Pristine during the departure of the Serbian army in the autumn of 1915

The joint offensive of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany and Bulgaria against the Kingdom of Serbia, exhausted by the Balkan wars, the war destruction during the first year of World War I, and the typhus epidemic that killed over 130,000 people, forced the Serbian Supreme Command to order a departure from the North of the state territory to the south, or to the area of Kosovo and Metohija. One of the 'stage stations' on the painstaking withdrawal of the Serbian army, state leadership and people was also Pristina, where the Serbian king Petar I Karađorđević was staying from November 15th to 22nd of November 1915. Along with him, many people's deputies, religious dignitaries, intellectuals, clerks, cultural workers and well-known figures of Serbia's public life, foreign diplomats, the wounded and a large number of refugees arrived in Pristina. The Serbian ruler was placed in the house of the lawyer Ljubomir Nešić, in which formerly was the former consulate of the Kingdom of Serbia. While he was in Pristine, he talked with many politicians, generals, clerks, priests and prominent citizens. He regularly visited the city streets and the surrounding areas. There were gloomy and chaotic circumstances in the city itself. There was a lack of bread, flour, oil, salt, sugar, milk and other basic living necessities. War profiteers, blackberries and lifeguards dictated the prices at their discretion, without considering the circumstances. Branislav Nušić, Ilija N. Djukanović, Anrija Barbija, Luj L. Thompson and so on... The failure of the Serbian counter-offensive aimed at counterbalancing through the Kačanik's gorge, suppressing the Bulgarian army and opening the way to Greece, definitely determined a further course of withdrawal of the Serbian army. Priština had to be left. The Serbian army, state leadership and a huge mass of refugees retreated to Prizren, its medieval capital of the empire, from where, at the end of November and early December, they headed towards Golgotha, so Pristina remained behind them. On the next day, November 23rd 1915, it fell into the hands of the enemy. Its occupation began, which ended with the victorious return of the Serbian army three years later.