World War I
In the early months of 1914 after the decisive Serbian victory at the Battle of Cer the allies requested from the Serbs and their Montenegrin allies to attack the Austro-Hungarians in Bosnia and tie up their forces there.
In October 1914 the Serbo-Montenegrin armies penetrated the areas surrounding Sarajevo and gained control of Mt. Romanija. During that operation, Montenegrin units entered Pale. Soon afterwards, the Montegrins had to withdraw. Along with them a large part of the local Serbian population.
Those who were unable to flee were at the mercy of the Austrian Schutz corps, irregular Austrian police forces tasked with suppressing revolt within the empire. Pale was pillaged and burned down completely after the Austrian forces re-entered the town. 54 local residents were lynched in the town center.
In the town of Goražde, a refugee column of villagers from nearby villages such as Praca, Vijara, Budj, Podgrab, Vrhpraca, Gorovici, Hotocine, Glasinac, Podromanija and Socica were intercepted by Austrian regular forces and the irregulars before they could cross the Drina river. 48 adult men were separated from the rest of the group and executed by pistol-shot, while the remaining refugees were forced into detention camps.
Conditions in these detention camps were especially harsh. Among the most infamous was the detention camp in Doboj. From December 1914 to July 1917 more than 45,000 people (mostly Serbs) were detained there. While the exact numbers of fatalities will probably never be known, more than 1000 fatalities were identified, 230 of which were from the Pale municipality.
Post WWI
With the end of the war and the absorption of Bosnia into the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the town of Pale once again struck out towards growth. The basis for economic recovery and development once again, as before, were based the on the natural resources of the region, in particular
