Stepan "Stepa" Stepanović was a Serbian military commander who fought in the Serbo-Turkish War, the Serbo-Bulgarian War, the First Balkan War, the Second Balkan War and World War I. Having joined the Serbian military in 1874, he fought against the forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1876. Over the following years, he climbed up the ranks of the Serbian Army and fought against Bulgarian forces in 1885. He eventually became the Serbian Minister of War in April 1908 and was responsible for instituting changes in the Serbian Army.
Stepa Stepanović
Stepanović's childhood home in Kumodraž (Belgrade)
Portrait of Stepa Stepanović during his first year in Artillery school.
Monument in Kumodraž.
The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.
Clockwise from top right: Serbian forces entering the town of Mitrovica; Ottoman troops at the Battle of Kumanovo; Meeting of the Greek king George I and the Bulgarian tsar Ferdinand I in Thessaloniki; Bulgarian heavy artillery
Greek artillerymen with 75 mm field gun
The armored cruiser Georgios Averof, flagship of the Greek fleet. She was the most modern warship involved in the conflict and played a crucial role in operations in the Aegean.
Ottoman troops during the Balkan Wars