"SUCH A NATION IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEAT!"

"Through all the trials of the war the Spirit of Serbia was never defeated.  Her gallantry was past praise, and it had placed on her Allies a sacred obligation."

Lord Robert Cecil

in a speech at a luncheon given to

M. Pashitch, Prime Minister of Serbia, August 8, 1917

"Victory is not won by shining arms, but by brave hearts."  

Old Serbian Proverb

 


Dedicated to the Serbian heroes of WWI and innocent Serbian victims of shameful Anglo-American bombing of Serbian lands in WWII and NATO bombing campaign against the Serbians in 1999 (cynically called ''Merciful Angel'') which both were undertaken during the Orthodox Easter holidays.

MEMORY ETERNAL+

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"FOR CROSS AND FREEDOM"

has been our national motto. It is written on our flag and in the hearts of each of us. Our motto never was "For existence" or "For vital interests." That was an unknown form of language to our kings of old, and that is still a language very strange for our ears to hear to-day. We never fought indeed solely for a poor existence in this world. We fought always rather for the ideal contentment of this terrestrial existence. We fought not for life only, but for what makes one's life worth living—"For Cross and Freedom!"

Serbian soldier from WWI
carrying the Serbian flag with the inscription ''With faith in God, for the King and the Fatherland''

The Cross is mentioned first, and then Freedom. Why?

Because the Cross of Christ is the condition of a real freedom. Or, because the Cross is for God's sake and our freedom is for our sake. We should fight for God's sake first and then for our own. That was the idea. Or, because Cross and Freedom are two words for the same thing. The religion of the Cross involves Freedom, and real Freedom is to be found only in the religion of the Cross.

"For Cross and Freedom!"

St. Nikolai Velimirovic

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Serbia not only means a democratic state, but a democratic nation; that is to say, that not only are the Serbian institutions (including the church also) democratic, but the spirit of the whole of the nation is democratic. After all, this democratic spirit of Serbia must be victorious in the Balkans as well as in the Slav world.

St. Nikolai Velimirovic

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I like heroic songs and minds fed on ancestral deeds of glory. Tenacious love of old tradition, of custom and dress handed down by forebears arouse my respect and admiration.
I believe, as these (Serbian) people do-as my own ancestors believed-that liberty and personal and national honor are worth all one's possessions and one's life: that the life of a slave is not worth living. Better, far better, to fight even a hopeless battle and, if one must, to die.
Everywhere among these mountain peoples I found these values to be the unconscious mainsprings of action, motivating men, women, and children of all classes. The more I saw of them the more they filled me with affection and admiration . . .

I liked these people and they seemed to like me. I really loved them.
I admired their stern struggle for the barest existence, their pride and dignity. Soon I began to feel as if Serbia were my real home, the place where I was meant to be.

..I gave the dying men and women of Serbia my promise that I would spend the rest of my life looking after their children. I promised them that America would never forget the bond and the debt. I pledged American honor that the thousands upon thousands of orphans left in a ruined land would be cherished by their American brothers and sisters.
In view of all that the Serbs have done-for us; in view of all they have lost in fighting-for us; in view of all they have saved-to us- in money and in lives, I propose that for the rebuilding and the future of Serbia we appropriate the cost to us of one day of war.

Ms. Ruth Mitchel

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“Hardly is there a nation which has met with a sadder fate than the Serbians. From the height of its splendor, when the empire embraced almost the entire northern part of the Balkan peninsula and a large portion of what is now Austria, the Serbian nation was plunged into abject slavery, after the fateful battle of 1389 at the Kosovo Polje, against the overwhelming Asian hordes. Europe can never repay the great debt it owes to the Serbians for checking, by the sacrifice of its own liberty, that barbarian influx.”

Nikola Tesla

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To the English people :

I am sure you will give protection to them who have given you, in the time of light and in the time of darkness, their friendship and devotion. By this protection of Serbia, as well as of all the little and oppressed nations in Europe and Asia, you will do more for the glory of your country than by any extension of its frontier or accumulation of riches. Serbia suffers and still hopes. Serbia's hopes go to God, crossing this island of yours, crossing your hearts and souls, as the bridge between her and God. Serbia hopes to be free with all her brothers, who are suffering under the manifold yokes of merciless strangers. Serbia militans did every possible thing you expected her to do. She has been for you, not only politically and militantly, correct, but childish, sincere and devout. Now she is sitting on your threshold and looking towards you with shining tears in her eyes. And the God of Heaven knows Serbia and knows England. He waits to see what you are going to do for Serbia. Who dares to doubt that you, descendants of Shakespeare and Pitt, of Carlyle and Gladstone, will show yourself less chivalrous towards the little Serbia than Serbia has shown herself chivalrous towards you?

I dare not doubt it.

St. Nikolai Velimirovic (in London, during the WWI)

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Typical American and British gratitude:

Bombing Christian Allies
on Easter Sunday

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The American and British air force bombed Belgrade* on Sunday April 16, 1944, during Christian Serb holiday of Easter. The bombing was performed in a fashion more savage than Hitler did it three years earlier on Sunday, April 6, 1941.

There is no easy explanation and certainly there is no excuse for this barbarity. To make it even more shocking - while number of Serbian cities were mercilessly bombed on this Eastern Orthodox holiday - none of the Croat cities saw the same destiny. Why were the Serbs - the nominal allies bombed while the nominal enemy was not? Theories are many and we can only guess.

Michel Lees was one of the British liaison officers dropped by the special forces into Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in 1943. He spent a year among the Chetniks. Chetniks were Serb Royalists loyal to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and to King Peter. They were anti-Nazi guerrila fighters lead by Serbian patriot General Draza Mihajlovic. This is a quote from Mr. Lees' book...

* The city of Belgrade is dedicated to the Mother of God

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What should be so secret
about an air force operation?

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Excerpt from:
Michael Lees
"THE RAPE OF SERBIA,
The British role in Tito's Grab for Power 1943-1944"
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1990
ISBN 0-15-195910-2

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QUOTE, pp 301-302:

The theory [in some Serbian circles] is that strikes by Western Allied aircraft of the Balkan Air Force were called down specifically against Serbian towns and villages, cynically choosing Serbian Orthodox religious holidays for the bombing. It is an undeniable fact that there was carpet bombing of Belgrade for three consecutive days coinciding with the Orthodox Easter in April 1944, the intensity of which surpassed even the Luftwaffe attacks of April 1941. On Saint George's Day 1944 the Montenegrin towns of Niksic, Podgorica, and Danilovgrad were blasted by Allied planes, allegedly because there were strong Loyalist concentrations around those areas, but, in truth, to demoralize the pro-Mihailovic (pro-royalist) populations. The same was done even to Zara [Zadar] to demoralize the Italian population. [British liaison to Tito's partisans] Maclean's book Eastern Approaches gives his impressive and horrifying eyewitness account of the devastation of [central Serbia city of] Leskovac on the opening day of Ratweek, purportedly in order to destroy a concentration of German armor and motor transport. But fifty Flying Fortresses were used, and Maclean "tried not to think of the population of small farmers, shopkeepers and railway workers, of the old people, the women and children, who at this moment would be going about their everyday business in the streets. ... the whole of Leskovac seemed to rise bodily into the air ... the civilian casualties had been heavy."

Militarily it was using a sledgehammer to kill a gnat. ... But to the Partisan leadership the purpose of that bombing and others was not military, it was political. It was to show the strongly pro-Loyalist (Orthodox monarchist) population of Jablanica who were the masters now.

The nominal bombing procedure was that Tito and his commander specified the targets through the British mission and their RAF advisors. One wonders why the BLOs, or the Balkan Air Force advisors at base, did not question the necessity of extensive bombings of Yugoslav [actually exclusively - Serbian] areas, of hospitals, and of churches -- and on religious holidays too -- if there was not some political motive. Why did Maclean not question the need to flatten [the Serbian town of] Leskovac? Massive bombing of civilians in German cities was one thing. Germans lived there, and the German morale had to be broken. But bombing Belgrade or Leskovac on the odd chance of hitting a German barracks or tank and with the certainty of killing massive numbers of Yugoslav [actually - Serb only] allies was surely something very sinister. I feel certain that the Allies would never have contemplated a blanket bombing of Paris, for example, on Easter Sunday -- or any other day -- however many German tanks were passing through.

But of course Tito had made it clear from the start that his was a sovereign army and that he would decide. Did that go for ordering out massive formations of allied bombers too?

... Regrettably, the Balkan Air Force files are permanently closed like the main SOE files and those of SIS. One wonders why. What should be so secret about an air force operation?

End quote.

History seems to repeat itself again. It was Bosnian Muslim forces that, in 1995, issued target lists to NATO pilots when Bosnian Serbs were to be bombed to submission. Four years later, during NATO's assault on Yugoslavia in 1999, Albanian KLA terrorists were to provide NATO aviation with data how to bomb Serbs [again] in the very cradle of the Serbian culture - Kosovo.

To summarize: the Western allies were always ready to provide their proxies on the ground with air cover. It is not only the case with recent Yugoslav civil wars. It is true - different times - round the globe. In the second half of twentieth century, the Serbs - nominal allies of United States and Great Britain in WWII struggle against the Nazis - were target of vicious "ally" air attacks at lest three times. Again, this simply because the "allies" had found themselves proxies they wanted to help:

• Tito's Communists in 1944
• Croat new Nazis in their attack on Krajina (Serbian province in Croatia) in 1995
• Islam fundamentalists in Bosnia in 1995
• Albanian terrorists and drug dealers in 1999

Each one of the chosen proxy is more astonishing than the next. Each choice of the proxy is more puzzling than the next.

That Tito was Churchill's hand-picked proxy in the Balkans is not a secret any more. From declassified letters Churchill sent to Roosevelt we see that Churchill insisted Roosevelt should stop supporting Serbian Royalists.

Immediately, in the letter (Doc #346, No. 515) two days later (April 8, 1944) President Roosevelt agrees and says: "My thoughts in authorizing an OSS mission to the Mihailovic area was to obtain intelligence and the mission was to have no political functions whatever... I have directed that the contemplated mission be not repeat not sent."

Not much persuasion needed. In English, whether British or American version of it the word "ally" actually means - a useful fool. Only months before, and maybe even during the time when the American President penned the above letter, the Royalist Chetniks were saving lives of American pilots fallen over Yugoslavia. Some six hundred of them! To viciously bomb Serbian cities by another group of American pilots was a typical cowboy way to say thanks.

In 1941 Churchill asked Serbs to commit suicide and say "No!" to Hitler at the time when he was at the peek of his power. The Serbs did it and paid with more than million lives! Churchill praised them at the time. Only three years later he was expressing his gratitude to the same astonishing people of Belgrade who dared chant to Hitler's face "Rather war than the pact; rather death than slavery..." by viciously bombing them on their most important Christian holiday. On Easter Sunday!

Such is Western morality and every future ally of the Brits and Americans should know the above story.

Let us add one more detail to the story. Serbian American Mr. Charles Simic; winner of Pulitzer Prize shares his memories of being bombed, as a child, on that Easter Sunday. In his book A Fly in the Soup, he tells about a weird encounter with one of those American pilots who bombed him. Being a typical Serb Mr. Simic is too easy to forgive the atrocity, but he also publishes the letter he got from the pilot...

Please be kind to yourself and read Mr. Simic's text we posted under title: "To bomb Belgrade on Easter." It would truly be a crime if we were even trying to retell it.

http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Yugoslavia/views/Simic-1944.html

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Do not bomb Christians on Easter

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His Grace Metropolitan Pavlos

FROM:

The office of His Eminence PAVLOS
Metropolitan Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox
Old Calendar Church of North and South America
Member of the Holy Synod of the Old Calendar Church of Greece
Under the Presidency of His Beatitude Archbishop CHRYSOSTOMOS II Of Athens and All Greece

TO:
Mr. William Jefferson Clinton
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

April 1st, 1999

Dear Mr. President,

I am for a third time writing to you as a Christian, as an Orthodox Christian Hierarch, and as a native-born Greek-American.

I will not repeat all the things I expressed to you very recently in two previous letters. You are well aware of the horror being perpetrated by NATO forces in the sovereign state of Yugoslavia. I do not need to tell you how many men, woman, and children, Christian and Muslim, "smart bombs" have killed in the past seven days. I can only ask you, in the name of God, to use all your power and all your authority to stop all NATO strikes against all the peoples of Yugoslavia immediately.

Mr. President, I must inform you that this Sunday is Palm Sunday for more than 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians. Palm Sunday is when we Orthodox Christians glorify the day when Jesus Christ will enter Jerusalem. It is the day that begins His Passion and Suffering that leads up to His Crucifixion and Resurrection. We Eastern Orthodox Christians know the week that follows Palm Sunday as Great and Holy Week. During Great and Holy Week we will participate in the Glorious Passion and Suffering of Jesus Christ. On Pascha, the Sunday following Palm Sunday, we will participate in His Glorious Three-Day Resurrection.

Mr. Clinton, there is no holier time for Eastern Orthodox Christians than Great and Holy Week. It is a time when we emerse ourselves, experience for ourselves, and glorify through prayer, fasting, and hymns the Great Miracle that is the Suffering, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a most solemn and sacred time that the Eastern Orthodox Church Calendar revolves around and prepares for all year. It is in reality the meaning and essence of our short sojourn on this planet.

Mr. President, I am sure that you know that the Serbs of Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Metohija are Orthodox Christians. They have been Orthodox Christians for a thousand years. Millions of Serbians have died throughout history rather than give up their Faith. Many times in the past they have defended all of Christendom in the face of death. I implore you, Mr. President, do not make us party to the death of any more Serbians during this Holiest of times.

I must tell you, Mr. Clinton, I was deeply saddened when I heard reports that NATO forces have written "Happy Easter" on some of the bombs dropped over Yugoslavia.* I hope these reports are untrue. If our intention is to insult the entire Serbian, people and nation it was enough that the day German airplanes in the NATO airstrikes dropped bombs on Serbia last week was the anniversary of a great day in Serbian history. No German planes had seen combat since World War Two until this recent NATO strike. In March of 1941 the Serbs were pounded by the German Luftwaffe (airforce) because they made the decision to fight against Hitler and join the Allies. On the 58th anniversary of that great day the Luftwaffe again has dropped bombs on the Serbs. I am sure you see the significance of that, Mr. Clinton, just as I am sure you see the significance in fighting a war gauged to humiliate and insult an entire civilization.

Recently during decisions made while planning for a military strike against Iraq the decision, as announced by you to the American people, was made to cease any military strikes during the period of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy time for all Muslims and as Iraq is populated by millions of Muslims you did the proper thing, the good thing, in making that decision. I am imploring you to do the right thing, the good thing, and call off NATO strikes against the people of Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Metohija, during Orthodox Christian Great and Holy Week. Not to do so would be extremely painful to not only Serbian Orthodox Christians but to Albanian, Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Beylorussian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Arab, African, and Asian Orthodox Christians as well. I know from personal experience, having Albanians in my Cathedral here in New York, that the Albanian Orthodox Christians are suffering as much as anyone in Yugoslavia is.

The Nineteenth century French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, was a keen observer of the American Nation. It was he who saw the greatness that was (and still is) America when he said, "America is great because she is good. When she ceases to be good she will cease to be great."

Do what is good, Mr. President, and keep America, keep us, a great nation.

I pray that the Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may enter your heart.

In Christ, I remain, the unworthy monk,

Metropolitan Archbishop PAVLOS
Of the Greek Orthodox Old Calendar
Church of America

Hellenic Orthodox Traditionalist Church of America
Holy Metropolis of The Greek Orthodox
Old Calendar Church of America
Cathedral of Saint Markella
22-68 26th Street Astoria,
N.Y. 11105

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Both in WWII and during the NATO campaign the Anglo-American bombs dropped on Serbian lands were carrying greetings deliberately written in Serbian Cyrillic: ''Happy Easter'' ,and not only that..
Throughout May (1999), Nato repeatedly targeted the town of Kraljevo, destroying its school and a hospital clinic. More than 20 civilians have been injured. A message on one of the bomb casings found at Kraljevo read, “Do You Still Want to Be a Serb Now?”

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''Swarms

of former men.
Thieves and paupers.
Packs of robots and other monsters yet
will swoop on my orchards and fields
and my little white houses along the roads
adorned by green goddesses
cherry, apple and plum trees.


I confess, for the sake of salvation of my kin,
I do not exist thus cross me off your list
From now on I am only light, air and water.
The three elements you can exploit.
What you see speaking and walking before you
is what you've turned me into.
My ugly image
with monstrous features
that you multiply morning and evening.
It`s the image
of your conscience and subconsciousness
That`s not me, on the outside!
That`s you - on the inside.''