| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
:
Chetniks originally formed as a result of the Macedonian struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Soon everybody else created there own chetnik detachments Serbs, Bulgarians, Greek Andartes and Albanian kacaci and Ottomans had little problems with them since they were to busy fighting each other. In Herzegovina, they were fighting Turks, in northern Macedonia against Turks and Albanians who sided with them.
At the start of Balkan wars there was 110 IMRO, 108 Greek, 30 Serbian and 5 Vlach detachments. They fought against the Turks in the First Balkan War, while in WWI they fought against Austria-Hungary.
After the surrender of the Yugoslav royal army in April 1941, some of the remaining Yugoslav soldiers organized in the Ravna Gora district of western Serbia under Colonel Dragoljub (Draža) Mihailovic. They were mostly ethnic Serbs though there were some Slovenes and CroatsCroats ( Croatian: Hrvati are a south Slavic people mostly living in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (where they're one of the constitutive nations . There are significant Croat minorities of Vojvodina (northern Serbia) and the Austrian province of Bur as well. Mihailovic 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 IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of officer.
From 1941- 19431943 is the common year starting on Friday. Events January January 4 End of term for Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Earl Warren. January 11 The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China. January 1 the Chetniks had support of the Western Allies. TIMEClockwise from upper left TIME magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. TIME is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U. News and World Report. A European edition TIMEeur Magazine, in 1942, featured an article which boasted of Mihailovich's Chetniks' success and heralded him as the sole defender of freedom in Nazi-occupied Europe. However, on ground Tito's Partisans fought Nazis as well. Both Tito and Mihailovich had a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks offered by Germans for their heads.
Throughout the World War II, the Chetniks were faced with the two main categories of enemies: the German occupiers and the Ustashe troops that exterminated the ethnic Serbian population on the one side, and the ideologically opposed Partisans and Communists on the other.
After the summer uprising and during 1941, the guerilla activity of the Chetniks and Communist Partisans in Serbia increased, and the forces of Nazi Germany retaliated very harshly against the civilian population. The Germans had introduced exact punitive measures against guerrilla activity: 100 Serb civilians were to be executed for every killed soldier of the Wehrmacht and 50 for each wounded. The rival antifascist movements, Tito's Partisans and Mihailovic's Chetniks, collaborated at first, but later turned against each other, and inside Serbia a bitter civil war ensued. By the end of the conflict, Serbia itself had lost one quarter of its population.
In late 1941, the Germans started a massive offensive on the areas of Ravna Gora and Užice. Mihailovic 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 Ustase, the fascist regime of Independent State of Croatia. As the Ustase committed atrocities in the Serb-populated villages, the Chetniks retaliated in the villages populated by Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
As the forces of Fascist Italy were latently opposed to the Ustase regime in their southern zone of influence, the Chetniks collaborated with the Italians to be able to engage the Ustase. The Allies frowned upon this but kept sending support for the Chetnik forces. Chetniks also cooperated with the Nedic quisling regime in Serbia. Finally, the Chetniks started concentrating on fighting the Partisan forces, even allying themselves with some German forces in Bosnia.
The Western Allies originally supported the Chetniks because they were a better option for them than the potentially pro-Russian Communist Partisans. The Allies have planned an invasion of the Balkans, and so Yugoslav antifascists were strategically important, and there was a need to make a decision which of the two fractions 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 have stopped planning an invasion of the Balkans and finally reverted their support from the Chetniks, 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.
By the end of the war, the Chetniks were still important in numbers. Some retreated north to surrender to Anglo-American forces; Mihailovic 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 Mihailovic was brought to Belgrade, where he was tried and executed on charges of treason in July.
The last remaining Chetnik was captured in the Herzegovina-Montenegro border area in 1957.