Yugoslav Front (World War II)
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The Yugoslav Front of World War II, also known as the Yugoslav National Liberation War (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian: Narodnooslobodilački rat, Cyrillic script: Народноослободилачки рат; Slovene: Narodnoosvobodilni boj or Narodnoosvobodilna borba), was fought in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II (1941 - 1945) between the Yugoslav resistance forces, primarily the Yugoslav Partisans, and the Axis powers. The Yugoslav resistance forces were initially divided into two guerrilla armies: the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans, and the royalist Chetnik movement (known officially as the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland), while the latter increasingly collaborated with the Axis and lost its international recognition as a resistance force.[1] After a brief initial period of cooperation, the two factions quickly started fighting against each other. Gradually, the Chetniks ended up primarily fighting the Partisans[2] instead of the occupation forces, and started cooperating with the Axis in their struggle to destroy Tito's forces, receiving increasing amounts of logistical assistance (in particular, from Italy).[3]
[edit] InvasionOn April 6, 1941 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded from all sides by the Axis powers. Primarily by German forces, but including 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, some of the Royal Yugoslav Army's divisions refused to fight. Instead,they welcomed the Germans as liberators from Serb oppression. Thus "Yugoslav" resistance to the invasion collapsed overnight. The main reason was that none of the subordinate national groups; Slovenes, Croats, or Macedonians, were prepared to fight in defense of a Serbian Yugoslavia. The only effective opposition to the invasion was from wholly Serbian units within the borders of Serbia itself.[4] 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. [5] 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,[6] 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 its 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.[7] 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 include Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, and much of Dalmatia. (All these territorial acquisitions, and the dissolution of Yugoslavia itself, were of course not recognized by any Allied state, nor are they today considered legal by any modern-day state, or the United Nations.) [edit] Yugoslav resistanceFrom the start, the Yugoslav resistance forces consisted of two factions: the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans, and the royalist Chetniks. With the first receiving Allied recognition only at the Tehran conference (1943), after the degree of Chetnik-Axis collaboration 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 communist 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.[8] 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). 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. 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.[10] 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 Mihajlović advised London to stop supplying the Chetniks after the Užice attack (see First anti-Partisan offensive), but Britain continued to do so.[3] [edit] Guerrilla and civil war
[edit] Early resistanceOperation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941.[13] 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. 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 th 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. [edit] Axis response
The Yugoslav Partisans fought an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the Axis occupiers and their local collaborators, the Serbian Military Administration, 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. The Axis powers, however, were quite aware of the Partisan threat. They tried to destroy them with numerous minor offensives. There were also seven major anti-Partisan offensives specifically aimed at the destruction of all Yugoslav Partisans. These major offensives were typically combined efforts by the German Wehrmacht and SS, Italy, Chetniks, the Independent State of Croatia, the Serbian Military Administration, Bulgaria, and Hungary. The major offensives included two larger efforts: Fall Weiss (Plan White) and Fall Schwarz (Operation Black) also known as the 4th Offensive (Battle of Neretva) and the 5th Offensive (Battle of Sutjeska).[14] Historiographers in Yugoslavia defined seven major Axis operations as numbered anti-Partisan offensives:
[edit] Allied support shiftsLater in the conflict the Partisans were able to win the moral, as well as limited material support of the western Allies, 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. In January 1944, Tito's forces unsuccessfully attack Banja Luka. But, while Tito is forced to withdraw, Mihajlović and his forces were also noted by the western press for their lack of activity.[15] 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. This battle was fought near Banja Luka in what was then the Independent State of Croatia. The battle ended in victory for the Independent State of Croatia forces. [edit] Allied offensive in the Balkans
In August 1944, King Michael I of Romania staged a coup, 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 10 September, 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 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). On 20 October, the Red Army and the Partisans liberated Belgrade after a joint operation. At the onset of winter, the Partisans effectively controlled the entire eastern half of Yugoslavia—Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro—as well as most of the Dalmatian 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. [edit] Partisan General Offensive
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, XXXIV, LXIX, and LXXXXVII). These corps included seventeen weakened divisions (1st Cossack, 2nd Cossack, 11th, 41st, 104th, 22nd, 181st, 7th SS, 369th Croat, 373rd Croat, 392nd Croat, 237th, 188th, 438th, 138th, 14th SS Ruthenian, and the Stefan Division). In addition to the seven corps, the Axis had remnant naval forces (under constant attack by the British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force) to defend the coast, strong police forces to secure the rear, and roughly twenty weak, remnant divisions of local Croatian and Serb units. The Croats included Ustaše and Croatian Home Guard units of the Independent State of Croatia, as well as the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia and the units of the Croatian Air Force Legion, returned from service on the Eastern Front. The Serbs 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.[16] 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 May 8, the Yugoslav 2nd Army, along with units of the Yugoslav 1st Army, captured Zagreb. On April 6, the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps of the Yugoslav Partisans took Sarajevo from the German XXI Corps. [edit] Final operations
On May 2, the German capital city, Berlin, fell. On May 7, 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 capitualtion, 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 10 May to 15 May, 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. [edit] AftermathOn May 15, 1945 the Croatian Home Guard, 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.[16] 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. 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. [edit] War victims
The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II is 1,704,000. However, the number of 1.7 million was later disputed as being deliberately exaggerated for war reparations from Germany. Germany refused to pay reparations until names were provided of the victims, following which another investigation showed only around 600,000[18] victims that could be indentified by name. Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić (Croatian) and Bogoljub Kočović (Serb) showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million. Both arrived at an almost equal figure during independent, unrelated studies. This was later confirmed by Professor Vladeta Vučković, Serbian author of the official 1946 Yugoslav document, who agreed with the Žerjavić and Kočović estimations. Vučković stated that he had calculated demographic loss at 1,700,000 (i.e., including those not born, deaths by starvation, diseases, etc.), and later that number was interpreted as actual number of victims and presented by Yugoslav delegation at the peace conference later that year in Paris.[18] Žerjavić's and Kočović's calculations of war losses in Yugoslavia during World War II were accepted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Other sources have confirmed their figures:
After Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) refused to pay war reparations for 1,700,000 war victims, the Yugoslav Federal Bureau of Statistics has created a detailed list of victims (with name and surname) in 1964.
To number of 597,323 killed with known name and surname Federal Bureau of Statistics has added another 20 - 30 % of dead (called defiency in report) for unknown victims which has given between 750,000 to 780,000 people killed by German, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian or Quisling forces. Together with estimated 200,000 killed collaborators and quislings, the total number would reach about one million. This listing compiled at the request of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964 will be declared state secret and first time is published only in 1989. [21] [edit] ForcesThere existed a number of local factions and militias active on Yugoslav territory during World War II. These include: Allied
Axis
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