Marshall Radomir Putnik
                                                                                                                                                                    Radomir Putnik also known as Vojvoda Putnik was born January 24th, 1847 in Kragjevac, Serbia. Putnik's family, which fled with 1,000's of other Serbian families from Kosovo during the Great Serb Migration of 1690 into Hapsburg Empire, returned from exile in Austria-Hungary to a Serbian entity independent of Ottoman rule in the middle of the 19th century. Putnik's father, Dimitrye, was a teacher in Kragjevac, and Radomir completed his basic schooling there. He attended the Artillery School in Belgrade, where he graduated in 1863, placing 8th in his class. In 1879, he married Ljubica Bojovic, the daughter of a colonel, with whom he had 7 children.

Contemporaries describe him as an ascetic, introverted man, and a heavy smoker; however, he also thought to have been tough on professional issues. He proved himself on the battlefield during Serbia's war against the Ottomans that were fought between 1876 and 1877. It was his detachment that took Grjilane and Gracanica from the Ottoman's in Kosovo, during the closing phase of the 2nd Serbo-Ottoman War. Putnik was famous for being righteous and demanding officer, strongly defending his point of view.

Putnik became a professor in the military academy holding that position from 1886 to 1895. In 1889, he was appointed the Deputy Chief of the General Staff. However, he soon came into conflict with King Milan I, partly for not allowing a King's protege to pass an examination. Political intrigue and latent conflict with King Milan Obrenovic and his successor, King Alexander I, would follow him throughout this part of his career. In 1895, he was forced to retire by the King under suspicion of sympathy for the Radical Party of Nikola Pasic.

After a military coup d' etat against Alexander I Obrenovic in 1903, Putnik was under the new King of Serbia, Peter I Karadjordjevic rehabilitated, promoted to the rank of General and was appointed the Chief of The General Staff. Putnik was Serbian War Minister 3 times; 1904, 1906-1908, 1912. Putnik was the 1st officer to be appointed to the highest rank of Vojvoda(Field Marshall) In 1912 he led the Serbian army into spectacular victories in the 1st against Ottomans and the 2nd Balkan War against Bulgarian.

Now during the crisis that was going on in Austria over the assassination of the Archduke, Putnik was caught in Budapest when Austria-Hungary declared war on his county, but was allowed safe passage back to Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph. After a very troublesome trip home, Putnik gave his resignation to King Peter I of Serbia, on the grounds of ill health. But the King rejected it and insisted that he take command of the army. He was to give the orders, while the younger generals carried them out. Putnik done all this from a well heated room. However, his impaired health did not prevent him from successfully organizing a campaign.

Serbia defeated the Austro-Hungarian army's offensives in August and September 1914. Now everything had been quiet until Autumn 1915 when joint Austro-Hungarian, Germany, and Bulgarian forces led by Field Marshall August von Machensen, began a large offensive against Serbia with more than 300,000 soldiers. Before this attack came Putnik warned his government this attack was coming, but no one listened. So when war broke out, Putnik's men who where farmers, didn't stand a chance against this attack, so he ordered a full retreat in an attempt to save his men, and in doing so, his government dismissed him and also dismissed all other officers for their failure to keep the Austrians for crossing the borders.

With everything that Putnik had done for his country, the government never told him he had been dismissed. He didn't find out until a cashier had gave him his salary without a Chief General Staff's supplement. After he learned of being dismissed, he traveled to Nice, where French Authorities welcomed him with open arms. He lived here without ever seeing his homeland again and died in Nice at his villa on May 17th, 1917. But in November 1926 his remains were transferred to Serbia and buried with honors in a chapel at Belgrade's New Cemetery. The grave carriers the epitaph "Grateful Homeland to Radomir Putnik"                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                                      Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky

Born March 8th, 1860 in Krzyzanvice, Upper Silesia(Now Poland) He was the 6th Prince and 8th Count Lichnowsky. He succeeded his father in 1901. His father was a general of calvary, and his mother a princess of Croy. Karl was the head of an old noble Bohemian family and of immense wealth, possessing estates at Kurchelna in Silesia and Graz in Austria. As an hereditary member of the upper house of the Prussian Diet, Lichnowsky played some part in domestic politics, adopting in general or moderate attitude and deprecating party legislation. Though a Roman Catholic, he avoided identifying himself with the clerical party in Germany.

Entering diplomatic service, Karl was appointed an attache at the London Embassy in 1885 and later served as Legation Secretary at Bucharest. He became German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary in 1902, replacing Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg-Hertefeld, but was forced into retirement in 1904, accused of too much independence from the Foreign Office after several conflicts with Freidrick von Holstein, Senior Political Division.

He spent 8 years in retirement and in 1912 became Imperial German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's when the preferred candidate for the job was thought to be to young and the 2 other candidates turned the job down. Karl held this position from 1912-1914.

During the July Crisis of 1914, Lichnowsky was the only German diplomat who raised objections to Germany's efforts to provoke an Austro-Serbian War, arguing that Britain would intervene in a continental war. On July 25th, he implored to the German government to accept an offer of British mediation in the Austro-Serbian dispute. On July 27th he followed with a cable arguing that Germany could not win a continental war. This cable wasn't shown to Kaiser Wilhelm II. A cable on July 28th relayed an offer from King George V to hold a conference of European Ambassadors to avoid general war. A final cable on July 29th to the German Foreign Office stated simply "if war breaks out it will be the greatest catastrophe the world has ever seen." These warnings want unheeded, and by the time the final cable reached Berlin, Austrian troops were already bombarding Belgrade. On Britain's declaration of war on August 4th, 1914, Lichnowsky returned to Germany.

Now in 1916 Karl printed a pamphlet, My Mission to London 1912-1914. It started to circulate in Germany's Upper class circles, he accused his government of failing to support him in efforts to prevent World War I. But Germany was not the only place his pamphlet began to circulate in. It made its way all the way to the US in 1917, this led to his expulsion from the Prussian House of Lords. But his pamphlet didn't stop there. It got published in the Disclosures from Germany, New York's; American Association for International Conciliation in 1918 and made its way to the Swedish Journal Politiken in 1918 and finally it had made its way all they way to Britain and was published by Cassel and Co. in 1918.

Karl had his pamphlet broke down into 3 main points of blame that caused the war.

1. We (Germany) encouraged Count Berchtold to attack Serbia.

2. Between July 23th and July 30th, Sazonov having declared that Russia would not tolerate an attack on Serbia, all attempts to mediate the crisis was rebuffed by Germany.

3. On July 30th when Berchtold wanted to come to terms, we sent an ultimatum to Russia merely because Russian mobilization, although Austria was not attacked: and on July 31st we declared war on Russia. Which destroyed the possibility of a peaceful settlement.

At the end of the pamphlet, he said the Central Powers must loose WWI. He says the world will belong to the Anglo-Saxons, Russians, and Japanese, and the Germans will remain alone with Austria and Hungary.

Karl died February 27th, 1928, but his pamphlet became a formative and primary source in the minds of all the allied politicians who arranged the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919.