Macut: On Corfu, Serbian army gained new strength for liberation of fatherland

CORFU - The 109th anniversary of the WWI landing of the Serbian army on the Greek islands of Corfu and Vido was commemorated on Corfu on Thursday.

Serbian PM Djuro Macut said that in those places, sacred to Serbia, the Serbian army had been recovering and gaining new strength for the final liberation of the fatherland.

The commemoration was also attended by Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic, Minister of Labour, Employment and Veteran and Social Affairs Milica Djurdjevic Stamenkovski, as well as the metropolitan of the Ionian islands, Nektarios.

"In his address at the Serbian Heroes' Mausoleum, where he laid a wreath, Macut said that the island of Vido is a sacred place for all citizens of Serbia, the place of suffering of the starving and exhausted Serbian army, which, retreating towards Corfu, passed the Albanian Golgotha," the Serbian government said in a statement.

"The Prime Minister noted that it is estimated that more than 210,000 people died during the retreat, and more than 5,400 on the island of Vido itself, and that every foot of that island is a grave of those who died for Serbia and for the freedom of their people.

In the history of the world, it is one of the most honourable examples of obedience to one’s homeland, freedom, people and oath, the Prime Minister said."

"That oath to defend and protect ourselves was not violated even when the enemies attacked us from three sides, with an army ten times stronger, nor when we ran out of ammunition, nor when we crossed the Albanian and Montenegrin mountains in the dead of winter, hungry, naked and barefoot," he said.

He said the Serbian army in Corfu had been "treated with the brotherly relationship, respect, compassion and hospitality of the Greek people, and strengthened by the brotherly gestures of the people of Corfu, such as the decision of Yannis Yannoulis to have a dignified cemetery for the heroes of the Drina Division on a part of his property."

Macut also laid a wreath into the Blue Tomb - the Ionian Sea.

Following their tragic retreat across the mountains in the winter of 1915/1916, the evacuation of the Serbian troops to Corfu began in the second half of January 1916.

After gradually recovering, the revived Serbian army was transferred to the Thessaloniki area in the spring of 1916, when a new frontline was being established in the region.

The Serbian troops triumphantly broke through the frontline in mid-September 1918.