In Noel Malcolm's "Bosnia - A Short History", he writes that in 1917 a Serbian minister, Stojan Protic, privately recommended 'solving' the problem of Bosnian Muslims through a programme of forced conversions and massacres.
He writes that Protic's comments were recorded in the memoirs of the sculptor Ivan Mestrovic: 'When our army crosses the Drina, it will give the Turks 24 or 48 hours to return to the faith of their ancestors. Anyone who refuses is to be massacred, the way we did it before in Serbia.'
What massacre of Turks is he referring to? Is this quotation disputed? Was this the only mention of Serbian plans to 'solve' the problem of Bosnian Muslims?
Protic's idea of dealing with "Turks" was the official policy of Serbia up to 1918. However Serbia suffered such huge losses to its male population that they had to recover it, and hoped to do so trough assimilation of Bosniaks.
The massacres of "Turks" he is refering to are as follows:
In first Serb uprising large areas of Serbia were ethnically cleansed, muslim population dissapeared from the countryside and survivors could only be found in the cities.
During the second uprising those living in the cities were dealt with, they could stay only of they converted. Otherwise they had to leave or be killed.
Later wars, such as first Balkan war were also mared by massacres. In Plav and Gusinje Serb and Montenegrin forces killed 3000 inhabitants and forced 12000 to convert in 1912