Milojko Lešjanin
Milojko Lešjanin was a Serbian military officer and politician. He served as Minister of Army and [Chief of the Serbs|Serbian General Staff|Chief] of the Serbian General Staff for several times in the 1870s and 1880s. As corps and army commander he took part in the wars with Ottoman Turks and Bulgarians in 1876–1885. He led the Serbian troops at the liberation of Niš in 1877 and at the blockade of Vidin in 1885. He also served as Chief of the Military Academy of Serbia for several times in the 1860s and 1880s.
Biography
Education and teaching career
The son of a merchant from Lešje, Lešjanin joined the Armed forces of the Principality of Serbia in 1849. He graduated from the Artillery School in Belgrade as a lieutenant in engineering, and later completed a three-year course at the Prussian Staff College in Berlin and a one-year internship at the Prussian General Staff.After his return to his homeland, he was a longtime teacher at the Artillery School, and served three times as its Chief. In 1870 he was again in the Prussian General Staff, this time as an observer of the fighting in the Franco-Prussian War. He witnessed the sieges of Metz and Strasbourg.
Military career
In 1862, during the bombardment of Belgrade by the Ottoman Turks, Lešjanin commanded a section of the defence and was promoted to the rank of captain I class. At the beginning of the First Serbian–Turkish War in the summer of 1876, Lešjanin commanded the Timok Army, which aimed to invade the northwestern Ottoman Bulgaria and to raise the Bulgarians in revolt. His attempt to accomplish this task was thwarted by the Turks; Lešjanin then ceded command to the Imperial Russian Army general Mikhail Chernyayev. At Veliki Izvor, Lešjanin led the Zaječar detachment on the left flank of the Serbian troops. The battle ended in defeat for the Serbs, who were soon forced to abandon Zaječar to the Turks.During the Second Serbian–Turkish War in the winter of 1877–1878, Colonel Lešjanin was commander of the Morava Corps, advancing on both banks of South Morava and took part in the operations that led to the capture of Niš. After this success, Lešjanin was entrusted with the joint command of the Morava and Timok Corps to take over Pristina. He failed to accomplish this task due to unsuccessful assault on Turkish–Albanian positions near Samokovo. In February 1878 he was a special envoy of the Prince Milan Obernović to the Russian headquarters in San Stefano for the negotiations that led to the Treaty of San Stefano, unfavorable for Serbia.
Upon his return from San Stefano, Lešjanin was promoted to the rank of general. He commanded the Timok Corps, and in 1879–1880 and 1882–1885 he was Chief of the Serbian General Staff, and in 1883–1884 he was also the commander of the active army. In the Serbo-Bulgarian War in November 1885, General Lešjanin commanded the Timok Army during the unsuccessful siege of Vidin. After the war, Lešjanin took over the leadership of the General Staff for the third time, in 1886–1888; afterwards, he left the Royal Serbian Army and entered politics.
In 1888 he replaced Đorđe Simić as president of The Red Cross of Serbia. His tenure lasted from 1888 to 1896 when he was succeeded by General Jovan Mišković.