The second infantry regiment, when first called up in peace, had a garrison in Niš, Serbia and in war, it was mobilized in Prokuplje, where the district regimental command was located. With courage, strength, and high combat morale in the liberation wars of 1912-1918, the regiment became famous and amazed almost all allied armies with their heroism, including their commanders, governments, and people. In the war with the Turks in 1912, the Iron Regiment consisted of people from Toplica County, Jablanica, Pusta Reka, and Zaplanje. In the second and third companies of the 4th battalion, there were only people from Jablanica and Toplica. On the eve of the war, on October 7, 1912, when the regiment left Prokuplje for the war against the Turks, it numbered: 60 officers, 445 non-commissioned officers and corporals, 4210 privates, and 29 musicians. This first call-up regiment was filled by Serbian soldiers in their prime, from 21 to 31 years of age. On the bloody but victorious road, the regiment had great losses but also gained immortal glory. In the battles with the Turks near Bitola on November 16, 1912. 1/5 of the soldiers of this regiment were thrown out. In the battles with the Bulgarians, only at the Grlje positions, in one battalion of the regiment of 15 officers, as many as went to war, 3 survived, and out of 1500 soldiers, only 200 brave fighters met the armistice. The famous regiment lost 33 officers 2120 soldiers and non-commissioned officers in just one month of continuous fighting with the Bulgarians. In the Second Balkan War, the regiment also lost its first commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Ristić. Out of 4,500 soldiers, in the war with the Turks and Bulgarians, from 1912 to 1913, 3,000 soldiers were thrown out of the Second Regiment or were killed, and 48 of the 60 officers were killed or wounded. There were several cases of ordinary ranks taking command. Not a small number of soldiers of this regiment went to war in 1912 as privates and returned in 1918 as captains and even majors.

Members of the Iron Regiment

Their opponent and occupying soldier, the corporal of the 11th regiment of the 9th Austro-Hungarian division and participant in the battles of Cer and Kolubara, and the famous writer Egon Ervin Kish, left a convincing record about the fighting morale of the Serbian soldiers. He says about them: „Only in Serbia in 1914 did I realize that the love for the freedom of small nations is a stronger force than the violence of the big and powerful.“
The second infantry regiment of the first call, out of the fifty regiments of the Serbian army, was the only one that bore the honorary title „Iron Regiment“. The famous name „Iron“ regiment was not given by the king, nor by the Serbian Supreme Command, but, quite spontaneously, by the Serbian soldiers of other regiments, and because of their exceptional courage and great warrior feats on the battlefield of the bloody Balkans. And it was known throughout the Serbian army, and even in the occupying regiment, that that regiment, even at the cost of heavy losses, did not leave the battlefield without a command order. The enemy, when he found out that the Second „Iron One“ was in front of him, would tremble and panic. He knew that this Serbian regiment always fights to the end – win or lose, there was no third.
Aperture: 2.2
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