Summary – Serbian War Crimes in the 1848 Uprising

During the 1848–1849 Serbian uprising in southern Hungary (Vojvodina), Serbian rebel forces, supported by elements of the Austrian army and clergy, carried out widespread atrocities against Hungarian and German civilians. Under the spiritual and political leadership of Patriarch Josif Rajačić and other nationalist figures, Serb militias looted villages, burned homes, and committed brutal massacres.

Civilians—including elderly people, women, and children—were tortured, impaled, mutilated, or burned alive in towns such as Neusatz (Novi Sad), Weißkirchen (Bela Crkva), St. Thomas (Srbobran), and Dorozlo. The violence was driven by ethnic and political hatred and was part of the wider chaos of the 1848 revolutions in the Habsburg Empire. These acts are remembered as some of the most severe atrocities of the 1848 uprisings in Central Europe, revealing how the nationalist and religious fanaticism of the Serbian insurgents led to large-scale crimes against civilians.

On page 128 in the book “Ludwig Kossuth sein Leben, sein Wirken, sein Exil” of Volme 2, we can read:

“The uprising which had broken out in Kikinda at Easter spread quickly throughout the country, and by mid-June 8,000 Raizen were under arms. Here, as in Croatia, the Austrian garrison either remained neutral or secretly supported the rebels. Colonel Meyerhofer even supplied the Serbian leaders with ammunition, and Lieutenant Colonel Dreihahn helped them in a raid on the town of Weißkirchen.

The most fanatical instigator was the eighty-year-old, stooped Patriarch of Karlowicz, Joseph Rajacic, who, dressed in the black, red-bordered vestments of Saint Lazarus Remanovic and girded with the saber of the heroic Georg Brankowic, toured towns and villages to instruct the Serbs to plunder the property of the Hungarians and Germans and to designate the battle victims for art and knife.

At his side was Jellachich’s ally, Pastor Hurban, the missionary of Slavism, who intended to invade Hungary with Bohemian volunteers. The numerous emissaries of the Viennese Hoxham Party prepared the ground for him to sow the seeds of fanaticism by inciting the greed and rapacity of the savage people.

In Neusaz, the Germans were surrounded and slaughtered; even the elderly and nursing women were painfully impaled. In Weißkirchen, the Germans fought for weeks in the streets behind entrenchments against Serbian bandits on all sides of burning houses. They were surrounded until the church was their last refuge.

In St. Thomas, prisoners were mutilated, roasted alive, or had their hands and feet sawn off. In Dorozlo, an old Hungarian man was covered with wounds and then tied to a stake. An old woman was crucified, her hands and feet smashed. In Szireg, prisoners were buried alive after their eyes had been gouged out. In Neus Verbas, Germans were impaled and roasted. Against these atrocities, the Hungarians armed themselves with all their might.”

Reference

Ludwig Kossuth sein Leben, sein Wirken, sein Exil. Volume 2. Robert Springer, 1851.