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 Axis 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 both establishing a modus vivendi and 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.
Momčilo Đujić was a Serbian Orthodox priest and Chetnik vojvoda. He led a significant proportion of the Chetniks within the northern Dalmatia and western Bosnia regions of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state created from parts of the occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. In this role he collaborated extensively with the Italian and then the German occupying forces against the communist-led Partisan insurgency.
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.
Konstantin "Kosta" Milovanović Pećanac was a Serbian and Yugoslav Chetnik commander (vojvoda) during the Balkan Wars, World War I and World War II. Pećanac fought on the Serbian side in both Balkan Wars and World War I, joining the forces of Kosta Vojinović during the Toplica uprising of 1917. Between the wars he was an important leader of Chetnik veteran associations, and was known for his strong hostility to the Yugoslav Communist Party, which made him popular in conservative circles. As president of the Chetnik Association during the 1930s, he transformed it into an aggressively partisan Serb political organisation with over half a million members. During World War II, Pećanac collaborated with both the German military administration and their puppet government in the German-occupied territory of Serbia.
Operation Alfa was an offensive carried out in early October 1942 by the military forces of Italy and the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), supported by Chetnik forces under the control of vojvoda Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin. The offensive was directed against the communist-led Partisans in the Prozor region, then a part of the NDH. The operation was militarily inconclusive, and in the aftermath, Chetnik forces conducted mass killings of civilians in the area.
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. In the spring of 1942, he was appointed by Mihailović as the commander of Chetniks in Dalmatia, Herzegovina, western Bosnia and southwestern Croatia. He died in Split on 3 February 1943, having suffered from poor health for a considerable period of time.
The Serbian Revolutionary Organization or Serbian Chetnik Organization was a paramilitary revolutionary organization with the aim of liberation of Old Serbia from the Ottoman Empire. Its Central Committee was established in 1902, while the Serbian Committee was established in September 1903 in Belgrade, by the combined Central Boards of Belgrade, Vranje, Skopje and Bitola. Its armed wing was activated in 1904. Among the architects were members of the Saint Sava society, Army Staff and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It operated during the Struggle for Macedonia, a series of social, political, cultural and military conflicts in the region of Macedonia; its operations are known as Serb Action in Macedonia.
Petar Baćović was a Bosnian Serb 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 the German-occupied territory of Serbia. In May and June 1942, Baćović participated in the joint Italian-Chetnik offensive against the Yugoslav Partisans in Montenegro. In July 1942, Baćović was appointed by the Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović and his Supreme Command as the commander of the Chetnik units in the regions of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. In this role, Baćović continued collaborating with the Italians against the Yugoslav Partisans, with his Chetniks formally recognised as Italian auxiliaries from mid-1942.
The Dinara Division was an irregular Chetnik formation that existed during the World War II Axis occupation of Yugoslavia that largely operated as auxiliaries of the occupying forces and fought the Yugoslav Partisans. 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.
Vukajlo Božović, known as Priest Vukajlo was a Serbian Orthodox priest and revolutionary. Božović participated in the Balkan Wars, as a commander of a detachment in Ibarski Kolašin. He was the father of writer Grigorije Božović.
The Battle of Čelopek was fought at the Čelopek plateau, near Kozjak, between the Serbian Chetnik Organization and Ottoman officers accompanied by Ottoman Albanian bashi-bozuks, on 16 April 1905.
Dragutin Jovanović, known by his nickname Lune (Луне), was a Serbian guerrilla fighter, officer, politician, delegate and mayor of Vrnjci. He was awarded several times for his service in the Balkan Wars and World War I.
Micko Krstić-Porečki, known as Vojvoda Micko, was a Serbian rebel and military leader active in the Poreče region.
Ilija Jovanović, known as Vojvoda Pčinjski, and by his nom de guerreČaslav, was a Chetnik commander active between 1904 and 1912, and a member of the Black Hand. He was schooled in Vranje, Paraćin, Kragujevac. He was among the first Chetniks on the Kozjak together with commanders Jovan Dovezenski, Krsta Preševski, Spasa Garda, Đorđe Skopljanče, Rista Starački and Vanđel Skopljanče. Vojvoda Pčinjski was the chief of one of the board of the Chetnik organization. He went from a battle to another until he was wounded in 1912. He died in the Belgrade Military Hospital, at the time when the Serbian Army liberated Bitola and broke out on the Adriatic.
The Chetniks in the Balkan Wars, were paramilitary groups issued of the Serbian Chetnik Organization which, after fighting in the Macedonian Struggle, came under the supervision of the Royal Serbian Army as auxiliary force. During the Balkan Wars, the Chetniks detachments were used as a vanguard to soften up the enemy forward of advancing armies, for attacks on communications behind enemy lines, as field gendarmerie and to establish basic administration in occupied areas. They were used in both Balkan Wars.
Mane Rokvić was a Serb guerrilla commander and collaborator with the Axis occupation forces during the Second World War. Rokvić briefly became commander of the Yugoslav Partisan 4th detachment of the Sloboda Battalion during the 1941 Drvar uprising, a spontaneous resistance by the Serbian population to the genocidal activities of the Independent State of Croatia in Western Bosnia. Later and most notably, Rokvić left the communist cause to join the royalist Dinara Chetnik Division to command the King Alexander I regiment. He went on to collaborate with the Germans to fight against the Yugoslav Partisans.
Branko "Brane" Bogunović was one of the commanders of Serb rebels during the Drvar uprising who later became military officer of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland.
