The Habsburg Garrison Complex in Trebinje

Trebinje is a city in Hercegovina, the southeastern part of the confederate state of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Following the imposition of Habsburg rule on Ottoman Bosnia in 1878, a new garrison was constructed in the old citadel. This innovative book tells the story of the garrison in times of peace and war. By using a micro-historical approach, the author traces the story of an extra-European style colonial project in the heart of Europe. The Austro-Hungarian administration rapidly transformed Trebinje into a tree-lined city dominated by the army. Hospitals, cisterns, schools, roads, and railways were then built and educated soldiers produced new work on botany, geology, or archaeology in their spare time.

As in many similar cases, the Habsburg "civilizing mission" was accompanied by ruthless violence against those who resisted the new foreign occupiers. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 led to increased persecution of the Orthodox population. Border villages were burnt down, and people were publicly executed. The infrastructure slowly collapsed, food shortages and news of military defeats left the Habsburg population beleaguered and they quickly left at the end of 1918.

The tragic violence, however, is described alongside accounts of daily life in the Trebinje garrison complex. By personalizing historical events, the narrative reveals the perspective of people who found themselves in the small city: the ordinary soldier, the condemned "insurgent," the career officer, the cook, the shepherdess, the hotelier, or the journalist. The author has focussed on the experience of several soldiers by a close reading of their diaries and memoirs.