People's Liberation War
Encyclopedia
The Yugoslav FrontThe Yugoslav Front, is also known as the National Liberation War . started in April 1941 when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
was quickly overrun by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany
, Italy
, Hungary
, Bulgaria
, Croatia
and client regimes in Serbia with German Banat
.
The war was fought in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II
(1941–1945) between the Yugoslav resistance
forces and the Axis Powers
. During the war two guerrilla resistance armies sprang up: the communist-led and republican Yugoslav Partisans; and the royalist Chetnik movement. In spite of sporadic acts of resistance, after 1941 the Chetniks adopted a "policy of collaboration", and collaborated extensively and systematically with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation in September 1943, and beginning in 1944, also with Nazi German and Ustaše
forces.p. 145: "Both the Chetniks' political program and the extent of their collaboration have been amply, even voluminously, documented; it is more than a bit disappointing, thus, that people can still be found who believe that the Chetniks were doing anything besides attempting to realize a vision of an ethnically homogenous Greater Serbian state, which they intended to advance, in the short run, by a policy of collaboration with the Axis forces. The Chetniks collaborated extensively and systematically with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation in September 1943, and beginning in 1944, portions of the Chetnik movement of Draža Mihailović collaborated openly with the Germans and Ustaša forces in Serbia and Croatia."On p.246, a general statememt on Chetnik collaboration describes it as "systematic and enduring":
"..the systematic and enduring Chetnik collaboration described in this study". A parallel civil war between the two movements soon ensued.
The Axis mounted a series of offensives
intended to destroy the Partisans, coming close to doing so in winter and spring of 1943. Despite the setbacks, the Partisans remained a credible fighting force, gaining recognition from the Western Allies
and laying the foundations
for the post-war Yugoslav state. With support in logistics, equipment, training, and air power from the Western Allies, and Soviet ground troops in the Belgrade Offensive
, the Partisans eventually gained control of the entire country and the border regions of Italy and Austria.
The human cost of the war was enormous. The number of war victims is still in dispute, but is generally agreed to have been at least one million. The victims included the majority of the country's Jewish population, many of whom perished in concentration camps (e.g. Jasenovac
, Banjica
) run by the client regimes. In addition, the Croatian Ustaše
regime committed genocide
against local Serbs
and Roma while Chetniks pursued their own ethnic cleansing against the Muslim and Croat population. The Germans (in particular the Dabnube Swabian SS formations) also carried out mass executions of civilians in retaliation for resistance activity, e.g. the Kragujevac massacre
. Finally, during and after the final stages of the war, the Yugoslav authorities deported the Danube Swabian population, while Partisan troops summarily executed for treason thousands of fleeing members of the Ustaše
, Chetniks
, and Croatian Home Guard
(Bleiburg massacre
), and committed atrocities against the Italian population in Istria
(Foibe killings
).
was invaded
from all sides by the Axis powers, primarily by German
forces, but also Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian formations. During the invasion, Belgrade was bombed
by the German air force (Luftwaffe
). The invasion lasted little more than ten days, ending with the unconditional surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army
on April 17. Besides being hopelessly ill-equipped when compared to the German army (Wehrmacht Heer), the Yugoslav army attempted to defend all borders but only managed to thinly spread the limited resources available. Also, large numbers of the population refused to fight, instead welcoming the Germans as liberators from government oppression. However, as this meant each individual nationality would turn to movements opposed to the unity promoted by the South Slavic state, two different concepts of resistance emerged, the monarchist Chetniks
, and the communist Partisans.
The main reason was that neither of two of the constituent national groups (Slovenes and Croats) were prepared to fight in defense of a Yugoslav state with a continued Serb monarchy. The only effective opposition to the invasion was from units wholly within Serbia itself. The Serbian General Staff were united on the question of Yugoslavia as a "Greater Serbia", ruled, in one way or another, by Serbia. On the eve of the invasion, there were 165 generals on the Yugoslav active list. Of these, all but four were Serbs.
The terms of the capitulation were extremely severe, as the Axis proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia. Germany occupied northern Slovenia
, while retaining direct occupation over a rump Serbian state
and considerable influence over its newly created puppet state
, the Independent State of Croatia
, which extended over much of today's Croatia
and contained all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina
. Mussolini's Italy
gained the remainder of Slovenia, Kosovo
, and large chunks of the coastal Dalmatia
region (along with nearly all of the Adriatic
islands). It also gained control over the newly created Montenegrin puppet state, and was granted the kingship in the Independent State of Croatia, though wielding little real power within it. Hungary dispatched the Hungarian Third Army
to occupy Vojvodina
in northern Serbia, and later forcibly annexed sections of Baranja
, Bačka
, Međimurje, and Prekmurje
. Bulgaria
, meanwhile, annexed nearly all of the modern-day Republic of Macedonia
.
After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, all territories under its administration were placed under German
or Ustaše
control. These included Kosovo, Albania
, Montenegro
, and much of Dalmatia.
. The Axis
had recognized the territorial acquisitions of their allied states.
When the AVNOJ
(the Partisan wartime council in Yugoslavia) was eventually recognized by the Allies, by late 1943, the official recognition of the Partisan Democratic Federal Yugoslavia soon followed. The National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia was recognized by the major Allied powers at the Tehran Conference
, when United States
agreed to the position of other Allied. The newly recognized Yugoslav government, headed by Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito
, was a joint body formed from of AVNOJ members and the members of the former government-in-exile in London. The resolution of a fundamental question, whether the new state remained a monarchy or was to be a republic, was postponed until the end of the war, as was the status of King Peter II
.
From the start, the Yugoslav resistance forces consisted of two factions: the Partisans, a communist-led movement propagating pan-Yugoslav tolerance ("brotherhood and unity
") and incorporating republican, left-wing, and liberal elements of Yugoslav politics, and the Chetniks
, a conservative royalist and nationalist force, enjoying support almost exclusively from the Serbian
population in occupied Yugoslavia. The Chetniks were the ones to initially receive recognition from the western Allies. The Partisans were supported by the Soviet Union, but received universal Allied recognition in place of the Chetniks after the Tehran conference (1943). By the time of this conference, the degree of Chetnik-Axis collaboration was indicated to have increased greatly.
The Yugoslav Partisans (officially the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, NOV i POJ), under the command of Marshal Josip Broz Tito
, primarily fought against the German, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and collaborationist forces. Drawing on a cadre of experienced fighters from the Spanish Civil War
to train troops, and on socialist
ideology to win support that crossed national lines, they steadily gained power during the struggle winning recognition from the Allies and the Yugoslavian government-in-exile as the legitimate Yugoslav liberation force. The movement grew to become the largest resistance force in occupied Europe, with 800,000 men organized in 4 field armies
. Eventually the Partisans prevailed against all of their opponents as the official army of the newly-founded Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (later Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).
Although the activity of the Macedonian
Partisans was part of the Yugoslav People's Liberation War, the specific conditions in Macedonia (due to the strong autonomic tendencies of the local communists) led to the creation of a separate sub-army called the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia
which was engaged in the People's Liberation War of Macedonia. In 1944, the Macedonian and Serbian
commands made contact in southern Serbia and formed a joint command, which consequently placed the Macedonian Partisans under the direct command of Marshal Josip Broz Tito
. The autonomous wing in the Communist Party of Macedonia, which dominated during World War II, was finally pushed aside in 1945 after the Second Assembly of the ASNOM.
The royalist Chetniks
(officially the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, JVUO), under the command of General Draža Mihailović
, drew primarily from the scattered remnants of the Royal Yugoslav Army, relying overwhelmingly on the ethnic Serbian population for support. The Chetniks were formed soon after the invasion of Yugoslavia
and the surrender of the government on April 17, 1941. The Chetniks were initially the only resistance movement
recognized by the Yugoslavian government-in-exile and the Allied forces. The Partisans and Chetniks attempted to cooperate early during the conflict, but this quickly fell apart. After fruitless negotiations, the Chetnik leader, General Mihailović, turned against the Partisans as his main enemy. According to him, the reason was humanitarian: the prevention of German reprisals against Serbs. This however, did not stop the activities of the Partisan resistance, and Chetnik units attacked the Partisans in November 1941, while increasingly receiving supplies and cooperating with the Germans and Italians in this. The British liaison to Mihailović advised London to stop supplying the Chetniks after the Užice attack (see First anti-Partisan offensive
), but Britain continued to do so.
Operation Barbarossa
, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941. On the same day, Yugoslav Partisans formed the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, the first armed resistance
unit in Europe. Founded in the Brezovica forest near Sisak
, Croatia
, its creation marked the beginning of anti-Axis resistance in occupied Yugoslavia.
Various military formations more or less linked to the general liberation movement were involved in armed confrontations with Axis forces which erupted in various areas of Yugoslavia in the ensuing weeks. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia formally decided to launch an armed uprising on July 4, 1941, a date which was later marked as Fighter's Day - a public holiday in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
. One Žikica Jovanović Španac
("The Spaniard") shot the first bullet of the campaign on July 7, 1941, later the Day of State of the Socialist Republic of Serbia
(part of SFR Yugoslavia).
On August 10, 1941 in Stanulović, a mountain village, the Partisans formed the Kopaonik Partisan Detachment Headquarters. Their liberated area, consisting of nearby villages, was called the "Miners Republic" was the first in Yugoslavia, and lasted 42 days. The resistance fighters formally joined the ranks of the Partisans later on. On December 22, 1941 the Partisans formed the 1st Proletarian Assault Brigade (1. Proleterska Udarna Brigada) - the first regular Partisan military unit, capable of operating outside its local area. December 22 became the "Day of the Yugoslav People's Army
". In 1942 Partisan detachments officially merged into the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (NOV i POJ).
The Chetnik movement was organized after the surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army
, by some of the remaining Yugoslav soldiers. This force was organized in the Ravna Gora district of western Serbia
under Colonel
Draža Mihailović
. However, unlike the Partisans, Mihailović's forces were almost entirely ethnic Serbs
. He directed his units to arm themselves and await his orders for the final push. Mihailović avoided direct action against the Axis, which he judged were of low strategic importance.
The Chetniks initially enjoyed the support of the western Allies up to the Tehran Conference
(1943). In 1942, Time Magazine, featured an article which praised the "success" of Mihailović's Chetniks, and heralded him as the sole defender of freedom in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Chetniks also were praised for saving 500 downed Allied pilots
. However, Tito's Partisans fought the Germans more actively during this time. Tito and Mihailović had a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks offered by Germans for their heads. While "officially" remaining mortal enemies of the Germans and the Ustaše
, the Chetniks were known for making clandestine deals with the Italians and other occupying forces.
The Partisans fought an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign
against the Axis occupiers and their local collaborators, the Serbian Government of National Salvation, the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia
, and the Chetniks (which they also considered collaborators). They enjoyed gradually increased levels of success and support of the general populace, and succeeded in controlling large chunks of Yugoslav territory. People's committees were organized to act as civilian governments in areas of the country liberated by the Partisans. In places, even limited arms industries were set up.
At the very beginning, however, the Partisan forces were relatively small, poorly armed, and without any infrastructure
. But they had two major advantages over other military and paramilitary formations in former Yugoslavia: the first and most immediate advantage was a small but valuable cadre of Spanish Civil War
veterans. Unlike some of the other military and paramilitary formations, these veterans had experience with a modern war fought in circumstances quite similar to those found in World War II Yugoslavia. Their other major advantage, which became more apparent in later stages of War, was in the Partisans being founded on ideology
rather than ethnicity. Therefore they could expect at least some levels of support in almost any corner of the country, unlike other paramilitary formations limited to territories with Croat or Serb majority. This allowed their units to be more mobile and fill their ranks with a larger pool of potential recruits.
During the war, generally the national minorities, with the exception of Czechs, Slovaks and Turks cooperated with the occupation forces.
The Axis powers, however, were quite aware of the Partisan threat. The most numerous local force, besides the four second-line German Wehrmacht
infantry divisions assigned to occupation duties was the Croatian Home Guard
, founded in April 1941, a few days after the founding of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) itself. It was done with the authorisation of German
occupation
authorities. The task of the new Croatian armed forces was to defend the new state against both foreign and domestic enemies. The Croatian Home Guard was originally limited to 16 infantry
battalions and 2 cavalry
squadrons - 16,000 men in total. The original 16 battalions were soon enlarged to 15 infantry regiments of two battalions each between May and June 1941, organised into five divisional commands, some 55,000 enlisted men. Support units included 35 light tanks supplied by Italy, 10 artillery battalions (equipped with captured Royal Yugoslav Army
weapons of Czech origin), a cavalry regiment in Zagreb and an independent cavalry battalion at Sarajevo. Two independent motorized infantry battalions were based at Zagreb and Sarajevo respectively. Several regiments of Ustaše
militia were also formed at this time, which operated under a separate command structure to, and independently from, the Croatian Home Guard
, until the units of the Ustaše
militia and Croatian Home Guard
were reorganized and combined in November 1944 to form the Army of the Independent State of Croatia
.
The fledgling Army crushed the revolt by Serbs in Eastern Herzegovina in June 1941, and fought in July in Eastern and Western Bosnia. They fought in Eastern Herzegovina again, when Croatian-Dalmatian and Slavonian battalions reinforced local units. The Home Guard reached its maximum size at the end of 1943, when it had 130,000 men.
The Croatian Home Guard also included an air force
, the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
(Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, or ZNDH), the backbone of which was provided by 500 former Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers and 1,600 NCOs with 125 aircraft. By 1943 the ZNDH was 9,775 strong and equipped with 295 aircraft.
As the levels of resistance to its occupation grew, the Axis Powers responded with numerous minor offensives. There were also seven major Axis operations
specifically aimed at eliminating all or most Yugoslav Partisan resistance. These major offensives were typically combined efforts by the German Wehrmacht
and SS
, Italy
, Chetniks, the Independent State of Croatia
, the Serbian collaborationist government, Bulgaria
, and Hungary. In the first half of 1943 two of these offensives came close to defeating the Partisans. They are known by their German code names Fall Weiss (Plan White) and Fall Schwarz (Operation Black), as the Battle of Neretva and the Battle of Sutjeska after the rivers in the areas they were fought, or the 4th and 5th offensive, respectively, according to former Yugoslav historiography.
Former Yugoslav historiographers numbered the seven major Axis offensives as follows:
, who until then had supported General Draža Mihailović
's Chetnik Forces, but were finally convinced of their collaboration by many intelligence-gathering missions dispatched to both sides during the course of the war.
To gather intelligence
, agents of the Western Allies
were infiltrated into both the Partisans and the Chetniks. The intelligence gathered by liaisons to the resistance groups was crucial to the success of supply missions and was the primary influence on Allied strategy in Yugoslavia
. The search for intelligence ultimately resulted in the demise of the Chetniks and their eclipse by Tito’s Partisans. In 1942, though supplies were limited, token support was sent equally to each. The new year would bring a change. The Germans were executing Operation Schwarz (Battle of Sutjeska, the Fifth anti-Partisan offensive), one of a series of offensives aimed at the resistance fighters, when F.W.D. Deakin
was sent by the British to gather information.
His reports contained two important observations. The first was that the Partisans were courageous and aggressive in battling the German 1st Mountain and 104th Light Division, had suffered significant casualties, and required support. The second observation was that the entire German 1st Mountain Division had transited from USSR on rail lines through Chetnik
-controlled territory. British intercepts (ULTRA) of German message traffic confirmed Chetnik timidity. Even though today many circumstances, facts, and motivations remain unclear, intelligence reports resulted in increased Allied interest in Yugoslavia air operations and shifted policy. In September 1943, at Churchill’s request, Brigadier General Fitzroy Maclean was parachuted to Tito’s headquarters near Drvar to serve as a permanent, formal liaison to the Partisans. While the Chetniks were still occasionally supplied, the Partisans received the bulk of all future support.
Thus, after the Tehran Conference
the Partisans received official recognition as the legitimate national liberation force by the Allies, who subsequently set-up the RAF Balkan Air Force (under the suggestion of Brigadier-General Fitzroy MacLean) with the aim to provide increased supplies and tactical air support for Marshal Tito's Partisan forces.
Allied aircraft specifically started targeting ZNDH (Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
) and Luftwaffe
bases and aircraft for the first time as a result of the Seventh anti-Partisan Offensive, including Operation Rösselsprung in late May 1944. Up until then Axis aircraft could fly inland almost at will as long as they remained at low altitude. Yugoslav Partisan units on the ground frequently complained about enemy aircraft attacking them while hundreds of Allied aircraft flew above at higher altitude. This changed during Rösselsprung as Allied fighter-bombers went low en-masse for the first time, establishing full aerial superiority. Consequently, both the ZNDH and Luftwaffe were forced to limit their operations in clear weather to early morning and late afternoon hours.
In January 1944, Tito's forces unsuccessfully attacked Banja Luka
. But, while Tito was forced to withdraw, Mihajlović and his forces were also noted by the Western press for their lack of activity. On June 16, 1944, the Tito-Šubašić agreement
between the Partisans and the Yugoslavian Government in exile of King Peter II
was signed on the island of Vis
. This agreement was an attempt to form a new Yugoslav government which would include both the communists and the royalists
. It called for a merge of the Partisan Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko V(ij)eće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) and the Government in exile. The Tito-Šubašić agreement also called on all Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs to join the Partisans. The Partisans were recognized by the Royal Government as Yugoslavia's regular army. Mihajlović and many Chetniks refused to answer the call.
Between March 30 and April 8, 1945, General Mihailović's Chetniks mounted a final attempt to establish themselves as a credible force fighting the Axis in Yugoslavia. The Chetniks fought a combination of Ustaša and Croatian Home Guard
forces in the Battle on Lijevča field
. The battle was fought near Banja Luka in what was then the Independent State of Croatia
and ended in victory for the Independent State of Croatia forces.
On 19 April 1941, Bulgaria occupied Macedonia and some districts of Eastern Serbia, which, with Western Thrace and Eastern Greek Macedonia (the Aegean Province), were annexed by Bulgaria on 14 May.
On 15 January 1942, the Bulgarian 1st Army of 3 infantry divisions transferred to South-East Serbia. Headquartered at Niš
, it replaced German divisions needed in Croatia and USSR. On 7 January 1943, it also occupied South-West Serbia. Savage pacification measures reduced Partisan activity appreciably. Bulgarian infantry divisions participated in the Fifth anti-Partisan Offensive as a blocking force of the Partisan escape-route from Montenegro into Serbia and in the Sixth anti-Partisan Offensive
in Eastern Bosnia.
On 10 September 1944, Bulgaria changed sides and declared war on Germany as an Allied Power. The Germans swiftly disarmed the 1st Occupation Corps of 5 divisions and the 5th Army, despite heroic but short-lived resistance by the latter. Survivors retreated to Bulgaria, joining the new 450,000-strong Bulgarian National Armed Forces. On 8 October, the 1st and 4th Armies occupied Serb Macedonia with Partisan permission. The 2nd Army then occupied South-Eastern Serbia. The 1st Army then swung north with the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front, through Eastern Yugoslavia and South-Western Hungary, before linking up with the British 8th Army in Austria in May 1945.
On 8 September 1943, the Italians concluded an armistce with the Allies, leaving 17 divisions stranded in Yugoslavia. All divisional commanders refused to join the Germans. Two Italian infantry divisions joined the Montenegrin Partisans as complete units, whilst another joined the Albanian Partisans. Other units surrendered to the Germans, to face imprisonment in Germany or summary execution. Others surrendered themselves, arms, ammunition and equipment to Croatian forces or to the Partisans, simply disintegrated, or reached Italy on foot via Trieste or by ship across the Adriatic. The Italian Governorship of Dalmatia
was disestablished and the country's possessions were subsequently divided between Germany which established its Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral and the Independent State of Croatia which established the new district of Sidraga-Ravni Kotari.
, Romania
quit the war, and the Romanian army was placed under the command of the Red Army
. Romanian forces, fighting against Germany, participated in the Prague Offensive
. Bulgaria
quit as well and, on September 10, declared war on Germany and its remaining allies. The weak divisions sent by the Axis powers
to invade Bulgaria were easily driven back. In Macedonia, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces and betrayed by high-ranking military commanders, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Three Bulgarian armies (some 455,000 strong in total) entered Yugoslavia in late September 1944 with the prearranged consent of Tito and the Partisans and moved from Sofia
to Niš
and Skopje
with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Southern and eastern Serbia and Macedonia were liberated(to be anexed by URSS) within two months and the 130,000-strong Bulgarian First Army
continued to Hungary.
Concurrently, with Allied air support and assistance from the Red Army, the Partisans turned their attention to the Serbian Military Administration, the state of the Serbian Axis fifth column
. The area under its had seen relatively little fighting since the fall of the "Republic of Užice
" in 1941 (see First anti-Partisan offensive
). In September, the Red Army and the Partisans launched the Belgrade Offensive
, and took the city on October 20. At the onset of winter, the Partisans effectively controlled the entire eastern half of Yugoslavia—Serbia, Macedonia
, Montenegro
—as well as most of the Dalmatia
n coast. The Wehrmacht and the forces of the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia
fortified a front in Syrmia
that held through the winter of 1944-45. To raise the number of Partisan troops Tito declared a general amnesty for all members of quisling forces that switched sides before December 31, 1944.
On March 20, 1945, the Partisans launched a general offensive in the Mostar
-Višegrad
-Drina sector. With large swaths of Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian countryside already under Partisan guerrilla control, the final operations consisted in connecting these territories and capturing major cities and roads. For the general offensive Marshal Josip Broz Tito commanded a Partisan force of about 800,000 men organized into four armies
: the 1st Army commanded by Peko Dapčević
, 2nd Army commanded by Koča Popović
, 3rd Army commanded by Kosta Nađ, and the 4th Army commanded by Petar Drapšin
. In addition, the Yugoslav Partisans had eight independent army corps (the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and the 10th).
Set against the Yugoslav Partisans was German General Alexander Löhr
of Army Group E
(Heeresgruppe E
). This Army Group had seven army corps (the XV Mountain, XV Cossack, XXI Mountain, XXXIV, LXIX, and LXXXXVII). These corps included seventeen weakened divisions (1st Cossack, 2nd Cossack, 7th SS, 11th Luftwaffe
Field, 22nd, 41st, 104th, 117th, 138th, 181st, 188th, 237th, 297th, 369th Croat, 373rd Croat, 392nd Croat and the 14th SS Ukrainian Division). In addition to the seven corps, the Axis had remnant naval and Luftwaffe
forces, under constant attack by the British Royal Navy
, Royal Air Force
and United States Air Force
.
The Army of the Independent State of Croatia
was reorganized in November 1944 to combine the units of the Ustaše
and Croatian Home Guard
into eighteen divisions, comprising 13 infantry, two mountain, two assault and one replacement Croatian Divisions, each with its own organic artillery and other support units. There were also several armoured units. From early 1945, the Croatian Divisions were allocated to various German Corps and by March 1945 were holding the Southern Front. Securing the rear areas were some 32,000 men of the Croatian Gendarmerie (Hrvatsko Oruznistvo), organised into 5 Police Volunteer Regiments plus 15 independent battalions, equipped with standard light infantry weapons, including mortars.
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
(Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, or ZNDH) and the units of the Croatian Air Force Legion
(Hrvatska Zrakoplovna Legija, or HZL), returned from service on the Eastern Front
provided some level of air support (attack, fighter and transport) right up until May 1945, encountering and sometimes defeating opposing aircraft from the British Royal Air Force
, United States Air Force
and the Soviet Air Force
. Although 1944 had been a catastrophic year for the ZNDH, with aircraft losses amounting to 234, primarily on the ground, it entered 1945 with 196 machines. Further deliveries of new aircraft from Germany continued in the early months of 1945 to replace losses. By 10 March, the ZNDH had 23 Messerschmitt 109 G&Ks, three Morane-Saulnier M.S.406
, six Fiat G.50
, and two Messerschmitt 110 G fighters. The final deliveries of up-to-date German Messerschmitt 109 G and K fighter aircraft were still taking place in March 1945. and the ZNDH still had 176 aircraft on its strength in April 1945.
Serbian units included the remnants of the Serbian State Guard and the Serbian Volunteer Corps from the Serbian Military Administration. There were even some units of the Slovene Home Guard (Slovensko domobranstvo, or SD) still intact in Slovenia
.
By the end of March, 1945, it was obvious to the Croatian Army Command that, although the front remained intact, they would eventually be defeated by sheer lack of ammunition. For this reason, the decision was made to retreat into Austria, in order to surrender to the British forces advancing north from Italy. The German Army was in the process of disintegration and the supply system lay in ruins.
Bihać
was liberated by the Partisans the same day that the general offensive was launched. The 4th Army, under the command of Petar Drapšin
, broke through the defenses of the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
. By April 20, Drapšin liberated Lika
and the Croatian Littoral
, including the islands, and reached the old Yugoslav border with Italy. On May 1, after capturing the former Italian possessions of Rijeka
and Istria
from the German LXXXXVII Corps, the Yugoslav 4th Army beat the western Allies to Trieste
by one day.
The Yugoslav 2nd Army, under the command of Koča Popović
, forced a crossing of the Bosna River on April 5, capturing Doboj
, and reached the Una River. On April 6, the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps of the Yugoslav Partisans took Sarajevo
from the German XXI Corps. On April 12, the Yugoslav 3rd Army, under the command of Kosta Nađ, forced a crossing of the Drava
river. The 3rd Army then fanned out through Podravina
, reached a point north of Zagreb, and crossed the old Austrian border with Yugoslavia in the Dravograd
sector. The 3rd Army closed the ring around the enemy forces when its advanced motorized detachments linked up with detachments of the 4th Army in Carinthia
.
Also, on April 12, the Yugoslav 1st Army, under the command of Peko Dapčević
penetrated the fortified front of the German XXXIV Corps in Syrmia. By April 22, the 1st Army had smashed the fortifications and was advancing towards Zagreb. After entering Zagreb with the Yugoslav 2nd Army, both armies advanced in Slovenia.
On May 8, the Yugoslav 2nd Army, along with units of the Yugoslav 1st Army, entered Zagreb
, which had been evacuated the previous day.
On May 2, the German capital city, Berlin, fell to the Red Army
. On May 8, 1945, the Germans surrendered unconditionally and the war in Europe officially ended. The Italians had quit the war in 1943, the Bulgarians in 1944, and the Hungarians earlier in 1945. Despite the German capitulation, however, sporadic fighting still took place in Yugoslavia. On May 7, Zagreb
was evacuated, on May 9, Maribor
and Ljubljana
were captured by the Partisans, and General Alexander Löhr
, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group E
was forced to sign the total surrender of the forces under his command at Topolšica, near Velenje
, Slovenia, on Wednesday May 9, 1945. Only the Croatian and other anti-Partisan forces remained.
From May 10 to May 15, the Yugoslav Partisans continued to face resistance from Croatian, and other anti-Partisan forces throughout the rest of Croatia and Slovenia. The Battle of Poljana
, the last battle of World War II
in Europe
, started on May 14, ending on May 15, 1945 at Poljana, near Prevalje
in Slovenia
. It was the culmination and last of a series of battles between Yugoslav Partisans and a large (in excess of 30,000) mixed column of German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) soldiers together with Croatian Ustaše
, Croatian Home Guard
(Hrvatsko Domobranstvo
), Slovenian Home Guard (Domobranci), and other anti-Partisan forces who were attempting to retreat to Austria.
, the Ustaše
, the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps and the remnants of the Serbian State Guard, and the Serbian Volunteer Corps, surrendered to British forces. The Croatians attempted to negotiate a surrender to the British under the terms of the Geneva Convention, but were ignored. The Independent State of Croatia
had joined that Convention on January 20, 1943, and was recognised by it as a "belligerent", that is, as a national state with armed forces in the field. All the signatories of the Convention, including Great Britain
and the United States
, were informed that this recognition had been given. On May 5, in the town of Palmanova
(50 km northwest of Trieste), between 2,400 and 2,800 members of the Serbian Volunteer Corps surrendered to the British. On May 12, about 2,500 additional Serbian Volunteer Corps members surrendered to the British at Unterbergen on the Drava
River.
On May 11 and 12, British troops in Klagenfurt
, Austria, were harassed by arriving forces of the Yugoslav Partisans. In Belgrade, the British ambassador to the Yugoslav coalition government handed Tito a note demanding that the Yugoslav troops withdraw from Austria. On May 15, Tito placed Partisan forces in Austria under Allied control. A few days later he agreed to withdraw them. By May 20, Yugoslav troops in Austria had begun to withdraw.
Around June 1, most of the Serbian State Guard, the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Croatian Home Guard, the Ustaše, and the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who surrendered to the British were turned over to the Yugoslav government as part of what is sometimes referred to as Operation Keelhaul
. The Partisans proceeded to brutalize the POWs in what became known as the Bleiburg massacre
s. On June 8, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia agreed on the control of Trieste.
On March 8, 1945, a coalition Yugoslav government was formed in Belgrade with Tito as Premier and Ivan Šubašić
as Foreign Minister. King Peter II of Yugoslavia
agreed to await a referendum on his rule before returning from exile. On November 29, in accordance with overwhelming referendum results, Peter II was deposed by Yugoslavia's Constituent Assembly. On the same day, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was established as a socialist state
during the first meeting of the Yugoslav Parliament in Belgrade. Josip Broz Tito
was appointed Prime Minister.
On March 13, 1946, Mihailović was captured by agents of the Yugoslav Department of National Security
(Odsjek Zaštite Naroda or OZNA). From June 10 to July 15 of the same year, he was tried for high treason
and war crimes. On July 15, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad. On July 16, a clemency appeal was rejected by the Presidium of the National Assembly. During the early hours of July 18, Mihailović, together with nine other Chetnik officers, was executed in Lisičiji Potok. This execution essentially ended the World War II
-era civil war between the communist Partisans and the royalist Chetniks.
The Yugoslav government estimated the number of casualties to be at 1,704,000 and submitted the figure to the International Reparations Commission in 1946 without any documentation. The figure included war related deaths but also the expected population if war did not break out, the number of unborn children, and losses from emigration and disease. The same figure was later submitted to the Allied Reparations Committee in 1948 but was claimed to be only from war related deaths. After Germany requested verifiable data the Yugoslav Federal Bureau of Statistics created a nationwide survey in 1964. The total number of those killed was found to be 597,323. The list stayed a state secret until 1989 when it was published for the first time.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census published a report in 1954 that concluded that Yugoslav war related deaths were 1,067,000. The U.S. Bureau of the Census noted that the official Yugoslav government figure of 1.7 million war dead was overstated because it "was released soon after the war and was estimated without the benefit of a postwar census". A recent study by Vladimir Žerjavić
estimates total war related deaths at 1,027,000. Military losses of 237,000 Yugoslav partisans and 209,000 Croatian Home Guard
and Ustase. Civilian dead of 581,000, including 57,000 Jews. Losses of the Yugoslav Republics were Bosnia 316,000; Serbia 273,000; Croatia 271,000; Slovenia 33,000; Montenegro 27,000; Macedonia 17,000; and killed abroad 80,000. Bogoljub Kočović
a statistician
, who is a Bosnian Serb by ethnic affiliation, calculated that the actual war losses were 1,014,000. The late Jozo Tomasevich, Professor Emeritus of Economics at San Francisco State University, believes that the calculations of Kočović and Žerjavić “seem to be free of bias, we can accept them as reliable”.
The reasons for the high human toll in Yugoslavia were as follows:
In Slovenia, the Institute for Contemporary History, Ljubljana launched a comprehensive research on the exact number of victims of World War II in Slovenia in 1995. After more than a decade of research, the final report was published in 2005, which included a list of names. The number of victims was set at 89,404. The figure also includes the victims of summary killings by the Communist regime immediately after the war (around 13,500 people). The results of the research came as a shock for the public, since the actual figures were more than 30% higher than the highest estimates during the Yugoslav period. Even if one counts only the number of deaths up to May 1945 (thus excluding the military prisoners killed by the Yugoslav Army between May and July 1945), the number remains considerable higher than the highest previous estimates (around 75,000 deaths vs. an estimate of 60,000). There are several reasons for such a difference. The new comprehensive research also included Slovenes killed by the Partisan resistance, both in battle (members of collaborationist and anti-Communist units), and civilians (around 4,000 between 1941 and 1945). Furthermore, the new estimates includes all the Slovenians from Nazi-occupied Slovenia who were drafted in the Wehrmacht and died either in battle of in prisoner camps during the war. The figure also includes the Slovenes from the Julian March
who died in the Italian Army (1940–1943), those from Prekmurje
who died in the Hungarian Army, and those who fought and died in various Allied (mostly British) units. The figure does not include victims from Venetian Slovenia
(except of those who joined the Slovenian Partisan units), nor does it include the victims among Carinthian Slovenes
(again with the exception of those fighting in the Partisan units) and Hungarian Slovenes
. 47% percent of casualties during the war were partisans, 33% were civilians (of which 82% were killed by Axis powers or Slovene home guard), and 20% were members of the Slovene home guard.
In Croatia, the Commission for the Identification of War and Post-War Victims of the Second World War was active from 1991 until the Seventh Government of the republic, under Prime Minister Ivica Račan
ended the commission's work unfinished in 2002. In the 2000s, concealed mass grave commissions were established in both Slovenia
and Serbia
to document and excavate mass graves from the Second World War.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
was quickly overrun by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
, Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)
The Kingdom of Hungary also known as the Regency, existed from 1920 to 1946 and was a de facto country under Regent Miklós Horthy. Horthy officially represented the abdicated Hungarian monarchy of Charles IV, Apostolic King of Hungary...
, Bulgaria
Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Kingdom of Bulgaria was established as an independent state when the Principality of Bulgaria, an Ottoman vassal, officially proclaimed itself independent on October 5, 1908 . This move also formalised the annexation of the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which had been under the control...
, Croatia
NDH
The letters NDH can mean:* The Independent State of Croatia * New German Hardness, or Neue Deutsche Härte * National Dairy Holdings L.P.* In ads for used vehicles, particularly aircraft: No damage history...
and client regimes in Serbia with German Banat
Nedic's Serbia
Serbia under German occupation refers to an administrative area in occupied Yugoslavia established by Nazi Germany following the invasion and dismantling of Yugoslavia in April of 1941...
.
The war was fought in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(1941–1945) between the Yugoslav resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
forces and the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
. During the war two guerrilla resistance armies sprang up: the communist-led and republican Yugoslav Partisans; and the royalist Chetnik movement. In spite of sporadic acts of resistance, after 1941 the Chetniks adopted a "policy of collaboration", and collaborated extensively and systematically with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation in September 1943, and beginning in 1944, also with Nazi German and Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
forces.p. 145: "Both the Chetniks' political program and the extent of their collaboration have been amply, even voluminously, documented; it is more than a bit disappointing, thus, that people can still be found who believe that the Chetniks were doing anything besides attempting to realize a vision of an ethnically homogenous Greater Serbian state, which they intended to advance, in the short run, by a policy of collaboration with the Axis forces. The Chetniks collaborated extensively and systematically with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation in September 1943, and beginning in 1944, portions of the Chetnik movement of Draža Mihailović collaborated openly with the Germans and Ustaša forces in Serbia and Croatia."On p.246, a general statememt on Chetnik collaboration describes it as "systematic and enduring":
"..the systematic and enduring Chetnik collaboration described in this study". A parallel civil war between the two movements soon ensued.
The Axis mounted a series of offensives
Seven anti-partisan offensives
The Seven anti-Partisan offensives, known by some sources in the former Yugoslavia as the Seven Enemy offensives , is a group name for seven major Axis military operations on the territory of former Yugoslavia during World War II, undertaken against the Yugoslav Partisans...
intended to destroy the Partisans, coming close to doing so in winter and spring of 1943. Despite the setbacks, the Partisans remained a credible fighting force, gaining recognition from the Western Allies
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
and laying the foundations
AVNOJ
The Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, known more commonly by its Yugoslav abbreviation AVNOJ, was the political umbrella organization for the national liberation councils of the Yugoslav resistance against the World War II Axis occupation, eventually becoming the...
for the post-war Yugoslav state. With support in logistics, equipment, training, and air power from the Western Allies, and Soviet ground troops in the Belgrade Offensive
Belgrade Offensive
The Belgrade Offensive or the Belgrade Strategic Offensive Operation was an offensive military operation in which Belgrade was conquered from the German Wehrmacht by the joint efforts of the Yugoslav Partisans and the Soviet Red Army...
, the Partisans eventually gained control of the entire country and the border regions of Italy and Austria.
The human cost of the war was enormous. The number of war victims is still in dispute, but is generally agreed to have been at least one million. The victims included the majority of the country's Jewish population, many of whom perished in concentration camps (e.g. Jasenovac
Jasenovac concentration camp
Jasenovac concentration camp was the largest extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia and occupied Yugoslavia during World War II...
, Banjica
Banjica concentration camp
Banjica concentration camp was a quisling and Nazi German concentration camp in occupied Serbia from June 1941 to September 1944 in World War II, located in the eponymous suburb of Belgrade. It started as a center for holding hostages, but later included Jews, Serbs, Roma, captured partisans, and...
) run by the client regimes. In addition, the Croatian Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
regime committed genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
against local Serbs
World War II persecution of Serbs
The Serbian Genocide refers to the attempt in extermination made towards ethnic Serbs in 1939-1945 by predominantly ethnic Croat Fascists and Nazi occupational forces....
and Roma while Chetniks pursued their own ethnic cleansing against the Muslim and Croat population. The Germans (in particular the Dabnube Swabian SS formations) also carried out mass executions of civilians in retaliation for resistance activity, e.g. the Kragujevac massacre
Kragujevac massacre
The Kragujevac massacre was the murder of men and boys in Kragujevac, Serbia, by Nazi German soldiers between 20–21 October 1941. All males from the town between the ages of sixteen and sixty were assembled, including high school students, and the victims were selected from amongst them...
. Finally, during and after the final stages of the war, the Yugoslav authorities deported the Danube Swabian population, while Partisan troops summarily executed for treason thousands of fleeing members of the Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
, Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
, and Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
(Bleiburg massacre
Bleiburg massacre
The Bleiburg massacre, which also encompasses Operation Keelhaul is a term encompassing events that took place during mid-May 1945 near the Carinthian town of Bleiburg, itself some four kilometres from the Austrian-Slovenian border....
), and committed atrocities against the Italian population in Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
(Foibe killings
Foibe killings
The Foibe killings or Foibe massacres refers to the killings that took place mainly in Istria during and shortly after World War II from 1943 to 1949, perpetrated mainly by Yugoslav Partisans. The name derives from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called a foiba...
).
Invasion
On April 6, 1941 the Kingdom of YugoslaviaKingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
was invaded
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
from all sides by the Axis powers, primarily by German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
forces, but also Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian formations. During the invasion, Belgrade was bombed
Bombing of Belgrade in World War II
The city of Belgrade was bombed during two campaigns in World War II, the first undertaken by the Luftwaffe in 1941, and the latter by Allied air forces in 1944.- German bombing :...
by the German air force (Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
). The invasion lasted little more than ten days, ending with the unconditional surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army
Royal Yugoslav Army
The Royal Yugoslav Army was the armed force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the state's formation until the force's surrender to the Axis powers on April 17, 1941...
on April 17. Besides being hopelessly ill-equipped when compared to the German army (Wehrmacht Heer), the Yugoslav army attempted to defend all borders but only managed to thinly spread the limited resources available. Also, large numbers of the population refused to fight, instead welcoming the Germans as liberators from government oppression. However, as this meant each individual nationality would turn to movements opposed to the unity promoted by the South Slavic state, two different concepts of resistance emerged, the monarchist Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
, and the communist Partisans.
The main reason was that neither of two of the constituent national groups (Slovenes and Croats) were prepared to fight in defense of a Yugoslav state with a continued Serb monarchy. The only effective opposition to the invasion was from units wholly within Serbia itself. The Serbian General Staff were united on the question of Yugoslavia as a "Greater Serbia", ruled, in one way or another, by Serbia. On the eve of the invasion, there were 165 generals on the Yugoslav active list. Of these, all but four were Serbs.
The terms of the capitulation were extremely severe, as the Axis proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia. Germany occupied northern Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, while retaining direct occupation over a rump Serbian state
Nedic's Serbia
Serbia under German occupation refers to an administrative area in occupied Yugoslavia established by Nazi Germany following the invasion and dismantling of Yugoslavia in April of 1941...
and considerable influence over its newly created puppet state
Puppet state
A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
, the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
, which extended over much of today's Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and contained all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
. Mussolini's Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
gained the remainder of Slovenia, Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
, and large chunks of the coastal Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
region (along with nearly all of the Adriatic
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
islands). It also gained control over the newly created Montenegrin puppet state, and was granted the kingship in the Independent State of Croatia, though wielding little real power within it. Hungary dispatched the Hungarian Third Army
Hungarian Third Army
The Hungarian Third Army was a Hungarian field army which saw action during World War II.-Commanders:* Lieutenant General Elemér Gorondy-Novák from 1 March 1940 to 1 November 1941* Lieutenant General Zoltán Decleva from 1 November 1941 to 1 December 1942...
to occupy Vojvodina
Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944
The Occupation of Vojvodina from 1941 to 1944 was carried out by Nazi Germany and its client states / puppet regimes: Horthy's Hungary and Independent State of Croatia....
in northern Serbia, and later forcibly annexed sections of Baranja
Baranya (region)
Baranya or Baranja is a geographical region between the Danube and the Drava rivers. Its territory is divided between Hungary and Croatia...
, Bačka
Backa
Bačka is a geographical area within the Pannonian plain bordered by the river Danube to the west and south, and by the river Tisza to the east of which confluence is located near Titel...
, Međimurje, and Prekmurje
Prekmurje
Prekmurje is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region settled by Slovenes and lying between the Mur River in Slovenia and the Rába Valley in the most western part of Hungary...
. Bulgaria
Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
The military history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 9 September 1944 and a period of alignment with the Allies until the end of the war. Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy during...
, meanwhile, annexed nearly all of the modern-day Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
.
After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, all territories under its administration were placed under German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
or Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
control. These included Kosovo, Albania
Albania under Nazi Germany
The Albanian Kingdom existed as a de jure independent country, between 1943 and 1944. The usual de facto name in most of the historic German literature and documents is Großalbanien, sometimes Gross-Albanien...
, Montenegro
Kingdom of Montenegro (1941-1944)
The Kingdom of Montenegro or the Independent State of Montenegro existed from 1941 to 1943 as a puppet protectorate of Fascist Italy, a component of the envisioned Italian Empire...
, and much of Dalmatia.
Dubious status of international recognition
The fall of a true international body following the split in affinity by the world's nations, the status of international law and questions of continuity from former conventions became a shady matter. The government-in-exile was now only recognized by the Allied powersAllies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
. The Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
had recognized the territorial acquisitions of their allied states.
When the AVNOJ
AVNOJ
The Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, known more commonly by its Yugoslav abbreviation AVNOJ, was the political umbrella organization for the national liberation councils of the Yugoslav resistance against the World War II Axis occupation, eventually becoming the...
(the Partisan wartime council in Yugoslavia) was eventually recognized by the Allies, by late 1943, the official recognition of the Partisan Democratic Federal Yugoslavia soon followed. The National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia was recognized by the major Allied powers at the Tehran Conference
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
, when United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
agreed to the position of other Allied. The newly recognized Yugoslav government, headed by Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, was a joint body formed from of AVNOJ members and the members of the former government-in-exile in London. The resolution of a fundamental question, whether the new state remained a monarchy or was to be a republic, was postponed until the end of the war, as was the status of King Peter II
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter II, also known as Peter II Karađorđević , was the third and last King of Yugoslavia...
.
Yugoslav resistance
Brotherhood and unity
Brotherhood and Unity was a popular slogan of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia that was coined during the Yugoslav People's Liberation War , and which evolved into a guiding principle of Yugoslavia's post-war inter-ethnic policy....
") and incorporating republican, left-wing, and liberal elements of Yugoslav politics, and the Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
, a conservative royalist and nationalist force, enjoying support almost exclusively from the Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
population in occupied Yugoslavia. The Chetniks were the ones to initially receive recognition from the western Allies. The Partisans were supported by the Soviet Union, but received universal Allied recognition in place of the Chetniks after the Tehran conference (1943). By the time of this conference, the degree of Chetnik-Axis collaboration was indicated to have increased greatly.
The Yugoslav Partisans (officially the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, NOV i POJ), under the command of Marshal Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, primarily fought against the German, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and collaborationist forces. Drawing on a cadre of experienced fighters from the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
to train troops, and on socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
ideology to win support that crossed national lines, they steadily gained power during the struggle winning recognition from the Allies and the Yugoslavian government-in-exile as the legitimate Yugoslav liberation force. The movement grew to become the largest resistance force in occupied Europe, with 800,000 men organized in 4 field armies
Field army
A Field Army, or Area Army, usually referred to simply as an Army, is a term used by many national military forces for a military formation superior to a corps and beneath an army group....
. Eventually the Partisans prevailed against all of their opponents as the official army of the newly-founded Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (later Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).
Although the activity of the Macedonian
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
Partisans was part of the Yugoslav People's Liberation War, the specific conditions in Macedonia (due to the strong autonomic tendencies of the local communists) led to the creation of a separate sub-army called the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia
People's Liberation Army of Macedonia
The People's Liberation Army of Macedonia , often referred to as the Macedonian People's Liberation Army and the National Liberation Army of Macedonia, was a Communist resistance army formed in present-day Republic of Macedonia during the People's Liberation War of Macedonia in the Second World War...
which was engaged in the People's Liberation War of Macedonia. In 1944, the Macedonian and Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
commands made contact in southern Serbia and formed a joint command, which consequently placed the Macedonian Partisans under the direct command of Marshal Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
. The autonomous wing in the Communist Party of Macedonia, which dominated during World War II, was finally pushed aside in 1945 after the Second Assembly of the ASNOM.
The royalist Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
(officially the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, JVUO), under the command of General Draža Mihailović
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...
, drew primarily from the scattered remnants of the Royal Yugoslav Army, relying overwhelmingly on the ethnic Serbian population for support. The Chetniks were formed soon after the invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
and the surrender of the government on April 17, 1941. The Chetniks were initially the only resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
recognized by the Yugoslavian government-in-exile and the Allied forces. The Partisans and Chetniks attempted to cooperate early during the conflict, but this quickly fell apart. After fruitless negotiations, the Chetnik leader, General Mihailović, turned against the Partisans as his main enemy. According to him, the reason was humanitarian: the prevention of German reprisals against Serbs. This however, did not stop the activities of the Partisan resistance, and Chetnik units attacked the Partisans in November 1941, while increasingly receiving supplies and cooperating with the Germans and Italians in this. The British liaison to Mihailović advised London to stop supplying the Chetniks after the Užice attack (see First anti-Partisan offensive
First anti-partisan offensive
The First anti-Partisan Offensive, known in ex-Yugoslavia as the First Enemy Offensive , was the first major military confrontation on the Yugoslav Front of World War II. It was an offensive by German and collaborationist troops against the "Užice Republic", the first of a large number of...
), but Britain continued to do so.
Guerrilla and civil war
Early resistance
In 1931-1939 USSR has prepared Communists for the partisan war in Yugoslavia. On the eve of the war, hundreds of future prominent Yugoslav communist leaders completed special "partisan courses" organized by the Soviet military intelligence in the Soviet Union and Spain.Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941. On the same day, Yugoslav Partisans formed the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, the first armed resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
unit in Europe. Founded in the Brezovica forest near Sisak
Sisak
Sisak is a city in central Croatia. The city's population in 2011 was 33,049, with a total of 49,699 in the administrative region and it is also the administrative centre of the Sisak-Moslavina county...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, its creation marked the beginning of anti-Axis resistance in occupied Yugoslavia.
Various military formations more or less linked to the general liberation movement were involved in armed confrontations with Axis forces which erupted in various areas of Yugoslavia in the ensuing weeks. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia formally decided to launch an armed uprising on July 4, 1941, a date which was later marked as Fighter's Day - a public holiday in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
. One Žikica Jovanović Španac
Žikica Jovanovic Španac
Živorad "Žikica" Jovanović , better known as Španac was a Yugoslav partisan and is credited for starting the anti-fascist struggle in Yugoslavia during World War II.-Before World War II:Jovanović was born in Valjevo, Central Serbia, related to an extended family of...
("The Spaniard") shot the first bullet of the campaign on July 7, 1941, later the Day of State of the Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...
(part of SFR Yugoslavia).
On August 10, 1941 in Stanulović, a mountain village, the Partisans formed the Kopaonik Partisan Detachment Headquarters. Their liberated area, consisting of nearby villages, was called the "Miners Republic" was the first in Yugoslavia, and lasted 42 days. The resistance fighters formally joined the ranks of the Partisans later on. On December 22, 1941 the Partisans formed the 1st Proletarian Assault Brigade (1. Proleterska Udarna Brigada) - the first regular Partisan military unit, capable of operating outside its local area. December 22 became the "Day of the Yugoslav People's Army
Yugoslav People's Army
The Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...
". In 1942 Partisan detachments officially merged into the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (NOV i POJ).
The Chetnik movement was organized after the surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army
Royal Yugoslav Army
The Royal Yugoslav Army was the armed force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the state's formation until the force's surrender to the Axis powers on April 17, 1941...
, by some of the remaining Yugoslav soldiers. This force was organized in the Ravna Gora district of western Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
under Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Draža Mihailović
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...
. However, unlike the Partisans, Mihailović's forces were almost entirely ethnic Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
. He directed his units to arm themselves and await his orders for the final push. Mihailović avoided direct action against the Axis, which he judged were of low strategic importance.
The Chetniks initially enjoyed the support of the western Allies up to the Tehran Conference
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
(1943). In 1942, Time Magazine, featured an article which praised the "success" of Mihailović's Chetniks, and heralded him as the sole defender of freedom in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Chetniks also were praised for saving 500 downed Allied pilots
Operation Halyard
Operation Halyard, also known as the Halyard Mission, was the largest Allied airlift operation behind enemy lines during World War II. A total of 512 allied airmen who had been downed over Nazi-occupied Serbia were rescued by Serbian Chetniks, led by General Draža Mihailović...
. However, Tito's Partisans fought the Germans more actively during this time. Tito and Mihailović had a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks offered by Germans for their heads. While "officially" remaining mortal enemies of the Germans and the Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
, the Chetniks were known for making clandestine deals with the Italians and other occupying forces.
Axis response
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
against the Axis occupiers and their local collaborators, the Serbian Government of National Salvation, the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
, and the Chetniks (which they also considered collaborators). They enjoyed gradually increased levels of success and support of the general populace, and succeeded in controlling large chunks of Yugoslav territory. People's committees were organized to act as civilian governments in areas of the country liberated by the Partisans. In places, even limited arms industries were set up.
At the very beginning, however, the Partisan forces were relatively small, poorly armed, and without any infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
. But they had two major advantages over other military and paramilitary formations in former Yugoslavia: the first and most immediate advantage was a small but valuable cadre of Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
veterans. Unlike some of the other military and paramilitary formations, these veterans had experience with a modern war fought in circumstances quite similar to those found in World War II Yugoslavia. Their other major advantage, which became more apparent in later stages of War, was in the Partisans being founded on ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
rather than ethnicity. Therefore they could expect at least some levels of support in almost any corner of the country, unlike other paramilitary formations limited to territories with Croat or Serb majority. This allowed their units to be more mobile and fill their ranks with a larger pool of potential recruits.
During the war, generally the national minorities, with the exception of Czechs, Slovaks and Turks cooperated with the occupation forces.
The Axis powers, however, were quite aware of the Partisan threat. The most numerous local force, besides the four second-line German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
infantry divisions assigned to occupation duties was the Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
, founded in April 1941, a few days after the founding of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) itself. It was done with the authorisation of German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
occupation
Military occupation
Military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
authorities. The task of the new Croatian armed forces was to defend the new state against both foreign and domestic enemies. The Croatian Home Guard was originally limited to 16 infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
battalions and 2 cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
squadrons - 16,000 men in total. The original 16 battalions were soon enlarged to 15 infantry regiments of two battalions each between May and June 1941, organised into five divisional commands, some 55,000 enlisted men. Support units included 35 light tanks supplied by Italy, 10 artillery battalions (equipped with captured Royal Yugoslav Army
Royal Yugoslav Army
The Royal Yugoslav Army was the armed force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the state's formation until the force's surrender to the Axis powers on April 17, 1941...
weapons of Czech origin), a cavalry regiment in Zagreb and an independent cavalry battalion at Sarajevo. Two independent motorized infantry battalions were based at Zagreb and Sarajevo respectively. Several regiments of Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
militia were also formed at this time, which operated under a separate command structure to, and independently from, the Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
, until the units of the Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
militia and Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
were reorganized and combined in November 1944 to form the Army of the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
.
The fledgling Army crushed the revolt by Serbs in Eastern Herzegovina in June 1941, and fought in July in Eastern and Western Bosnia. They fought in Eastern Herzegovina again, when Croatian-Dalmatian and Slavonian battalions reinforced local units. The Home Guard reached its maximum size at the end of 1943, when it had 130,000 men.
The Croatian Home Guard also included an air force
Air force
An air force, also known in some countries as an air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military organization that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army, navy or...
, the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia, the Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske was the national air force of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II, founded under German authority in April 1941...
(Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, or ZNDH), the backbone of which was provided by 500 former Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers and 1,600 NCOs with 125 aircraft. By 1943 the ZNDH was 9,775 strong and equipped with 295 aircraft.
As the levels of resistance to its occupation grew, the Axis Powers responded with numerous minor offensives. There were also seven major Axis operations
Seven anti-partisan offensives
The Seven anti-Partisan offensives, known by some sources in the former Yugoslavia as the Seven Enemy offensives , is a group name for seven major Axis military operations on the territory of former Yugoslavia during World War II, undertaken against the Yugoslav Partisans...
specifically aimed at eliminating all or most Yugoslav Partisan resistance. These major offensives were typically combined efforts by the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
and SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
, Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
, Chetniks, the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
, the Serbian collaborationist government, Bulgaria
Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Kingdom of Bulgaria was established as an independent state when the Principality of Bulgaria, an Ottoman vassal, officially proclaimed itself independent on October 5, 1908 . This move also formalised the annexation of the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which had been under the control...
, and Hungary. In the first half of 1943 two of these offensives came close to defeating the Partisans. They are known by their German code names Fall Weiss (Plan White) and Fall Schwarz (Operation Black), as the Battle of Neretva and the Battle of Sutjeska after the rivers in the areas they were fought, or the 4th and 5th offensive, respectively, according to former Yugoslav historiography.
Former Yugoslav historiographers numbered the seven major Axis offensives as follows:
- The First anti-Partisan OffensiveFirst anti-partisan offensiveThe First anti-Partisan Offensive, known in ex-Yugoslavia as the First Enemy Offensive , was the first major military confrontation on the Yugoslav Front of World War II. It was an offensive by German and collaborationist troops against the "Užice Republic", the first of a large number of...
(First Enemy Offensive), the attack conducted by the Axis in autumn of 1941 against the "Republic of UžiceRepublic of UžiceThe Republic of Užice was a short-lived liberated Yugoslav territory and the first liberated territory in World War II Europe, organized as a military mini-state that existed in the autumn of 1941 in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, more specifically the western part of Serbia...
", a liberated territory the Partisans established in western Serbia. In November 1941, German troops attacked and reoccupied this territory, with the majority of Partisan forces escaping towards BosniaBosnia (region)Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...
. It was during this offensive that tenuous collaboration between the Partisans and the royalist Chetnik movement broke down and turned into open hostility.
- The Second anti-Partisan OffensiveSecond anti-partisan offensiveThe Second anti-Partisan Offensive, known in ex-Yugoslavia as the Second Enemy Offensive , was a battle during World War II between the Yugoslav Partisans on one side, and German forces aided by a number of Ustaše and Italian troops on the other...
(Second Enemy Offensive), the coordinated Axis attack conducted in January 1942 against Partisan forces in eastern BosniaBosnia (region)Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...
. The Partisan troops once again avoided encirclement and were forced to retreat over IgmanIgmanIgman is a mountain in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is found directly to the southwest of Sarajevo, bordering Bjelašnica mountain and the city of Ilidža. Igman's highest point, Vlahinja Ridge, is 1502 meters , making it the shortest of the Sarajevo mountains.Igman is a popular destination...
mountain near SarajevoSarajevoSarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
.
- The Third anti-Partisan OffensiveThird anti-partisan offensiveThe Third anti-Partisan Offensive or Third Enemy Offensive was a battle during World War II between the Yugoslav Partisans on one side, German, Italian, and Independent State of Croatia forces on the second and Chetnik forces on the third side...
(Third Enemy Offensive), an offensive against Partisan forces in eastern Bosnia, MontenegroMontenegroMontenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, SandžakSandžakSandžak also known as Raška is a historical region lying along the border between Serbia and Montenegro...
and Hercegovina which took place in the spring of 1942. It was known as Operation TRIO by the Germans, and again ended with a timely Partisan escape. This attack is mistakenly identified by some sources as the Battle of KozaraBattle of KozaraThe Battle of Kozara, also known as Operation West-Bosnien by the Axis, was fought in 1942 on and around the mountain of Kozara in northwestern Bosnia. It was an important battle of the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement in World War II...
, which took place in the summer of 1942.
- The Fourth anti-Partisan Offensive (Fourth Enemy Offensive), also known as the Battle of the Neretva or Fall Weiss (Case White), a conflict spanning the area between western BosniaBosnia (region)Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...
and northern HerzegovinaHerzegovinaHerzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...
, and culminating in the Partisan retreat over the NeretvaNeretvaNeretva is the largest river of the eastern part of the Adriatic basin. It has been harnessed and controlled to a large extent by four HE power-plants with large dams and their storage lakes, but it is still recognized for its natural beauty, diversity of its landscape and visual...
river. It took place from January to April, 1943.
- The Fifth anti-Partisan Offensive (Fifth Enemy Offensive), also known as the Battle of the Sutjeska or Fall Schwartz (Case Black). The operation immediately followed the Fourth Offensive and included a complete encirclement of Partisan forces in southeastern Bosnia and northern Montenegro in May and June 1943.
- The Sixth anti-Partisan OffensiveSixth anti-Partisan OffensiveThe Sixth anti-Partisan Offensive , known in ex-Yugoslavia as the Sixth Enemy Offensive was a series of major anti-Partisan offensives planned by the German forces for late 1943 and early 1944...
(Sixth Enemy Offensive), a series of operations undertaken by the WehrmachtWehrmachtThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
and the UstašeUstašeThe Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
after the capitulation of Italy in an attempt to secure the Adriatic coast. It took place in the autumn and winter of 1943/1944.
- The Seventh anti-Partisan Offensive (Seventh Enemy Offensive), the final attack in western Bosnia in the spring of 1944, which included Operation Rösselsprung (Knight's Leap), an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate Josip Broz Tito personally and annihilate the leadership of the Partisan movement.
Allied support shifts
Later in the conflict the Partisans were able to win the moral, as well as limited material support of the Western AlliesAllies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
, who until then had supported General Draža Mihailović
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...
's Chetnik Forces, but were finally convinced of their collaboration by many intelligence-gathering missions dispatched to both sides during the course of the war.
To gather intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
, agents of the Western Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
were infiltrated into both the Partisans and the Chetniks. The intelligence gathered by liaisons to the resistance groups was crucial to the success of supply missions and was the primary influence on Allied strategy in Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
. The search for intelligence ultimately resulted in the demise of the Chetniks and their eclipse by Tito’s Partisans. In 1942, though supplies were limited, token support was sent equally to each. The new year would bring a change. The Germans were executing Operation Schwarz (Battle of Sutjeska, the Fifth anti-Partisan offensive), one of a series of offensives aimed at the resistance fighters, when F.W.D. Deakin
William Deakin
Frederick William Dampier Deakin, Sir William Deakin was a historian, World War II veteran, and literary assistant to Winston Churchill....
was sent by the British to gather information.
His reports contained two important observations. The first was that the Partisans were courageous and aggressive in battling the German 1st Mountain and 104th Light Division, had suffered significant casualties, and required support. The second observation was that the entire German 1st Mountain Division had transited from USSR on rail lines through Chetnik
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
-controlled territory. British intercepts (ULTRA) of German message traffic confirmed Chetnik timidity. Even though today many circumstances, facts, and motivations remain unclear, intelligence reports resulted in increased Allied interest in Yugoslavia air operations and shifted policy. In September 1943, at Churchill’s request, Brigadier General Fitzroy Maclean was parachuted to Tito’s headquarters near Drvar to serve as a permanent, formal liaison to the Partisans. While the Chetniks were still occasionally supplied, the Partisans received the bulk of all future support.
Thus, after the Tehran Conference
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
the Partisans received official recognition as the legitimate national liberation force by the Allies, who subsequently set-up the RAF Balkan Air Force (under the suggestion of Brigadier-General Fitzroy MacLean) with the aim to provide increased supplies and tactical air support for Marshal Tito's Partisan forces.
Allied aircraft specifically started targeting ZNDH (Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia, the Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske was the national air force of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II, founded under German authority in April 1941...
) and Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
bases and aircraft for the first time as a result of the Seventh anti-Partisan Offensive, including Operation Rösselsprung in late May 1944. Up until then Axis aircraft could fly inland almost at will as long as they remained at low altitude. Yugoslav Partisan units on the ground frequently complained about enemy aircraft attacking them while hundreds of Allied aircraft flew above at higher altitude. This changed during Rösselsprung as Allied fighter-bombers went low en-masse for the first time, establishing full aerial superiority. Consequently, both the ZNDH and Luftwaffe were forced to limit their operations in clear weather to early morning and late afternoon hours.
In January 1944, Tito's forces unsuccessfully attacked Banja Luka
Banja Luka
-History:The name "Banja Luka" was first mentioned in a document dated February 6, 1494, but Banja Luka's history dates back to ancient times. There is a substantial evidence of the Roman presence in the region during the first few centuries A.D., including an old fort "Kastel" in the centre of...
. But, while Tito was forced to withdraw, Mihajlović and his forces were also noted by the Western press for their lack of activity. On June 16, 1944, the Tito-Šubašić agreement
Tito-Šubašic Agreement
The Treaty of Vis , also known as the Tito-Šubašić Agreement, was an attempt by the Western Powers to merge the royal Yugoslav government in exile with the Communist-led Partisans who were fighting the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia in the Second World War and were de facto rulers on the liberated...
between the Partisans and the Yugoslavian Government in exile of King Peter II
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter II, also known as Peter II Karađorđević , was the third and last King of Yugoslavia...
was signed on the island of Vis
Vis (island)
Vis is the most outerly lying larger Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, and is part of the Central Dalmatian group of islands, with an area of 90.26 km² and a population of 3,617 . Of all the inhabited Croatian islands, it is the farthest from the coast...
. This agreement was an attempt to form a new Yugoslav government which would include both the communists and the royalists
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...
. It called for a merge of the Partisan Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko V(ij)eće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) and the Government in exile. The Tito-Šubašić agreement also called on all Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs to join the Partisans. The Partisans were recognized by the Royal Government as Yugoslavia's regular army. Mihajlović and many Chetniks refused to answer the call.
Between March 30 and April 8, 1945, General Mihailović's Chetniks mounted a final attempt to establish themselves as a credible force fighting the Axis in Yugoslavia. The Chetniks fought a combination of Ustaša and Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
forces in the Battle on Lijevča field
Battle on Lijevca field
The Battle on Lijevče field was a battle fought between March 30 and April 8 1945 between the Croatian Armed Forces and the runoff Chetnik forces of Pavle Đurišić, near Banja Luka in what was then the Independent State of Croatia .The Croatian Armed Forces were led by General Vladimir Metikoš,...
. The battle was fought near Banja Luka in what was then the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
and ended in victory for the Independent State of Croatia forces.
Macedonia
On 15 January 1942, the Bulgarian 1st Army of 3 infantry divisions transferred to South-East Serbia. Headquartered at Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...
, it replaced German divisions needed in Croatia and USSR. On 7 January 1943, it also occupied South-West Serbia. Savage pacification measures reduced Partisan activity appreciably. Bulgarian infantry divisions participated in the Fifth anti-Partisan Offensive as a blocking force of the Partisan escape-route from Montenegro into Serbia and in the Sixth anti-Partisan Offensive
Sixth anti-Partisan Offensive
The Sixth anti-Partisan Offensive , known in ex-Yugoslavia as the Sixth Enemy Offensive was a series of major anti-Partisan offensives planned by the German forces for late 1943 and early 1944...
in Eastern Bosnia.
On 10 September 1944, Bulgaria changed sides and declared war on Germany as an Allied Power. The Germans swiftly disarmed the 1st Occupation Corps of 5 divisions and the 5th Army, despite heroic but short-lived resistance by the latter. Survivors retreated to Bulgaria, joining the new 450,000-strong Bulgarian National Armed Forces. On 8 October, the 1st and 4th Armies occupied Serb Macedonia with Partisan permission. The 2nd Army then occupied South-Eastern Serbia. The 1st Army then swung north with the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front, through Eastern Yugoslavia and South-Western Hungary, before linking up with the British 8th Army in Austria in May 1945.
Italy Surrenders
The Italian High Command assigned 24 divisions and three coastal brigades to occupation duties in Yugoslavia from 1941. These units were located from Slovenia, Croatia and Dalmatia through to Montenegro and Kosovo.On 8 September 1943, the Italians concluded an armistce with the Allies, leaving 17 divisions stranded in Yugoslavia. All divisional commanders refused to join the Germans. Two Italian infantry divisions joined the Montenegrin Partisans as complete units, whilst another joined the Albanian Partisans. Other units surrendered to the Germans, to face imprisonment in Germany or summary execution. Others surrendered themselves, arms, ammunition and equipment to Croatian forces or to the Partisans, simply disintegrated, or reached Italy on foot via Trieste or by ship across the Adriatic. The Italian Governorship of Dalmatia
Governorship of Dalmatia
The Governorate of Dalmatia was a province of Italy, created in April 1941 from occupied Yugoslav territory annexed after the German blitzkrieg Invasion of Yugoslavia.-Characteristics:...
was disestablished and the country's possessions were subsequently divided between Germany which established its Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral and the Independent State of Croatia which established the new district of Sidraga-Ravni Kotari.
Allied offensive in the Balkans
In August 1944, King Michael I of Romania staged a coupKing Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
quit the war, and the Romanian army was placed under the command of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. Romanian forces, fighting against Germany, participated in the Prague Offensive
Prague Offensive
The Prague Offensive was the last major Soviet operation of World War II in Europe. The offensive, and the battle for Prague, was fought on the Eastern Front from 6 May to 11 May 1945. This battle for the city is particularly noteworthy in that it ended after the Third Reich capitulated on 8 May...
. Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
quit as well and, on September 10, declared war on Germany and its remaining allies. The weak divisions sent by the Axis powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
to invade Bulgaria were easily driven back. In Macedonia, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces and betrayed by high-ranking military commanders, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Three Bulgarian armies (some 455,000 strong in total) entered Yugoslavia in late September 1944 with the prearranged consent of Tito and the Partisans and moved from Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
to Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...
and Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Southern and eastern Serbia and Macedonia were liberated(to be anexed by URSS) within two months and the 130,000-strong Bulgarian First Army
Bulgarian First Army
The Bulgarian First Army was a Bulgarian field army during the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II.-First Balkan War:Following the military reforms of 1907 the territory of the Bulgarian Kingdom was divided into three Army Inspectorates...
continued to Hungary.
Concurrently, with Allied air support and assistance from the Red Army, the Partisans turned their attention to the Serbian Military Administration, the state of the Serbian Axis fifth column
Fifth column
A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group such as a nation from within.-Origin:The term originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, a Nationalist General during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War...
. The area under its had seen relatively little fighting since the fall of the "Republic of Užice
Republic of Užice
The Republic of Užice was a short-lived liberated Yugoslav territory and the first liberated territory in World War II Europe, organized as a military mini-state that existed in the autumn of 1941 in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, more specifically the western part of Serbia...
" in 1941 (see First anti-Partisan offensive
First anti-partisan offensive
The First anti-Partisan Offensive, known in ex-Yugoslavia as the First Enemy Offensive , was the first major military confrontation on the Yugoslav Front of World War II. It was an offensive by German and collaborationist troops against the "Užice Republic", the first of a large number of...
). In September, the Red Army and the Partisans launched the Belgrade Offensive
Belgrade Offensive
The Belgrade Offensive or the Belgrade Strategic Offensive Operation was an offensive military operation in which Belgrade was conquered from the German Wehrmacht by the joint efforts of the Yugoslav Partisans and the Soviet Red Army...
, and took the city on October 20. At the onset of winter, the Partisans effectively controlled the entire eastern half of Yugoslavia—Serbia, Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
—as well as most of the Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
n coast. The Wehrmacht and the forces of the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
fortified a front in Syrmia
Syrmian Front
The Syrmian Front was an Axis line of defense during World War II, established in late October 1944 in Syrmia, northwest of Belgrade....
that held through the winter of 1944-45. To raise the number of Partisan troops Tito declared a general amnesty for all members of quisling forces that switched sides before December 31, 1944.
Partisan General Offensive
Mostar
Mostar is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the largest and one of the most important cities in the Herzegovina region and the center of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation. Mostar is situated on the Neretva river and is the fifth-largest city in the country...
-Višegrad
Višegrad
Višegrad is a town and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is part of the Republika Srpska entity. It is on the river Drina, located on the road from Goražde and Ustiprača towards Užice, Serbia.-History:...
-Drina sector. With large swaths of Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian countryside already under Partisan guerrilla control, the final operations consisted in connecting these territories and capturing major cities and roads. For the general offensive Marshal Josip Broz Tito commanded a Partisan force of about 800,000 men organized into four armies
Field army
A Field Army, or Area Army, usually referred to simply as an Army, is a term used by many national military forces for a military formation superior to a corps and beneath an army group....
: the 1st Army commanded by Peko Dapčević
Peko Dapcevic
Colonel General Peko Dapčević was a famous Yugoslav communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War, joined the Partisan uprising in Montenegro, and became commander of the Yugoslav 1st and 4th Armies....
, 2nd Army commanded by Koča Popović
Koca Popovic
Konstantin "Koča" Popović was a communist volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, 1937-1939 and Divisional Commander of the First Proletarian Division in Josip Broz Tito's Partisan army...
, 3rd Army commanded by Kosta Nađ, and the 4th Army commanded by Petar Drapšin
Petar Drapšin
Petar Drapšin was a Yugoslav Partisan commander.Drapšin was born to a family of farmers in the village of Turija near Srbobran. He was enrolled in a Belgrade high school when he first got introduced to Communist ideas through school's literary group. He joined SKOJ and in 1937 went to Prague for...
. In addition, the Yugoslav Partisans had eight independent army corps (the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and the 10th).
Set against the Yugoslav Partisans was German General Alexander Löhr
Alexander Löhr
Alexander Löhr was an Austrian Air Force commander during the 1930s and, after the "Political Union of Germany and Austria" , he was a German Air Force commander...
of Army Group E
Army Group E
Army Group E was a German Army Group active during World War II.Army Group E was created on 1 January 1943 from the 12th Army...
(Heeresgruppe E
Army Group E
Army Group E was a German Army Group active during World War II.Army Group E was created on 1 January 1943 from the 12th Army...
). This Army Group had seven army corps (the XV Mountain, XV Cossack, XXI Mountain, XXXIV, LXIX, and LXXXXVII). These corps included seventeen weakened divisions (1st Cossack, 2nd Cossack, 7th SS, 11th Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
Field, 22nd, 41st, 104th, 117th, 138th, 181st, 188th, 237th, 297th, 369th Croat, 373rd Croat, 392nd Croat and the 14th SS Ukrainian Division). In addition to the seven corps, the Axis had remnant naval and Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
forces, under constant attack by the British Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
and United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
.
The Army of the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
was reorganized in November 1944 to combine the units of the Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
and Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
into eighteen divisions, comprising 13 infantry, two mountain, two assault and one replacement Croatian Divisions, each with its own organic artillery and other support units. There were also several armoured units. From early 1945, the Croatian Divisions were allocated to various German Corps and by March 1945 were holding the Southern Front. Securing the rear areas were some 32,000 men of the Croatian Gendarmerie (Hrvatsko Oruznistvo), organised into 5 Police Volunteer Regiments plus 15 independent battalions, equipped with standard light infantry weapons, including mortars.
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia, the Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske was the national air force of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II, founded under German authority in April 1941...
(Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, or ZNDH) and the units of the Croatian Air Force Legion
Croatian Air Force Legion
The Croatian Air Force Legion , or HZL, also known as the Croatian Legion, was a military unit of the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia which fought alongside the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1943 and then back on Croatian soil...
(Hrvatska Zrakoplovna Legija, or HZL), returned from service on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
provided some level of air support (attack, fighter and transport) right up until May 1945, encountering and sometimes defeating opposing aircraft from the British Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
, United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
and the Soviet Air Force
Soviet Air Force
The Soviet Air Force, officially known in Russian as Военно-воздушные силы or Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily and often abbreviated VVS was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces...
. Although 1944 had been a catastrophic year for the ZNDH, with aircraft losses amounting to 234, primarily on the ground, it entered 1945 with 196 machines. Further deliveries of new aircraft from Germany continued in the early months of 1945 to replace losses. By 10 March, the ZNDH had 23 Messerschmitt 109 G&Ks, three Morane-Saulnier M.S.406
Morane-Saulnier M.S.406
The M.S.406 was a French Armée de l'Air fighter aircraft built by Morane-Saulnier starting in 1938. Numerically it was France's most important fighter during the opening stages of World War II....
, six Fiat G.50
Fiat G.50
The Fiat G.50 Freccia was a World War II Italian fighter aircraft. First flown in February 1937, the G.50 was Italy’s first single-seat, all-metal monoplane with an enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear to go into production...
, and two Messerschmitt 110 G fighters. The final deliveries of up-to-date German Messerschmitt 109 G and K fighter aircraft were still taking place in March 1945. and the ZNDH still had 176 aircraft on its strength in April 1945.
Serbian units included the remnants of the Serbian State Guard and the Serbian Volunteer Corps from the Serbian Military Administration. There were even some units of the Slovene Home Guard (Slovensko domobranstvo, or SD) still intact in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
.
By the end of March, 1945, it was obvious to the Croatian Army Command that, although the front remained intact, they would eventually be defeated by sheer lack of ammunition. For this reason, the decision was made to retreat into Austria, in order to surrender to the British forces advancing north from Italy. The German Army was in the process of disintegration and the supply system lay in ruins.
Bihać
Bihac
Bihać is a city and municipality on the river Una in the north-western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosanska Krajina region. Bihać is located in the Una-Sana Canton in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...
was liberated by the Partisans the same day that the general offensive was launched. The 4th Army, under the command of Petar Drapšin
Petar Drapšin
Petar Drapšin was a Yugoslav Partisan commander.Drapšin was born to a family of farmers in the village of Turija near Srbobran. He was enrolled in a Belgrade high school when he first got introduced to Communist ideas through school's literary group. He joined SKOJ and in 1937 went to Prague for...
, broke through the defenses of the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
The XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps was a German cavalry corps during World War II. With order of February 1, 1945 the Corps was transferred to the Waffen-SS.-History:The summer of 1942 marked the high tide of German success in the East...
. By April 20, Drapšin liberated Lika
Lika
Lika is a mountainous region in central Croatia, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by the Malovan pass...
and the Croatian Littoral
Croatian Littoral
The Croatian Littoral is a geographical term that refers to the narrow coastal strip along the Adriatic Sea in Croatia extending from east the city Rijeka south to Karlobag...
, including the islands, and reached the old Yugoslav border with Italy. On May 1, after capturing the former Italian possessions of Rijeka
Rijeka
Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
and Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
from the German LXXXXVII Corps, the Yugoslav 4th Army beat the western Allies to Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
by one day.
The Yugoslav 2nd Army, under the command of Koča Popović
Koca Popovic
Konstantin "Koča" Popović was a communist volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, 1937-1939 and Divisional Commander of the First Proletarian Division in Josip Broz Tito's Partisan army...
, forced a crossing of the Bosna River on April 5, capturing Doboj
Doboj
Doboj is a city and a municipality in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, situated in the northern part of the Republika Srpska entity on the river Bosna. Doboj is the largest national railway junction; as such, the seats of the Republika Srpska Railways, and the Railways Corporation of Bosnia and...
, and reached the Una River. On April 6, the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps of the Yugoslav Partisans took Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
from the German XXI Corps. On April 12, the Yugoslav 3rd Army, under the command of Kosta Nađ, forced a crossing of the Drava
Drava
Drava or Drave is a river in southern Central Europe, a tributary of the Danube. It sources in Toblach/Dobbiaco, Italy, and flows east through East Tirol and Carinthia in Austria, into Slovenia , and then southeast, passing through Croatia and forming most of the border between Croatia and...
river. The 3rd Army then fanned out through Podravina
Podravina
Podravina or Podravje are Slavic names for the Drava river basin in Croatia and Slovenia.-History:...
, reached a point north of Zagreb, and crossed the old Austrian border with Yugoslavia in the Dravograd
Dravograd
Dravograd is a small town and a municipality in northern Slovenia, close to the border with Austria. It lies on the Drava River at the confluence with the Meža and the Mislinja. It is part of the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia)....
sector. The 3rd Army closed the ring around the enemy forces when its advanced motorized detachments linked up with detachments of the 4th Army in Carinthia
Carinthia (state)
Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...
.
Also, on April 12, the Yugoslav 1st Army, under the command of Peko Dapčević
Peko Dapcevic
Colonel General Peko Dapčević was a famous Yugoslav communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War, joined the Partisan uprising in Montenegro, and became commander of the Yugoslav 1st and 4th Armies....
penetrated the fortified front of the German XXXIV Corps in Syrmia. By April 22, the 1st Army had smashed the fortifications and was advancing towards Zagreb. After entering Zagreb with the Yugoslav 2nd Army, both armies advanced in Slovenia.
On May 8, the Yugoslav 2nd Army, along with units of the Yugoslav 1st Army, entered Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, which had been evacuated the previous day.
Final operations
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. On May 8, 1945, the Germans surrendered unconditionally and the war in Europe officially ended. The Italians had quit the war in 1943, the Bulgarians in 1944, and the Hungarians earlier in 1945. Despite the German capitulation, however, sporadic fighting still took place in Yugoslavia. On May 7, Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
was evacuated, on May 9, Maribor
Maribor
Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....
and Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
were captured by the Partisans, and General Alexander Löhr
Alexander Löhr
Alexander Löhr was an Austrian Air Force commander during the 1930s and, after the "Political Union of Germany and Austria" , he was a German Air Force commander...
, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group E
Army Group E
Army Group E was a German Army Group active during World War II.Army Group E was created on 1 January 1943 from the 12th Army...
was forced to sign the total surrender of the forces under his command at Topolšica, near Velenje
Velenje
Velenje is a town and municipality in northern Slovenia. The municipality has 33.331 inhabitants. Staro Velenje is first mentioned in written doucments dating to 1264 and 1374 as small market town and was a center of handicraft and trade...
, Slovenia, on Wednesday May 9, 1945. Only the Croatian and other anti-Partisan forces remained.
From May 10 to May 15, the Yugoslav Partisans continued to face resistance from Croatian, and other anti-Partisan forces throughout the rest of Croatia and Slovenia. The Battle of Poljana
Battle of Poljana
The Battle of Poljana was a battle of World War II in Europe. It started at Poljana, near the village of Prevalje in Yugoslavia , and was the culmination of a series of engagements between the Yugoslav Partisans and a large retreating Axis column, numbering in excess of 30,000 men...
, the last battle of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, started on May 14, ending on May 15, 1945 at Poljana, near Prevalje
Prevalje
Prevalje is a settlement and a municipality in northern Slovenia. It lies in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia. On 1 January 1999 Prevalje became an independent municipality. Prevalje lies in a valley where the Meža River emerges from a narrow gorge, full of fluvioglacial sediments...
in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. It was the culmination and last of a series of battles between Yugoslav Partisans and a large (in excess of 30,000) mixed column of German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) soldiers together with Croatian Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
, Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
(Hrvatsko Domobranstvo
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
), Slovenian Home Guard (Domobranci), and other anti-Partisan forces who were attempting to retreat to Austria.
Aftermath
On May 15, 1945 the Croatian Home GuardCroatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
, the Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
, the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps and the remnants of the Serbian State Guard, and the Serbian Volunteer Corps, surrendered to British forces. The Croatians attempted to negotiate a surrender to the British under the terms of the Geneva Convention, but were ignored. The Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
had joined that Convention on January 20, 1943, and was recognised by it as a "belligerent", that is, as a national state with armed forces in the field. All the signatories of the Convention, including Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, were informed that this recognition had been given. On May 5, in the town of Palmanova
Palmanova
Palmanova is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, close to the border with Slovenia. It is located 20 km from Udine, 28 km from Gorizia and 55 km from Trieste near the junction of the Autostrada Alpe-Adria and the Autostrada Venezia-Trieste .Palmanova is famous for its fortress...
(50 km northwest of Trieste), between 2,400 and 2,800 members of the Serbian Volunteer Corps surrendered to the British. On May 12, about 2,500 additional Serbian Volunteer Corps members surrendered to the British at Unterbergen on the Drava
Drava
Drava or Drave is a river in southern Central Europe, a tributary of the Danube. It sources in Toblach/Dobbiaco, Italy, and flows east through East Tirol and Carinthia in Austria, into Slovenia , and then southeast, passing through Croatia and forming most of the border between Croatia and...
River.
On May 11 and 12, British troops in Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt
-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...
, Austria, were harassed by arriving forces of the Yugoslav Partisans. In Belgrade, the British ambassador to the Yugoslav coalition government handed Tito a note demanding that the Yugoslav troops withdraw from Austria. On May 15, Tito placed Partisan forces in Austria under Allied control. A few days later he agreed to withdraw them. By May 20, Yugoslav troops in Austria had begun to withdraw.
Around June 1, most of the Serbian State Guard, the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Croatian Home Guard, the Ustaše, and the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who surrendered to the British were turned over to the Yugoslav government as part of what is sometimes referred to as Operation Keelhaul
Operation Keelhaul
Operation Keelhaul was carried out in Northern Italy by British and American forces to repatriate Soviet Armed Forces POWs of the Nazis to the Soviet Union between August 14, 1946 and May 9, 1947...
. The Partisans proceeded to brutalize the POWs in what became known as the Bleiburg massacre
Bleiburg massacre
The Bleiburg massacre, which also encompasses Operation Keelhaul is a term encompassing events that took place during mid-May 1945 near the Carinthian town of Bleiburg, itself some four kilometres from the Austrian-Slovenian border....
s. On June 8, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia agreed on the control of Trieste.
On March 8, 1945, a coalition Yugoslav government was formed in Belgrade with Tito as Premier and Ivan Šubašić
Ivan Šubašic
Ivan Šubašić was a Croatian and Yugoslav politician, best known as the last Ban of Banovina of Croatia.He was born in Vukova Gorica, then in Austria-Hungary. He finished grammar and high school in Zagreb, and enrolled onto the Faculty of Theology at the University of Zagreb...
as Foreign Minister. King Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter II, also known as Peter II Karađorđević , was the third and last King of Yugoslavia...
agreed to await a referendum on his rule before returning from exile. On November 29, in accordance with overwhelming referendum results, Peter II was deposed by Yugoslavia's Constituent Assembly. On the same day, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was established as a socialist state
Socialist state
A socialist state generally refers to any state constitutionally dedicated to the construction of a socialist society. It is closely related to the political strategy of "state socialism", a set of ideologies and policies that believe a socialist economy can be established through government...
during the first meeting of the Yugoslav Parliament in Belgrade. Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
was appointed Prime Minister.
On March 13, 1946, Mihailović was captured by agents of the Yugoslav Department of National Security
OZNA
The Department for the Protection of the People was a security agency of the FPR Yugoslavia.-Founding:...
(Odsjek Zaštite Naroda or OZNA). From June 10 to July 15 of the same year, he was tried for high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
and war crimes. On July 15, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad. On July 16, a clemency appeal was rejected by the Presidium of the National Assembly. During the early hours of July 18, Mihailović, together with nine other Chetnik officers, was executed in Lisičiji Potok. This execution essentially ended the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
-era civil war between the communist Partisans and the royalist Chetniks.
Casualties
| Nationality | 1964 list | Kočović | Žerjavić |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serbians | 346,740 | 487,000 | 530,000 |
| Croatians | 83,257 | 207,000 | 192,000 |
| Slovenians | 42,027 | 32,000 | 42,000 |
| Montenegrins | 16,276 | 50,000 | 20,000 |
| Macedonians | 6,724 | 7,000 | 6,000 |
| Muslims | 32,300 | 86,000 | 103,000 |
| Other Slavs | - | 12,000 | 7,000 |
| Albanians | 3,241 | 6,000 | 18,000 |
| Jews | 45,000 | 60,000 | 57,000 |
| Gypsies | - | 27,000 | 18,000 |
| Germans | - | 26,000 | 28,000 |
| Hungarians | 2,680 | - | - |
| Slovaks | 1,160 | - | - |
| Turks | 686 | - | - |
| Others | - | 14,000 | 6,000 |
| Unknown | 16,202 | - | - |
| Total | 597,323 | 1,014,000 | 1,027,000 |
| Location | Death toll | Survived |
|---|---|---|
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 177,045 | 49,242 |
| Croatia | 194,749 | 106,220 |
| Macedonia | 19,076 | 32,374 |
| Montenegro | 16,903 | 14,136 |
| Slovenia | 40,791 | 101,929 |
| Serbia (proper) | 97,728 | 123,818 |
| Kosovo | 7,927 | 13,960 |
| Vojvodina | 41,370 | 65,957 |
| Unknown | 1,744 | 2,213 |
| Total | 597,323 | 509,849 |
The Yugoslav government estimated the number of casualties to be at 1,704,000 and submitted the figure to the International Reparations Commission in 1946 without any documentation. The figure included war related deaths but also the expected population if war did not break out, the number of unborn children, and losses from emigration and disease. The same figure was later submitted to the Allied Reparations Committee in 1948 but was claimed to be only from war related deaths. After Germany requested verifiable data the Yugoslav Federal Bureau of Statistics created a nationwide survey in 1964. The total number of those killed was found to be 597,323. The list stayed a state secret until 1989 when it was published for the first time.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census published a report in 1954 that concluded that Yugoslav war related deaths were 1,067,000. The U.S. Bureau of the Census noted that the official Yugoslav government figure of 1.7 million war dead was overstated because it "was released soon after the war and was estimated without the benefit of a postwar census". A recent study by Vladimir Žerjavić
Vladimir Žerjavic
Vladimir Žerjavić was a Croatian economist and a United Nations expert. He published a series of historical articles and books during the 1980s and 1990s in which he argued that the scope of the Holocaust in World War II-era territory of Yugoslavia was intentionally exaggerated...
estimates total war related deaths at 1,027,000. Military losses of 237,000 Yugoslav partisans and 209,000 Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
and Ustase. Civilian dead of 581,000, including 57,000 Jews. Losses of the Yugoslav Republics were Bosnia 316,000; Serbia 273,000; Croatia 271,000; Slovenia 33,000; Montenegro 27,000; Macedonia 17,000; and killed abroad 80,000. Bogoljub Kočović
Bogoljub Kocovic
Bogoljub Kočović is a Bosnian jurist and statistician, Yugoslav by ethnic affiliation.Kočović was born in Sarajevo; his father was a Serb and mother French by origin. He obtained a MA in economy at the Roosevelt University in Chicago, and a Ph. D. in law in Paris...
a statistician
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
, who is a Bosnian Serb by ethnic affiliation, calculated that the actual war losses were 1,014,000. The late Jozo Tomasevich, Professor Emeritus of Economics at San Francisco State University, believes that the calculations of Kočović and Žerjavić “seem to be free of bias, we can accept them as reliable”.
The reasons for the high human toll in Yugoslavia were as follows:
- Military operations of five main armies (Germans, Italians, UstašeUstašeThe Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
, Yugoslav partisans and ChetniksChetniksChetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
). - German forces, under express orders from Hitler, fought with a special vengeance against the SerbsWorld War II persecution of SerbsThe Serbian Genocide refers to the attempt in extermination made towards ethnic Serbs in 1939-1945 by predominantly ethnic Croat Fascists and Nazi occupational forces....
, who were considered UntermenschUntermenschUntermensch is a term that became infamous when the Nazi racial ideology used it to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Serbs, Belarussians and Ukrainians...
. One of the worst massacres during the German military occupation of Serbia was the Kragujevac massacreKragujevac massacreThe Kragujevac massacre was the murder of men and boys in Kragujevac, Serbia, by Nazi German soldiers between 20–21 October 1941. All males from the town between the ages of sixteen and sixty were assembled, including high school students, and the victims were selected from amongst them...
. - Deliberate acts of reprisal against target populations were perpetrated by all combatants. All sides practiced the shooting of hostages on a large scale. At the end of the war Ustaše collaborators were killed during the Bleiburg massacreBleiburg massacreThe Bleiburg massacre, which also encompasses Operation Keelhaul is a term encompassing events that took place during mid-May 1945 near the Carinthian town of Bleiburg, itself some four kilometres from the Austrian-Slovenian border....
. - The systematic extermination of large numbers of people for political, religious or racial reasons. The most numerous victims were Serbs killed by the Ustaše and Croats and Muslims killed by the Chetniks. The Ustaše massacred Serbs throughout the Independent State of Croatia and especially in BanijaBanijaBanovina is a geographical region in central Croatia, between the rivers Sava, Una, and Kupa. Main towns in the region include Petrinja, Glina, Kostajnica, and Dvor. The area is almost entirely located in the Sisak-Moslavina county...
, KordunKordunThe Kordun region is a part of central Croatia from the bottom of the Petrova Gora mountain range, which extends along the rivers Korana and Slunjčica, and forms part of the border region to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The southern border of Kordun touches the Lika region...
, Lika, northwest Bosnia, and eastern Herzegovina and killed others in concentration camps such as the Jasenovac concentration campJasenovac concentration campJasenovac concentration camp was the largest extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia and occupied Yugoslavia during World War II...
. Chetniks carried out massacres against Muslims in BosniaBosnia (region)Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...
and SandžakSandžakSandžak also known as Raška is a historical region lying along the border between Serbia and Montenegro...
and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern DalmatiaDalmatiaDalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, and LikaLikaLika is a mountainous region in central Croatia, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by the Malovan pass...
. Jews were partly killed in camps throughout Yugoslavia and partly in camps in Germany, Norway and Greece after deportation. - The reduced food supply caused famine and disease.
- Allied bombing of German supply lines caused civilian casualties. The hardest hit localities were PodgoricaPodgoricaPodgorica , is the capital and largest city of Montenegro.Podgorica's favourable position at the confluence of the Ribnica and Morača rivers and the meeting point of the fertile Zeta Plain and Bjelopavlići Valley has encouraged settlement...
, LeskovacLeskovacLeskovac is a city and municipality in southern Serbia. It is the administrative center of the Jablanica District of Serbia...
, ZadarZadarZadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
and BelgradeBelgradeBelgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
. - The demographic losses due to a 335,000 reduction in the number of births and emigration of about 660,000 are not included with war casualties.
In Slovenia, the Institute for Contemporary History, Ljubljana launched a comprehensive research on the exact number of victims of World War II in Slovenia in 1995. After more than a decade of research, the final report was published in 2005, which included a list of names. The number of victims was set at 89,404. The figure also includes the victims of summary killings by the Communist regime immediately after the war (around 13,500 people). The results of the research came as a shock for the public, since the actual figures were more than 30% higher than the highest estimates during the Yugoslav period. Even if one counts only the number of deaths up to May 1945 (thus excluding the military prisoners killed by the Yugoslav Army between May and July 1945), the number remains considerable higher than the highest previous estimates (around 75,000 deaths vs. an estimate of 60,000). There are several reasons for such a difference. The new comprehensive research also included Slovenes killed by the Partisan resistance, both in battle (members of collaborationist and anti-Communist units), and civilians (around 4,000 between 1941 and 1945). Furthermore, the new estimates includes all the Slovenians from Nazi-occupied Slovenia who were drafted in the Wehrmacht and died either in battle of in prisoner camps during the war. The figure also includes the Slovenes from the Julian March
Julian March
The Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
who died in the Italian Army (1940–1943), those from Prekmurje
Prekmurje
Prekmurje is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region settled by Slovenes and lying between the Mur River in Slovenia and the Rába Valley in the most western part of Hungary...
who died in the Hungarian Army, and those who fought and died in various Allied (mostly British) units. The figure does not include victims from Venetian Slovenia
Venetian Slovenia
Venetian Slovenia is a small mountainous region in northeastern Italy . Most of the region is located in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, in the area between the towns of Cividale del Friuli, Tarcento and Gemona ....
(except of those who joined the Slovenian Partisan units), nor does it include the victims among Carinthian Slovenes
Carinthian Slovenes
Carinthian Slovenes are the Slovene-speaking population group in the Austrian State of Carinthia. The Carinthian Slovenes send representatives to the National Ethnic Groups Advisory Council...
(again with the exception of those fighting in the Partisan units) and Hungarian Slovenes
Hungarian Slovenes
Hungarian Slovenes are an autochthonous ethnic and linguistic Slovene minority living in Hungary. The largest groups are the Rába Slovenes in the Rába Valley in western Hungary between the town of Szentgotthárd and the borders with Slovenia and Austria. They speak the Prekmurje dialect of Slovene...
. 47% percent of casualties during the war were partisans, 33% were civilians (of which 82% were killed by Axis powers or Slovene home guard), and 20% were members of the Slovene home guard.
In Croatia, the Commission for the Identification of War and Post-War Victims of the Second World War was active from 1991 until the Seventh Government of the republic, under Prime Minister Ivica Račan
Ivica Racan
Ivica Račan was a Croatian career politician, leader of the League of Communists of Croatia and later Social Democratic Party from 1989 to 2007...
ended the commission's work unfinished in 2002. In the 2000s, concealed mass grave commissions were established in both Slovenia
Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia
The Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia is an office of the Slovenian government whose task is to find and document mass grave sites from the Second World War and the period immediately after it. It was established on November 10, 2005...
and Serbia
Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia
The Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia is an office of the Slovenian government whose task is to find and document mass grave sites from the Second World War and the period immediately after it. It was established on November 10, 2005...
to document and excavate mass graves from the Second World War.
See also
- Invasion of YugoslaviaInvasion of YugoslaviaThe Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
- Yugoslavia during the Second World War
- Yugoslavia and the AlliesYugoslavia and the AlliesIn 1941 when the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, King Peter II formed a Government in exile in London, and in January 1942 the royalist Draža Mihailović became the Minister of War with British backing. But by June or July 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had decided to withdraw support from...
- Adriatic Campaign of World War IIAdriatic Campaign of World War IIThe Adriatic Campaign of World War II was a minor naval campaign fought during World War II between the Greek, Yugoslavian and Italian navies, the Kriegsmarine, and the Mediterranean squadrons of the United Kingdom, France, and the Yugoslav Partisan naval forces...
- AVNOJAVNOJThe Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, known more commonly by its Yugoslav abbreviation AVNOJ, was the political umbrella organization for the national liberation councils of the Yugoslav resistance against the World War II Axis occupation, eventually becoming the...
- Museum of 4 JulyMuseum of 4 JulyThe Museum of 4th July in Belgrade, Serbia was a museum located in the house where members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia decided to encourage the people's uprising against Yugoslavia's German occupiers on 4 July 1941...
- Yugoslav Partisans
- ChetniksChetniksChetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
- National Liberation War of Macedonia
- Kosovo Operation (1944)Kosovo Operation (1944)The Kosovo Operation was a series of military operations leading up to one final push during World War II, launched by forces allied with the United States and the United Kingdom to expel Nazi German forces from Kosovo and Metohija...
- Ustaše
- Serbian State Guard
- Seven anti-partisan offensivesSeven anti-partisan offensivesThe Seven anti-Partisan offensives, known by some sources in the former Yugoslavia as the Seven Enemy offensives , is a group name for seven major Axis military operations on the territory of former Yugoslavia during World War II, undertaken against the Yugoslav Partisans...
- Liberation Front of the Slovenian PeopleLiberation Front of the Slovenian PeopleOn 26 April 1941 in Ljubljana the Anti-Imperialist Front was established. It was to promote "an international massive movement" to "liberate the Slovenian nation" whose "hope and example was the Soviet Union"...
- Serbia (1941-1944)
- Independent State of CroatiaIndependent State of CroatiaThe Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
- Independent State of Montenegro
- Hungary during World War IIHungary during World War IIHungary during World War II was a member of the Axis powers. In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. By 1938, Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become increasingly pro-Fascist Italian and...
- Military history of Bulgaria during World War IIMilitary history of Bulgaria during World War IIThe military history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 9 September 1944 and a period of alignment with the Allies until the end of the war. Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy during...