[jmilica]

Originally Posted by desertblues

Yes, Issybird, I couldn't agree more with you here. It seems these days that all history has to be popularized.
The novelist who writes a novel, lightly based on historical facts, seems to me to be more honest in his writing than an academic, trying to reach the public by whatever means he thinks fit.
The latter tends to give me somewhat of an aftertaste and that is what I get when reading The Swerve, however well it is researched.

I am also reading the Sleepwalkers and am gratified at the attention to historical research and report, especially when reading about Serbia. My impression

Spoiler:

This is (perhaps) another view on the First World War, in which my country was neutral. But in that war, there was a crisis, unrest, as there were trade barriers and food shortage because of that war. Also the Spanish flu, a world epidemic, took many lives. Revolution in Russia, attempts in Germany and even in the Netherlands (Troelstra).
As the writer states: there's been a lot of analysis, documentation about the prelude of this war from the different countries involved. All with their own story.
I know in England many sons of the aristocrats went to war and almost a whole generation of young men was wiped out, or returned shell-shocked and mentally crippled for life.
I am interested in the role of Serbia; the gap between its unrealistic nationalism and the reality of those days. Also the role of the French, who loaned money to that penniless, highly explosive, state. All of what is written about that period of the Serbian history should be taken in account when thinking, discussing the massacre of Srebenica in 1995 during the Bosnian war. That still is a trauma in our country, because of the role of the Dutchbat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebreni...

Well, apart from the fact that Serbia lost every fourth citizen in the Great War

Spoiler:

I seriously don't see connection between Dutch non-doing in Srebrenica in Bosnia with WWI and Serbia. But here's just a gentle reminder from NZ history site
Serbia - Casualties
Population: 4.5 million (1914)
Military dead (all causes): 450,000
Civilian dead: 650,000
Serbia suffered more civilian deaths than military ones in the First World War. This makes Serbia unique amongst all the combatant nations. The reasons are to be found in Serbia’s landlocked location, which isolated it from friendly Allied states and left it at the mercy of the surrounding Central Powers. Serbia was blockaded from the start of the war, and the civilian population suffered badly from famine and disease. The repeated Austrian invasions destroyed much of the north of the country’s infrastructure and farmland. An outbreak of cholera in early 1915 killed 100,000 Serb civilians. Thousands more died alongside the remnants of the Serbian Army during its epic retreat across the Albanian mountains in November–December 1915.

The situation worsened after the conquest of the country by the Central Powers in late 1915. Still more civilians died as Austrian and Bulgarian occupation forces implemented a harsh regime of martial law. Thousands were executed or sent to internment camps and what was left of the country’s industrial and agricultural resources was stripped bare to supply the war economies of the Central Powers. Serbs struck back through guerrilla warfare which led to brutal reprisals from the Austrian and Bulgarian military authorities. This culminated in a mass uprising centred on the Toplica region in February 1917 that at its height drew in 25,000 Austrian, Bulgarian and German troops. An estimated 20,000 Serb civilians were killed or executed in two months by the occupation forces. This cycle of oppression, guerrilla warfare and death through hunger and disease continued to take its toll on the civilian Serb population until the end of the war.
Also
Military Forces

Army
Peacetime strength 1914: 90,000
Reserves 1914: 420,000
Mobilised 1914: 530,000
Total mobilised to October 1915: 710,000
In October 1915 the Central Powers launched their fourth invasion of Serbia. This time the intervention of Bulgaria proved decisive. Faced with certain defeat on their home soil, the Serbian government and high command decided to retreat to the Albanian coast and keep fighting rather than capitulate. At least 300,000 Serb soldiers and refugees attempted to cross the Albanian mountains in the middle of winter. Thousands died.

The survivors, 150,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians, were evacuated to the Greek island of Corfu by the British and French in December 1915. Eleven thousand Serbs failed to recover from their ordeal and died on Corfu shortly after arriving. After a period of rest and rehabilitation this remnant of the Serbian Army was re-equipped by the French and transported to the Salonika Front, where they served alongside French, British and Italian forces against the Bulgarians and Austrians for the rest of the war.

Volunteers recruited to Army-in-exile 1916 onwards: 15–20,000
The Serbian Army at Salonika was authorised by the Serbian government-in-exile to accept ethnic Serb or ‘Southern Slav’ volunteers from other Allied nations, notably the United States but also as distant as New Zealand and Australia. They also accepted former Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war of Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and even Czech ethnicity.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/kingdom-of-serbia-facts