246: The Invasion

Description

When Yugoslavia’s coup government refused to honor the Tripartite Pact, Hitler signed the invasion directive the same day. The German military, already positioned for the Greek campaign, pivoted with remarkable speed and launched a multi-directional assault on April 6 that overwhelmed Yugoslavia’s poorly equipped, thinly spread defenses within eleven days.

The country was then partitioned between Germany and Italy, with Croatia declared an independent state under the Ustasa movement. The Yugoslav government-in-exile in London would spend the rest of the war adrift, while the occupied territories became one of the most violent resistance landscapes in all of Europe.

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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode Yugoslavia Pt. 2 - The Invasion. This week a big thank you goes out to Tobias, ug, Zak, Andrew, Joshua for supporting the podcast by becoming members. Members get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episode plus special member only episodes roughly once a month. Head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more. While the lead up to the invasion of Yugoslavia had been a long slow process, involving months and months of diplomatic conversations and negotiations, the invasion would be almost exactly the opposite. The forces of the Yugoslav army were outmatched and surrounded, with German forces invading the nation from multiple different directions starting on the morning of April 6th. Just 11 days later the country would officially surrender to the Germans, with the occupation of the country then being split between German and Italian forces. The resulting situation would be confusing, with one of the consequences being that Yugoslavia would be one of the most active areas of resistance against the occupation forces. But in the days and weeks before the invasion, both sides were preparing for a possible confrontation, even if the new Yugoslav leaders which had staged their coup on March 27th did not necessarily understand just how imminent the German invasion was.

One of the reasons that the invasion was so pressing was because the German military was on a timetable. Before the Germans had committed to helping the Italians in their invasion of Greece they had already decided that 1941 would be the year that the German army would invade the Soviet Union. Even working back from some of the more optimistic forecasts of how quickly that invasion would occur, and how easily the Soviet state would collapse under the supposed might of the Wehrmacht, the invasion had to start as early in the year as possible. However, the so called Operation Barbarossa could not start in the spring due to rains in much of the Soviet Union that made movement very difficult. So the commitment of what would turn into 6 Panzer divisions for operations in Greece, and then adding Yugoslavia to that list was not disastrous to the time tables of later operations. The bigger problem for the German Army High Command is that they had very little time to plan the invasion of Yugoslavia, because it was only added as a target on March 27th. The plan had been to simply move on Greece, and now before that could happen another invasion would be planned, and the planning staffs went to work. The good news is that the Germans had a major advantage in many aspects of the forces involved, including their armor divisions which included about 850 tanks. Half of those tanks were the older Panzer 1, 2s, and 35(t) models, but that also meant that there were more than 400 modern top of the line medium tanks of the Panzer 3, 4, and 38(t) varieties. They were also already well positioned to move on Yugoslavia due to the pre-existing plans for an attack on Greece. This was because they had already been planning on moving into Greece from Bulgaria, and the best option for invading Yugoslavia was to also attack from Bulgaria. This meant that while 1 German force would invade from the North from Austria and Hungary . This would be the Second Army, and it would set the date for the invasion of April 6th because that was the earliest possible moment that it could be ready to join the operation. Two other forces would move from the east and move into eastern and southeastern Yugoslavia from Bulgaria. The southern most units, of the 12th Army would also be able to cut across southern Yugoslavia to cut off any possibility of assistance arriving from Greece or the British from the south. It would also have the additional benefit of supporting the Italian forces that were having so many difficulties in Albania due to the Greek advance from the south. In total the German forces represented around 330,000 men, with roughly the same number of Italian forces positioned near the southwestern border, although no major joint operations were planned. If everything went well the Germans could expect a quick and decisive campaign, exactly the kind that they always wanted to fight at this point during the war. This would allow them to then move into Greece quickly, and it would also free up the Danube river to reopen for merchant shipping. The Danube was an invaluable transportation link in south eastern Europe, one that the German economy took full advantage of during this part of the war transporting goods throughout the region.

For the defending army, the situation was looking a bit rough at the end of March. The numbers were there, with about 600,000 men mobilized in the weeks before the invasion, but that number was very deceptive. The first problem is that most of that number were seriously lacking up to date military training and they would basically be sent to the front without any kind of refresher period . The second problem was equipment, and there simply was not enough of anything. Many types of modern equipment, like artillery and anti-tank guns were seriously lacking, there were only a few hundred modern aircraft roughly evenly split between fighters and bombers, and there was almost no modern armored units. Just as importantly, the entire army suffered from a serious shortage of motorized transport which made it difficult to move forces around before the invasion. It would also make it almost impossible to move forces around to respond to a German armored thrust, which had been one of the primary reasons that the German army had been so successful in Poland and France. But the problems for the Yugoslav army also involved simple geography. There were areas of Yugoslavia that were mountainous and rugged, perfect for a long defense by an infantry heavy army, but those areas were primarily in the south and west. The capital of Belgrade and the critical industrial areas of northern Yugoslavia were at a much greater risk of German attack. If Yugoslavia wanted to win a war, these areas could not be abandoned for both logistical and morale reasons, but defending them would tie down major elements of the Yugoslav army in positions that were difficult to defend. It also robbed them of the kind of strategic mobility that would make them vulnerable to getting surrounded by the Germans and cut off from the rest of the country, which is exactly what the Germans planned to do. The Yugoslav high command also made the mistake of trying to defend all of the borders, and to try and retain as much territory as possible devoting about 80% of the total available forces to defending the borders. This spread the overmatched forces quite thin, and in many areas there were not any kind of fixed defenses or natural obstacles . It also meant that there were not enough reserves should the Germans breakthrough at any given point, but at the same time there would not have been enough transport to meet such a breakthrough anyway. It can be easy to criticize the decisions made for the defense of Yugoslavia, which was given the code name Plan R-41, however there were no real good answers, and even a far more defensive approach that gave up some of the border regions in favor of some kind of national redoubt would only have delayed their defeat. It is difficult to see how any decisions could have been changed to prevent a German victory entirely.

To make matters worse for the Yugoslav army when the Yugoslav High Command learned of the pending German invasion with 4 days of warning they chose to ignore the warning. This meant that when the assault began on the morning of April 6th they were unprepared. As was so often the case the first attack would be launched by the Luftwaffe, with German bombers focusing on bombing the capital of Belgrade in the early morning hours . The available fighters of the Yugoslav Air Force would rise to meet them, but they would very quickly be outnumbered and outclassed by their German opponents and the later raids would be able to fly around the skies almost completely unmolested. In total 66 Yugoslav aircraft would be destroyed in the early hours of the invasion, most of them while they were still on the ground on their airfields. As if to emphasize the unpreparedness of the Yugoslav government and military thousands of civilians would die in Belgrade due to the German bombings, with some estimates placing the number as high as 17,000. All along the border with Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria German forces advanced, although the attacks did not all happen on the 6th, with the advance towards Belgrade not starting until the 8th while the attacks from the north did not take place until the 9th. In the south they would quickly push through the border regions and within just a few hours they were already capturing critical objectives. The important city of Skopje would be captured in the opening hours of the invasion and then the German troops would immediately turn south and begin pushing into Greece. The Italians did also eventually declare war, although not until April 9th, and they would not cross the border until the 11th. By that time most of the resistance from the Yugoslav army was falling apart .

Belgrade was surrounded on the 11th, and it would be taken by German forces on the 13th without any major fighting happening within the city itself. The primary reason for this was the fact that it was not really that important anymore, with the failure to hold the borders to the north and south of the capital it had been mostly abandoned by the Yugoslav army which had retreated further to the south. It would be the trigger for the decision to be made by the Yugoslav leaders to try and work out a ceasefire and an armistice with the Germans. There had been many Yugoslav units that had surrendered during the first week of the invasion, but on the 14th it suddenly turned into an avalanche and official conversations were started between German and Yugoslav representatives to end the war. By that point Yugoslavia as a single political entity was beginning to disappear, with Croatia having declared its independence as soon as Zagreb had been captured. On the 17th it was official, and the last Yugoslav troops, which had managed to make it to the Adriatic coast would surrender. In total there would only be about 600 German casualties during the operation, although there would also be several thousand Italians and several hundred Hungarians that would also be added to the casualty counts. On the Yugoslav side, the numbers are much more difficult to determine. Due to the lengthy German and Italian occupation that would follow, and the complete disorganization of the defense during the days of the invasion accurate record keeping was impossible. The one number that is known is that somewhere between 284,000 and 375,000 men were captured.

In their attempts to analyze the invasion the German General Staff were surprised that the Yugoslav army had fallen apart so quickly. They knew that there were weaknesses, and they knew that the German forces would probably win, but the fact that it happened within just 11 days was shocking. And if you read history books on the campaign, what becomes clear is that many of the challenges faced by the German forces were just down to the geography, and while in some specific instances Yugoslav forces did put up stout resistance it was very much the exception. This would also be the first campaign in which the German forces had been working closely together with allied armies in Eastern Europe. This arrangement would become much more common later in the war on the Eastern Front, but at this point in the war the Germans were very new at coalition warfare. What became clear very rapidly is that if the Germans wanted these coalition armies to be able to work with them and achieve the goals that the Germans expected they would need German help. Their armies were different, often less well equipped and their training was different, and so if they were to be held to German standards they would need German units and officers to ensure that they worked well. Another unexpected reality was just how divided Yugoslavia was as a country, and how many different groups there were within the populace that were more than willing to work with the Germans against the central Serbian dominated authorities. The largest group of people were the Croats. Going back to the very founding of Yugoslavia, even though many of the groups within the new country were happy to no longer be a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, other than the Serbs the ethnic groups largely found themselves dominated by simply a different government, one centered in Belgrade instead of Vienna. After the relative honeymoon period of the early years of Yugoslavia the animosity between the Serbs and Croats would grow. This animosity would spill into the fighting during the German invasion, and in some places Croatian units would simply throw down their arms and start going home. There were even instances where Croatian officers and men actively attacked Serbian units that were resisting the German invasion. This fighting was not typical, and was not widespread, but it did happen. Meanwhile back in Croatia the news of the German invasion was met not with trepidation and concern but instead with joy, with the hope that it would mean the end of Serbian leadership within Croatian territory.

While the speed of the invasion surprised many people, one of those people was Mussolini. The Italian leader had long dreamed of taking a very active role in shaping what a new Yugoslavia would look like. The expansion of Italian control into these areas had been a primary fixture of Mussolini’s political platform from the very beginning, and was one of the fundamental causes of grievance held by the Italian leaders after the Paris Peace Conference. In his mind it would include both territories controlled by Italy, but also a new Croatia that was under the control of a leader very favorable to Italy. Unfortunately for these goals, Mussolini was not really in a position to make this happen on April 17, 1941. The chosen Italian Croatian leader was Pavelic, who was a member of the Croatian Ustasa, a relatively small, but very dedicated nationalist group. The Germans instead supported a different Ustasa leader, Colonel Kvaternik who would actually declare a new government on April 10th with German support. However, after discussions with the Italians they were allowed to put their man in charge of the new Croatian government, but it would almost immediately be a disaster. The core issue for Pavelic was that he had bartered away too much for Italian support, and most importantly this included large areas of Dalmatia along the Adriatic coast which the Italians had been lusting over for decades. This did not sit well with Croatians, he had after all bartered away areas that were felt to be a part of Croatia. Croatia was not the only area that would be broken away from the former Yugoslavia, with another important area being Slovenia. Slovenia had certain areas that were rich in mineral deposits and industrial capabilities and this made the Germans very concerned that those areas remain under their direct control. The Italians were not necessarily in a position to dispute this idea, and therefore it was what would happen even though on the ground it made very little sense. Most of the Italian controlled areas were rural, and they had been important consumers for the more urban northern areas that the Germans had under their control. With a new border drawn between them, there were issues on both sides. And of course neither the Italians or the Germans cared at all about what the Slovene citizens of those areas believed or wanted.

The relative ease with which they had conquered Yugoslavia put the Germans at relative ease when it came to relations with the peoples who lived there. But instead of lacking the will to resist, the territories of Yugoslavia would become one of the areas of strongest resistance to the German occupation. There were many different groups that would take part in this resistance, often focused around specific ethnic groups that felt that they were not being properly treated by the invaders. Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and other groups all had their own resistance organizations, bringing their pre-existing distrust of one another into the resistance landscape. They were often based in the more mountainous terrain where it was far more difficult for not just the occupiers but also the successor governments to suppress them. The overall situation was wildly complicated, and would require multiple podcast episodes to untangle, maybe we will get there someday. But for right now the important thing to remember is that this was a resistance and occupation with far more than just two sides to the equation. An important player in these events would be the governments like the one that was created to lead the new Croatian state, with the Ustasa party carrying out what can best be described as a policy of ethnic cleansing in some areas. This was targeted at many of the groups that other atrocities would target in Eastern Europe, gypsies, Jews, and other similar groups. But within Yugoslavia there was the added animosity between the peoples that had made up Yugoslavia. This meant that many Serbs were killed or deported from the new Croatia as a kind of punishment for past relations. The Ustasa government would also use religion as a blunt weapon against those it sought to suppress, with Catholicism being an important part of what was considered a member of Croatian society. It created a recipe for violence, and it would happen. I also want to emphasize that I am using Ustasa as an example here, but it was just one of many groups that found themselves in control of territories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, with many of those other groups embarking on similar programs of violence and oppression. The fires were often fed by the German occupiers as well, who had their own racist beliefs and policies that would see them both support and lead some acts of violence. This included acts of retribution due to actions of the resistance, which would continue until the very final days of occupation in 1945.

While Yugoslavia was coming under occupation and being split up among multiple different new governments and occupation zones, the former leaders of Yugoslavia would go into exile and continue as a government in exile in London . They would arrive in June 1941 to join the growing number of such governments that all called the British capital home. But they would be in an awkward position for the entire war. The British government did not have any firm agreements with the pre-war Yugoslav leaders, and there was not much that they could do about the ongoing situation in the country after 1941. With the Soviet leaders their relationship was also a bit odd, due to the position of the Soviets before the German invasion and then the specific views that the Soviets had for a post-war Eastern Europe in the final years of the war. There was goodwill to be exploited from the United States, who expressed their support for the Yugoslav leaders, but that support was very limited to some lend-lease goods and that was about it. It did not help that the government in exile had only a tenuous claim to the leadership of Yugoslavia, and it did not represent some kind of firm and long standing tradition like say the Norwegian government in exile did. There were many unanswered questions about whether or not they even represented the desires of all of the people of Yugoslavia due to the known and unresolved disagreements between the peoples of Yugoslavia. And so the government in exile would drift through the war years, and the post war years would see rapid developments that would change the course of Yugoslavia until the current day. But for the people of Yugoslavia, whether they supported the idea of Yugoslavia or not, they were just another on the growing list of countries that had been invaded and forced to surrender to the German military. And the Wehrmacht and the Italian Army hoped to add another to that list, Greece, a campaign that will be the focus of the podcast starting with the next episode