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Remembered Today:

The French in Serbia 1917


christine liava'a

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Christine,

Sorry for the delay in replying! I've just been to Salonika French Cemetery (Zeitenlik) and seen the register, and can confirm that Theodore Coppenrath is NOT buried here.

As we surmised, he's most probably at Bitola/Monastir in FYROM. I've never been up there, and have no immediate plans to head that way, but I'll ask an acqaintance of mine to see what he can do.

Have you asked the French Embassy in Skopje yet?

Re. info on Pacific/Fr. Polynesian soldiers. That might be tricky.

The Salonika graves register merely lists surname, first names and grave number, so it would mean a lot of cross-referencing with Memoires des Hommes etc.

But... the British War Memorial Project (www.wargraves.org.uk) is planning to expand to cover all nationalities, so their local volunteer in northern Greece (i.e. yours truly) will be photographing and cataloguing all the French graves around here at some stage, as well as all the Italians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians and Greeks... possibly starting next summer.

Regards,

Adrian

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Why do you think Monastir changed its name to something so different, when everywhere else, although having different names in different languages, has a recognizable similarity?

Several comments on this that might be helpful.

First of all, some of the place names we have been dealing with are Slavic, a few are quite foreign language place-names, and some are Slavic but spelled in the pronunciation of a foreign language, perhaps taken off of a German or Austrian map.

"Ban" in Slavic (there are a few closely related Slavic languages and dialects floating about in this linguistic soup) can mean "governor" (I think at a high level of rank) or "bath". The latter might be the root of these village names. "Banica" may mean "little bath" or "little spa". (Look in German speaking areas for all of the places whose names end (or start) in "bad"; places where spas are/were. So not surprising that several "Banica"s might pop up.

"Banitza" is "Banica" spelled so that the German pronunciation would sound like the original Slavic. the "c" in Jugoslav languages is a sharp "c", like "stz"; with one of several accents it is softer.

Note that the capital of Macedonia, (now) Skopje, had a very different Turkish name, starting with "U". Not many of these place names are obviously Turkish, although they ruled for centuries in this area. The Turks, in my opinion, despite popular (and ignorant) opinion, were usually very sensitive to the locals; rather than the old Hollywood "conversion by the sword" stuff, they sometimes tried to prevent conversions to al-Islam, so that not too many people obtained tax advantages. (The Turks generally levied higher taxes on recognized minorities, but also special advantages, such as being free of the draft {you would not want to be in the Turkish Army, today or 200 years ago}, their own courts, and leaders in several spheres. In Turkey the minorities {Greek Orthodox, Genoese Catholics, Armenians, Jews} were generally much more affluent and well-off under this system than their Anatolian neighbors. When the Turks attempted to introduce more "equality" in Bosnia, the locals started a 15 year guerrilla war; they liked the old system far better. The situation of minorities has, IMHO, gotten much worse under half-baked "equality". )

This sensitivity to locals and granting high office to foreigners and minorities is a major reason why the Turkish Empire ran so well for hundreds of years, despite the Sultanate quickly becoming debased and impotent.

Digression, Digression, --- I know. But if you want to understand this area, you should understand the Turks.

Bob Lembke

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Several comments on this that might be helpful.

First of all, some of the place names we have been dealing with are Slavic, a few are quite foreign language place-names, and some are Slavic but spelled in the pronunciation of a foreign language, perhaps taken off of a German or Austrian map.

"Ban" in Slavic (there are a few closely related Slavic languages and dialects floating about in this linguistic soup) can mean "governor" (I think at a high level of rank) or "bath". The latter might be the root of these village names. "Banica" may mean "little bath" or "little spa". (Look in German speaking areas for all of the places whose names end (or start) in "bad"; places where spas are/were. So not surprising that several "Banica"s might pop up.

"Banitza" is "Banica" spelled so that the German pronunciation would sound like the original Slavic. the "c" in Jugoslav languages is a sharp "c", like "stz"; with one of several accents it is softer.

"Banitza" actually is a sort of a popular egg-pie, made in Bulgaria and Macedonia.

And there is a difference of pronuntiation of the "ch" - sound in Serbian on one hand, and the Bulgarian and Macedonian (which are also South Slavic languages), on the other. So the generalisation about "Slavic" languages here is a bit impossible.

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Note that the capital of Macedonia, (now) Skopje, had a very different Turkish name, starting with "U". Not many of these place names are obviously Turkish, although they ruled for centuries in this area. The Turks, in my opinion, despite popular (and ignorant) opinion, were usually very sensitive to the locals; rather than the old Hollywood "conversion by the sword" stuff, they sometimes tried to prevent conversions to al-Islam, so that not too many people obtained tax advantages. (The Turks generally levied higher taxes on recognized minorities, but also special advantages, such as being free of the draft {you would not want to be in the Turkish Army, today or 200 years ago}, their own courts, and leaders in several spheres. In Turkey the minorities {Greek Orthodox, Genoese Catholics, Armenians, Jews} were generally much more affluent and well-off under this system than their Anatolian neighbors. When the Turks attempted to introduce more "equality" in Bosnia, the locals started a 15 year guerrilla war; they liked the old system far better. The situation of minorities has, IMHO, gotten much worse under half-baked "equality". )

This sensitivity to locals and granting high office to foreigners and minorities is a major reason why the Turkish Empire ran so well for hundreds of years, despite the Sultanate quickly becoming debased and impotent.

Digression, Digression, --- I know. But if you want to understand this area, you should understand the Turks.

You are generalising too much. There were indeed times of relatively tolerant policies by the Ottomans (actually Ottomans were far from being all ethnic Turks), but quite more often represions were really hard. Forcible convertion to Islam indeed happened in the Balkans, espesially in the Rodopi mountains on the south of Bulgaria. There they were three waves of forcible convertions in 17th century -in 1656-1657, 1676 and 1682-83. The expulsion of a large number of Serbs from Kosovo roughly at the same time also is a historical fact. There were moments on ethnic cleansing and forcible convertion in the Balkans in all times and during all periods - from the Antiquity through the Middle Ages and on to 1990-ies - and Ottoman times were no exception to that.

If you want to understand this area, you should understand all the nations there. The history of the region doesn't start and doesn't end with the Ottomans.

As for the subject - I was unable to dechipher 100% the place written- but I doubt whether it is indeed Banitza. The village in question was on the Greek territorry in 1917 and to me seems highly improbable that the French authorities would name it "Banitza (Serbie)", as by August 1917 Greece was already fighting on the Entente's site... The important thing is to decipher the name of the village correctly.

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"Banitza" actually is a sort of a popular egg-pie, made in Bulgaria and Macedonia.

And there is a difference of pronuntiation of the "ch" - sound in Serbian on one hand, and the Bulgarian and Macedonian (which are also South Slavic languages), on the other. So the generalisation about "Slavic" languages here is a bit impossible.

I am of course a fool to debate the South Slavic languages with a South Slav, based on my extremely rusty, 35 year old, somewhat usable Serbo-Croatian (a language which formally does not even still exist) and a tiny bit of 40 year old Slovene, but I was pointing out that a German or Austrian map-maker, faced with a village named "Banica", and knowing enough that the "c" without an accent would be sharp (and here do we know if the accent has been dropped as this discussion goes on?), would, if he were smart, probably spell it "Banitza", thereby getting a German speaker to amazingly pronounce it roughly correctly in the local languages. If there was an accent, and he again was clever, spelling it "Banicha" on his map would produce a roughly correctly pronounced word. However, possibly Banitza was an entirely different village named for an egg pie. I was just warning that it is entirely possible that they are/was the same place, for the reason I have beaten to death.

Once you leave Slovenija (and its 82 dialects for less than two million people) and its rather different and interesting language, there formally are several languages as you progress south-east thru Croatia, Serbija (with a side excursion into Cerna Gora and Bosnia), Macadonia, and Bulgaria, but in fact these languages sort of blur together. I understand that linguists like to use the many different ways the word "milk" is written and pronounced to chart where you are on the linguistic map.

An additional wild card is the Turkish. Knowing a very little bit of Turkish, I have seen Turkish words used in, for example, Serbian and Greek, by people whose teeth would explode if they knew that they were speaking Turkish.

However, to the outsider, we do have to generalize a bit. Locals make much about distinctions that the outsider can only wonder about. I have known Croatian academics who would murder someone over the pronunciation of the word for "thousand". I have a Serb friend whose father was supposedly drowned in his own well by his Serb neighbors, who know he was pure Serb, but disliked that his name was spelled in a fashion more commonly used by Croatians, not Serbs.

Bob Lembke

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I am of course a fool to debate the South Slavic languages with a South Slav, based on my extremely rusty, 35 year old, somewhat usable Serbo-Croatian (a language which formally does not even still exist) and a tiny bit of 40 year old Slovene, but I was pointing out that a German or Austrian map-maker, faced with a village named "Banica", and knowing enough that the "c" without an accent would be sharp (and here do we know if the accent has been dropped as this discussion goes on?), would, if he were smart, probably spell it "Banitza", thereby getting a German speaker to amazingly pronounce it roughly correctly in the local languages. If there was an accent, and he again was clever, spelling it "Banicha" on his map would produce a roughly correctly pronounced word. However, possibly Banitza was an entirely different village named for an egg pie. I was just warning that it is entirely possible that they are/was the same place, for the reason I have beaten to death.

I just pointed out that the word "Banitza" has its meaning in this part of Macedonia. As for "Bath", in Macedonia it would have been "Banja" and Ban was never used as a title in Macedonia, save for the 1919-1941 period, but that was after the war we are dealing with.

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Once you leave Slovenija (and its 82 dialects for less than two million people) and its rather different and interesting language, there formally are several languages as you progress south-east thru Croatia, Serbija (with a side excursion into Cerna Gora and Bosnia), Macadonia, and Bulgaria, but in fact these languages sort of blur together. I understand that linguists like to use the many different ways the word "milk" is written and pronounced to chart where you are on the linguistic map.

Indeed these are related languages. However if the differences between the Serbian and Croat are indeed very small - mostly in pronunciation of the same words. Between these languages, on one side and Bulgarian and Macedonian, on the other, differences are much bigger and far from only pronunciation of "milk" - actually Bulgarian and Macedonian constitute a different sub-branch of South Slav languages

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Knowing a very little bit of Turkish, I have seen Turkish words used in, for example, Serbian and Greek, by people whose teeth would explode if they knew that they were speaking Turkish.

Well, no normal person I know back there in Bulgaria will tell you that words as "javas-javas", "tavan", "Dzam" or "Tepe" are anything but Turkish. :) About some surrounding countries I don't know - their ideas are probably somewhat different. :D

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Adrian,

No, I have passed the address on to the relative however, and now it is up to her. I am just generally interested.

I think the Bitola cemetery is most likely.

When you do get around to the photography, please keep me in mind. I am interested in all graves of French pacific soldiers. The islander soldiers will probably be obvious by their names, but the European ones would have to be checked against Memoire des Hommes. I can do that if you could just give me a list of names. If that site had a cemetery section like CWGC it would be easy!

Thanks for your efforts!

...............

Christine,

Sorry for the delay in replying! I've just been to Salonika French Cemetery (Zeitenlik) and seen the register, and can confirm that Theodore Coppenrath is NOT buried here.

As we surmised, he's most probably at Bitola/Monastir in FYROM. I've never been up there, and have no immediate plans to head that way, but I'll ask an acqaintance of mine to see what he can do.

Have you asked the French Embassy in Skopje yet?

Re. info on Pacific/Fr. Polynesian soldiers. That might be tricky.

The Salonika graves register merely lists surname, first names and grave number, so it would mean a lot of cross-referencing with Memoires des Hommes etc.

But... the British War Memorial Project (www.wargraves.org.uk) is planning to expand to cover all nationalities, so their local volunteer in northern Greece (i.e. yours truly) will be photographing and cataloguing all the French graves around here at some stage, as well as all the Italians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians and Greeks... possibly starting next summer.

Regards,

Adrian

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You are generalising too much. There were indeed times of relatively tolerant policies by the Ottomans (actually Ottomans were far from being all ethnic Turks), but quite more often represions were really hard. Forcible convertion to Islam indeed happened in the Balkans, espesially in the Rodopi mountains on the south of Bulgaria. There they were three waves of forcible convertions in 17th century -in 1656-1657, 1676 and 1682-83. The expulsion of a large number of Serbs from Kosovo roughly at the same time also is a historical fact. There were moments on ethnic cleansing and forcible convertion in the Balkans in all times and during all periods - from the Antiquity through the Middle Ages and on to 1990-ies - and Ottoman times were no exception to that.

If you want to understand this area, you should understand all the nations there. The history of the region doesn't start and doesn't end with the Ottomans.

As for the subject - I was unable to dechipher 100% the place written- but I doubt whether it is indeed Banitza. The village in question was on the Greek territorry in 1917 and to me seems highly improbable that the French authorities would name it "Banitza (Serbie)", as by August 1917 Greece was already fighting on the Entente's site... The important thing is to decipher the name of the village correctly.

It is true that I am a master generalizer.

In fact a small proportion of "Ottomans" were ethnic Turks. When the ethnic Turks entered Anatolia, say about 1100, they supposedly numbered 4000, with 400 horsemen. Within a few centuries they had conquered 60 nations, supposedly. When Murad II took Constainople (sp?), his Grand Vizer (Prime Minister?) was nicknamed "The Greek", after him 34 of the next 38 Grand Vizirs were born Christian.

The Turks (or Ottomans) were not "Mr. Nice Guy". But they were a sort of "equal opportunity employer", a key to the success of their empire. But if you did not buy their system, you were in deep trouble. They of course did some forced conversions, but at other times and places prevented subject people from converting for convenience (e.g., for lower taxes). The Hollywood/Cecil B. DeMille image of the maddened bloody converter (here I am blurring over to the "Arab" stereotypes, but of course many confuse the two rather different groups) have scrambled our brains, at least on this side of the Big Drink. They certainly tended to treat recognized ethnic and religous minorities much better than the Christians of the era. For a minor example,when they took Sarajevo the local Muslim ruler built a synagoge for the local Jews out of his own funds; the Jews there were probably Shephardic, chased there by the Spanish Catholics, who were using oil-soaked Jews as street lighting. (Not sure about the timing here. The Turks must have taken Sarajevo before 1492, but a lot of Spanish and Portugese Jews fled to the Balkans and Turkey. So the Jews that originally were given a synagoge might not have been Shephardic.)

I actually know a lot more about "Jugoslavija" (in the broad sense) than Ottoman and current Turkey. I have spent 14 days in Turkey on three visits, and about 18 months in "Jugoslavija" on 18-20 visits. I must know 300 times as much of South Slavic languages than my scrap of Turkish. I have only touristed in Turkey, I have worked, lived in, and studied in several Jugoslav republics and now countries. I once worked for the US department of State, an American university, and two different Jugoslav governments at the same time. The Jugoslav Security Service actively tried to recruit me for about 20 years, sending a man when a woman did not work, and I just re-established contact with a Serb secret police damsel that I first fooled about with in Slovenija in about 1969. But I know the history of the northern end of the Balkans more than the southern end. I have only spent about 6 hours in Bulgaria, two years ago. I liked it.

Bob Lembke

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Well, no normal person I know back there in Bulgaria will tell you that words as "javas-javas", "tavan", "Dzam" or "Tepe" are anything but Turkish. :) About some surrounding countries I don't know - their ideas are probably somewhat different. :D

Bob and Nikolay,

Interesting comments on Banitza, but Adrian and I think it reads Brnik!

Does either of you know why Monastir became Bitola , and when?

Christine

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Well, no normal person I know back there in Bulgaria will tell you that words as "javas-javas", "tavan", "Dzam" or "Tepe" are anything but Turkish. :) About some surrounding countries I don't know - their ideas are probably somewhat different. :D

Yes, Bulgars much be better informed than others in the Balkans.

I have tested this. For example, when I ask a Greek waiter where the name of the celebrated eggplant dish Imam Baldi comes from, and they do not know that is is Turkish for "the Imam fainted", meaning that the dish is so delicious that when it was served to an Imam (Muslim clergyman, of course), he tasted it and fainted from delight. A restaurant owner once knew, though.

If a Serb shows you a lovely old bridge they will generally describe it as "Rimski most", or "Roman bridge". Of course, there probably is not a single Roman bridge existant in "Jugoslavija", these bridges are Turkish. And we remember the months' long effort of the Croatians of Mostar to blow down the lovely Turkish bridge in the town, while the Bosnian Muslims covered it with old tires as a form of rubber armor; finally the bridge was dumped in the river after months of shelling.

Bob Lembke

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Bob and Nikolay,

Interesting comments on Banitza, but Adrian and I think it reads Brnik!

Does either of you know why Monastir became Bitola , and when?

Christine

Brnick? Well, I have to open my maps back home to search for it. Actually it is important to know what map were French using during the Salonika campaign. Bulgarians and Germans used the Austrian 1:210 000 map.

As for Bitolja and Monastir - both names were used simultaneously from the middle ages. Bitolja was the ancient Bulgarian name of the town - in use since X-XI centuries, while Monastir was the Greek name of the place and probably in use since about the same time. Most of the towns in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Northern Greece usually had two names since the Middle Ages - Slavic and Greek (Varna/Odessos, Plovdiv/Philipopolis, Solun/Thesalonika and so on). Later Ottomans adapted some of them or created new names on their own. So since the 14-15 centuries there were cities with three names in the region- a Bulgarian, a Turkish and a Greek! Same goes for rivers, some mountain ranges and so on...

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It is true that I am a master generalizer.

In fact a small proportion of "Ottomans" were ethnic Turks. When the ethnic Turks entered Anatolia, say about 1100, they supposedly numbered 4000, with 400 horsemen. Within a few centuries they had conquered 60 nations, supposedly. When Murad II took Constainople (sp?), his Grand Vizer (Prime Minister?) was nicknamed "The Greek", after him 34 of the next 38 Grand Vizirs were born Christian.

The Turks (or Ottomans) were not "Mr. Nice Guy". But they were a sort of "equal opportunity employer", a key to the success of their empire. But if you did not buy their system, you were in deep trouble. They of course did some forced conversions, but at other times and places prevented subject people from converting for convenience (e.g., for lower taxes). The Hollywood/Cecil B. DeMille image of the maddened bloody converter (here I am blurring over to the "Arab" stereotypes, but of course many confuse the two rather different groups) have scrambled our brains, at least on this side of the Big Drink. They certainly tended to treat recognized ethnic and religous minorities much better than the Christians of the era. For a minor example,when they took Sarajevo the local Muslim ruler built a synagoge for the local Jews out of his own funds; the Jews there were probably Shephardic, chased there by the Spanish Catholics, who were using oil-soaked Jews as street lighting. (Not sure about the timing here. The Turks must have taken Sarajevo before 1492, but a lot of Spanish and Portugese Jews fled to the Balkans and Turkey. So the Jews that originally were given a synagoge might not have been Shephardic.)

Bob, as you mentioned 34 of 38 Grand Vesirs were born Christian, but they did not stay Christians - in order to become somebody they had to become something else - so much on the equal opportunities "ala Ottomana". I would say that the Ottoman empire had used Imperial thinking and tactics on its own as all other Empires in the history of the world. And here much depends on the viewpoint - what is a moderately tolerant to the Ruling, might look a grave oppresion to the Ruled. In is highly important to take account on the both sides of the story to see the picture in its enterity.

It is a highly interesting subject, but I am afraid we strayed a little bit away from the 1914-1918.

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Well, I just opened the Bitolja section of the Austrian map and indeed found a village called Brusnick just a couple of miles outside Bitolja in the western direction - it was exactly on the frontline facing the positions of the 1st "Iron" Sofia division on the Tyrnovo- Rastani ridge (and the famous for all the Salonika front peak (cota) 1248). And there is another option - the village of Brnick - again on the frontline - just on the eastern side of the dreaded "Loop of Cherna" - scene of the heaviest fighting on the Salonika front in Autumn 1916. So with these two options in mind we have to establish where the 1st Regiment of the 17th Colonial division was near in August 1917 (I will try to search for that as well)- and this must be the place.

I will also look for the link - I downloaded this section of maps ages ago from a Hungarian site.

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http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/topo/3felmeres.htm

I believe this set of maps will be of interest to everyone interested in the Salonika and Romanian campaigns.

That was it - actually here there are maps covering all Centre and Eastern Europe. These were the maps used by the Bulgarian commanders in all wars between 1912 and 1918 and they used a number of sheets - Bulgarian units fought during these years from Chataldzda and Galipoli peninsulas to the Morava vallley in Northern Serbia and Djakovo in Kosovo and from Kastoria lake and the city of Elbasan (Albania) to the river Sereth in Moldova. Later in 1941-45 Bulgarian divisions went as far as Neretva River in Bosnia, Drava river in Slovenia and the cities of Clagenfurt in Austria and Pecz in Hungary. As an old Bulgarian saying goes - "The more you travel,the more you love your home" :D

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As for Bitolja and Monastir - both names were used simultaneously from the middle ages. Bitolja was the ancient Bulgarian name of the town - in use since X-XI centuries, while Monastir was the Greek name of the place and probably in use since about the same time. Most of the towns in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Northern Greece usually had two names since the Middle Ages - Slavic and Greek (Varna/Odessos, Plovdiv/Philipopolis, Solun/Thesalonika and so on). Later Ottomans adapted some of them or created new names on their own. So since the 14-15 centuries there were cities with three names in the region- a Bulgarian, a Turkish and a Greek! Same goes for rivers, some mountain ranges and so on...

I have learned a lot from Nilolay's posts, and will happily concede that he knows at least a thousand times as much about most of these matters than I do.

Yes, we have strayed. But I hope that the discussion gave a number of clues and nuances to the people who started the thread and are trying to puzzle out the local matters.

The multi-name business for many cities is interesting.

It was asked why the standard or official name seems to have shifted from Monastir to Bitolja. I can see two linked reasons. Although I am sure that Nikolay's assertion that the word "Monastir" comes from the Greek, I know it is used in Serbian. I was looking for the remains of Knez Lazar in a Serbian monastary in Frushka Gora, north of Belgrade, far from Macadonia, Greece, etc., a Serb nun leaped out of the shadows, rather startling me, and pushed his sleeve into my face for me to kiss it. To my eternal regret, I did not; I did know that he had his head cut off on Kosovo Polje on Vidovdan (June 26th?), 1389. The nun, who probably spoke nothing but Serb, and possibly an ecclastical language (Old Church Slavonic? Would a nun speak that? Questions, always more questions!), used the word "Monastir" when describing her monastary. (Lazar was not there any more, although he had been there about 600 years, but I found his bones a few days later.)

So, possibly during the communist era Tito and his guys were happy to nudge the official name from one with a religous meaning to a different one. Or, and perhaps as well, since the town is not far from Greece, they were also happy to go from a name with a Greek root to one more authenticly Slavic.

Bob Lembke

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