Summary

After World War I, Albanian-speaking Muslims in Kosovo, Metohija, Sandžak, and surrounding regions desperately petitioned the Allies to establish an international provisional regime rather than being annexed by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Horrified by Serbian occupation and widespread atrocities—including massacres, rapes, village burnings, and extrajudicial killings—the Kosovo Committee documented these crimes and warned of the imminent threat to hundreds of thousands of lives. They pleaded for Great Power intervention. Reports of the violence reached Bosnia, where Muslim leaders like Reis-ul-ulema Čaušević publicly condemned the killings and destruction of Muslim communities.

Cited from the book “Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe” by Emily Greble:

“In petitioning the Allies to establish an international provisional regime. These men could not believe that their lands were being designated as part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. They were also incensed at being passed off to the Serbian army, which—with the backing of the Allied powers—had given the green light to “liberate” Kosovo, Metohija, Montenegro, and lands around Lake Ohrid, home to large numbers of Albanian-speaking Muslims.

This land had been annexed by Serbia and Montenegro during the Balkan wars, despite resistance and opposition from many Muslim residents. To British, French, and American leaders, Serbia had fought the Central Powers valiantly and suffered colossal human and infrastructural losses that would be rewarded with the return of her prewar possessions. To the Albanians who lived there, the Serbian occupation was terrifying, so was the idea that it was internationally sanctioned.

In casting its appeal, the Kosovo Committee cited numerous Serbian atrocities committed under the cover of war, documenting massacres, rapes, the burning of villages, and other acts of cruelty.

They referred to instances of Serb soldiers gouging out the eyes of Muslims. They described how in the Sandžak town of Rozhaje, fifty soldiers violated a Muslim girl after killing her father, then burned the entire family in her manure. They pointed to extrajudicial violence, such as the case of a teacher, Imer Bujkaj, who was “killed by a firing squad, in broad daylight and before the seat of the military commander . . . his only crime raising and educating the children of his own nation.”

Kadi’s committee pleaded that a small authoritative gesture on the part of the Great Powers followed by the internationalization of the regions in question is the only way to avert the imminent danger that threatens the existence of hundreds of thousands of human beings.

News of the massacres spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well, where one Muslim man noted in his unpublished memoirs, “In the Sandžak, the Orthodox Christians began a great massacre of Muslims, but no one can be found to protect these Muslims except Reis-ul-ulema Čaušević.”

Indeed, Reis-ul-ulema Džemaludin Čaušević, who remained the highest Muslim religious official in the former Austro-Hungarian lands, publicly rebuked the government in 1919 for failing to protect Muslims from Serb paramilitaries, whom he accused of having killed “thousands” of Muslims and destroyed 370 villages.”

Source

Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe. Emily Greble. 2021. p. 113