The Chetnik Movement and the Yugoslav Resistance.
1976; Society for Military History; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1987159
ISSN2325-6990
Autores Tópico(s)Balkans: History, Politics, Society
Resumotered Bulgaria, did not reach the army commands until 31 March.After only a week of fighting, German units had already marched on Zagreb and Sarajevo and were rather well received by the Croatian and Muslim civilian populations.11 General Simovic therefore decided on an armistice.1 2 Less than two weeks after the war had begun, on 17 April 1941, the rout was complete and the Yugoslav High Command was compelled to sign an unconditional surrender.The striking fact about the events of April, however, is that the Germans failed to follow up their military victory.Hasty preparations for Operation Barbarossa prevented the Wehrmacht from completing mopping up actions and forced the with drawal of the crack German units from Yugoslavia as early as late April.Therefore, only 344,162 officers and troops, or about half the Yugoslav armed forces, were captured.After most of the Croats and Macedonians were released, about 200,000 prisoners, largely Serbs, remained in camps in Germany, 1 3 and over 300,000 officers and troops, again Serbs for the most part, disobeyed the capitulation order and escaped capture.14Even more important, the Germans, largely because they lacked clearly defined plans for Yugoslavia's postwar disposition and were unable to make a large permanent military commitment there, had to turn over the administration of the country, or a large part of it, to their allies and to native collaborators.Rump Serbia was the only important area of exclusive German influence.Part of Macedonia would probably go to Bulgaria, and the Adriatic littoral would fall in the Italian zone, but the overriding question of predominant political influence in the central parts of the country was still undecided.Hitler was rather disinclined to see Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina become an Italian satellite and even thought briefly of turning over the area to the more pliable Hun garians. 1 5 As for native political elements in Croatia, the Germans at tempted to influence Macek but got nowhere. 1 6
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