Draft:Milisav Petrovic (revolutionary)

Milisav Petrović-Topolivac (Serbian Cyrillic: Милисав Петровић (револуционар); c. 1775-1806) was a Serbian gunsmith and artillery manufacturer in the First Serbian Uprising. He worked in a foundry making cannons for Karađorđe during the insurrection from 1806 to 1811.

Biography

Milisav Petrović, a native of Banat, then part of the Austrian Empire, was a gunsmith and artillery manufacturer by trade. Milisav was well aware of Karađorđe's early successes in Serbia against the Turks. On 8 November 1805, Karađorđe's army entered the centre of the city of Smederevo, where the leader of the First Serbian Uprising, received the keys of the Smederevo Fortress from the Turkish commander dizdar Muharram Gusha auspiciously under a mulberry tree (today's present-day monument of nature and a botanical rarity). On that day, Turks left a lot of guns and ammunition to Serbs, and Karađorđe allowed them to safely leave Smederevo and sail down the Danube river to Vidin, Bulgaria. After this, Smederevo was liberated from the Turks and it was about that time that Milisav Petrović and his wife moved to Smederevo and founded a gunfoundry.

Milisav was not only a well respected gunsmith and cannon-maker, but a creative craftsman who found different ways to make weapons when shortages or unavailability of materials posed a problem. He would make hundreds of cannons and cannonades with his crew in his small shop in Smederevo. On his own initiative, he managed to build unique cannons from a trunk of a cherry tree by pouring molten bronze into an empty trunk hull and creating a unique cannon that was effective enough to scare the Turkish army if not by efficiency but certainly by its thunderous sound.

The cherry tree cannon was artillery whose body is entirely made of cherry wood. It has little significance in combat value as a single weapon because the wood swells under the effect of the explosion after a few shots, but with many such cannons each successful firing had its peculiar effect. These cannons were produced just a couple of years after the Uprising in 1806 en masse. Cherry guns made in the foundry of Milisav Petrović were important in encouraging and raising the morale of the rebels. They were cheap to make and Milisav's foundry crew worked hard to produce as many as they could.

Today Milisav Petrović may be a forgotten historical figure but his cherry cannon has become a symbol of the determination of poorly armed rebels who faced a far more superior enemy and kept it at bay for almost a decade way back at the turn of the 19th century. The cannon made of cherry tree then continues to inspired the national spirit of the Serbs even today.There may not be a French source to substantiate the Serbian claim, but the very fact that the cannon tree fired by Karađorđe's troops succeeded in challenging the Ottoman Empire with numerous victories over a significantly superior Turkish force gives merit to the myth.

The cherry cannon Milisav made may not be effective as a single weapon but was extremely effective when produced in quantity that historians are now beginning to understand.

These cannons were usually made of wild almond (acacia) and wild cherry wood which were very solid, particularly when fully dry. We read that there were different ways of making the tree or the barrel of the cannon and applied when there was little or no time. For the preparation of these wooden cannons were chosen the straightest tree logs. Stump would be etched to form a tube. To intensify the outside with metal rings would be fastened around the circumference of the trunk itself.

The range of these guns was no more 400 to 500 meters. Position setting and hardening of the cannon mainly targeted the prominent, lofty places that gave good visibility to the object of the attack. One reason that burst the wooden cannon is that after the cannon shot, it was not cleaned and then in the next firing was coming to the inevitable bursting of the cannon.

The only cherry cannon which survived the uprising is in Belgrade's National Museum.

One cannon, preserved throughout the two centuries, is named after the Turkish word 'aberdar', meaning "messenger". Karađorđe used a similar cherry cannon to inform his loyal troops about the impending events (battles).