10.02.2012.
New Day of SAF
The new Day of the SAF as of this year will be on the 23rd of April. The decision to celebrate this date as the day of the SAF was signed by Serbian President Boris Tadic, on the recommendation of the Minister of Defense Dragan Sutanovac. Up to now, the 15th February was celebrated as the Day of the Armed Forces Day, thus remembering the start of the first Serbian uprising against the Ottoman Empire, while on the same day we still honor the National Day and the day of promulgation of the Sretenje Constitution adopted in 1835.
The new Day of the Serbian Army was elected to be 23 April. On that day, on Palm Sunday, in Takovo in 1815, prominent elders met and reached a decision to start the Second Serbian Uprising for the liberation of Serbia from the Turkish authorities.The Second Serbian uprising resulted in a positive starting point in the long run. Initially it was a military operation of the Serbian history, but in the later period ensued political and diplomatic activities, which led to the Serbia being freed from supreme Turkish authorities and the Second Serbian Uprising in some ways is the foundation for the creation of the Serbian government and Serbian armed forces. As a product, and independence was followed by the creation of the standing army and the establishment of the Guard which consisted of 76 men who were selected "in stature and reputation of" from finest families in Serbia.
Since the creation of a standing army, the first "conscripts" and later "soldats", went unnoticed by the Porte, the National Assembly made the name "Soldat" official. This is when first recruits were introduced, who remained in the army for ten years, bearing in mind that their service period was not determined. A standing army was living in the barracks and receiving salary. They received uniforms." These first Serbian regular army formations were modeled after the Austrian army, which confirms that both at that time the experience of foreign armies were invaluable in creating our army.
Second Serbian Uprising was precisely the combination of events led by faith in the liberation of Serbia using existing military assets and military organization, which led to the final liberation and recognition of modern Serbia as a state with full international legality and recognized by the powers at Berlin congress in 1878.
