The Chetniks, formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. Although it was not a homogeneous movement, it was led by Draža Mihailović. While it was anti-Axis in its long-term goals and engaged in marginal resistance activities for limited periods, it also engaged in tactical or selective collaboration with the occupying forces for almost all of the war. The Chetnik movement adopted a policy of collaboration with regard to the Axis, and engaged in cooperation to one degree or another by establishing modus vivendi or operating as "legalised" auxiliary forces under Axis control. Over a period of time, and in different parts of the country, the movement was progressively drawn into collaboration agreements: first with the puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, then with the Italians in occupied Dalmatia and Montenegro, with some of the Ustaše forces in northern Bosnia, and, after the Italian capitulation in September 1943, with the Germans directly.
Operation Trio was the first large-scale joint German-Italian counter-insurgency operation of World War II conducted in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which included modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was carried out in two phases within eastern Bosnia from 20 April to 13 May 1942, with Ustaše militia and Croatian Home Guard forces taking part on the Axis side. The aim of the operation was to target all insurgents between Sarajevo and the Drina river in eastern Bosnia. These included the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and Serb nationalist Chetniks. Differentiating between the rank and file of the two insurgent factions was difficult, as even the communist-led insurgent groups consisted mainly of Serb peasants who had little understanding of the political aims of their leaders.
The Slovene Home Guard was a Slovene anti-Partisan military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. It consisted of former Village Sentries, part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice.
Momčilo Đujić was a Serbian Orthodox priest and Chetnik commander who led a significant proportion of the Chetniks within the northern Dalmatia and western Bosnia regions of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II.
World War II military operations in Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and client regimes. Subsequently, a guerrilla liberation war was fought against the Axis occupying forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the fascist Independent State of Croatia and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, by the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Croatian fascist Ustashe and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, as well as Slovene Home Guard troops.
The Battle of Lijevče Field was a battle fought between 30 March and 8 April 1945 between the Croatian Armed Forces and Chetnik forces on the Lijevče field near Banja Luka in what was then the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).
The Italian governorate of Montenegro existed from October 1941 to September 1943 as an occupied territory under military government of Fascist Italy during World War II. Although the Italians had intended to establish a quasi-independent Montenegrin kingdom, these plans were permanently shelved after a popular uprising in July 1941. Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, the territory of Montenegro was occupied by German forces which withdrew in December 1944.
Dobroslav Jevđević was a Bosnian Serb politician and self-appointed Chetnik commander in the Herzegovina region of the Axis-occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a member of the interwar Chetnik Association and the Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists, a Yugoslav National Party member of the National Assembly, and a leader of the opposition to King Alexander between 1929 and 1934. The following year, he became the propaganda chief for the Yugoslav government.
Mario Roatta was an Italian general, best known for his role in Italian Second Army's repression against civilians, in the Slovene- and Croatian-inhabited areas of the Italian-occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. In his Circular 3C, Roatta ordered summary executions, hostage taking, reprisals, internments, burning of houses and whole villages, and the deportation of 25,000 people, who were placed in Italian concentration camps at Rab, Gonars, Monigo (Treviso), Renicci d'Anghiari, Chiesanuova and elsewhere. The survivors received no compensation from the Italian state after the war. The deportees had formed about 7.5 percent of the total population of the Italy-occupied Province of Ljubljana.
Pavle Đurišić was a Montenegrin Serb regular officer of the Royal Yugoslav Army who became a Chetnik commander (vojvoda) and led a significant proportion of the Chetniks in Montenegro during World War II. He distinguished himself and became one of the main commanders during the popular uprising against the Italians in Montenegro in July 1941, but later collaborated with the Italians in actions against the Communist-led Yugoslav Partisans. In 1943, his troops carried out several massacres against the Muslim population of Bosnia, Herzegovina and the Sandžak, and participated in the anti-Partisan Case White offensive alongside Italian forces. Đurišić was captured by the Germans in May 1943, escaped and was recaptured.
Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin was a Serbian Chetnik military commander. He took part in the Balkan Wars and World War I and afterwards served as the president of the Association of Serb Chetniks for Freedom and the Fatherland in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Beginning in 1941 he collaborated with the Italians under the awareness and condonation of supreme Chetnik commander Draža Mihailović. In the spring of 1942, he was appointed by Mihailović as the commander of Chetniks in Dalmatia, Herzegovina, western Bosnia and southwestern Croatia. In October 1942, Trifunović-Birčanin and his subordinate commanders, Dobroslav Jevđević and Petar Baćović, were responsible for the killing of over 500 Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians in the Prozor region in October 1942. He died in Split on 3 February 1943, having suffered from poor health for a considerable period of time.
Ernest Peterlin was a Slovene military officer who rose to a senior position in the Royal Yugoslav Army prior to the Second World War.Married to Anja Roman Rezelj. A decided anti-Communist, during the war he became a prominent anti-Partisan military leader and one of the main exponents of the pro-Western faction of the Slovene Home Guard, an anti-Communist collaborationist militia active in parts of German-occupied Slovenia between 1943 and 1945. In 1945, he was tried and sentenced to death by the new Yugoslav Communist authorities and executed in 1946.
The Siege of Turjak or Battle of Turjak was fought on 19 September 1943 at the Turjak Castle between the Slovene Partisans on one side and the Slovene former units of the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (MVAC) and Slovene Chetniks on the other. The MVAC became defunct with the end of Italian rule. The battle followed the Partisan victory at Battle of Grčarice. Partisans encircled Turjak on 14 September, and laid siege to the castle as the defenders refused to surrender. The siege ended on 19 September with a Partisan victory, much thanks to heavy weapons that they had acquired from Italian forces.
The Ustaše militia was the military branch of the Ustaše, established by the fascist regime of Ante Pavelić in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an Axis puppet state established from a large part of occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.
Petar Baćović was a Bosnian Serb reserve army officer, lawyer, and then a Chetnik commander within occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. From the summer of 1941 until April 1942, he headed the cabinet of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Milan Nedić's puppet Government of National Salvation in Belgrade. In July 1942, Baćović was appointed by the Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović and his Supreme Command as the commander of the "Chetnik Operational Units in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina" during which he collaborated with the Italians and Germans in actions against the Yugoslav Partisans.
Lieutenant Colonel Zaharije Ostojić was a Montenegrin Serb and Yugoslav military officer who served as the chief of the operational, organisational and intelligence branches of the Chetnik Supreme Command led by Draža Mihailović in Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a major in the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force prior to the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, and was involved in the coup that deposed Prince Paul of Yugoslavia on 27 March 1941. After the coup, he escorted Prince Paul to exile in Greece, and was in Cairo during the invasion in April. In September 1941, he was landed on the coast of the Italian governorate of Montenegro along with the British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Hudson and two companions. He escorted Hudson to the German-occupied territory of Serbia and introduced him to the Yugoslav Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito at Užice, then accompanied Hudson to Ravna Gora to meet Mihailović. Ostojić soon became Mihailović's chief of staff, and after the German attempt to capture the Chetnik leader during Operation Mihailovic in December 1941, brought the Chetnik Supreme Command staff to Montenegro where they were re-united with Mihailović in June 1942. During the remainder of 1942, Ostojić launched a counter-attack against Ustaše troops of the Independent State of Croatia returning to the eastern Bosnian town of Foča where they were expected to continue their genocidal anti-Serb policies. As many as 2,000 local Muslims were subsequently killed in the town by forces under Ostojić's command. Ostojić later oversaw large-scale massacres of civilians and burning of Muslim villages in the border region between Montenegro and the Sandžak.
The Dinara Division was a Chetnik division that existed during World War II. Organized in 1942 with assistance from Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin and headed by Momčilo Đujić, the division incorporated commanders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Dalmatia, and the Lika region. The division was under the control of supreme Chetnik commander Draža Mihailović and received aid from Dimitrije Ljotić, leader of the Serbian Volunteer Corps, and Milan Nedić, head of the Serbian puppet Government of National Salvation.
Ismet Popovac was a Bosnian Muslim lawyer and physician who led a Muslim Chetnik militia known as the Muslim People's Military Organization (MNVO) in Bosnia and Herzegovina during World War II. He was active in pre-war Yugoslav politics, becoming a member of the Serbian Muslim cultural organization Gajret and serving as the mayor of Konjic, a town in northern Herzegovina. He is also said to have been candidate for Vladko Maček's electoral list, but was left without a job in the Yugoslav state government after the creation of the Banovina of Croatia in August 1939.
The Uprising in Montenegro(Montenegrin: Ustanak u Crnoj Gori), commonly known as the 13 July Uprising(Montenegrin: Trinaestojulski ustanak) was an uprising against Italian occupation forces in Montenegro. Initiated by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on 13 July 1941, it was suppressed within six weeks, but continued at a much lower intensity until December 1941. The insurgents were led by a combination of communists and former Royal Yugoslav Army officers from Montenegro. Some of the officers had recently been released from prisoner-of-war camps following their capture during the invasion of Yugoslavia. The communists managed the organisation and provided political commissars, while the insurgent military forces were led by former officers. The entire nation rejected the privileged position offered by its occupiers, rejected the capitulation in order to fight for Yugoslavia, together with "Russia".
The 1942 Montenegro offensive was an Italian-led counter-insurgency operation of World War II, which targeted the Yugoslav Partisans in the Italian governorate of Montenegro and the eastern Herzegovina region of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). It was carried out from mid-May to June 1942, with Chetnik forces taking part on the Italian side. The offensive followed the conclusion of the joint German-Italian Operation Trio in eastern Bosnia. Together these two operations comprise what was known as the Third Enemy Offensive in Yugoslav historiography.
