Viewpoint
TREBINJE AT THE CROSSROAD OF THE CENTURIES
At the end of the 19th century, the town of Trebinje became a military center and an important center of communications. With a new and spacious town square, administrative buildings, barracks, schools, hotels and park areas, it got a beautiful European face.
  • Trebinje, main street²
  • The Gate of Trebinje¹
TREBINJE BARRACKS
The complex of the Austro-Hungarian military camp consisted of four large defensive barracks, surrounded by defensive walls, about 900 soldiers and officers and more than 150 horses. In the photos, the most important objects are marked with numbers.
Trebinje barracks² 
Military barracks
Officers’ barracks
Bakery
Canteen
Officers’ Club
Military hospital
Administrative building
Communication between the main command of the town and the fortress around Trebinje was conducted, among other ways, by pigeon mail. These wonderful animals, with their infallible instinct, return to their cage wherever you take them. The pigeon post office station was located near the barracks in the town. Today there is the Museum of Herzegovina. We recommend you to visit. Carrier pigeons were heroes in the war, saving thousands of lives. After the war, most armies abolished this service.
PIGEON POST OFFICE
  • Pigeon post office, Trebinje
  • Transport of pigeons¹ 
  • Catching pigeons¹
NEW PEOPLE FROM BIG CITIES
Young Bosnia, Ivo Andrić (No. 7) 
 „At the end of June, a group of students from the Sarajevo secondary school arrived in the town and in the first half of July students of law, medicine and philosophy from the Universities of Vienna, Prague, Graz and Zagreb, began to arrive one by one. (…) On their heads they wore soft Panama hats with turned down brims and ribbons of six different but discreet colours. (...) In the lapels of their coats they wore metal Sokol badges or those of some student organization. (…) These were no longer those one-time students of the first years after the occupation, mild and timid youths (...) These young men came back intoxicated with that feeling of proud audacity (...) carried away by ideas about the rights of peoples to freedom and of individuals to enjoyment and dignity. With every summer vacation they brought back with them free-thinking views on social and religious questions and an enthusiastically revived nationalism which recently (...) had grown to a universal conviction and, in many of these youths, to a fanatical desire for action and personal sacrifice.“ 
Ivo Andrić, excerpts from the novel “The Bridge on the Drina”

  • Trebinje postcard²
  • Trebinje postcard²
¹ Source: Radojica Pavićević
² Source: Volker Pachauer
³ Source: Österreichisches Staatsarchiv
4 Source: Österreichische Gesellschaft für Festungsforschung

Important Note: Explore the fortresses and use the trails at your own risk.
Download app
Improving the quality and diversity of the tourist offer based on natural and cultural heritage in the border rural areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
Menu
This website is part of the FORT-NET project "From the Medieval Fortresses in Herzegovina to the Austro-Hungarian Fortresses in Montenegro" funded with the help of the European Union. The content of this website is the sole responsibility of the project partners and does not necessarily represent the views of the European Union.
Project partners