العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
EspañolCHETNIKS
(Redirected from Chetnik)
The 'Chetniks' (Serbian četnici, четници), officially ''Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland'', was a resistance movement loyal to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's government in exile during the Second World War. The name ''chetniks'' is derived from the Serbian word ''četa'' which means "military company", and was also used for guerilla squads in wars on Balkans prior to World War II. The Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland was founded on Ravna Gora, Serbia, by Colonel Dragoljub Mihailović on 13 May 1941 following Nazi Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia. Although most of its members were Serbs and Montenegrins, the army also included some Slovenes, Croats, and Muslims by nationality. It originated as a Serbian nationalist and royalist organization opposing Ottoman rule in the 19th century.
After some initial skirmishes with the occupying Axis forces, the Chetniks concentrated almost exclusively on fighting the Communist partisan resistance, some chetniks even collaborated with German, Italian and Ustaše forces. In modern times, though use of the "Chetnik" label is disputed, self-identified Chetniks and associates have been linked, as nationalist guerillas, to atrocities in the 1990s Bosnian War.
After the war, escaped Chetniks and other nationalist Serbian emigrants formed nationalist clubs in countries such as the United States, England, and Australia, and continued to support the Chetnik ideology, which was illegal and suppressed in the communist Yugoslavia.
Chetniks originally formed as a result of the Macedonian struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Soon, other ethnic groups in the Balkans created their own chetnik detachments: Serbs, Bulgarians, Greek Andartes and Albanian kacaci. At first, the Ottoman rulers offered little resistance to them, as the various groups were primarily occupied in conflicts with each other. In Herzegovina, they fought the Turks, in northern Macedonia against Turks and pro-Turkish Albanians.
At the start of Balkan wars there were 110 IMRO, 108 Greek, 30 Serbian and 5 Vlach detachments. They fought against the Turks in the First Balkan War, while in World War I they fought against Austria-Hungary.
After the surrender of the Yugoslav royal army in April 1941, some of the remaining Yugoslav soldiers organized Yugoslav Royal Army in the Fatherland in the Ravna Gora district of western Serbia under Colonel Dragoljub (Draža) Mihailović to fight the German occupation. They were mostly ethnic Serbs though there were some Slovenes and Croats and Muslims as well. Mihailović directed his units to arm themselves and await his orders for the final push. He avoided actions which he judged were of low strategic importance. The reason behind his resolve was the fact that he had been a World War I officer.
Between 1941 and 1943, the Chetniks had the support of the Western Allies. TIME Magazine, in 1942, featured an article which boasted the success of Mihailović's Chetniks, and heralded him as the sole defender of freedom in Nazi-occupied Europe. However, Tito's Partisans fought the Nazis as well during this time. Both Tito and Mihailović had a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks offered by Germans for their heads.
Throughout World War II, the Chetniks were faced with the two main categories of enemies: the German occupiers and the Ustaše on the one side the ideologically opposed Communist Partisans on the other.
After the summer uprising during 1941, the guerilla activity of the Chetniks increased, and the forces of Nazi Germany retaliated very harshly against the civilian population. The Germans had introduced exact punitive measures against guerilla activity: 100 Serb civilians were to be executed for every killed soldier of the Wehrmacht and 50 for each wounded. The rival anti-fascist movements, Tito's Partisans and Mihailović's Chetniks, collaborated at first, but later turned against each other, and inside Serbia a bitter civil war ensued.
In late 1941, the Germans started a massive offensive on the areas of Ravna Gora and Užice. Mihailović offered a truce, but it was denied and the bulk of the Chetnik forces had to retreat for eastern Bosnia and Sandžak. There they came in direct conflict with the Ustaše, the fascist regime of Independent State of Croatia.
As the forces of Fascist Italy were latently opposed to the Communists and the Ustaša regime in their southern zone of influence, the Chetniks collaborated with the Italians to be able to engage the Ustaše and Communists. The Allies frowned upon this but kept sending support for the Chetnik forces for some time. Some Chetniks also cooperated with the Nedić quisling regime in Serbia. Finally, the Chetniks started concentrating on fighting the Partisan forces.
The Western Allies originally supported the Chetniks because they were a better option for them than the potentially pro-Soviet Communist Partisans. The Allies had planned an invasion of the Balkans, and so the Yugoslav resistance movements were strategically important, and there was a need to make a decision which of the two factions to support. A number of Special Operations Executive missions were sent to the Balkans to determine the facts on the ground. In the meantime, the Allies stopped planning an invasion of the Balkans and finally reverted their support from the Chetniks due to their collaboration with the Axis powers, and instead supported the Partisans. At the Teheran Conference of 1943 and the Yalta Conference of 1945, Stalin and Churchill decided to split their influence in Yugoslavia in half.
On 14 August 1944, the Tito-Šubašić agreement between Partisans and the Royal Government was signed on the island of Vis. The document called on all Slovenes, Croats, Srebs to join partisans. Partisans were recognized by the royal government as Yugoslavia's regular Army. Mihajlović and many chetniks refused. On 29 August king Peter II dismissed general Mihailović as a Chief-of-Staff of Yugoslav army in Homeland and on 12 September appointed Tito in his place. Some Chetniks refused and in April and May 1945, as the victorious Yugoslav army took possession of the country's territory, they retreated towards Italy and a smaller group retreated to Austria. Many were captured by partisans or returned to Yugoslavia by British forces. Some were tried for treason and either freed, sentenced to prison terms or death. Many were summarily executed, especially in the first months after the end of the war. In 1946, the last Chetnik units under the command of Draža Mihajlović were captured in eastern Bosnia. He was tried, found guilty of treason and executed.
During the closing years of World War II, many Chetniks defected from their units in 1944 and early 1945, when there was a general amnesty granted for royalist forces. Many Chetniks took up the offer; this treatment was also received by the Domobran fighters, but it was not extended to Ustaše.
By the end of the war, the Chetniks were still important in numbers. Some retreated with German forces north to surrender to Anglo-American forces; Mihailović and his few remaining followers tried to fight their way back to the Ravna Gora, but he was captured by Tito's Partisans. In March 1946 Mihailović was brought to Belgrade, where he was tried and executed on charges of treason in July.
The last remaining "World War II" Chetnik was captured in the Herzegovina-Montenegro border area in 1957.
The Chetniks rescued some 500 U.S. airmen who crashed over Yugoslavia in 1944-45.
Due to the efforts of Major Richard L. Felman and President Harry S. Truman, on the recommendation of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, posthumously awarded Mihailović the "Legion of Merit", for the rescue of American Airmen by the Chetniks.
For the first time in history, this high award and the story of the rescue was classified secret by the State Department so as not to offend the communist government of Yugoslavia. Such a display of appreciation for the Chetniks would not be welcome as they switched sides to Tito's Partisans during the war.
Almost 60 years later, on 9 May 2005 Draza Mihailovic's daughter, Gordana has been presented with a decoration bestowed posthumously on Draza Mihailovic by President Truman in 1948
Chetniks were royalists, and their salute was "За краља и отаџбину" (''"Za kralja i otadžbinu"'') - For King and Fatherland. They held family values and private property in high esteem, and were thus ideologically opposed to Communists who opposed the monarchy.
Many Chetniks started to grow elaborate beards during the war, which is a traditional Orthodox Christian way to express sorrow. In this manner, they marked their sorrow for the occupied fatherland which was ravaged by war.It was said that they will keep their beards until their King returns.
Almost all Chetniks expressed staunch Serbian nationalism, sometimes even ultra-nationalism or chauvinism. A Chetnik ideologue Stevan Moljević composed a memorandum called "Homogenous Serbia" that outlined a plan to solve Serbian problems by expanding the Serbian territory to all the lands where ethnic Serbs live, and subsequently remove its heterogeneous ethnic composition, revising the idea of Greater Serbia. Moljevic did not explain how the non-Serb population would be moved out, just that the matter had to be solved.
Some ethnic Croats,[1] Slovenians[2][3] and Bosnian Muslims[4][5] also joined Chetniks forces. Most of them were democratically oriented Yugoslav patriots or monarchists, anti-communists and anti-fascists. In the beginning of German and Italian occupation of former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, they didn’t fight for Greater Serbia but for the liberation of their homeland, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
But, as Chetnik movement didn't have a strong hierarchy, a number of Chetnik units had a clear Serbian nationalist ideology. Also, during the war Dragoljub Mihailovic was changing his position from Yugoslavian unitarist to Serbian nationalist.
In occupied Serbia, Nazis had Milan Aćimović installed as leader, and later the former Minister of War, General Milan Nedić, who governed until 1944.
Chetniks were operating semi-independently. One group remained under the pre-war leader, Kosta Pećanac, and started collaborating with the Germans against the communist partisans. In NDH, Chetniks were under the command of Vojvoda Đujić (The Serbian priest and Chetnik Duke) in the Serbian Krajina region were they organized themselves in response to Ustasha's (Croatian fascists - Nazi collaborators) attacks on Serbian villages.
Nevertheless, majority of Chetniks rallied behind Draža Mihailović, a 48 year-old Yugoslav Royal Army colonel who had been court-martialed in absence by general Nedić (Nazi collaborator) and was known to have close ties to Britain. By July 22, 1941 the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile announced that continued resistance was impossible. Later in the war, with emerging stronger Communist partisan forces, Chetniks tried to avoid a multiple front lines by avoiding clashes with Nazis, and instead they focused their efforts to eliminating Communists (and civilians believed to be helping or hiding Partisans). At their peak, Mihailović's Chetniks claimed to have three hundred thousand troops. Chetniks viewed their ideological struggle against the Communists as one more important than their struggle against the Germans which they planned to fight after they defeat Communists first. Once Soviet troops occupied Belgrade, and installed Tito's communist regime, Mihailović was brought to trial and executed in 1946 for genocide.
Nedić reluctantly supported Hitler and met with him in 1943. This new government established even harsher racial laws than Prince Paul had enacted and immediately established three concentration camps for Jews, Gypsies, and others. Nedic formed his own paramilitary storm troops known as the State Guard. The Guard was comprised of former members of the Chetniks which had existed as an all-Serbian para-military police force under King Alexander and Prince Paul to enforce loyalty from non-Serbian members of the armed forces. When Yugoslavia disintegrated, one faction of Chetniks swore allegiance to the new Serbian Nazi government. Another group remained under the pre-war leader, Kosta Pećanac, who openly collaborated with the Germans. A third Chetnik faction followed the Serbian Fascist Dimitrije Ljotić. Ljotić's units were primarily responsible for tracking down Jews, Gypsies and partisans for execution or deportation to concentration camps. By August 1942, the Serbian government would proudly announce that Belgrade was the first city in the New Order to be Judenfrei or "free of Jews." Only 1,115 of Belgrade's twelve thousand Jews would survive. Ninety-five per cent of the Jewish population of Serbia was exterminated.
In the areas of Independent State of Croatia, which included Bosnia and Croatia, a bitter ethnic war was fought. The ruling Ustaše regime had proclaimed as its goal to exterminate one third of the Serbs, expel the other third and convert the rest to the Catholic faith. Chetniks fought both the Ustaše and Partisans in these areas, and retaliated for the crimes against Serbs in the villages populated by Bosnian Muslims (who they saw as ones allied with the Ustashe) and Croats. The areas around Višegrad, Zvornik, Foča, Čajniče, Pljevlja were gravely impacted by this kind of ethnic cleansing until Tito's Partisans arrived at the site in large numbers in 1942. There's one report of 2,000 Muslim men killed in Foča and Muslim women mass raped, and another report of 1,200 fighters and 8,000 civilians killed in easternmost Bosnia and Sandžak during this time. According to V. Zerjavic's Tabular statement of Chetnik victims, the total number of Chetnik victims in the areas of Independent state of Croatia is approximately 55,000 (32,000 Croatians and 33,000 Muslims).
After capture in 1946, Mihailović was tried, convicted of treason, which strained the Franco-Yugoslav relations at the time, and Charles de Gaulle refused to visit Yugoslavia or meet Tito.
Although the number of victims was less than that of the Ustaše government which carried out a well-coordinated and organized genocide of the Serbs and other unacceptable citizens, the Chetniks' force was smaller in size and more ineffectual. However, Serbs consistently point out that there is a major difference in the scale of the atrocities of the two groups. Even though Chetniks were guerilla fighters with many independ.
It is also worth noting that Partisans too were involved in numerous war crimes, like the murder of thousands of Ustaše and Domobran fighters in the Bleiburg massacre, as well as many others. This includes unselective execution of large groups of people in the aftermath of the War, including native Germans from Vojvodina, Italian in northern Yugoslavia, Hungarians in Vojvodina, ideological and political opponents, as well as people whose collaboration with Germans was only suspected.
In late 1980s, as Slobodan Milošević came to power in Serbia, chetniks were unofficially rehabilitated and the suppression of their literature and iconography was lifted. New opposition parties openly supported the role of chetniks in the Second World War, claiming that the official history had been falsified.
Politicians like Vojislav Šešelj organized para-military units and demanded that Serbs use force to solve the nationalistic tensions in Yugoslavia and ensure that the territories populated by Serbs in other Yugoslav republics which planned to secede remain united with Serbia. During the Yugoslav wars which followed, many Serb paramilitary units called themselves chetniks, and Croats and Bosniaks commonly used the word to describe any armed Serb unit, regular or paramilitary. Several paramilitary formations, including those by Željko Ražnatović "Arkan", boasted Chetnik insignia and many of them committed crimes against non-Serbs. This has contributed to the negative image of Chetniks in Croatia and Bosnia who brutally killed many residents in Vukovar and Srebrenica.
In modern times, the Chetnik movement is largely rehabilitated in Serbia, notwithstanding the involvement in war crimes by some of the Chetniks. They are highly praised by Serbian nationalists, but all the political factions see them in a very different light from the one common in Tito's time. This is largely due to the impact of Serbian pro-monarchist politician Vuk Drašković, who was against Serbian ultranationalism and Milošević rule, while making a great effort to rehabilitate the Chetnik movement.
Many Serbians also support Chetniks due to the Yugoslav wars and a failure of the Communist idea of "brotherhood and unity of southern Slavs". On the other side, most Croats and Bosniacs see Chetniks as some kind of a fascist movement, no better than the Croatian Ustaše or the SS Handžar Division.
Vojislav Šešelj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, holds the rank of ''voivoda'' of the Chetniks, given to him in 1989 by Momčilo Đujić, a surviving leader of the World War II Chetniks who fled to the US.
In late 2004, the National Assembly of Serbia passed a new law that equalized the rights of the former Chetnik members with those of the former Partisans, including the right to war pensions. Rights were granted on the basis that both were anti-fascist movements that fought occupiers, and this formulation has entered the law. The vote was 176 for, 24 against and 4 abstained. The socialist party (SPS) of Slobodan Milošević was the one against the decision.
There have been varying reactions to the law in Serbian public opinion. Many have praised it as just and long overdue, including the Prince Alexander Karađorđević of Yugoslavia (son of the last Yugoslav king), as well as most political parties (with the most notable exception of SPS). Others protested the decision, including the Serbian Association of Former Partisans, the Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Croatian Anti-Fascist Movement, and the President and Prime Minister of Croatia.
★ Karchmar, Lucien. ''Draža Mihailović and the Rise of the Četnik Movement, 1941-1942.'' New York: Garland Pub., 1987.
★ Lees, Michael. ''The Rape of Serbia: The British Role in Tito's Grab for Power, 1943-1944.'' New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
★ Martin, David. ''Ally Betrayed: The Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailović.'' New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946.
★ Martin, David. ''Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailović: Proceedings and Report of the Commission of Inquiry of the Committee for a Fair Trial for Draja Mihailović.'' Hoover Archival Documentaries. Hoover Institution Publication, volume 191. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1978.
★ Martin, David. ''The Web of Disinformation: Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder.'' New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990.
★ Roberts, Walter R. ''Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies, 1941–1945.'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1973.
★ Trew, Simon. ''Britain, Mihailović, and the Chetniks, 1941–42.'' Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press in association with King’s College, London, 1998.
1. General Mihailovic with Zvonko Vuckovic, commandant of 1st Chetnik Corps. Mr. Vuckovic was an ethnic Croat – loyal officer of Royal Yugoslav Army.
2. Uros Sustaric, one of famous Slovenian Chetniks.
3. [ http://www.pogledi.co.yu/mhs/img/20.jpg Aleksander Bajt, the famous Yugoslav and Slovenian economist, after fifty years of silence published a book about Slovenian chetniks.]
4. Mr. Mustafa Mulalic, one of Muslim officers in Chetnik’s headquarters, together with General Mihailovic and Mr. Stevan Moljevic (only three of them are in uniforms)
5. General Mihailovic with Muslim leaders in Bijeljina.
★ Rescue of 500 US Airmen by Chetniks
★ AP: Airmen revisit World War II sanctuary (2004)
★ Zdravko Dizdar: Chetnik genocidal crimes during World War II
★ History of Chetniks, both in English and Serbian
★ Chetnik movement during World War II
★ U.S. Congressional record on Chetniks and Draza Mihailovic, 1987
★ 100 Anniversary of Chetnic Movement
★ Guerrilla Warfare in the Balkans, 1941-1945: Gen. Draza Mihailovic and the Prinz Eugen SS Division
★ Последњи словеначки четник постао војвода from Politika newspaper, in Serbian
★ Yugoslavia during the Second World War
★ Invasion of Yugoslavia
★ Partisans (Yugoslavia)
★ Serbian Volunteer Corps
★ Ustaše
★ History of Germany during World War II
★ Independent State of Croatia during World War II
★ Nedić's Serbia during World War II
★ Seven anti-partisan offensives
★ First anti-partisan offensive - 1941
★ Second anti-partisan offensive - 1942
★ Third anti-partisan offensive - 1942
★ Battle of Kozara - 1942
★ Battle of Neretva - 1943
★ Sutjeska offensive - 1943
★ Raid on Drvar - 1944
★ Battle on Lijevča field - 1945
★ List of anti-Partisan operations in Yugoslavia
The 'Chetniks' (Serbian četnici, четници), officially ''Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland'', was a resistance movement loyal to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's government in exile during the Second World War. The name ''chetniks'' is derived from the Serbian word ''četa'' which means "military company", and was also used for guerilla squads in wars on Balkans prior to World War II. The Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland was founded on Ravna Gora, Serbia, by Colonel Dragoljub Mihailović on 13 May 1941 following Nazi Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia. Although most of its members were Serbs and Montenegrins, the army also included some Slovenes, Croats, and Muslims by nationality. It originated as a Serbian nationalist and royalist organization opposing Ottoman rule in the 19th century.
After some initial skirmishes with the occupying Axis forces, the Chetniks concentrated almost exclusively on fighting the Communist partisan resistance, some chetniks even collaborated with German, Italian and Ustaše forces. In modern times, though use of the "Chetnik" label is disputed, self-identified Chetniks and associates have been linked, as nationalist guerillas, to atrocities in the 1990s Bosnian War.
After the war, escaped Chetniks and other nationalist Serbian emigrants formed nationalist clubs in countries such as the United States, England, and Australia, and continued to support the Chetnik ideology, which was illegal and suppressed in the communist Yugoslavia.
| Contents |
| Origins |
| World War II |
| Allied pilot rescues and Legion of Merit |
| Chetnik ideology |
| Collaboration and war crimes |
| Post-World War II era |
| Contemporary period |
| Bibliography |
| References |
| External links |
| See also |
Origins
Chetniks originally formed as a result of the Macedonian struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Soon, other ethnic groups in the Balkans created their own chetnik detachments: Serbs, Bulgarians, Greek Andartes and Albanian kacaci. At first, the Ottoman rulers offered little resistance to them, as the various groups were primarily occupied in conflicts with each other. In Herzegovina, they fought the Turks, in northern Macedonia against Turks and pro-Turkish Albanians.
At the start of Balkan wars there were 110 IMRO, 108 Greek, 30 Serbian and 5 Vlach detachments. They fought against the Turks in the First Balkan War, while in World War I they fought against Austria-Hungary.
World War II
After the surrender of the Yugoslav royal army in April 1941, some of the remaining Yugoslav soldiers organized Yugoslav Royal Army in the Fatherland in the Ravna Gora district of western Serbia under Colonel Dragoljub (Draža) Mihailović to fight the German occupation. They were mostly ethnic Serbs though there were some Slovenes and Croats and Muslims as well. Mihailović directed his units to arm themselves and await his orders for the final push. He avoided actions which he judged were of low strategic importance. The reason behind his resolve was the fact that he had been a World War I officer.
Between 1941 and 1943, the Chetniks had the support of the Western Allies. TIME Magazine, in 1942, featured an article which boasted the success of Mihailović's Chetniks, and heralded him as the sole defender of freedom in Nazi-occupied Europe. However, Tito's Partisans fought the Nazis as well during this time. Both Tito and Mihailović had a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks offered by Germans for their heads.
Throughout World War II, the Chetniks were faced with the two main categories of enemies: the German occupiers and the Ustaše on the one side the ideologically opposed Communist Partisans on the other.
After the summer uprising during 1941, the guerilla activity of the Chetniks increased, and the forces of Nazi Germany retaliated very harshly against the civilian population. The Germans had introduced exact punitive measures against guerilla activity: 100 Serb civilians were to be executed for every killed soldier of the Wehrmacht and 50 for each wounded. The rival anti-fascist movements, Tito's Partisans and Mihailović's Chetniks, collaborated at first, but later turned against each other, and inside Serbia a bitter civil war ensued.
In late 1941, the Germans started a massive offensive on the areas of Ravna Gora and Užice. Mihailović offered a truce, but it was denied and the bulk of the Chetnik forces had to retreat for eastern Bosnia and Sandžak. There they came in direct conflict with the Ustaše, the fascist regime of Independent State of Croatia.
As the forces of Fascist Italy were latently opposed to the Communists and the Ustaša regime in their southern zone of influence, the Chetniks collaborated with the Italians to be able to engage the Ustaše and Communists. The Allies frowned upon this but kept sending support for the Chetnik forces for some time. Some Chetniks also cooperated with the Nedić quisling regime in Serbia. Finally, the Chetniks started concentrating on fighting the Partisan forces.
The Western Allies originally supported the Chetniks because they were a better option for them than the potentially pro-Soviet Communist Partisans. The Allies had planned an invasion of the Balkans, and so the Yugoslav resistance movements were strategically important, and there was a need to make a decision which of the two factions to support. A number of Special Operations Executive missions were sent to the Balkans to determine the facts on the ground. In the meantime, the Allies stopped planning an invasion of the Balkans and finally reverted their support from the Chetniks due to their collaboration with the Axis powers, and instead supported the Partisans. At the Teheran Conference of 1943 and the Yalta Conference of 1945, Stalin and Churchill decided to split their influence in Yugoslavia in half.
On 14 August 1944, the Tito-Šubašić agreement between Partisans and the Royal Government was signed on the island of Vis. The document called on all Slovenes, Croats, Srebs to join partisans. Partisans were recognized by the royal government as Yugoslavia's regular Army. Mihajlović and many chetniks refused. On 29 August king Peter II dismissed general Mihailović as a Chief-of-Staff of Yugoslav army in Homeland and on 12 September appointed Tito in his place. Some Chetniks refused and in April and May 1945, as the victorious Yugoslav army took possession of the country's territory, they retreated towards Italy and a smaller group retreated to Austria. Many were captured by partisans or returned to Yugoslavia by British forces. Some were tried for treason and either freed, sentenced to prison terms or death. Many were summarily executed, especially in the first months after the end of the war. In 1946, the last Chetnik units under the command of Draža Mihajlović were captured in eastern Bosnia. He was tried, found guilty of treason and executed.
During the closing years of World War II, many Chetniks defected from their units in 1944 and early 1945, when there was a general amnesty granted for royalist forces. Many Chetniks took up the offer; this treatment was also received by the Domobran fighters, but it was not extended to Ustaše.
By the end of the war, the Chetniks were still important in numbers. Some retreated with German forces north to surrender to Anglo-American forces; Mihailović and his few remaining followers tried to fight their way back to the Ravna Gora, but he was captured by Tito's Partisans. In March 1946 Mihailović was brought to Belgrade, where he was tried and executed on charges of treason in July.
The last remaining "World War II" Chetnik was captured in the Herzegovina-Montenegro border area in 1957.
Allied pilot rescues and Legion of Merit
The Chetniks rescued some 500 U.S. airmen who crashed over Yugoslavia in 1944-45.
Due to the efforts of Major Richard L. Felman and President Harry S. Truman, on the recommendation of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, posthumously awarded Mihailović the "Legion of Merit", for the rescue of American Airmen by the Chetniks.
For the first time in history, this high award and the story of the rescue was classified secret by the State Department so as not to offend the communist government of Yugoslavia. Such a display of appreciation for the Chetniks would not be welcome as they switched sides to Tito's Partisans during the war.
Almost 60 years later, on 9 May 2005 Draza Mihailovic's daughter, Gordana has been presented with a decoration bestowed posthumously on Draza Mihailovic by President Truman in 1948
Chetnik ideology
Chetniks were royalists, and their salute was "За краља и отаџбину" (''"Za kralja i otadžbinu"'') - For King and Fatherland. They held family values and private property in high esteem, and were thus ideologically opposed to Communists who opposed the monarchy.
Many Chetniks started to grow elaborate beards during the war, which is a traditional Orthodox Christian way to express sorrow. In this manner, they marked their sorrow for the occupied fatherland which was ravaged by war.It was said that they will keep their beards until their King returns.
Almost all Chetniks expressed staunch Serbian nationalism, sometimes even ultra-nationalism or chauvinism. A Chetnik ideologue Stevan Moljević composed a memorandum called "Homogenous Serbia" that outlined a plan to solve Serbian problems by expanding the Serbian territory to all the lands where ethnic Serbs live, and subsequently remove its heterogeneous ethnic composition, revising the idea of Greater Serbia. Moljevic did not explain how the non-Serb population would be moved out, just that the matter had to be solved.
Some ethnic Croats,[1] Slovenians[2][3] and Bosnian Muslims[4][5] also joined Chetniks forces. Most of them were democratically oriented Yugoslav patriots or monarchists, anti-communists and anti-fascists. In the beginning of German and Italian occupation of former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, they didn’t fight for Greater Serbia but for the liberation of their homeland, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
But, as Chetnik movement didn't have a strong hierarchy, a number of Chetnik units had a clear Serbian nationalist ideology. Also, during the war Dragoljub Mihailovic was changing his position from Yugoslavian unitarist to Serbian nationalist.
Collaboration and war crimes
A group of Chetniks pose with German soldiers in an unidentified village in Serbia
In occupied Serbia, Nazis had Milan Aćimović installed as leader, and later the former Minister of War, General Milan Nedić, who governed until 1944.
Chetniks were operating semi-independently. One group remained under the pre-war leader, Kosta Pećanac, and started collaborating with the Germans against the communist partisans. In NDH, Chetniks were under the command of Vojvoda Đujić (The Serbian priest and Chetnik Duke) in the Serbian Krajina region were they organized themselves in response to Ustasha's (Croatian fascists - Nazi collaborators) attacks on Serbian villages.
Nevertheless, majority of Chetniks rallied behind Draža Mihailović, a 48 year-old Yugoslav Royal Army colonel who had been court-martialed in absence by general Nedić (Nazi collaborator) and was known to have close ties to Britain. By July 22, 1941 the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile announced that continued resistance was impossible. Later in the war, with emerging stronger Communist partisan forces, Chetniks tried to avoid a multiple front lines by avoiding clashes with Nazis, and instead they focused their efforts to eliminating Communists (and civilians believed to be helping or hiding Partisans). At their peak, Mihailović's Chetniks claimed to have three hundred thousand troops. Chetniks viewed their ideological struggle against the Communists as one more important than their struggle against the Germans which they planned to fight after they defeat Communists first. Once Soviet troops occupied Belgrade, and installed Tito's communist regime, Mihailović was brought to trial and executed in 1946 for genocide.
Nedić reluctantly supported Hitler and met with him in 1943. This new government established even harsher racial laws than Prince Paul had enacted and immediately established three concentration camps for Jews, Gypsies, and others. Nedic formed his own paramilitary storm troops known as the State Guard. The Guard was comprised of former members of the Chetniks which had existed as an all-Serbian para-military police force under King Alexander and Prince Paul to enforce loyalty from non-Serbian members of the armed forces. When Yugoslavia disintegrated, one faction of Chetniks swore allegiance to the new Serbian Nazi government. Another group remained under the pre-war leader, Kosta Pećanac, who openly collaborated with the Germans. A third Chetnik faction followed the Serbian Fascist Dimitrije Ljotić. Ljotić's units were primarily responsible for tracking down Jews, Gypsies and partisans for execution or deportation to concentration camps. By August 1942, the Serbian government would proudly announce that Belgrade was the first city in the New Order to be Judenfrei or "free of Jews." Only 1,115 of Belgrade's twelve thousand Jews would survive. Ninety-five per cent of the Jewish population of Serbia was exterminated.
In the areas of Independent State of Croatia, which included Bosnia and Croatia, a bitter ethnic war was fought. The ruling Ustaše regime had proclaimed as its goal to exterminate one third of the Serbs, expel the other third and convert the rest to the Catholic faith. Chetniks fought both the Ustaše and Partisans in these areas, and retaliated for the crimes against Serbs in the villages populated by Bosnian Muslims (who they saw as ones allied with the Ustashe) and Croats. The areas around Višegrad, Zvornik, Foča, Čajniče, Pljevlja were gravely impacted by this kind of ethnic cleansing until Tito's Partisans arrived at the site in large numbers in 1942. There's one report of 2,000 Muslim men killed in Foča and Muslim women mass raped, and another report of 1,200 fighters and 8,000 civilians killed in easternmost Bosnia and Sandžak during this time. According to V. Zerjavic's Tabular statement of Chetnik victims, the total number of Chetnik victims in the areas of Independent state of Croatia is approximately 55,000 (32,000 Croatians and 33,000 Muslims).
After capture in 1946, Mihailović was tried, convicted of treason, which strained the Franco-Yugoslav relations at the time, and Charles de Gaulle refused to visit Yugoslavia or meet Tito.
Post-World War II era
Although the number of victims was less than that of the Ustaše government which carried out a well-coordinated and organized genocide of the Serbs and other unacceptable citizens, the Chetniks' force was smaller in size and more ineffectual. However, Serbs consistently point out that there is a major difference in the scale of the atrocities of the two groups. Even though Chetniks were guerilla fighters with many independ.
It is also worth noting that Partisans too were involved in numerous war crimes, like the murder of thousands of Ustaše and Domobran fighters in the Bleiburg massacre, as well as many others. This includes unselective execution of large groups of people in the aftermath of the War, including native Germans from Vojvodina, Italian in northern Yugoslavia, Hungarians in Vojvodina, ideological and political opponents, as well as people whose collaboration with Germans was only suspected.
Contemporary period
In late 1980s, as Slobodan Milošević came to power in Serbia, chetniks were unofficially rehabilitated and the suppression of their literature and iconography was lifted. New opposition parties openly supported the role of chetniks in the Second World War, claiming that the official history had been falsified.
Politicians like Vojislav Šešelj organized para-military units and demanded that Serbs use force to solve the nationalistic tensions in Yugoslavia and ensure that the territories populated by Serbs in other Yugoslav republics which planned to secede remain united with Serbia. During the Yugoslav wars which followed, many Serb paramilitary units called themselves chetniks, and Croats and Bosniaks commonly used the word to describe any armed Serb unit, regular or paramilitary. Several paramilitary formations, including those by Željko Ražnatović "Arkan", boasted Chetnik insignia and many of them committed crimes against non-Serbs. This has contributed to the negative image of Chetniks in Croatia and Bosnia who brutally killed many residents in Vukovar and Srebrenica.
In modern times, the Chetnik movement is largely rehabilitated in Serbia, notwithstanding the involvement in war crimes by some of the Chetniks. They are highly praised by Serbian nationalists, but all the political factions see them in a very different light from the one common in Tito's time. This is largely due to the impact of Serbian pro-monarchist politician Vuk Drašković, who was against Serbian ultranationalism and Milošević rule, while making a great effort to rehabilitate the Chetnik movement.
Many Serbians also support Chetniks due to the Yugoslav wars and a failure of the Communist idea of "brotherhood and unity of southern Slavs". On the other side, most Croats and Bosniacs see Chetniks as some kind of a fascist movement, no better than the Croatian Ustaše or the SS Handžar Division.
Vojislav Šešelj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, holds the rank of ''voivoda'' of the Chetniks, given to him in 1989 by Momčilo Đujić, a surviving leader of the World War II Chetniks who fled to the US.
In late 2004, the National Assembly of Serbia passed a new law that equalized the rights of the former Chetnik members with those of the former Partisans, including the right to war pensions. Rights were granted on the basis that both were anti-fascist movements that fought occupiers, and this formulation has entered the law. The vote was 176 for, 24 against and 4 abstained. The socialist party (SPS) of Slobodan Milošević was the one against the decision.
There have been varying reactions to the law in Serbian public opinion. Many have praised it as just and long overdue, including the Prince Alexander Karađorđević of Yugoslavia (son of the last Yugoslav king), as well as most political parties (with the most notable exception of SPS). Others protested the decision, including the Serbian Association of Former Partisans, the Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Croatian Anti-Fascist Movement, and the President and Prime Minister of Croatia.
Dragoljub Mihailovic posthumous awarded with Legion of Merit, by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, 1948
Bibliography
★ Karchmar, Lucien. ''Draža Mihailović and the Rise of the Četnik Movement, 1941-1942.'' New York: Garland Pub., 1987.
★ Lees, Michael. ''The Rape of Serbia: The British Role in Tito's Grab for Power, 1943-1944.'' New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
★ Martin, David. ''Ally Betrayed: The Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailović.'' New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946.
★ Martin, David. ''Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailović: Proceedings and Report of the Commission of Inquiry of the Committee for a Fair Trial for Draja Mihailović.'' Hoover Archival Documentaries. Hoover Institution Publication, volume 191. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1978.
★ Martin, David. ''The Web of Disinformation: Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder.'' New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990.
★ Roberts, Walter R. ''Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies, 1941–1945.'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1973.
★ Trew, Simon. ''Britain, Mihailović, and the Chetniks, 1941–42.'' Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press in association with King’s College, London, 1998.
References
1. General Mihailovic with Zvonko Vuckovic, commandant of 1st Chetnik Corps. Mr. Vuckovic was an ethnic Croat – loyal officer of Royal Yugoslav Army.
2. Uros Sustaric, one of famous Slovenian Chetniks.
3. [ http://www.pogledi.co.yu/mhs/img/20.jpg Aleksander Bajt, the famous Yugoslav and Slovenian economist, after fifty years of silence published a book about Slovenian chetniks.]
4. Mr. Mustafa Mulalic, one of Muslim officers in Chetnik’s headquarters, together with General Mihailovic and Mr. Stevan Moljevic (only three of them are in uniforms)
5. General Mihailovic with Muslim leaders in Bijeljina.
External links
★ Rescue of 500 US Airmen by Chetniks
★ AP: Airmen revisit World War II sanctuary (2004)
★ Zdravko Dizdar: Chetnik genocidal crimes during World War II
★ History of Chetniks, both in English and Serbian
★ Chetnik movement during World War II
★ U.S. Congressional record on Chetniks and Draza Mihailovic, 1987
★ 100 Anniversary of Chetnic Movement
★ Guerrilla Warfare in the Balkans, 1941-1945: Gen. Draza Mihailovic and the Prinz Eugen SS Division
★ Последњи словеначки четник постао војвода from Politika newspaper, in Serbian
See also
★ Yugoslavia during the Second World War
★ Invasion of Yugoslavia
★ Partisans (Yugoslavia)
★ Serbian Volunteer Corps
★ Ustaše
★ History of Germany during World War II
★ Independent State of Croatia during World War II
★ Nedić's Serbia during World War II
★ Seven anti-partisan offensives
★ First anti-partisan offensive - 1941
★ Second anti-partisan offensive - 1942
★ Third anti-partisan offensive - 1942
★ Battle of Kozara - 1942
★ Battle of Neretva - 1943
★ Sutjeska offensive - 1943
★ Raid on Drvar - 1944
★ Battle on Lijevča field - 1945
★ List of anti-Partisan operations in Yugoslavia
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
Featured Companies
| Golf Holidays International | |
| Green Parrot Beach Houses Resort | |
| Century 21 Beltair Associates | |
| Dancing Moon Travel |
