Vrnjacka Banja,Serbia.

[Simon Furnell]

Evening all.

I have been looking into a local girl,who died in July 1915 and is buried at the above town in Serbia.

She was a Red Cross Nurse,working for the Serbian Relief Fund,and died from natural causes.

I have had a look at a recent map of the area,and it is close(no more than 60 miles or so)from the Bulgarian/Romanian,borders,and about a hundred or so miles from Sarajevo.

Pristina,is no more than an hours drive away.

Not realising that British troops served in the Balkans,up until a couple of years ago,i am not sure of where the lines were,during this part of the War.

Any ideas chaps?.

All the best.

Simon.

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Simon

This map is from The Quality of Mercy - Women at War Serbia1915-18

by Monica Krippner - Pub. David & Charles 1980 ISBN 0-7153-7886-4.

A further map from the same source follows.

There are a number of Red Cross Nurses named in the book. Let me know the name of your girl and I will check the book for you.

Dave

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Second Map

[Guest steveb21]

The place you are looking at is not in any area that was in the late war between the Balkan countries or Ex Yugoslava states.

It may have seen the odd bomb from NATO aircract during the Kosovo War but other that that I can not see it being near to other fighting.

During the Bosnian war I did take a number of UN convoys from Croatia to Macadonia a few times and stayed in Bellgrad a few nights and found the Serbian people to be frendly, dispite the fighting.

S.B

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Simon

Vrnjacka Banja gets five mentions in the book mentioned above.

The first three indicate that at first it was a fairly safe place to be. It had good sanitation and first class medical facilities. It records that nurses were able to walk and picnic in the area around the town - some hired horses and rode in the hills - and concerts were put on for their patients.

The remaining two mentions are attached below are self explanatory.

Dave

[Rickus]

Vrnjacka Banja in Serbia receives a lot of attention as a site for Red Cross and other voluntary humane organizations who went there from Britian in 1915 particularly to hep against the the typhus outbreak (Google it). In fact it was an ideal location for recuperation of Serbian soldiers as, not only being centrally located in the country, but because it was a recognized spa town (the ancient Romans went there) with established guest houses and plus on a train line. The locals erected a 'statue' at one extreme end of the town next to a covered spa in the mid 1980s in memory of First World War doctors and nurses who helped there.

A brass plate on the monument reads in English and Serbian:

"In memory of the humanity of the British women - doctors and nurses who treated Serbian soldiers and the people of Vrnjacka Banja in the hospitals here in 1915.

From the people of Vrnjacka Banja October 1985"

Diary extracts indicate from 10 November 1915 Austrian, German and Bulgarian soldiers occupied the town and expelled the Serbian patients from the hospitals.