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Partisans (Yugoslavia)
Encyclopedia
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans (officially the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, abbreviated NOV i POЈ) were a Communist-led World War II
anti-fascist resistance movement
in Yugoslavia
. The Partisans were the military arm of the People's Liberation Front
(JNOF) coalition, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and represented by the AVNOJ
(Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia), the Yugoslav wartime deliberative assembly
. The commander of the Partisans was Marshal Josip Broz Tito
.
The Partisans' goal was to create a communist state in Yugoslavia. To this end, the KPJ attempted to appeal to all the various ethnic groups within Yugoslavia, by preserving the rights of each group. The rival resistance movement, the Chetniks
, emerged earlier, were united by their desire to ensure the survival of the Serbian population and loyal to the old Royalist regime. Relations between the two movements were uneasy from the start, but from October 1941 they degenerated into full-scale conflict. To the Chetniks, Tito's pan-ethnic policies seemed anti-Serbian, whereas the Chetniks' Royalism was anathema to the Communists.
The common name of the movement is "the Partisans" (capitalized), while the adjective "Yugoslav" is used sometimes in exclusively non-Yugoslav
sources to distinguish them from other (World War II) partisan
movements. Despite the fact that their name suggests they fought as a guerrilla
force, this was only true for the first three years of the conflict. From the second half of 1944, the total forces of the Partisans numbered 800,000 men and women organized in four field armies
and 52 divisions
, which engaged in conventional warfare
. When referring to this period, sources often use the term People's Liberation Army.
On 6 April 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 as well. During the invasion, Belgrade was bombed
by the 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 Wehrmacht
, the Army attempted to defend all borders but only managed to thinly spread the limited resources available.
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
and Syrmia
region of modern day Serbia
. 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
. Bulgaria
, meanwhile, annexed nearly all of the modern-day Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
. (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
.)
The occupying forces instituted such severe burdens on the local populace that the Partisans came not only to enjoy widespread support but for many were the only option for survival. In certain instances, Axis forces and local collaborators would hang or shoot indiscriminately, including women, children and the elderly, up to 100 local inhabitants for every one German soldier killed. Furthermore, the country experienced a breakdown of law and order, with collaborationist militias roaming the countryside terrorizing the population. The government of the puppet Independent State of Croatia found itself unable to control its territory in the early stages of the occupation, resulting in a severe crackdown by the Ustaše
militias and the German army.
Amid the relative chaos that ensued, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia moved to organize and unite anti-fascist factions and political forces into a nation-wide uprising. The party, led by Josip Broz Tito
, was banned after its significant success in the post-World War I
Yugoslav elections and operated underground since. Tito, however, could not act openly without the backing of the USSR, and as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
was still in force, he was compelled to wait.
, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941.
The first communist military unit, the Sisak Brigade
, was formed on 22 June 1941, the day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union
. This was ignored in official Yugoslav Historiography as it was not related to the Partisan movement. The first uprising, led by Tito, occurred two weeks later, in Serbia.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia formally decided to launch an armed uprising on 4 July, a date which was later marked as Fighter's Day — a public holiday in the SFR Yugoslavia
. One Žikica Jovanović Španac
shot the first bullet of the campaign on 7 July, later the Uprising Day of the Socialist Republic of Serbia
(part of SFR Yugoslavia).
On 10 August 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" and lasted 42 days. The resistance fighters formally joined the ranks of the Partisans later on.
On Joseph Stalin
's birthday, 21 December 1941 Partisans formed the 1st Proletarian Assault Brigade (1. Proleterska Udarna Brigada) — the first regular Partisan military unit, capable of operating outside its local area. This brigade was made up of peasants. During the first several months of its existence it was exclusively Serbian and Montenegrin in composition. It had four Serbian battalions, two Montenegrin battalions, and very few soldiers of other nationalities.
After the breakup between Stalin and Tito, 22 December 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) with an estimated 236,000 soldiers in December 1942. After the war, the Partisan ground forces were the basis for the formation of the Yugoslav People's Army
, officially created on 1 March 1945.
While the ethnic composition of partisan units varied widely over time and between regions, Tito's followers on the whole were Serbs. Unlike other military groups in Yugoslavia, the Communist-dominated Partisan organization became a multi-ethnic resistance force -- including Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks (Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslims), Jews, and Slovenes. Historian Tim Judah
notes that the preponderance of Serbs in the Partisans meant in effect a Serbian civil war had broken out.
In terms of total numbers of troops, the majority were Serbian. In Bosnia and Herzegovina for example, the Serbs accounted for roughly two thirds of the Partisans. In Croatia they also accounted for almost all the Partisans for most of the war. Partisan officers as well as the rank and file were virtually all Serbs and Montenegrins. Only in 1944 did Croats join the Partisans in significant numbers, not because they preferred a multiethnic Yugoslavia, but because they preferred a Yugoslavia that was not cleansed of Croats".
approach which appealed to all Yugoslavs. In Bosnia, for example, the Partisan rallying cry was for a country which was to be neither Serbian nor Croatian nor Muslim, but instead to be free and brotherly in which full equality of all groups would be ensured. Nevertheless, Serbs remained the dominant ethnic group in the Yugoslav Partisans throughout the war. Chetnik ethnic cleansing policies against the Muslims in Eastern Bosnia, and Dalmatia alienated Croats and Muslims from joining the Chetniks. Italian repression and ambitions of taking Dalmatia
did not appeal to the Croats. Italian collaboration with Chetniks in Northern Dalmatia resulting in atrocities which further galvanizing support for the Partisans among Dalmatian Croats. For example, Chetnik attacks on Gala, near Split
, resulted in the slaughter of 200 Croatian civilians. In particular, Mussolini's policy of forced Italianization
ensured the first significant number of Croats joining the Partisans in late 1941.
In other areas, recruitment of Croats was hindered by some Serbian Partisans tendency to view the organisation as exclusively Serb, rejecting non-Serb members and raiding the villages of their Croat neighbours. A group of Jewish youths from Sarajevo attempted to join a Partisan detachment in Kalinovnik, but the Serbian Partisans turned them back to Sarajevo, where many were captured by the Axis forces and perished. Attacks from Croatian Ustaše
on the Serbian population was considered to be one of the important reasons for the rise of guerrilla activities, thus aiding an ever growing Partisan resistance.
As an allied victory became increasingly apparent, non-Serb communities opted for the Partisans as providing a more palatable future than the Serbianization policies of the royalist government in the first Yugoslavia. By contrast, the dynamic in Serbia was influenced by the allies' support of the Partisan governmental institutions over that of the royal government and the need to be part of the Partisans to have a say in the future structure of a Socialist Yugoslavia.
The Partisans staged a guerrilla
campaign which enjoyed gradually increased levels of success and support of the general populace, and succeeded in controlling large chunks of Yugoslav territory. These were managed via the People's committees, which were organized to act as civilian governments in liberated areas of the country, even limited arms industries were set up.
At the very beginning, though, 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 was a small but valuable cadre of Spanish Civil War
veterans who, unlike anyone else at the time, had experience with modern war fought in circumstances quite similar to those of World War II Yugoslavia. Another advantage, which became apparent in later stages of war, was in Partisans being founded on ideology
rather than ethnicity, which meant the Partisans could expect at least some levels of support in any corner of the country, unlike other paramilitary formations whose support was limited to territories with Croat or Serb majorities. This allowed their units to be more mobile and fill their ranks with a larger pool of potential recruits.
Occupying and quisling
forces, however, were quite aware of the Partisan threat, and attempted to destroy the resistance in what Yugoslav historiographers defined as seven major anti-Partisan offensives. These are:
The largest of these were combined by Wehrmacht, the SS, fascist Italy
, Ustaše
, Chetniks
, and Bulgarian forces.
, who until then had supported General Draža Mihailović
's Chetnik Forces, but were finally convinced of their collaboration fighting by many military 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 (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 traveled from Russia by railway through Chetnik-controlled territory. British intercepts (ULTRA) of German message traffic confirmed Chetnik timidity. All in all, 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 influence and suggestion of Brigadier-General Fitzroy MacLean) with the aim to provide increased supplies and tactical air support for Marshal Tito's Partisan forces. During a meeting with Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the Combined Chiefs of Staff
of November 24, 1943, Winston Churchill
pointed out that:
, in the second half of 1944 the Partisans turned their attention to Serbia, which had seen relatively little fighting since the fall of the Republic of Užice in 1941. On 20 October, the Red Army and the Partisans liberated Belgrade
in a joint operation known as the Belgrade Offensive
. At the onset of winter, the Partisans effectively controlled the entire eastern half of Yugoslavia — Serbia, Vardar Macedonia
and Montenegro
, as well as the Dalmatia
n coast.
In 1945, the Partisans, numbering over 800,000 strong defeated the Independent State of Croatia
and the Wehrmacht
, achieving a hard-fought breakthrough in the Syrmia
n front in late winter, taking Sarajevo
in early April, and the rest of Croatia and Slovenia through mid-May. After taking Rijeka
and Istria
, which were part of Italy before the war, they beat the Allies to Trieste
by a day.
The "last battle of World War Two in Europe", the Battle of Poljana
, was fought between the Partisans and retreating Wehrmacht
and quisling
forces at Poljana, near Prevalje
in Carinthia, on 14–15 May 1945.
Aside from ground forces, the Yugoslav Partisans were the first and only resistance movement in occupied Europe to employ significant air and naval forces.
formed their first naval unit made of fishing boats, which gradually evolved into a force able to engage the Italian Navy and Kriegsmarine
and conduct complex amphibious operations. This event is considered to be the foundation of the Yugoslav Navy
.
At its peak during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans' Navy commanded 9 or 10 armed ships, 30 patrol boats, close to 200 support ships, six coastal batteries, and several Partisan detachments on the islands, around 3,000 men. On 26 October 1943, it was organized first into four, and later into six, Maritime Coastal Sectors (Pomorsko Obalni Sektor, POS). The task of the naval forces was to secure supremacy at sea, organize defense of coast and islands, and attack enemy sea traffic and forces on the islands and along the coasts.
(French-designed and Yugoslav-built Potez 25
, and Breguet 19
biplane
s, themselves formerly of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force), Franjo Kluz
and Rudi Čajavec
, defected to the Partisans in Bosnia. Later, these pilots used their aircraft against Axis forces in limited operations. Although short-lived due to a lack of infrastructure, this was the first instance of a resistance movement having its own air force. Later, the air force would be re-established and destroyed several times until its permanent institution. The Partisans later established a permanent air force by obtaining aircraft, equipment, and training from captured Axis aircraft, the British Royal Air Force
(see BAF
), and later the Soviet Air Force
.
Note: The tables can be variously sorted using the
icon.
{|
|-
|Partisans by regions
|- valign="top"
|
{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:right; width:550px;"
|-
!Rank || style="text-align:left; width:155px;"| Region || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1941 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1942 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Sept. 1943 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1943 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1944 || style="text-align:left; width:75px;"| Partisan Veteran Organization membership in 1978 (per region's population)
|-
| align=center | 1 || align=left| Slovenia || 1,000 || 19,000 || 21,000 || 25,000 || 40,000 || 6.84
|-
| align=center | 2 || align=left| Montenegro || 22,000 || 6,000 || 10,000 || 24,000 || 30,000 || 6.01
|-
| align=center | 3 || align=left| Croatia || 7,000 || 48,000 || 78,000 || 122,000 || 150,000 || 5.77
|-
| align=center | 4 || align=left| Serbia (proper) || 23,000 || 8,000 || 13,000 || 22,000 || 204,000 || 5.64
|-
| align=center | 5 || align=left| Vojvodina || 1,000 || 1,000 || 3,000 || 5,000 || 40,000 || 4.85
|-
| align=center | 6 || align=left| Macedonia || 1,000 || 2,000 || 10,000 || 7,000 || 66,000 || 3.65
|-
| align=center | 7 || align=left| Kosovo || 5,000 || 6,000 || 6,000 || 7,000 || 20,000 || 2.88
|-
| align=center | 8 || align=left| Bosnia and Herzegovina || 20,000 || 60,000 || 89,000 || 108,000 || 100,000 || 2.83
|}
According to Tito the national composition of the Partisan army in 1944 was 44% Serb, 30% Croat, 10% Slovene, 5% Montenegrin, 2.5% Macedonian, and 2.5% Bosnian Muslim. This was the lowest percentage that the Serbs had during the war.
had increased to 32% by August 1942, which rose to 34% by September 1943. After the capitulation of Italy, it continued to increase rapidly and at the end of 1944 there were 60.4% Croats, 28.6% Serbs and 11% of other unknown nationalities in Croatians partisan units.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right; width:500px;"
|-
!!! 1941 !! 1942 !! 1943 !! 1944 !! 1945 !! Total
|-
|align=left|Killed in action || 18,896 || 24,700 || 48,378 || 80,650 || 72,925 || 245,549
|-
|align=left|Wounded in action || 29,300 || 31,200 || 61,730 || 147,650 || 130,000 || 399,880
|-
|align=left|Died from wounds || 3,127 || 4,194 || 7,923 || 8,066 || 7,800 || 31,200
|-
|align=left|Missing in action || 3,800 || 6,300 || 5,423 || 5,600 || 7,800 || 28,925
|}
The Partisans also assisted hundreds of Allied soldiers who succeeded in escaping from German POW camps (mostly in southern Austria) throughout the war, but especially from 1943-45. These were transported across Slovenia, from where many were airlifted from Semič
, while others made the longer overland trek down through Croatia for a boat passage to Bari
in Italy. In the spring of 1944, the British military mission in Slovenia reported that there was a "steady, slow trickle" of escapes from these camps. They were being assisted by local civilians, and on contacting Partisans on the general line of the River Drava
, they were able to make their way to safety with Partisan guides.
In June 1944, the Allied escape organization began to take an active interest in assisting prisoners from camps in southern Austria and evacuating them through Yugoslavia. A post of the Allied mission in northern Slovenia
had found that at Sankt Lorenzen ob Eibiswald, just on the Austrian side of the border, about 50 km (31.1 mi) from Maribor
, there was a poorly guarded working camp from which a raid by Slovene Partisans could free all the prisoners. Over 100 POWs were transported from Stalag XVIII-D
at Maribor
to St. Lorenzen each morning to do railway maintenance work, and returned to their quarters in the evening. Contact was made between Partisans and the prisoners with the result that at the end of August a group of seven slipped away past a sleeping guard at 15:00, and at 21:00 the men were celebrating with the Partisans in a village, 8 km (5 mi) away on the Yugoslav side of the border.
The seven escapees arranged with the Partisans for the rest of the camp to be freed the following day. Next morning, the seven returned with about a hundred Partisans to await the arrival of the work-party by the usual train. As soon as work had begun the Partisans, to quote a New Zealand eye-witness, "swooped down the hillside and disarmed the eighteen guards". In a short time prisoners, guards, and civilian overseers were being escorted along the route used by the first seven prisoners the previous evening.
At the first headquarters camp reached, details were taken of the total of 132 escaped prisoners for transmission by radio to England. Progress along the evacuation route south was difficult, as German patrols were very active. A night ambush by one such patrol caused the loss of two prisoners and two of the escort. Eventually they reached Semič
, in White Carniola
, Slovenia, which was a Partisan base catering for POWs. They were flown across to Bari
on 21 September 1944.
.
In 1947-1948, the Soviet Union attempted to command obedience from Yugoslavia, primarily on issues of foreign policy, which resulted in the Tito-Stalin split
and almost ignited an armed conflict. A period of very cool relations with the Soviet Union followed, during which the U.S. and the UK considered courting Yugoslavia into the newly-formed NATO. This however changed in 1953 with the Trieste crisis, a tense dispute between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies over the eventual Yugoslav-Italian border (see Free Territory of Trieste
), and with Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation in 1956.
This ambivalent position at the start of the Cold War matured into the non-aligned
foreign policy which Yugoslavia actively espoused until its dissolution.
, the foibe massacres, and the killings in Bačka
.
The Bleiburg massacre was the retribution enacted by the Partisans on the retreating column of Chetnik, Slovene Home Guard, and Ustaše
soldiers that was retreating towards Austria in an attempt to surrender to western Allied forces. The "foibe massacres" draw their name from the "foibe" pits in which Croatian Partisans of the 8th Dalmatian Corps (often along with groups of angry civilian locals) shot Italian fascists
, and suspected (or even alleged) collaborationists and/or separatists, in retribution to the decades-long Italian oppression they experienced. According to a mixed Slovene-Italian historical commission established in 1993, which investigated only on what happened in places included in present-day Italy and Slovenia, the killings seemed to proceed from endeavors to remove persons linked with fascism (regardless of their personal responsibility), and endeavors to carry out preventive cleansing of real, potential or only alleged opponents of the Communist government. The 1944-1945 killings in Bačka
were similar in nature and entailed the killing of Hungarian fascist separatists, and their suspected affiliates, without regard to their personal responsibility.
There were also differences between the conduct of Partisans from different areas. For example, in Ajdovščina Slovenian Partisans and the local garrison of (Austrian) German forces agreed to abstain from any further fighting in the closing days of the war, with the German garrison agreeing to be disarmed. When Partisans from the other parts of Yugoslavia entered the village, the unarmed Austrians were shot in cold blood, something not received well by the Slovene Partisans.
The numbers of dead due to Italian, German and collaborationist organised killings, however, far outstrip even the most lavish estimates of the Partisan crimes' death toll. Indeed, the Partisans didn't have an official genocidal agenda (unlike the Ustaše, the Chetniks, the Italians, and the Germans), as their cardinal ideal was the "brotherhood and unity
" of all Yugoslav nations (the phrase became the motto for the new Yugoslavia). To put in perspective the extent of genocide occurring throughout Yugoslavia during the war, it suffices to say the country suffered about 1,027,000 dead during the Axis occupation, civilian and military (in comparison, the United States and Great Britain together suffered approximately 630,000). Only a small fraction constitute civilians actually killed by the Partisans.
This controversial chapter of Partisan history was a taboo subject for conversation in the SFR Yugoslavia until the late 1980s, and as a result, decades of official silence created a reaction in the form of numerous data manipulation for nationalist propaganda purposes.
. Throughout the war the Partisans used any weapons they could find, mostly capturing weapons from the Germans
, Italians, Croatian Home Guard
, Ustaše
, and The Chetniks
such as the Kar98k, MP40
, MG34 and Carcano rifles and carbines and Beretta Sub Machine Guns. The other way that the Partisans acquired weapons was from supplies given to them by the United Kingdom
and the Soviet Union
, weapons acquired include the PPSH 41 and the Sten
MKII. Additionally, Partisan workshops created their own weapons modelled on factory-made weapons already in use, including the so-called "Partisan rifle" and the anti-tank "Partisan mortar".
Partisan ranks included some of the most important artists and writers of 20th century Yugoslavia
. The experiences of Partisans in particular had a major impact on the culture of the country. The Partisan struggle was therefore well-chronicled through the memoirs of its participants, and later those experiences served as basis for important literary works, most notably by authors like Jure Kaštelan, Joža Horvat, Oskar Davičo
, Antonije Isaković
, Branko Ćopić
, Ivan Goran Kovačić
, Karel Destovnik Kajuh
, Mihailo Lalić
, Edvard Kocbek
, Tone Svetina, Vitomil Zupan
and others.
According to Vladimir Dedijer
, over 40,000 works of folk poetry were inspired by the Partisans.
Comic books depicting the Partisan struggle also became very popular, most notably works by Croatian artist Jules Radilović. The most popular, however, was the Mirko i Slavko comic book series.
The Partisan struggle also influenced the film industry, which developed its own genre of Partisan film, with its own set of unofficial rules and motives, very much like American Western
or the Japanese Jidaigeki
movies. The most notable of these was the Oscar-nominated 1969 Battle of Neretva (film). The movie Force 10 from Navarone
displayed the struggle of the Yugoslav Partisans during the war, as British and American special forces arrive to help them destroy a German-held bridge.
An outsider's perspective of the partisans is recorded in Evelyn Waugh
's 1961 novel Unconditional Surrender, the last of The Sword of Honour trilogy. Waugh was stationed in Yugoslavia towards the end of the war.
The most visible aspect of Partisan legacy, however, is the series of monuments commemorating their struggle. Most of these sculptures belong to the socialist realism
art form, with some of them becoming victims of state-sponsored vandalism following the break-up of the country in the early 1990s. (see Yugoslav wars
).
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...
anti-fascist resistance movement
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...
in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. The Partisans were the military arm of the People's Liberation Front
People's Liberation Front (Yugoslavia)
The Unitary People's Liberation Front or simply the People's Liberation Front , was a World War II political organization and movement headed by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia that united all political parties and individuals of the republican, federalist, and left-wing political spectrum in...
(JNOF) coalition, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and represented by 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...
(Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia), the Yugoslav wartime deliberative assembly
Deliberative assembly
A deliberative assembly is an organization comprising members who use parliamentary procedure to make decisions. In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the English Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the basic term for a body of...
. The commander of the Partisans was 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 Partisans' goal was to create a communist state in Yugoslavia. To this end, the KPJ attempted to appeal to all the various ethnic groups within Yugoslavia, by preserving the rights of each group. The rival resistance movement, 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...
, emerged earlier, were united by their desire to ensure the survival of the Serbian population and loyal to the old Royalist regime. Relations between the two movements were uneasy from the start, but from October 1941 they degenerated into full-scale conflict. To the Chetniks, Tito's pan-ethnic policies seemed anti-Serbian, whereas the Chetniks' Royalism was anathema to the Communists.
The common name of the movement is "the Partisans" (capitalized), while the adjective "Yugoslav" is used sometimes in exclusively non-Yugoslav
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,...
sources to distinguish them from other (World War II) partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
movements. Despite the fact that their name suggests they fought as a guerrilla
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...
force, this was only true for the first three years of the conflict. From the second half of 1944, the total forces of the Partisans numbered 800,000 men and women organized in four 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....
and 52 divisions
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
, which engaged in conventional warfare
Conventional warfare
Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted byusing conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined, and fight using weapons that primarily target the opposing army...
. When referring to this period, sources often use the term People's Liberation Army.
Background and origins
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 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 including Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian formations as well. 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 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 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:...
, the Army attempted to defend all borders but only managed to thinly spread the limited resources available.
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...
and Syrmia
Syrmia
Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia in the east and Croatia in the west....
region of modern day 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...
. 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 its 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 Former Yugoslav 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...
. (All these territorial acquisitions, and the dissolution of Yugoslavia itself, were of course not recognized by any Allied
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...
state, nor are they today considered legal by any modern-day state, or the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
.)
The occupying forces instituted such severe burdens on the local populace that the Partisans came not only to enjoy widespread support but for many were the only option for survival. In certain instances, Axis forces and local collaborators would hang or shoot indiscriminately, including women, children and the elderly, up to 100 local inhabitants for every one German soldier killed. Furthermore, the country experienced a breakdown of law and order, with collaborationist militias roaming the countryside terrorizing the population. The government of the puppet Independent State of Croatia found itself unable to control its territory in the early stages of the occupation, resulting in a severe crackdown by 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...
militias and the German army.
Amid the relative chaos that ensued, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia moved to organize and unite anti-fascist factions and political forces into a nation-wide uprising. The party, led by 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 banned after its significant success in the post-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Yugoslav elections and operated underground since. Tito, however, could not act openly without the backing of the USSR, and as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
was still in force, he was compelled to wait.
Formation and early rebellion
Operation BarbarossaOperation 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 22 June 1941.
The first communist military unit, the Sisak Brigade
1st Sisak Partisan Detachment
The Sisak People's Liberation Partisan Detachment, also known as the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment was the first military unit formed by a resistance movement in World War II occupied Europe. This first unit of the Yugoslav Partisans was established in occupied Yugoslavia, in the Brezovica forest...
, was formed on 22 June 1941, the day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. This was ignored in official Yugoslav Historiography as it was not related to the Partisan movement. The first uprising, led by Tito, occurred two weeks later, in Serbia.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia formally decided to launch an armed uprising on 4 July, a date which was later marked as Fighter's Day — a public holiday in the SFR 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...
shot the first bullet of the campaign on 7 July, later the Uprising Day 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 10 August 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" and lasted 42 days. The resistance fighters formally joined the ranks of the Partisans later on.
On Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's birthday, 21 December 1941 Partisans formed the 1st Proletarian Assault Brigade (1. Proleterska Udarna Brigada) — the first regular Partisan military unit, capable of operating outside its local area. This brigade was made up of peasants. During the first several months of its existence it was exclusively Serbian and Montenegrin in composition. It had four Serbian battalions, two Montenegrin battalions, and very few soldiers of other nationalities.
After the breakup between Stalin and Tito, 22 December 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) with an estimated 236,000 soldiers in December 1942. After the war, the Partisan ground forces were the basis for the formation 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...
, officially created on 1 March 1945.
Ethnicity
The Partisans originated in western Serbia.While the ethnic composition of partisan units varied widely over time and between regions, Tito's followers on the whole were Serbs. Unlike other military groups in Yugoslavia, the Communist-dominated Partisan organization became a multi-ethnic resistance force -- including Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks (Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslims), Jews, and Slovenes. Historian Tim Judah
Tim Judah
Tim Judah is a front line reporter for The Economist and author. A graduate of the London School of Economics and of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University he worked for the BBC before becoming the Balkans correspondent for The Times and The Economist. During the Kosovo war he...
notes that the preponderance of Serbs in the Partisans meant in effect a Serbian civil war had broken out.
In terms of total numbers of troops, the majority were Serbian. In Bosnia and Herzegovina for example, the Serbs accounted for roughly two thirds of the Partisans. In Croatia they also accounted for almost all the Partisans for most of the war. Partisan officers as well as the rank and file were virtually all Serbs and Montenegrins. Only in 1944 did Croats join the Partisans in significant numbers, not because they preferred a multiethnic Yugoslavia, but because they preferred a Yugoslavia that was not cleansed of Croats".
Recruitment patterns
The Chetniks were a mainly Serb oriented group and their Serb nationalism resulted in an inability to recruit or appeal to many of the non-Serb nationalities. The Partisans, on the other hand, learned to play down Communism in favour of a Popular FrontPopular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
approach which appealed to all Yugoslavs. In Bosnia, for example, the Partisan rallying cry was for a country which was to be neither Serbian nor Croatian nor Muslim, but instead to be free and brotherly in which full equality of all groups would be ensured. Nevertheless, Serbs remained the dominant ethnic group in the Yugoslav Partisans throughout the war. Chetnik ethnic cleansing policies against the Muslims in Eastern Bosnia, and Dalmatia alienated Croats and Muslims from joining the Chetniks. Italian repression and ambitions of taking 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....
did not appeal to the Croats. Italian collaboration with Chetniks in Northern Dalmatia resulting in atrocities which further galvanizing support for the Partisans among Dalmatian Croats. For example, Chetnik attacks on Gala, near Split
Split (city)
Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...
, resulted in the slaughter of 200 Croatian civilians. In particular, Mussolini's policy of forced Italianization
Italianization
Italianization or Italianisation is a term used to describe a process of cultural assimilation in which ethnically non or partially Italian people or territory become Italian. The process can be voluntary or forced...
ensured the first significant number of Croats joining the Partisans in late 1941.
In other areas, recruitment of Croats was hindered by some Serbian Partisans tendency to view the organisation as exclusively Serb, rejecting non-Serb members and raiding the villages of their Croat neighbours. A group of Jewish youths from Sarajevo attempted to join a Partisan detachment in Kalinovnik, but the Serbian Partisans turned them back to Sarajevo, where many were captured by the Axis forces and perished. Attacks from 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...
on the Serbian population was considered to be one of the important reasons for the rise of guerrilla activities, thus aiding an ever growing Partisan resistance.
As an allied victory became increasingly apparent, non-Serb communities opted for the Partisans as providing a more palatable future than the Serbianization policies of the royalist government in the first Yugoslavia. By contrast, the dynamic in Serbia was influenced by the allies' support of the Partisan governmental institutions over that of the royal government and the need to be part of the Partisans to have a say in the future structure of a Socialist Yugoslavia.
Resistance and retaliation
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...
campaign which enjoyed gradually increased levels of success and support of the general populace, and succeeded in controlling large chunks of Yugoslav territory. These were managed via the People's committees, which were organized to act as civilian governments in liberated areas of the country, even limited arms industries were set up.
At the very beginning, though, 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 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 who, unlike anyone else at the time, had experience with modern war fought in circumstances quite similar to those of World War II Yugoslavia. Another advantage, which became apparent in later stages of war, was in 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, which meant the Partisans could expect at least some levels of support in any corner of the country, unlike other paramilitary formations whose support was limited to territories with Croat or Serb majorities. This allowed their units to be more mobile and fill their ranks with a larger pool of potential recruits.
Occupying and quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...
forces, however, were quite aware of the Partisan threat, and attempted to destroy the resistance in what Yugoslav historiographers defined as seven major anti-Partisan offensives. These are:
- 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 SerbiaSerbiaSerbia , 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...
. In November 1941, GermanNazi GermanyNazi 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...
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 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...
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), against "Republic of BihaćRepublic of BihaćThe Republic of Bihać was a short-lived liberated Yugoslav territory organized as a military mini-state that existed between the November of 1942 and January of 1943 in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. The Republic was established by the Partisan resistance movement after Bihać operation. Its...
", 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 TitoJosip Broz TitoMarshal 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...
personally and annihilate the leadership of the Partisan movement.
The largest of these were combined by Wehrmacht, the SS, fascist 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...
, 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 Bulgarian forces.
Allied support
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 fighting by many military 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 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
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 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 (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 traveled from Russia by railway through Chetnik-controlled territory. British intercepts (ULTRA) of German message traffic confirmed Chetnik timidity. All in all, 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
Balkan Air Force
The Balkan Air Force was a late-World War II Allied air formation.-History:The formation was based at Bari in Italy, and activated on 7 June 1944 from AHQ 'G' Force to simplify command arrangements for the air support of Special Operations Executive-operations in the Balkans, i.e. across the...
(under the influence and suggestion of Brigadier-General Fitzroy MacLean) with the aim to provide increased supplies and tactical air support for Marshal Tito's Partisan forces. During a meeting with Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
and the Combined Chiefs of Staff
Combined Chiefs of Staff
The Combined Chiefs of Staff was the supreme military command for the western Allies during World War II. It was a body constituted from the British Chiefs of Staff Committee and the American Joint Chiefs of Staff....
of November 24, 1943, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
pointed out that:
Activities increase 1943-45
With Allied air support (Operation Flotsam) and assistance from the Red ArmyRed 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...
, in the second half of 1944 the Partisans turned their attention to Serbia, which had seen relatively little fighting since the fall of the Republic of Užice in 1941. On 20 October, the Red Army and the Partisans liberated Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade 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...
in a joint operation known as 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...
. At the onset of winter, the Partisans effectively controlled the entire eastern half of Yugoslavia — Serbia, Vardar 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...
and 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 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.
In 1945, the Partisans, numbering over 800,000 strong defeated 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 the 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:...
, achieving a hard-fought breakthrough in the Syrmia
Syrmia
Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia in the east and Croatia in the west....
n front in late winter, taking Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
in early April, and the rest of Croatia and Slovenia through mid-May. After taking 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...
, which were part of Italy before the war, they beat the 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 a day.
The "last battle of World War Two in Europe", 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...
, was fought between the Partisans and retreating 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 quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...
forces 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 Carinthia, on 14–15 May 1945.
Services
Partisan Navy
Naval forces of the resistance were formed as early as 19 September 1942, when Partisans in DalmatiaDalmatia
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....
formed their first naval unit made of fishing boats, which gradually evolved into a force able to engage the Italian Navy and Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
and conduct complex amphibious operations. This event is considered to be the foundation of the Yugoslav Navy
Yugoslav Navy
The Yugoslav Navy was the navy of Yugoslavia. It was essentially a coastal defense force with the mission of preventing enemy landings along the Yugoslavia's rugged 4,000- kilometer shoreline or coastal islands, and contesting an enemy blockade or control of the strategic Strait of Otranto...
.
At its peak during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans' Navy commanded 9 or 10 armed ships, 30 patrol boats, close to 200 support ships, six coastal batteries, and several Partisan detachments on the islands, around 3,000 men. On 26 October 1943, it was organized first into four, and later into six, Maritime Coastal Sectors (Pomorsko Obalni Sektor, POS). The task of the naval forces was to secure supremacy at sea, organize defense of coast and islands, and attack enemy sea traffic and forces on the islands and along the coasts.
Partisan Air Force
The Partisans gained an effective air force in May 1942, when the pilots of two aircraft belonging to the Air Force of the Independent State of CroatiaAir 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...
(French-designed and Yugoslav-built Potez 25
Potez 25
|-See also:*Aerial operations in the Chaco War-References:Heinonen, Timo Heinonen: Thulinista Hornetiin, Keski-Suomen ilmailumuseon julkaisuja 3, 1992. ISBN 951-95688-2-4.-External links:* *...
, and Breguet 19
Breguet 19
The Breguet 19 was a light bomber and reconnaissance plane, also used for long-distance flights, designed by the French Breguet company and produced from 1924.-Development:...
biplane
Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...
s, themselves formerly of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force), Franjo Kluz
Franjo Kluz
Franjo Kluz was a Yugoslav pilot from Bosnia and a People's Hero of Yugoslavia. He is best known as one of the founders of the Partisan air force, serving as an officer in the RAF-trained 352 SqnSqn....
and Rudi Čajavec
Rudi Cajavec
Rudi Čajavec was a Yugoslav pilot , best known as the first airman of Partisan air force....
, defected to the Partisans in Bosnia. Later, these pilots used their aircraft against Axis forces in limited operations. Although short-lived due to a lack of infrastructure, this was the first instance of a resistance movement having its own air force. Later, the air force would be re-established and destroyed several times until its permanent institution. The Partisans later established a permanent air force by obtaining aircraft, equipment, and training from captured Axis aircraft, 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...
(see BAF
Balkan Air Force
The Balkan Air Force was a late-World War II Allied air formation.-History:The formation was based at Bari in Italy, and activated on 7 June 1944 from AHQ 'G' Force to simplify command arrangements for the air support of Special Operations Executive-operations in the Balkans, i.e. across the...
), and later 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...
.
Regional
By April 1945, there were some 800,000 soldiers in the Partisan army. Composition by region is as follows:Note: The tables can be variously sorted using the
icon.{|
|-
|Partisans by regions
|- valign="top"
|
{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:right; width:550px;"
|-
!Rank || style="text-align:left; width:155px;"| Region || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1941 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1942 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Sept. 1943 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1943 || style="text-align:left; width:25px;"| Late 1944 || style="text-align:left; width:75px;"| Partisan Veteran Organization membership in 1978 (per region's population)
|-
| align=center | 1 || align=left| Slovenia || 1,000 || 19,000 || 21,000 || 25,000 || 40,000 || 6.84
|-
| align=center | 2 || align=left| Montenegro || 22,000 || 6,000 || 10,000 || 24,000 || 30,000 || 6.01
|-
| align=center | 3 || align=left| Croatia || 7,000 || 48,000 || 78,000 || 122,000 || 150,000 || 5.77
|-
| align=center | 4 || align=left| Serbia (proper) || 23,000 || 8,000 || 13,000 || 22,000 || 204,000 || 5.64
|-
| align=center | 5 || align=left| Vojvodina || 1,000 || 1,000 || 3,000 || 5,000 || 40,000 || 4.85
|-
| align=center | 6 || align=left| Macedonia || 1,000 || 2,000 || 10,000 || 7,000 || 66,000 || 3.65
|-
| align=center | 7 || align=left| Kosovo || 5,000 || 6,000 || 6,000 || 7,000 || 20,000 || 2.88
|-
| align=center | 8 || align=left| Bosnia and Herzegovina || 20,000 || 60,000 || 89,000 || 108,000 || 100,000 || 2.83
|}
Ethnic
Bosnia & Herzegovina
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, by late 1943, 70 percent of the Partisans were Serb and 30 percent were Croat and Muslim. In the entirety of the war the Bosnian Partisans were 64.1 percent Serb, 23 percent Muslim, and 8.8 percent Croat.Croatia
Among Croatian partisans at the end of 1941 there were approximately 77% Serbs and 21.5% Croats and others as well as unknown nationalities. The percentage of Croats in the partisan troopshad increased to 32% by August 1942, which rose to 34% by September 1943. After the capitulation of Italy, it continued to increase rapidly and at the end of 1944 there were 60.4% Croats, 28.6% Serbs and 11% of other unknown nationalities in Croatians partisan units.
Casualties
Despite their success, the Partisans suffered heavy casualties throughout the war. The table depicts Partisan losses, 7 July 1941-16 May 1945:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right; width:500px;"
|-
!!! 1941 !! 1942 !! 1943 !! 1944 !! 1945 !! Total
|-
|align=left|Killed in action || 18,896 || 24,700 || 48,378 || 80,650 || 72,925 || 245,549
|-
|align=left|Wounded in action || 29,300 || 31,200 || 61,730 || 147,650 || 130,000 || 399,880
|-
|align=left|Died from wounds || 3,127 || 4,194 || 7,923 || 8,066 || 7,800 || 31,200
|-
|align=left|Missing in action || 3,800 || 6,300 || 5,423 || 5,600 || 7,800 || 28,925
|}
Rescue operations
The Partisans were responsible for the successful and sustained evacuation of downed Allied airmen from the Balkans. For example, between 1 January and 15 October 1944, according to statistics compiled by the US Air Force Air Crew Rescue Unit, 1,152 American airmen were airlifted from Yugoslavia, 795 with Partisan assistance and 356 with the help of the Chetniks. Yugoslav Partisans in Slovene territory rescued 303 American airmen, 389 British airmen and prisoners of war, and 120 French and other prisoners of war and slave laborers.The Partisans also assisted hundreds of Allied soldiers who succeeded in escaping from German POW camps (mostly in southern Austria) throughout the war, but especially from 1943-45. These were transported across Slovenia, from where many were airlifted from Semič
Semic
Semič is a market town and a municipality in Slovenia in the traditional region of White Carniola in southeastern Slovenia. The municipality is included in the Southeast Slovenia statistical region. It gets its name from Semenič Castle that used to stand on a hill above the settlement...
, while others made the longer overland trek down through Croatia for a boat passage to Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
in Italy. In the spring of 1944, the British military mission in Slovenia reported that there was a "steady, slow trickle" of escapes from these camps. They were being assisted by local civilians, and on contacting Partisans on the general line of the River 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...
, they were able to make their way to safety with Partisan guides.
Raid at St Lorenzen
A total of 132 Allied prisoners of war were rescued from the Germans by the Partisans in a single operation in August 1944 in what is known as the Raid at St. Lorenzen.In June 1944, the Allied escape organization began to take an active interest in assisting prisoners from camps in southern Austria and evacuating them through Yugoslavia. A post of the Allied mission in 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...
had found that at Sankt Lorenzen ob Eibiswald, just on the Austrian side of the border, about 50 km (31.1 mi) from 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....
, there was a poorly guarded working camp from which a raid by Slovene Partisans could free all the prisoners. Over 100 POWs were transported from Stalag XVIII-D
Stalag XVIII-D
Stalag XVIII-D was a German Prisoner of War camp at Maribor in what is now Slovenia. It opened in the spring or early summer of 1941, operating until the end of the war....
at 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....
to St. Lorenzen each morning to do railway maintenance work, and returned to their quarters in the evening. Contact was made between Partisans and the prisoners with the result that at the end of August a group of seven slipped away past a sleeping guard at 15:00, and at 21:00 the men were celebrating with the Partisans in a village, 8 km (5 mi) away on the Yugoslav side of the border.
The seven escapees arranged with the Partisans for the rest of the camp to be freed the following day. Next morning, the seven returned with about a hundred Partisans to await the arrival of the work-party by the usual train. As soon as work had begun the Partisans, to quote a New Zealand eye-witness, "swooped down the hillside and disarmed the eighteen guards". In a short time prisoners, guards, and civilian overseers were being escorted along the route used by the first seven prisoners the previous evening.
At the first headquarters camp reached, details were taken of the total of 132 escaped prisoners for transmission by radio to England. Progress along the evacuation route south was difficult, as German patrols were very active. A night ambush by one such patrol caused the loss of two prisoners and two of the escort. Eventually they reached Semič
Semic
Semič is a market town and a municipality in Slovenia in the traditional region of White Carniola in southeastern Slovenia. The municipality is included in the Southeast Slovenia statistical region. It gets its name from Semenič Castle that used to stand on a hill above the settlement...
, in White Carniola
White Carniola
White Carniola is a traditional region in southeastern Slovenia on the border with Croatia and is the most southern part of the historical and traditional region of Lower Carniola. Its major towns are Metlika, Črnomelj, and Semič, and the principal river is the Kolpa, which also forms part of the...
, Slovenia, which was a Partisan base catering for POWs. They were flown across to Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
on 21 September 1944.
Post-war
SFR Yugoslavia was one of only two European countries that were liberated by its own forces during World War II, only with limited assistance and participation by the remaining Allies. It received support from both Western Allies and the Soviet Union, and at the end of the war no foreign troops were stationed on its soil. Partly as a result, the country found itself halfway between the two camps at the onset of the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
In 1947-1948, the Soviet Union attempted to command obedience from Yugoslavia, primarily on issues of foreign policy, which resulted in the Tito-Stalin split
Tito-Stalin Split
The Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
and almost ignited an armed conflict. A period of very cool relations with the Soviet Union followed, during which the U.S. and the UK considered courting Yugoslavia into the newly-formed NATO. This however changed in 1953 with the Trieste crisis, a tense dispute between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies over the eventual Yugoslav-Italian border (see Free Territory of Trieste
Free Territory of Trieste
The Free Territory of Trieste was to be a city-state situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, created by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II and provisionally administered by an appointed military governor commanding the peacekeeping United...
), and with Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation in 1956.
This ambivalent position at the start of the Cold War matured into the non-aligned
Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc. As of 2011, the movement had 120 members and 17 observer countries...
foreign policy which Yugoslavia actively espoused until its dissolution.
Reprisals
A number of Partisan units, and the part of local population, engaged in mass murder in the immediate postwar period against perceived Axis sympathizers, collaborators, and/or fascists. The best known incidents include the Bleiburg massacreBleiburg 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....
, the foibe massacres, and the killings in Bačka
1944-1945 Killings in Backa
The Communist purges in Serbia in 1944–1945 were purges committed by members of the Yugoslav Partisan Movement and post-war communist authorities after they gained control over Serbia in 1944. Most of these purges were committed from October, 1944 to May, 1945. During this time, several tens of...
.
The Bleiburg massacre was the retribution enacted by the Partisans on the retreating column of Chetnik, Slovene Home Guard, 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...
soldiers that was retreating towards Austria in an attempt to surrender to western Allied forces. The "foibe massacres" draw their name from the "foibe" pits in which Croatian Partisans of the 8th Dalmatian Corps (often along with groups of angry civilian locals) shot Italian fascists
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, and suspected (or even alleged) collaborationists and/or separatists, in retribution to the decades-long Italian oppression they experienced. According to a mixed Slovene-Italian historical commission established in 1993, which investigated only on what happened in places included in present-day Italy and Slovenia, the killings seemed to proceed from endeavors to remove persons linked with fascism (regardless of their personal responsibility), and endeavors to carry out preventive cleansing of real, potential or only alleged opponents of the Communist government. The 1944-1945 killings in Bačka
1944-1945 Killings in Backa
The Communist purges in Serbia in 1944–1945 were purges committed by members of the Yugoslav Partisan Movement and post-war communist authorities after they gained control over Serbia in 1944. Most of these purges were committed from October, 1944 to May, 1945. During this time, several tens of...
were similar in nature and entailed the killing of Hungarian fascist separatists, and their suspected affiliates, without regard to their personal responsibility.
There were also differences between the conduct of Partisans from different areas. For example, in Ajdovščina Slovenian Partisans and the local garrison of (Austrian) German forces agreed to abstain from any further fighting in the closing days of the war, with the German garrison agreeing to be disarmed. When Partisans from the other parts of Yugoslavia entered the village, the unarmed Austrians were shot in cold blood, something not received well by the Slovene Partisans.
The numbers of dead due to Italian, German and collaborationist organised killings, however, far outstrip even the most lavish estimates of the Partisan crimes' death toll. Indeed, the Partisans didn't have an official genocidal agenda (unlike the Ustaše, the Chetniks, the Italians, and the Germans), as their cardinal ideal was the "brotherhood and unity
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....
" of all Yugoslav nations (the phrase became the motto for the new Yugoslavia). To put in perspective the extent of genocide occurring throughout Yugoslavia during the war, it suffices to say the country suffered about 1,027,000 dead during the Axis occupation, civilian and military (in comparison, the United States and Great Britain together suffered approximately 630,000). Only a small fraction constitute civilians actually killed by the Partisans.
This controversial chapter of Partisan history was a taboo subject for conversation in the SFR Yugoslavia until the late 1980s, and as a result, decades of official silence created a reaction in the form of numerous data manipulation for nationalist propaganda purposes.
Equipment
The first small arms for the Partisans were acquired from the dissolved Royal Yugoslav ArmyRoyal 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...
. Throughout the war the Partisans used any weapons they could find, mostly capturing weapons from the Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Italians, 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 :...
, 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 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...
such as the Kar98k, MP40
MP40
The MP 38 and MP 40 , often called Schmeisser, were submachine guns developed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by paratroopers, tank crews, platoon and squad leaders, and other troops during World War II.-Development:The MP 40 descended from its predecessor, the MP 38, which was in turn based...
, MG34 and Carcano rifles and carbines and Beretta Sub Machine Guns. The other way that the Partisans acquired weapons was from supplies given to them by the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, weapons acquired include the PPSH 41 and the Sten
Sten
The STEN was a family of British 9 mm submachine guns used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War...
MKII. Additionally, Partisan workshops created their own weapons modelled on factory-made weapons already in use, including the so-called "Partisan rifle" and the anti-tank "Partisan mortar".
Cultural legacy
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 experiences of Partisans in particular had a major impact on the culture of the country. The Partisan struggle was therefore well-chronicled through the memoirs of its participants, and later those experiences served as basis for important literary works, most notably by authors like Jure Kaštelan, Joža Horvat, Oskar Davičo
Oskar Davico
Oskar Davičo was a distinguished Serbian novelist and poet of Jewish origin. A leading literary figure of his generation, he was the most acclaimed Serbian surrealist writer, and a revolutionary socialist activist.-External links:...
, Antonije Isaković
Antonije Isaković
Antonije Isaković was a Serbian writer and member of Serbian Academy of Science and Arts. He won NIN Prize in 1982 for his novel Tren 2. He was one of authors of Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
, Branko Ćopić
Branko Copic
Branko Ćopić was Yugoslav writer. He was an ethnic Serb born in the village of Hašani near Bosanska Krupa. He attended schools in Bihać, Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Karlovac before moving to Belgrade to study philosophy at the University of Belgrade until his graduation in 1940.Upon the uprising in...
, Ivan Goran Kovačić
Ivan Goran Kovacic
Ivan Goran Kovačić was a prominent Croatian poet and writer of the 20th century.-Early life and background:He was born in Lukovdol , a town in Gorski Kotar, to Croatian father Ivan and Jewish mother Ruža . His middle name Goran stems from that...
, Karel Destovnik Kajuh
Karel Destovnik Kajuh
Karel Destovnik, pen name and nom de guerre Kajuh was a Slovenian poet, translator, resistance fighter, and Yugoslav national hero.- Life and work :...
, Mihailo Lalić
Mihailo Lalic
Mihailo Lalić was a famous novelist of Montenegrin and Serbian literature. He is considered by some to be among the greatest authors from Montenegro.-Overview:...
, Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...
, Tone Svetina, Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan , who also wrote under the pseudonym Langus, was a Slovenian writer, poet, playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He is considered one of the most important authors in the Slovene language of the second half of the 20th century.-Biography:Vitomil Zupan was born in Ljubljana, then part...
and others.
According to Vladimir Dedijer
Vladimir Dedijer
Vladimir Dedijer was a Yugoslav partisan fighter, politician and historian.During World War II he was an editor of the Yugoslav Communist Party newspaper Borba, and member of the agitprop section to the General Staff.After the war he was a member of Yugoslav delegation on 1946 Paris peace...
, over 40,000 works of folk poetry were inspired by the Partisans.
Comic books depicting the Partisan struggle also became very popular, most notably works by Croatian artist Jules Radilović. The most popular, however, was the Mirko i Slavko comic book series.
The Partisan struggle also influenced the film industry, which developed its own genre of Partisan film, with its own set of unofficial rules and motives, very much like American Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
or the Japanese Jidaigeki
Jidaigeki
is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. The name means "period drama" and is usually the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—Portrait of Hell, for example, is set during the late Heian period—and the early Meiji era is also a popular...
movies. The most notable of these was the Oscar-nominated 1969 Battle of Neretva (film). The movie Force 10 from Navarone
Force 10 from Navarone
Force 10 from Navarone is a 1978 war film loosely based on Alistair MacLean's 1968 novel of the same name Force 10 From Navarone. It is a sequel to the 1961 film, The Guns of Navarone. The parts of Mallory and Miller are played by Robert Shaw and Edward Fox...
displayed the struggle of the Yugoslav Partisans during the war, as British and American special forces arrive to help them destroy a German-held bridge.
An outsider's perspective of the partisans is recorded in Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's 1961 novel Unconditional Surrender, the last of The Sword of Honour trilogy. Waugh was stationed in Yugoslavia towards the end of the war.
The most visible aspect of Partisan legacy, however, is the series of monuments commemorating their struggle. Most of these sculptures belong to the socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
art form, with some of them becoming victims of state-sponsored vandalism following the break-up of the country in the early 1990s. (see Yugoslav wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
).
See also
- Balkans Campaign (World War II)
- Department for the Protection of the People OZNA
- Franja Partisan HospitalFranja Partisan HospitalThe Franja Partisan Hospital was a secret World War II hospital at Dolenji Novaki near Cerkno in western Slovenia. It was run by the Yugoslav Partisans from December 1943 until the end of the war as part of a broadly organized resistance movement against the Fascist and Nazi occupying forces. The...
- Liberation Front of the Slovene People
- Order of the People's Hero
- Po šumama i goramaPo šumama i goramaPo šumama i gorama is a partisan anthem, it is a Yugoslav Partisan version of the traditional song of Red Partisans in Siberia during 1917-1923 Russian Civil War.-Lyrics:...
- 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...
- World War II persecution of 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....
External links
- Alliance of Anti-fascist Fighters of Croatia
- Office of Strategic Services - Balkan Operational Group
- Web site for the movie 'Partizanska Eskadrila'
- European Resistance Archive (ERA) Video interviews with members of the resistance during World War II
- Video interview with a witness to a Partisan execution squad
- THE GERMAN CAMPAIGNS IN THE BALKANS (SPRING 1941) reprinted by the United States Army Center of Military History