07.09.2025.

Minister Gašić attends ceremony marking anniversary of Battle of Kaymakchalan

Today, Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić attended a wreath-laying ceremony, honouring 109 years since the Battle of Kaymakchalan.

Accompanied by the Deputy Head of the Office of the Minister of Defence, Colonel Nikola Matović, the Defence Attaché to the Republic of North Macedonia, Colonel Nebojša Đorđević, and the Defence Attaché to the Hellenic Republic, Lieutenant Colonel Vladan Kolarić, Minister Gašić laid wreaths at the memorial chapel and memorial ossuary dedicated to Serbian soldiers at Kaymakchalan.

In his address, Minister Gašić emphasized that Kaymakchalan is a place where the freedom of our country was paid for at the highest price – with the blood and lives of the finest sons and daughters of the Serbian nation.

- Every rock, every blade of grass, every drop of mist at these heights carries the memory of the heroes who, shoulder to shoulder, defended what was sacred to them – honour, faith, and the freedom of Serbia. We also remember the terrible Golgotha our people endured – when the Serbian army, together with its people, embarked on a gruelling journey through the Albanian mountains, leaving behind their homes, hearths, and memories. In those frozen, trackless regions, thousands of lives were lost, the lives of young men, the elderly, women, and children. It was not only the soldiers who suffered, but an entire nation – a people bearing the cross of their own existence. And yet, from that suffering, an unshakable hope was born - hope that the sun of freedom would shine over Serbia once again. When, exhausted and tormented, they finally reached the shores of the Ionian Sea, when many believed it was the end, they chose to believe it was only the beginning of a new struggle. And so it was – the Minister of Defence said.

He emphasized that in Corfu and Bizerte, the Serbian Army rose like a phoenix from the ashes, returning to the Salonika Front and Kaymakchalan, where the path to freedom was forged, and the journey back to the homeland began.

- It was here, in September 1916, that some of the fiercest battles of the Salonika Front were fought. The importance of this place was immense for both sides. The enemy called it “the City of Boris”, believing it to be unconquerable. But they hadn’t reckoned with a people and an army of unblemished honour, those who sought not to take what belonged to others, but simply to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. The freedom-loving spirit of our people prevailed. For the Serbian people, this was “the Gate of Liberty”, a doorstep through which they triumphantly returned to their country – Minister Gašić emphasized.

The heroes of Kaymakchalan did not think of themselves, nor did they fear death, the Minister of Defence said. According to him, they believed in Serbia and their names are woven into the very foundations of our state, even if not all of them are recorded in books.

- They are the ones who showed us that freedom has no price, that it is not a gift but a sacred vow. Before this monument and in the presence of the spirits of our fallen heroes, we vow today never to forget their sacrifice. It is our duty to safeguard the freedom they won, to remember the path they walked, and to pass on that legacy to the generations to come. May this place stand as a temple of remembrance, but also as a reminder that freedom is fragile if not protected, and eternal if defended – Minister Gašić said. Let us always be worthy heirs to our ancestors, and a shining example for our descendants – Minister Gašić concluded.

Minister of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski thanked everyone for gathering today at the doorstep of the homeland, noting that it was here, at Kaymakchalan, that Serbian soldiers took the blow and, with their own chests, defended their homeland.

- After wandering through the Albanian Golgotha, through ravines, through death, through suffering, they returned stronger than ever. They came back to break through the Salonika Front and write one of the greatest chapters in the history of our nation. At the beginning of the war, many media outlets and correspondents reported that Serbia no longer existed, that our country had been wiped off the map of nations. But when they wrote about what happened at Kaymakchalan, and the events that followed during the breakthrough on the Salonika Front, they described our ancestors not as an army marching, but as a people walking. They did everything to safeguard our freedom, Minister Đurđević Stamenkovski said.

The capture of Kaymakchalan, a peak at 2,525 metres above sea level, marked one of the most difficult and significant battles of the First World War. However, the conquest of this “Gate of Liberty” represented the first major triumph of the restored and reorganized Serbian Army.