In the fighting between the insurgents and Serbian military forces in the villages of Drenica, on April 3, 1914, eight Serbian soldiers were injured, while during the fighting the insurgents also used hand grenades. On April 7, 1914, numerous military forces of infantry, war arsenal – machine guns and 4 field cannons from Pristina and Pazar i Ri, went towards the Komoran of Drenica, to extinguish the insurgent movement in this area. On the same day, the military force, gendarmerie and such war arsenal were also sent to Devič, Llaushë, Vitak and Runik.

Apparently, the level of tension and fighting in Drenica was high, because by order of the Military Command, 300 reservists from infantry regiments were sent from Mitrovica to Drenica. However, almost the same military forces were forced to return to the barracks due to the number of killed and wounded in the fighting with the Albanian insurgents. Thus, on April 9, 3 wounded soldiers were urgently sent from Lubavec to Mitrovica, while on April 10, 28 wounded soldiers were sent from Komorani, two of whom were Albanians in the service of the Serbian military forces.

Thus, due to the alarming situation, a state of curfew was declared in the District of Pristina and Vushtrri. Consequently, the military administration bodies ordered the sending of additional forces to Drenica, from 11 to 16 April 1914. Komorani, Llausha, Vitaku, Abria, Polaci, Deviçi and Gllanasella, were the main places where new troops of infantry regiments were sent. The measures taken against the Albanians of Drenica, to arrest them and loot their property, despite their complaints and protests, the administrative leaders considered them “justifiable, because they represent a just revenge of the oppression that the Serbian element had to endure at the time of Turkey (Ottoman Empire, FR)”.

According to an information that the British diplomat in Belgrade, Dayrell Crackanthorpe, sends to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, Edward Grey, in the first half of April 1914, about the Serbian atrocities in Kosovo, among other things it is stated that: “Serbs have undertaken extremely drastic measures, perhaps even unnecessary in those circumstances, to suppress the revolt, burning many villages and in some places large massacres have taken place”.

On April 17, 1914, from Pazar i Ri to Gllanasella and Komoran, 41 horsemen of Serbian military troops were sent, while 4 field cannons were returned from Komoran to Mitrovica. However, Drenica remained the center of the uprising, which repeatedly challenged the authority of the Serbian military administration in Kosovo. Just as from Mitrovica, as well as from Vushtrri, regular military infantry units were sent to Drenica, which aimed to extinguish the Albanian resistance.

In the fighting on April 23, 1914, near Komorani, between Albanian insurgents and a Serbian military patrol, 2 Albanians and two Serbian soldiers were injured. As a sign of revenge, the Serbian military and administrative authorities in Mitrovica reactivated the Serbian committee groups, to carry out new crimes against the Albanian population in Drenica. On April 27, 1914, about 200 Serbian commies were dispersed in the villages of Baje, Kotorr and Radishevë. Consequently, Albanians, under the pretext of carrying concealed weapons, were robbed and killed inside their homes by Serbian commie groups. In the actions of the Serbian committees, two Albanians were killed in Makërmal and, on April 28, 1914, two more in Açarevë. The same day, in Açareva, during an ambush organized by a group of Albanians, an officer and a soldier of a Serbian patrol were killed.

On April 29, 1914, Serbian committees bombarded Hoxha’s house in the village of Kučica. Consequently, even the Chairman of the Mitrovica District, Josif Studiq, took action to disarm the Albanians, but allegedly did not take punitive measures. In Sushtra (6 km east of Kučica) 8 rifles were confiscated, in Broboniq 14 rifles, in Zhabar 4 rifles and in Vaganica 2 “Mauser” rifles. The villages of Drenica and the surrounding villages, such as: Açareva, Llausha, Klina, Vitaku, Runiku, Komorani, Suhogërla, Kijeva, etc., were kept under iron siege by Serbian military battalions, which were continuously reinforced with new units.

All this terror was done to promote the emigration of Albanians and the Serbian-Montenegrin colonization of Kosovo, which was necessary for the interests of the state politics of the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Montenegro. In this context, from November 1912 to March 1914, through the port of Thessaloniki towards the Ottoman Empire, according to Serbian sources, 240,000 Muslims from the Balkan Peninsula had emigrated, most of whom were Albanians. Even during the month of May 1914, the insurrectionary actions in Drenica did not stop.

On May 3 and 4, on the slopes of the mountain of Çycavica, which had been transformed into an important nursery to keep the insurgent movement active, forces of the Serbian army and gendarmerie had fought two armed battles with the Albanian insurgents in the middle of the villages of Likoshan, Gradicë and Gllanasëlle. The balance of these battles was 10 killed and 10 wounded, one insurgent captured, while the others escaped. This armed war, which constantly caused headaches for the Serbian administration, prompted the command of the military authorities of the District of Kosovo to send a battalion with two cannons to Drenica, whose task was to search and capture the insurgents and consequently eliminate the resistance. armed in this country.

Liquidation of the Serbian military patrol in Likoc
To extinguish this movement from Gostivari to Drenica, two battalions of infantry regiments were sent. On May 8, 1914, 15 carriages with military beds were sent to Dević. In the early days of May, during the evening hours, an armed group of Albanians attacked the Serbian military camp in Komoran. During the fighting, one officer (lieutenant Vukashin Mitic) and seven Serbian soldiers were killed. Four people were also injured, all from infantry and gendarmerie regiments. From the ranks of the group of Albanians, one was killed and one was wounded.

On May 12, 1914, a Serbian military patrol, consisting of 6 soldiers and 2 gendarmes, attacked a strong and armed group of 12 Albanians in Likoc. The armed group of Albanians used a successful strategy, which, by retreating first and dispersing in that way, created opportunities to kill the Serbian patrol, whose soldiers and gendarmes were lost in the alleys and streets of Likoci. This patrol was completely liquidated down to its last member. However, Serbian reprisals against Albanians did not stop in Drenica.

Albanians on carts near the tower in a village of Drenica
Serbian committees, armed in mass, ordered the Albanian population of Drenica to emigrate, because its stay in Kosovo was undesirable by the local Serbs, settlers and the state administration. However, the Albanians did not respond to their calls. Consequently, Albanians were arrested without any reason and never returned to their homes. Between May 11 and 16, 3 Albanians were killed in Gradicë, while 10 Albanians were arrested in Abri, who were escorted out of the village by guards. Almost every Albanian settlement in Drenica was filled with Serbian commies and gendarmes, whose sleeping and food was taken care of by the respective municipalities, who had plundered the Albanian population.

Consequently, in the first half of May, according to the information available to the Zveçan District administration, 89 Albanian insurgents were operating in its administrative territory: 59 of them in the Drenica District, 20 in the Vushtrri District and 10 in the of Mitrovica. According to them, this number was symbolic compared to the number of insurgents in the fall of 1913. In the justification of this small number, the bodies of the Serbian administration in the Zveçan District considered that most of the Albanian insurgents had surrendered, since they had allowed to return to their villages and homes.

Based on the registrations of the Serbian military authorities in Kosovo, for the members of the insurgent groups according to the districts and municipalities of the Zveçan District in 1914, almost every village of Drenica (Skënderaj) had registered insurgents, who in general reached the figure of 424 themselves. From the village of Bajë (Zejnel Çitaku, Hamza), Kotorr (Jusuf Ajrizi, Islam Kotari, Shaban Rama, Bajram Haziri, Hasan Keça and Sinan Keça, sons of Ajet Çaushi), Kostërc (Miftar Tafa), Kučica (Sherif Mahmuti, Halim Bilalli) , Marinë (Hajdin Kučica), Kladërnica (Azem Kllodernica, Sejdi Latifi), Pemishtë-Padalishtë (Daut Rexhepi, Jusuf Musliu), Rezalle (Shaban Dërguti), Çitak (Mehmet Selimi, Murat Çitaku), Kučicë (Sherif Mahmuti), Ticë ( Bahtir Okol), Abri (Sefer Sylejmani, Halil Obria), Klinë (Sylë Sejda, Bislim Selimi), Rakinicë (Bislim Ferizi), etc.

On the other hand, on May 16, 1914, the Serbian police inspector, the infamous Mihailo Cerovic, authorized 27 Montenegrin settlers to select the houses and lands of the escaped Albanians and usurp and appropriate them. In his report, J. Umlauf wrote to the official Vienna: “On May 17, three imams appeared before the police inspector and begged him to place the Montenegrin settlers in the villages inhabited by Serbs, because of these settlers who have rifles and Mauser ammunition can not expect anything good. The police inspector, Cerovic, reassured them by assuring them that the armed settlers must also take care of the security of non-Muslims. Each locality inhabited by Muslims will have 10 of these settlers. And it is desirable that they be given some cultivated land”.

Serbian massacre of 48 Albanians from Drenica
Meanwhile, movement of troops from Komorani to Abri, as two places where there were camps, Serbian military stations and municipal administration, there were also during the end of May. On May 26, 1914, an infantry battalion marched to Lubavec, operating in Lubavec, Llaushë and Vitak, while a battalion of the infantry regiment and 4 machine guns were located in Abri. In Komoran and Pristina, on June 1, 1914, there were two battalions of the infantry regiment, four mountain guns and a cavalry regiment.

Thus, on May 26, 1914, near Cerovik (20 km south of Llausha), apparently near Komoran and Gllogoc, an armed clash took place between Albanians and Serbian military forces, in which three Serbian soldiers were killed. The next day, according to J. Umlauf’s report, on May 27, 1914, “the shepherds of the villages of Çikatovo, Abri, Polac and Llaushë discovered the corpses of 48 mutilated Albanians, killed outside the city”. This terror and the Serbian crimes in Drenica are important arguments that prove the degree of concern of the administrative bodies in this region and the reprisals they took against the Albanians, to eliminate their efforts that challenged the authority of the Kingdom of Serbia and its goal of alienation of the national and cultural identity of Kosovo.

Serbian violence against AlbaniansThe bodies of the Serbian administration were extremely strained by the movement of the armed resistance in Drenica, so they did not stop implementing various methods and tools for its debauchery. The Mayor of Mitrovica District, Gjorgje Matić, among the effective methods for extinguishing this movement, considered in particular that this big problem could be solved “permanently only by relocating or interning the families of the insurgents”. His idea took concrete shape when, in the first half of May, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbia proposed the relocation of the families of the insurgents from their homes, and after that, small families of Serbian settlers from the villages of Mitrovica District.

These families would play an important role in supporting the Serbian administration in Drenica. In this context, his proposal also included the welfare of these families, who should be given the right to use and work the state land. Consequently, when this step was completed, then the process of Serbian colonization of Drenica began. This plan of the Serbian President was seriously discussed in the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Serbian settler families have been settled in Drenica, but in practice this plan has not been carried out to a specific extent, because the colonization process could not be carried out quickly.

Meanwhile, the political circumstances in the Kingdom of Serbia after the Assassination of Sarajevo (June 28, 1914), influenced the relativization of internal policies at the expense of the Albanian vices.Murder, disarmament and cruelty towards AlbaniansThe Serbian military bodies were also harsh towards the Albanians who were arrested on charges of sensitizing and inciting the uprising against the Serbian government. Thus, with this charge, 6 Albanians who were arrested in the village of Gradicë, were transferred and then executed in Deviç, without applying a preliminary judicial procedure. In this context, being categorical to fight and liquidate any members of the Albanian National Movement, the Serbian bodies also carried out a murder.

According to the information of J. Umlauf “an insurgent who in the fall of 1913 had escaped to Albania, returned to his village with the intention of smuggling (without being investigated by the Serbian military and police bodies, F.R) into Albania his wife cloud. Attacked by the gendarmes, he fell dead after he also killed one of the aggressors.” While fate forced the wife of this insurgent into an illegal cohabitation with the mayor of the municipality of Devič.In the first ten days of June 1914, the bodies of the Serbian military administration landed weapons and transferred troops, which included the territory of Drenica.

At the same time, local Serbs and settlers participated in activities related to their training to shoot weapons. The exercises in question were carried out in Mitrovica on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter. Also, the area of Drenica faced arrests, as happened in the village of Vitak, where a 25-year-old man was arrested, without any personal documents, for alleged espionage activities in the service of the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Mitrovica. The arrested person, accompanied by military troops, was sent to Skopje for further measures. At the beginning of June 1914, the Serbian administrative authorities notified the Muslim Albanians to obtain emigration certificates and leave within three days from Drenica and Kosovo, because later such permits were not issued to them. Even at the end of June, infantry companies were sent to Drenica to reinforce other military forces, while from the village of Bajë the commission ration brought to Mitrovica 12 Ottoman Mauser rifles confiscated from Albanians. In Klina, on June 12 and 13, 1914, two Albanians, after being ill-treated, were then robbed by Serbian committees. While on June 14, a Serbian military patrol looted the entire house of Keço Ajet Çaushi, who was on the run in Albania.

Cconclusion
Based on the above sources and materials, it is implied that Drenica for almost a year (July 1913 – June 1914) was maximally active within the Albanian National Movement, for the liberation of Kosovo from the Serbian and Montenegrin occupation and annexation and its union with Albania. Through the organization of the armed struggle, which took place with surprising methods and strategies and in groups numerically small (30 people) and large (2,000 people), depending on the geographical terrain of the action, the Albanians of Drenica never left it quiet the occupying administration, striking and challenging it in all its security (military and police) and administration segments.

This Albanian force, which at the same time took care of the protection of the Albanians from the Serbian oppression, was continuously persecuted by the bodies of the Serbian administration, it was fought with all methods and means, but it did not manage to be completely extinguished, despite the massacres, the terror and the crimes that were perpetrated against to the families of the insurgents, to the innocent population and to every settlement of Drenica. In this context, in the years 1913-1914, Drenica represents a special role and contribution within the attempts of the Albanian people of Kosovo for liberation and national unity, which with resistance and armed struggle has conveyed a message to the Great Powers and the Serbian-Montenegrin monarchies, that the decisions on the territorial encroachment of Albania and the division of the Albanians were unjust and unacceptable.

Reference

Dr. sc. Fitim RIFATI, Instituti i Historisë – Prishtinë. DRENICA NË KRYENGRITJET E VITEVE 1913-1914 DHE TERRORI SERB NDAJ SHQIPTARËVE.