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Duke Zivojin Misic
As Serbs “made a house for everyone on the road”, history is full of armies, revolts, uprisings and wars, and love has been an avoided topic in this area for centuries, as if it is a weakness that does not befit warriors and heroes. In the book “Great Serbian Love”, Žiža Radivojević noted 40 love stories that shine through eight centuries of Serbian history. On the pages of her book, there were couples whose love marked their lives, whether it lasted or turned to ashes, burned by passion, difficult political or ethnic circumstances. The book can be ordered via the author’s email: [email protected]
In the summer of 1881 in Arandjelovac, the event of the season was an officers’ ball organized by Queen Natalija, and everyone who took a reputation in the company had to attend it. Young girls were getting ready, gorgeous dresses, and lace and flowers adorned their hair and their breasts trembled with excitement, both because of the ball and because of the battalion of young officers at the exercises around the city. The family of engineer Friedrich Crickner was preparing for the ball, not realizing that that summer evening would break up the family. In particular, they did not even think that Louise, at the age of 16 and still in high school, could fall in love and make a scandal. And that is exactly what happened when she met the young lieutenant Živojin Mišić at the ball.
Parental prohibition
What happened that evening, whether the dance that Lieutenant Mišić came for permanently turned the head of a beautiful sweetheart from a rich house, or it was just recognizing two souls who knew each other and searched all their lives, no one could explain. Fate encounters are not explained, they happen.
Louise and Zivojin soon got married in the Church of the Ascension in Belgrade, despite the ban of her parents. Irreversibly in love, but stubborn, she ran away for a young Serbian officer, a peasant’s son with a small salary. She had no idea that she tied her life to a man of honor, smart, brave, but with a difficult destiny record that he carried in his Serbian gene. She gave up the comfort of a wealthy and tucked away life and chose an uncertain military, because a soldier’s wife is a soldier herself. Subordinated to the oath that her husband gave to his homeland, limited in every possible way in relation to other women. Her parents could not accept the son-in-law from the village of Struganik, of modest origin and even more modest income, and they inherited their sweetheart. A parent’s heart can sometimes be hard.
The young married couple Mišić was together only for the first three years. As early as 1885, Zivojin took part in the short, Serbian-Bulgarian war. While he was on the battlefield, his first child was born, a daughter Eleanor. He saw his first son, Radovan, only when he returned from the shooting school in Austria-Hungary, where he was sent to prepare for the General Staff profession.
The way of tears
The path of the young officer, and later the duke, was thorny and difficult. He was educated, he spoke four world languages, he could not give in to the enemy or his superiors, not even to the king. Kings do not like yoga and daring soldiers, especially those who do not have hair on their tongues, and the Mišićs felt that as a family. Zivojin was retired for the first time after the May coup, in 1903, and was marked as too loyal to the previous Obrenovic dynasty. As the Kradjordjevics wanted to erase everything that was connected with the murdered king and queen, so some officers retired, even though they did not have time to retire. The pension for General Staff Colonel Mišić did not last long, it was reactivated six years later at the personal request of General Radomir Putnik, during the annexation crisis.
And then the Golgotha of Serbia begins and makes a “path of tears” for the Mišić family, especially for Louise. Turning to her husband and children, the young, spoiled German became a real Serbian mother hero, who sends her husband and three sons to war.
Zivojin Misic was not to the liking of the Karadjordjevics, Apis and the Black Hand, an organization that supported Aleksandar Karadjordjevic. Retired again after the end of the Second Balkan War, and reactivated again in 1914, when Serbia was in danger. He received command over the First Army and with skilful maneuvers brought victory in the Battle of Kolubara, which is why he was promoted to the rank of duke. Together with his family, he shares the pain of crossing Albania, from where he moves to Corfu with the army, and Louise with her daughters and youngest son, who was still a child, to France.
German blood
What are the days and nights of a woman who fears for her husband and two sons who are left to fight for her new homeland? Every minute is like an eternity, every bite stops in the throat. Her loved ones are somewhere hungry, tired, wounded. Much later, Major Aleksandar Mišić, her second son, joined Draža Mihajlović’s Chetnik movement in Ravna Gora and fought against the Germans. He was captured in 1941 and offered his life during the shooting, learning that his mother was German. The condition was that he declare himself a German and renounce his Serbian roots and surnames. He was asked to bow to the other half of his blood, the German. He refused, saying that the blood was no longer there at all, it expired in Kolubara, where a German grain reached him. Such sons were born and raised by Louise.
Conflict with the king
During the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front, Mišić stood out so much that he was awarded the title of knight by the English King George V, and the Legion of Honor by France. And such, brave and frequent, he resented King Aleksandar Karađorđević because he was a clear opponent of unification with Croatia. It is known what he thought about the Croats as a people and he submitted it to the king in writing. Orally, he came into big conflicts with him because he could not imagine hardened Serbian soldiers from Cer and Kolubara, those who broke through the Thessaloniki front in sandals, as commanded by officers of the Croatian, until yesterday enemy army. Because, when our countries were united and the armies were united equally, so the higher ranks of the army that burned and burned in Serbia commanded his soldiers, whom he saw as his children, whom he did not spare even in wars. Radovan and Aleksandar Mišić did not have any better treatment than other soldiers, on the contrary. Once upon a time, an officer’s honor was a hindrance to life. Mišić was honorable and honest to the last drop of his Serbian, military blood.
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