan Tucović, who was suffering from a chronic illness, travelled to Belgrade and made attempts to locate the current whereabouts of Momčilo Gavrić there; he asked if anyone knew about Momčilo Gavrić, the youngest soldier of World War I, a corporal in his unit during the war; eventually, he was able to meet with Momčilo Gavrić once again and had a joyous reunion with him; several months after meeting once again with Momčilo Gavrić, Major Stevan Tucović died from his chronic illness, on 27 January 1933, at the mere young age of 50. 
Later, Momčilo Gavrić worked in a paper mill where he met a woman named Kosara Ilić; he married Kosara Ilić in 1939, with whom he would have several children, including two sons named Branislav Gavrić and Aleksandar Gavrić.

 World War II 
After World War II began in 1939, Momčilo Gavrić was again conscripted and recruited into the Royal Yugoslav Army, for a third time. In April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and Momčilo Gavrić, at the age of 34, fought in the Royal Yugoslav Army, but he saw that his army was disintegrating and that it surrendered to the Axis powers in just 12 days; after Yugoslavia was totally carved up by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the soldiers were captured by the German Army and taken as prisoners-of-war, but Momčilo Gavrić managed to escape capture and return back to Belgrade. With the assistance and help of his wife Kosara Gavrić and his friends, Momčilo Gavrić worked under disguise in the paper mill in Belgrade as the assistant for a Serbian Jewish man, who was not murdered by the Germans, because he was a skilled worker and the Germans needed him as a expert. Momčilo Gavrić and the Serbian Jewish man (whom he worked for) were both ultimately denounced to the German authorities, and were arrested by the Germans in Belgrade and was deported to the Banjica concentration camp, where the Serbian Jewish man was presumed to have been murdered by the German officers, and where Momčilo was imprisoned for several months. Eventually, Momčilo Gavrić showed his file to the German officers; Momčilo Gavrić was eventually released from the concentration camp by the Germans; however, Momčilo Gavrić was later again denounced to the German authorities and was sent back to the concentration camp, but was released from the concentration camp the second time as well. Yugoslavia was liberated from German occupation by the communist Yugoslav partisans in 1944 and 1945; when the Yugoslav partisans liberated Belgrade in October 1944, Momčilo Gavrić waved the Yugoslav flag in front of the partisans with joy and happiness; however, a unknown individual accused Momčilo Gavrić of collaborating with the German officers during the German occupation of Yugoslavia, and betrayed Momčilo to the partisans. Momčilo Gavrić was arrested by the Yugoslav partisans, and was almost executed by the partisans with a firing squad; however, a Serbian man from Skopje (today in North Macedonia) had recognized Momčilo Gavrić as a companion to whom he gave "secret documents" during the German occupation, and Momčilo was let go by the partisans.

 After World War II 
After the end of the war in 1945, Yugoslavia became a communist state ruled by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In 1947, Momčilo Gavrić, at the age of 41, was arrested by the Yugoslav Communist authorities, after he publicly claimed that "Albanians are no brothers to Serbs" and saying that he "felt their brotherhood of the Albanians when they were killing us [the Serbs] in 1915", during a time when the communist president of Yugoslavia (Josip Broz Tito), and the communist president of Albania (Enver Hoxha) were strong allies and great friends. As a result, Momčilo Gavrić was sentenced for 1 year and a half in prison, where he was imprisoned under harsh conditions. In addition, Momčilo Gavrić was even brutally tortured "as a enemy of the people" in the prison by the Communist guards on a repeated basis, to the point where he was unable to speak and even became mentally disabled. After Momčilo Gavrić was released, he returned back to his wife and sons, where he deeply struggled but managed to slowly recover back to health, both mentally and physically, but soon Momčilo had to face another tragedy; his wife Kosara died in 1949, just several months after his release from the prison. For many years after his release and the brutal torture he endured, Momčilo Gavrić was reported by his children to have been mentally disabled, psychologically traumatized, socially withdrawn, and unable to speak, and it reportedly took Momčilo Gavrić many years for him to fully recover from his mental disabilities and psychological trauma, as a result of the brutal torture he endured, and return to a state of good mental health and mind. 

In 1987, Momčilo Gavrić, at the age of 81, participated in a Yugoslav documentary film about his experiences as a orphaned child soldier in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War, whose family and village were brutally massacred by Austro-Hungarian troops in August 1914.

Momčilo Gavrić died in Belgrade on , at the old age of 86, just days prior to his 87th birthday.

 Legacy 
Momčilo Gavrić was awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat, as a reward for his courage and participation in the Great Serbian Retreat with the Royal Serbian Army, across the mountains of Albania.
There are memorials dedicated to Momčilo Gavrić in the island of Korfu in Greece, and in the Jadar Museum in Loznica, Serbia. In 2014, a street in the city of Loznica was named after Momčilo Gavrić. On 2 April 2015, the Serbian government publicly announced their decision to built a monument of Momčilo Gavrić in Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia.

 Gallery 

 Related pages 
 World War I
 Serbia during World War I
 Serbian campaign (1914)
 Battle of Cer
 Children in the military
 Sergei Aleshkov
 Xiàng Xuān
 Boško Buha

References

Category:1906 births
Category:1993 deaths
Category:Child soldiers from World War I
Category:Serbian soldiers
Category:Serbian military personnel of World War I
Category:Serbs
Category:Nazi concentration camp inmates
Category:Nazi concentration camp survivors