Serbia

From Kaiserreich

Revision as of 19:54, 15 October 2007

Serbia, positioned amongst the empires that dominate the Balkans.

Serbia is a country in Southeast Europe. It is bordered by Austria-Hungary (Croatia, Bosnia and Hungary) and Bulgaria.

Politics

History

The assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand by a Serb nationalist in 1914 proved to be the catalyst that began the Weltkrieg. Despite expecting an easy campaign, Austrian forces only managed to occupy Serbia itself in late 1915, and only then because of the due to the entrance of Bulgaria in the war. After the war Serbia’s southern territories were handed over to Bulgaria, whilst the remainder was kept under Austrian occupation until 1926, when the Austrians were forced to withdraw their troops due to ethnic tensions elsewhere in the Empire - but only after setting up a new government formed from ex-collaborators.

Since then Serbia has struggled to survive, keeping a low profile in light of the knowledge that she could not stand up to any sort of military attack. Over time however the government has become increasingly anti-Austrian and jingoistic, and knowing that they could not hope to defeat Austria they have instead turned their attentions southwards, towards the lands occupied by Bulgaria. Several diplomatic talks have already been conducted with the Romanian and Greek governments (who also lost territory to Bulgaria) with a view to undermining Bulgarian hegemony in the region, and some say talk of a formal alliance is not far off.