GOLUB BABIĆ AND MILETA DESPOTOVIĆ: SKETCHES FOR BIOGRAPHIES OF 1875–1878 INSURGENCE LEADERS IN BOSNIA

Golub Babić and Mileta Despotović do not have separate biographies. These are sketches for their biographies, during the time they were at the head of the uprising in southwestern Bosnia from 1875 to 1878. In the 1860s, Golub Babić, still a migrant from Krajina, was involved in the conspiratorial activities of the Serbian government in Bosnia. He came to southwestern Bosnia in August 1875 from Belgrade, although a supporter of the guerrilla way of war, Duke Babić was the first to start forming a military organization according to the modern European model, while Educating the “Head Authority of the Rebellion” on that inaccessible terrain. With Serbiaʼs entry into the war against Turkey on June 28, 1876, the uprising in Bosnia became part of a united Serbian front. Babić was deposed and a native of Šumadija and a former Russian officer, Colonel Mileta Despotović was entrusted the work on further insurgent military organizations. With that change the previous guerrilla way of warfare was replaced by frontal warfare, however the insurgent army in southwestern Bosnia failed to defend itself from the superior Turkish enemy on August 4, 1877. A year later, the Berlin Congress and the Austro–Hungarian occupation found the insurgent army in complete disarray.