ABSTRACT
In January 1915, Reinhold Oeser submitted a report about his visit to the small fort at Vrbica in Hercegovina at the end of July 1914: it was an important station for regional telecommunications. A remote spot close to the mountain of Vardar, the fort had been built decades earlier to guard the state border. Oeser had been based in Trebinje and then Sarajevo for many years as an officer in the postal service, so this was certainly not unknown territory for him. He witnessed the detonation of land mines which destroyed one of the frontier posts and was close enough to the event to see the reaction of the Montenegrin border guard who crouched under his horse. Oeser explained that the Montenegrins just over the border were communicating via light signals, but despite his fluency in their language, he had not been able to decipher the messages. Like so many of his contemporaries, Oeser had built up the figure of the adversary—either an Orthodox man from Hercegovina or his kinsman from Montenegro—into an almost superhuman figure. This man could slither almost unheard in his opanci (leather shoes) and take a Habsburg soldier by surprise. At the border post, there was a “good-tempered and clever” guard dog that would prick up his ears at the sound of the foe approaching. Despite his foreboding, Oeser had time to view the hills around him and to look at the routes taken by shepherds, and the blood-red, rose, and lilac shades of the sunset. He could see Mount Orjen and the peak of Vučji zub, which to him looked like theatrical props against a deep blue background. He also had time to share his humble rations with others: inevitably, small portions could bring men together as they broke bread in a “brotherly manner” and shared a cup of wine. 1 This reinforced a very twentieth-century view that comradeship was “the best thing about war.” 2 By the time the report was submitted in January 1915, people in the border region, both soldiers and civilians, had experienced months of fighting.
