(Redirected from People\'s Liberation War)
The 'Yugoslav Front of World War II', also known as the ''Yugoslav People's Liberation War'' (
Serbo-Croat: ''Narodnooslobodilački rat'', ''Народноослободилачки рат'',
Slovenian: ''Narodno-osvobodilna borba''), was fought in what was the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia before
World War II and in what became the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia after the war. The war against occupation in Yugostavia was fought from
1941 to
1945 between native Yugoslav anti-occupation forces and the forces of the
Axis Powers.
The native Yugoslav anti-occupation forces were divided into two guerilla armies: on one side were the
Yugoslav Partisans (communist
People's Liberation Army), and on the other, the
Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland (also known as Royalist
Chetniks). Both participated in the struggle against the occupiers and fought a civil war against each other.
The Yugoslav Partisans, under the command of
Josip Broz Tito, primarily fought against the German, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Chetnik 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 government-in-exile as the Yugoslav legitimate fighting force. Eventually they prevailed against all of their opponents as the
official army of the newly founded
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia.
The Royalist Chetniks, under the command of General
Draža Mihailović cooperated with the Partisans briefly at start, but mostly fought independently against both them and the Germans. Although they helped deliver a number of downed Allied pilots to safety, on a number of other occasions they sided with the
Axis forces against the Partisans
[1]. Ethnically they were predominantly Serb, and in some regions committed widespread atrocities against non-Serb civilians with the intent of
ethnic cleansing[2]. They also suffered from internal divisions serious enough that battles broke out between different factions.
Invasion of Yugoslavia
Main articles: Invasion of Yugoslavia
From
6 April 1941, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian armies invaded Yugoslavia from all sides and the Luftwaffe bombed
Belgrade. The Axis victory was swift and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally in only 11 days on
17 April 1941. There are several reasons that the Yugoslav Royal Army collapsed so quickly: The army's attempt to defend all the borders managed to spread thin the limited resources available. Few army's in Europe were as modern and as well equipped as the German army (
Wehrmacht). The Yugoslavs, like most nations, were not prepared for the terror bombing unleashed by the Germans on civilian population centers. The Yugoslav army reflected some of the divisions within the nation as a whole and some units refused to fight.
Yugoslavia was subsequently divided amongst Germany, Hungary, Italy and
Bulgaria, with most of
Serbia being occupied by Germany. The
Croatian fascist leader
Ante Pavelić took the opportunity to declare an
Independent State of Croatia. The Germans set up a
puppet state in Serbia. The Serbian Government of National Salvation, headed by
Milan Nedić was also known as
Nedic's Serbia.
Guerrilla war and civil war in Yugoslavia
Partisan monument at Smetovi, near
Zenica
In
April 1941, after the surrender of the
Yugoslav Royal Army, some of the remaining Yugoslav soldiers organized the
Yugoslav Royal Army in the Fatherland to fight the German occupation. This new army was organized in the
Ravna Gora district of western
Serbia under
Colonel Draža Mihailović. Mihailović's forces, Royalist
Chetniks, were almost entirely ethnic
Serbs. He directed his units to arm themselves and await his orders for the final push. Mihailović avoided actions which he judged were of low strategic importance.
Between
1941 and
1943, the Chetniks had the support of the Western
Allies. In
1942,
TIME Magazine, featured an article which boasted of the success of Mihailović's Chetniks and heralded him as the sole defender of freedom in
Nazi-occupied Europe. The Chetniks became famous for
saving downed Allied pilots. However,
Tito's Partisans fought the Germans as well during this time. Both Tito and Mihailović had a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks offered by Germans for their heads.
Throughout
World War II, the Royalist Chetniks were faced with two main enemies: On one side was the German occupiers and on the other side were the ideologically opposite Communist Partisans. While remaining mortal enemies of the Germans and the
Ustaše, the Chetniks were known for making clandestine deals with the Italians and some of the other occupying and quisling forces.
The Yugoslav Partisans and the People's Liberation Army fought both a
guerrilla campaign against the Axis occupiers and a civil war against the Chetniks and the Ustaše. The Partisans enjoyed gradually increasing levels of support.
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, 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 Partisans being founded on communist ideology rather than ethnicity. Therefore Partisans 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 larger pool of potential recruits.
Seven major Axis offensives
The Axis forces were quite aware of the Partisans in Yugoslavia. They tried to destroy the Partisans with
numerous minor offensives. There were also
seven major anti-Partisan Offensives specifically aimed at the destruction of all Partisans in Yugoslavia. These major offensives were typically combined efforts by the German
Wehrmacht, the German
SS, the
Fascist Italians, the
Ustaše, the
Croatian Home Guard, the
Serbian Volunteer Corps, the
Serbian State Guard, the
Bulgarians, and the Hungarians. At times, if it was in their interest, the Royalist
Chetniks agreed to participate against the Partisans. The major offensives included two larger efforts:
Fall Weiss (Plan White) and
Operation Schwarz (Operation Black). These were known in the Yugoslav annals as the 4th Offensive (
Battle of Neretva) and the 5th Offensive (
Battle of Sutjeska).
The seven major offensives against the Yugoslav Partisans are as follows:
: ''
First enemy offensive'' in western
Serbia against the
Republic of Užice, from September to November
1941.
: ''
Second enemy offensive'' took place in eastern
Bosnia in January
1942, with the partisan troops forced to retreat over mount
Igman next to
Sarajevo.
: ''
Third enemy offensive'', an offensive against partisan forces in eastern Bosnia,
Montenegro,
Sandžak and
Herzegovina in spring 1942. Mistakenly identified by some sources as the
battle of Kozara in summer 1942.
: ''
Fourth enemy offensive'', also known as Fall Weiss, spanning the area between western Bosnia and northern Herzegovina and culminating in the partisan retreat over the
Neretva river, from January to April
1943.
: ''
Fifth enemy offensive'', also known as the
Sutjeska offensive or Operation Schwartz, a complete encirclement of partisan forces in southeastern Bosnia and northern Montenegro in May and June
1943.
: ''
Sixth enemy offensive'', a series of operations undertaken by the
Wehrmacht and the
Ustaše after the
surrender of Italy in an attempt to secure the
Adriatic coast in autumn 1943 and winter
1944.
: ''
Seventh enemy offensive'', the final attempt to against the core of the resistance movement in western Bosnia in spring 1944, including
Operation Rösselsprung, an unsuccessful
German airdrop on the town of
Drvar directed against
Tito personally, on
25 May 1944.
Tito recognized over Mihajlović
Later in the conflict the Partisans were able to win the moral, as well as limited material support of the
Allies, who until then had supported General
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović's Royalist Chetnik Forces, but were finally convinced of who was doing the fighting against the Axis in the region by many military missions dispatched to both sides during the course of the war.
From
28 November to
1 December 1943, during the
Teheran Conference the Partisans received official recognition as the legitimate national liberation force by the
Allies. Subsequently the Allies set up the
RAF Balkan Air Force under the influence and suggestion of
Brigadier-General Fitzroy MacLean. The aim of this air force was to provide increased supplies and tactical air support for Tito's forces.
On
16 June 1944, the
Tito-Šubašić agreement between Partisans and the Royal Government was signed on the island of
Vis. The document 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.
On
29 August, King
Peter II of Yugoslavia dismissed general Mihailović as a Chief-of-Staff of
Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland. On
12 September the King appointed Tito in Mihailović's place.
From
30 March to
8 April,
1945, Colonel Dragoljub 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 Croatian
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 Ustaša-Home Guard forces and in defeat for the Chetniks.
Final operations of the People's Liberation Army
In early
August 1944, the
Bulgarian government quit the war. The
Romanian government had done so months earlier.
The Bulgarian government ordered all Bulgarian forces to be removed from Greece and Yugoslavia. Concurrently, with Allied air support and assistance from the
Red Army, the Partisans turned their attention to
Nedić's Serbia. The area under Nedić had seen relatively little fighting since the fall of the Republic of
Užice in 1941. On
20 October 1944, 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,
Vardar Macedonia,
Montenegro - as well as most of the
Dalmatian coast. The Wehrmacht and the Ustaše fortified a front in
Syrmia that held through the winter 1944-45.
On
20 March,
1945, the Yugoslav Army launched a general offensive in the
Mostar-
Višegrad-
Drina sector. With large swaths of
Bosnian,
Croatian and
Slovenian countryside already under Partisan guerilla control, the final operations consisted in connecting these territories and capturing major cities and roads.
For the general offensive,
Josip Broz Tito allegedly had a force of about 800,000. His force was organized into four armies: 1st Army commanded by
Peko Dapčević, 2nd Army commanded by
Koča Popović, 3rd Army commanded by
Kosta Nađ, and 4th Army commanded by
Petar Drapšin. In addition, Tito had eight independent corps (II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, IX, and X).
Against Tito and his People's Liberation Army, was German General
Alexander Löhr. Lohr was the Commander-in-Chief of
Army Group E. This army group had seven army corps (XV Mountain,
XV Cossack, XXI, XXXIV, LXIX, and LXXXXVII). These corps included seventeen divisions (1st Cossack, 2nd Cossack, 11th, 41st, 104th, 22nd, 181st, 7th SS, 373rd Croat, 392nd Croat, 237th, 188th, 438th, 138th, 14th SS Ruthenian, and Stefan Division). In addition to the seven corps, the Axis had naval forces to defend the coast, strong police forces to secure the rear, and roughly twenty divisions of local
Croatians and
Serbians. The
Croatians included
Ustaše and
Croatian Home Guard units. There were even some remnants of the
Serbian State Guard and the
Serbian Volunteer Corps from
Nedić's Serbia.
Bihać was liberated by the Yugoslav Army the same day that the general offensive was launched. The 4th Army, under the command of
Petar Drapšin, broke through the defenses of the
XV Cossack Corps. By
20 April, Drapšin liberated
Lika and the
Croatian Littoral, including the islands, and reached the old Yugoslav border with Italy. On
1 May, after capturing the former Italian possessions of
Rijeka and
Istria from the German LXXXXVII Corps, the Yugoslav 4th Army beat the Allies to
Trieste by one day.
On
5 April, the Yugoslav 2nd Army, under the command of
Koča Popović, forced a crossing of the
Bosna River, captured
Doboj, and reached the
Una River. On
8 May, along with units of the Yugoslav 1st Army, the 2nd Army captured
Zagreb.
On
6 April, the II Corps, the III Corps, and the V Corps of the People's Liberation Army took
Sarajevo from the German XXI Corps.
On
12 April, the Yugoslav 3rd Army, under the command of
Kosta Nađ, forced the
Drava. The 3rd Army then fanned out through the
Podravina, reached a point north of Zagreb, and crossed the old Austrian border with Yugoslavia in the sector of
Dravograd. 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
12 April, the Yugoslav 1st Army, under the command of
Peko Dapčević penetratrated the fortified front of the German XXXIV Corps in Syrmia. By
22 April, the 1st Army had smashed the fortifications and was advancing towards Zagreb. After taking Zagreb with the Yugoslav 2nd Army, both armies advanced in Slovenia.
On
2 May, the German capital city, Berlin, fell. On
7 May 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.
On
9 May,
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. Only the quislings remained.
From
10 May to
15 May, the People's Liberation Army continued to face resistance from
Ustaše,
Domobranci and other collaborationist diehards throughout the rest of Croatia and Slovenia.
The
Battle of Poljana was the last battle of
World War II in
Europe. It started on Monday
May 14, ending on Tuesday
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
Wehrmacht soldiers together with Croatian
Ustaše,
Slovenian Domobranci (members of
Slovensko domobranstvo) and other collaborators who were attempting to retreat to Austria.
Aftermath
On
8 March 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 before returning from exile.
In early
May, the remnants of the
Serbian State Guard, the
Serbian Volunteer Corps, the
Croatian Home Guard, the
Ustaše, and the
XVth Cossack Cavalry Corps surrendered to British forces.
On
5 May, 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
12 May, about 2,500 additional Serbian Volunteer Corps members surrendered to the British at Unterbergen on the
Drava River.
From
11 May to
12 May, British troops in
Klagenfurt, Austria, were harassed by arriving forces of the People's Liberation Army. In Belgrade, the British ambassador to the Yugoslav coalition government handed Tito a note demanding that the Yugoslav troops withdraw from Austria.
On
15 May, Tito placed Yugoslav forces in Austria under Allied control. A few days later he agreed to withdraw them. By
20 May, Yugoslav troops in Austria had begun to withdraw.
Around
1 June, most of the Serbian State Guard, the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Croatian Home Guard, the Ustaše, and the XVth 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 Yugoslav Army proceeded to brutalize the POWs in what became known as the
Bleiburg massacres.
On
8 June, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia agreed on the control of Trieste.
On
29 November, after a questionable referendum, Peter II was deposed by Yugoslavia's Communist Constituent Assembly while he was still in exile. On the same day, the
Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was established as a
socialist state during the first meeting of the Communist-led Parliament in Belgrade.
Josip Broz Tito was named Prime Minister.
On
13 March 1946, Mihailović was captured by agents of the Yugoslav Department of National Security (''Odsjek Zaštite Naroda'' or
OZNA). From
10 June to
15 July, he was tried for
high treason and
war crimes. On
15 July, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad.
[3] On
16 July, a clemency appeal was rejected by the Presidium of the National Assembly.
During the early hours of
18 July, 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.
War victims
The number of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II has never been determined exactly. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate is 1,704,000. Majority of the victims were Serbs, targeted in a planned genocide in
NDH, and who also constitued bulk of both partisan and royalist chetnik guerilla forces.
However, the number of 1.7 million was later disputed as being delibaretly exaggerated for war reparations from Germany. Germany refused to pay reparations until names were provided of the victims, following which another investigation showed only half of the number. 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 to an almost equal figure during independant, unrelated studies.
This was later confirmed by Professor
Vladeta Vučković, Serbian author of the official 1946 Yugoslav document, who agreed with Žerjavić and Kočović estimations. Vučković has stated that he had calculated 'demographic loss' to 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 on peace conference later that year in Paris.
[4]
Other sources have confirmed their figures:
: ''"Details of the (Yugoslav) 1948 census were kept secret but, in negotiations with Germany, it became apparent that the real figure of the dead was about one million. An American study in 1954 calculated 1,067,000
[5]. Following Tito's death in 1980, the 1948 census results became available for comparison with those of 1931. Allowances had to be made for the birth rates of the different communities and for emigration. Research was pioneered by Professor Kočović, a Serb living in the West, whose findings were published in January 1985. He assessed the number of dead as 1,014,000. Later that year a
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Conference heard that the figure was 1,100,000. In 1989 Vladimir Zerjavic, a Croatian living in Zagreb published, with the aid of the Zagreb Jewish community, his calculation of 1,027,000. ... So a figure of about one million for all Yugoslavia is now generally accepted."''
[6]
Žerjavić's and Kočović's calculations of war losses in Yugoslavia during
WW2 were accepted by the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, together with other typically higher estimates:
: ''"Due to differing views and lack of documentation, estimates for the number of Serbian victims in Croatia range widely, from 25,000 to more than one million. The estimated number of Serbs killed in Jasenovac ranges from 25,000 to 700,000. The most reliable figures place the number of Serbs killed by the Ustaša between 330,000 and 390,000, with 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs murdered in Jasenovac."''
[7]
A list compiling individual names of victims has reached only 600,000.
4
Number of victims by ethnicity is:
| Nationality | 1946 | Kočović4 | Žerjavić4 | By name4 |
|---|
| Albanians | 4,000 | - | - | - |
| Bosnian | 100,000 | 86,000 | 103,000 | 32,300 |
| Croatian | 110,000 | 207,000 | 192,000 | 83,257 |
| Germans | - | 26,000 | 28,000 | - |
| Hungarian | 3,000 | - | - | - |
| Jews | 60,000 | 60,000 | 57,000 | 45,000 |
| Macedonians | 35,000 | - | - | - |
| Montenegrin | 50,000 | 50,000 | 20,000 | 16,276 |
| Slovacs | 1,000 | - | - | - |
| Slovenians | 60,000 | 32,000 | 42,000 | 42,027 |
| Serbs | 1,280,000 | 487,000 | 530,000 | 346,740 |
| Turks | 686 | - | - | - |
| Others | - | 66,000 | 55,000 | 31,723 |
| 'TOTAL' | 1,703,686 | 1,014,000 | 1,027,000 | 597,323 |
By region:
See also
★
Yugoslavia during the Second World War
★
Invasion of Yugoslavia
★
Seven anti-partisan offensives
★
List of anti-Partisan operations in Yugoslavia
★
AVNOJ
★
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
★
Serbian State Guard
★
Serbian Volunteer Corps
★
Ustaše
★
Croatian Home Guard
★
Chetniks
★
Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland
★
History of Germany during World War II
★
Military history of Italy during World War II
★
Independent State of Croatia during World War II
★
Nedić's Serbia during World War II
★
Independent State of Montenegro during World War II
★
Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
★
Hungary during the Second World War
★
Military history of Greece during World War II
★
Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II
References
1. Please refer to sources cited in the Serbian Wikipedia article on .
2. Please refer to sources cited in the Serbian Wikipedia article on .
3. Time Magazine, Too Tired
4. Nikolić, Goran; "ŽRTVE RATA IZMEDJU NAUKE I PROPAGANDE"; Nova srpska politička misao (in Serbian) [1]
5. Mayers, Paul and Campbell, Arthur; ''The Population of Yugoslavia''; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Washington D.C., 1954; p.23
6. Barton, Dennis; "Croatia 1941 - 1946"; The ChurchinHistory Information Centre [2]
7. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [3]
External links
★
Battles & Campaigns During World War II in Yugoslavia
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