Budimir Davidović was a participant in the Balkans and World War I, as a subordinate of the Serbian army. In one color alone, he sustained seventy wounds, lost his arm, and survived a bomb thrown at him. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the terrible fate he encountered after the war.
The beginning of World War I and general mobilization Budimir Davidović welcomed as an experienced warrior. This then twenty-four-year-old boy from Lučani had already fought in both Balkan wars, gaining the reputation of being a brave and fearless soldier, both among his comrades and in command.
So when the elderly King Petar called, Budimir responded. He participated in several battles against the Austro-Hungarians and Bulgarian soldiers during the First World War. He passed the Alban Golgotha, reached Corfu, recovered there, and was one of the participants in the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki Front.
Budimir was a scout. He was entering deep into enemy territory, sneaking and filming Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians and somehow, always managed to return unnoticed.
At the beginning of 1918, he was in the assault company and was there during the attack on the positions of Krvavi Zub – Obla Čuka, Kravice – Zapadni Veternik. Turns out, last time!
Budimir was wounded with seventeen stab wounds to the chest! During the fight, a hand grenade was thrown at him, causing his right arm to be amputated and seventy-four pieces of a grenade were removed from his body at the hospital.
His feat was heard from afar. For his heroism, he was honored with the highest military honors, with two Karađor’s sword stars, the Legion of Honor, the White Eagle Order with swords, the Obilić Medal of Courage and the Albanian Memorial.
While recuperating in the hospital, he was visited by French general Adolphe Guillaumat. The story goes that he removed the Order of the French Legion of Honor from his chest and handed it to Budimir.
“Hero, you more than I deserve to wear this high decoration,” said the general.
After his liberation and his return to Serbia, Budimir was confronted with the fate of many of his fellow soldiers who remained disabled. He was forced to work in a wage for other people, and as a disabled person, he could not do much. Still, people kept it out of pity.
Afterward, he carried milk to Čačak, was a monopoly controller, a clerk in the tax administration … all just to survive.
And with age it was only harder … Sick and incapacitated, everyone forgot him. This is evidenced by the upsetting letter sent by Bogoljub to Serbian Prime Minister Milan Nedić, in the midst of the occupation, on 24 April 1942.
“Please be given some help as I have no other income, I’m old and crippled, starving on cobblestone in Čačak with my wife and two other small children,” Budimir wrote at the time
He died in 1980 at the age of 90 in Čačak, where since 1992 one street bears his name.
TST
