Cities.—Capital, Belgrade (Biograd, “White Fortress”) at the confluence of the Save and Danube, is now a modern city, with electric railways and light, and wide streets, containing the university, national museum and library, and the old Turkish citadel. Population (1910) 91,000. It lies opposite Semlin, at the confluence of the Save and Danube, two hundred and fifteen miles southeast of Budapesth. The walls disappeared in 1862; the last and finest of the five gates was demolished in 1868. Year by year the town is losing its old Turkish aspect, becoming more modern, more European. The royal palace, the residence of the metropolitan, the national theater (1871), and the public offices are the principal buildings. Opposite the theater is a bronze monument to the murdered Prince Michael III.
Belgrade has but trifling manufactures of arms, cutlery, saddlery, silk goods, carpets, etc. It is, however, an entrepôt of trade between Turkey and Austria.
Other towns are Nish, 25,000; Kragojevatz, 19,000; Leskovatz, 15,000; Podjeravatz, 14,000; Shabatz, 12,000; Vranya, 11,500; Pirot, 11,000; and Krutchevatz, 10,000.
The principal towns in the territories acquired in 1913 are Monastir, 60,000; Prisrend, 42,000; Uskub, 32,000; Prilip, 24,000; Istip, or Shtip, 21,000; Kalkandelen, or Tetovo, 20,000; Koprili, or Veles, 20,000; Dibra, 16,000; Pristina, 16,000; Kumanovo, 15,000; Ochrida, 15,000; and Novi Bazar, 13,000.
History.—The Servians came from the Carpathians in the seventh century, and founded a great state, which, about 1350, embraced Albania and much of Bulgaria and Macedonia; but at Kossovo in 1389 the Turks crushed the Servian power and made Servia first tributary and then a province of the Ottoman empire.
A national rising had some success under Kara George in 1807-1810 and through Russian influence it was arranged that Servia should have some measure of internal autonomy. Still more successful was a rising in 1815 under Obrenovich. Under his successors there was considerable progress; and after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 Servia obtained complete independence and became a kingdom. King Milan abdicated in 1889.
In 1903 a party of officers, representing a wide conspiracy, assassinated King Alexander and Queen Draga, and Peter Karageorgevitch was proclaimed king. In 1913 Servia, as a member of the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Servia, and Montenegro), waged a successful war against Turkey. In August, 1913, Servia and Greece were attacked by Bulgaria, their former ally, owing to disputes concerning the division of the spoils. The second war collapsed in a few weeks through the threatened intervention of Roumania, and ended in the Treaty of Bucharest. Servia also became involved with the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on a question of the Albanian frontier, where desultory fighting had taken place for some months, but eventually the smaller power withdrew from the disputed area. The outcome of the military operations was the inclusion of the whole of “Old Servia” (the greater part of Macedonia) within the Servian boundaries, which thus embrace an area (1914) of close on thirty-four thousand square miles, with a population estimated at five million.
The assassination of the Austrian heir presumptive, in June, 1914, brought about an invasion of Servia by the forces of Austria-Hungary, and started the Pan-European war that is still in progress.