How Yugoslavia Practically Liberated Itself in WW2 | Animated History

hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian during the second world war many nations occupied by the fascist powers developed underground movements dedicated to seeing their countries liberated from axis oppression while many of these groups caused considerable damage and disruption to their occupiers none were more successful than the yugoslavia partisan movements though starting off as little more than a fractured collection of independent gorilla bands with wildly differing goals and ideologies the men of yugoslavia would eventually be welded together into a fighting force that could stand up to the third reich in ways that no other insurgency could ever hope to match while the red army would be instrumental in dislodging the nazis from the country in 1945 their arrival would be little more than the final blow against german occupation among the many issues faced by resistance movements is that of communication if your country has a hugely diverse population of at least 10 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effectively communicate ideas to my team get through those emails quicker and keep your work concise confident and in the right tone by using grammarly today go to grammarly.com armchairhistorian to sign up for a free account and get 20 off grammarly premium today to help you work more efficiently [Music] the emancipation of yugoslavia by its own people seems all the more impressive when one considers their unenviable geopolitical situation prior to war in addition to sharing a land border with both the original axis powers germany and italy yugoslavia was a nation in name riven from within by endless social ethnic and political issues with a citizenry comprised of serbians bosnians croatians slovenians and a dozen other minorities yugoslavia had stumbled from democracy to dictatorship before finally entering the 1940s under the control of prince paul who was acting as a regent for his teenaged relative peter ii until the latter came of age with a pathetically obsolete military shambling economy and numerous german croatian and slovenian fifth columns busily undermining his central authority prince paul was in an incredibly precarious position by 1941. though a determined anglophile who spent most of his free time in britain paul was repeatedly courted by the axis powers who were desperate to secure yugoslavia's natural resources completely out of his depth and knowing full well that his nation stood no chance against either germany or italy paul was forced to choose the path of appeasement by signing the tripartite pact on march 25th 1941. but paul had already infuriated his serbian dominated military by making concessions to the croatians earlier in his regency and they promptly orchestrated a coup that placed the now 17 year old peter ii in charge by now yugoslavia was completely surrounded by the axis powers and the new government immediately opened desperate negotiations with the allies in the hopes of somehow averting the inevitable unfortunately for yugoslavia hitler took the coup as a personal insult and swore to destroy yugoslavia as a state in revenge the german high command quickly scrambled to create an invasion plan and on april 6th the luftwaffe launched huge bombing raids on yugoslavia's airfields and the capital city of belgrade this was immediately followed by a massive land invasion that saw german troops pour into yugoslavia from four separate directions the invasion was spearheaded by the german second army aided by the 12th army and the first panzer group with their air force having been all but obliterated in the opening strike the royal yugoslav army now faced the full might of the axis on five separate fronts with italy and hungary joining in on the fun on the 11th and 12th of april respectively spread far too thin and wielding an arsenal of charmingly outdated castoffs from a dozen different nations the army failed to even mobilize before the invasion was underway predictably the sole victory of the royal yugoslav army was against the italians in albania with all other units being utterly overrun within a matter of days belgrade fell to german hands on the 13th of april and the nation was forced to agree to an unconditional surrender on the 18th the invasion had taken just 12 days and cost the axis forces just a few thousand casualties in exchange for gaining over 200 000 yugoslavian prisoners of war peter ii was forced to flee into exile abroad finding refuge with the british he would never return to his homeland in the wake of their capitulation yugoslavia ceased to exist as a sovereign state just as hitler had promised serbia became a german-occupied zone while croatia became a nazi puppet under prime minister ante pavlich lastly the italians claimed lublana and most of dalmatia leaving the nation effectively dismembered along ethnic lines yet remarkably the ink on these surrender terms barely had time to dry before the first resistance movements against the occupation began to coalesce remnants of the royal yugoslav army who survived the initial invasion fled to the mountainous regions of serbia and bosnia where colonel draja mikhailovic took command and began organizing them into a guerrilla movement [Music] meanwhile a serbo-croatian communist called yosef tito saw the invasion as a chance to see his dream of a socialist yugoslavia come to fruition and immediately set about raising a partisan force that would engage in direct combat with the occupying forces while the royalists and communists were busy forming their resistance movements the new german puppet state of croatia was busy planning the genocide of anyone who is not a fascist croatian after his ascension prime minister ante pavlich moved with astonishing speed to abolish all other political movements and declare the death sentence for every possible crime against the state pavelic was completely unrepentant about his plans to annihilate the serbian roma and jewish populations of his new state and empowered his ultra-nationalist ustashi organization to enforce this ethnic cleansing the actions of the ustashe combined with the general anarchy that gripped yugoslavia immediately following the occupation proved a boon for the rebel forces particularly the communist when joseph tito had heard that the germans had issued a decree stating that 100 civilians would be shot for every german soldier killed by the insurgencies he quickly realized how to use this to his advantage now after each successful raid his men offered any bystanders a simple choice join the partisans on the spot or wait patiently for an extermination squad to arrive and murder them all knowing that being caught within five miles of a single german corpse was now a death sentence whole villages defected to the partisans on the spot this tactic was so effective that in late autumn of 1941 tito successfully liberated the town of ujitse proclaiming it as its own republic royalist guerrillas under colonel mikhailovic also participated in the liberation but by this point he had been contacted by the government in exile and was understandably wary of cooperating with the openly communist partisans [Music] before the new republic was even a month old relationships between mikhailovic and tito had collapsed by the time the german forces rolled into the area a civil war was already in full swing and the disorganized insurgents were easily driven out of the region following the fall of the republic of ujitse tito's partisans began to cautiously regroup in bosnia while mihailovich was left to court the favor of the western allies he was irritated to discover that his royalists had come to be known as the chetniks by allied intelligence a name associated with several nominally independent groups within yugoslavia including the black chetniks who directly collaborated with the germans mihailovich however still viewed his men as part of the royal yugoslav army and continued to refer to them in such terms though endlessly praised as a hero of the resistance movement in yugoslavia by the bbc mikhailovich was given very little material support by the allies leaving him in no position to wage an effective resistance instead he contacted the government of occupied serbia and began to quietly collaborate with the axis forces in the hopes of preventing tito's partisans from triggering any more reprisals against native serbians in contrast to his royalist opposite yoseph tito took immediate advantage of operation barbarossa by launching a general offensive against the depleted german forces in yugoslavia tito's forces had several major advantages over mihailovich's chetniks chief among them being access to a core of veteran soldiers from the spanish civil war and a much broader base of support from yugoslavia's multi-ethnic population yet above all other factors support for the insurgencies was principally driven by the utter callous disregard of the occupiers for the well-being of yugoslavia's citizens no matter what their origin yet even with all of these advantages the potential liberators of yugoslavia still faced an uphill battle against a deeply entrenched position at the start of 1943 the germans launched case white a massive offensive against partisan-held territories in bosnia over 90 000 german and italian soldiers were involved alongside as many as 15 000 chetnik collaborators though tito's roughly 20 000 men would suffer over 50 casualties in the battles that followed they were able to inflict heavy losses on the much better equipped axis forces the turning point was the battle of naretva river where tito was able to force a crossing into safe territory despite facing overwhelming odds and despite his miraculous survival tito had very little time to rest his men before the germans launched the sequel to case white unimaginatively titled case black this time involving nearly 120 000 soldiers case black was arguably the darkest day for the partisans as their headquarters was encircled and tito himself came very close to being captured or killed in desperation the partisans threw themselves against german and croatian troops guarding the suyesca river managing a second breakout in as many months in retaliation the germans slaughtered over two hundred thousand wounded and injured partisans who were left behind and conducted numerous massacres in the surrounding villages but tito lived to fight another day as summer drew to a close the communists had a chance to go to ground and recover from their losses late 1943 would also see a major shift in the balance of power in the underground as allied agents began infiltrating yugoslavia in order to make sense of the many chaotic reports filtering back to them about the situation in the area the agents quickly determined that mikhailovich's chetnicks had all but switched sides and that tito's partisans were the primary source of resistance within the nation as a result the allies withdrew support from the chetnix and threw their support behind josep tito 1943 was a pivotal year for the partisans in more ways than one on september 8th the italians concluded a secret armistice with the allies leaving 17 of their divisions trapped in yugoslavia in a remarkable show of defiance two whole divisions immediately switched sides and joined the montenegrin partisans while another joined the albanian partisans the remaining 15 either surrendered to the axis and were taken prisoner or quietly disbanded and allowed their equipment to fall into the hands of the insurgents this came just in time for the partisans as the germans launched operation kugelblitz or ball lightning against partisan health territory in the state of croatia by now axe's strategy was simple destroy everything kill everyone and burn anything that could be of any possible use to the insurgency and ante pavilig's ustashe had already killed between 250 000 and 700 000 serbians and ethnic minorities within yugoslavia but the wildly disproportionate brutality of the ustashe only served to drive thousands of willing recruits directly into tito's arms by early 1944 operation kugelblitz had petered out having accomplished nothing besides galvanizing even more of the remaining population into open acts of defiance but tito's trials were not over yet as the germans had one last card up their sleeve operation rosso sprung or knights move though only consisting of about 12 000 troops this assault was the most well planned and surgically minded of the seven major offensives launched against the partisans involving an airborne assault by the 500th ss parachute battalion on the resistance hq in the bosnia town of durvar tito himself was present in the hq and was forced to take cover in a nearby cave while the partisans fought a desperate defense of their leader the allies sent help in the form of the balkan air force which launched numerous sorties against the luftwaffe and german ground forces as chaos reigned tito was able to break away from the engagement and retreated toward the town of cupress though as many as 6 000 partisans were killed in operation russell sprung the germans were eventually forced to retreat their forces having been decimated in the mountainous terrain around durvar the failure of this last major anti-partisan operation signaled a permanent reversal in tito's fortunes by now the yugoslav partisan movement had become the largest in occupied europe with over 700 000 men now openly involved in the liberation just a month after having to abandon durvar tito successfully negotiated an agreement with the yugoslav government in exile becoming recognized as yugoslavia's sole legitimate military leader on august 17th tito leveraged his newfound status to the hilt declaring amnesty for all collaborators this was backed up by a broadcast from king peter ii himself on the 12th of september calling for all yugoslavians to join the national liberation army under the leadership of marshall tito this was a devastating blow to mihailovich and his chetnicks and the movement practically collapsed on the spot with most of his men defecting to the partisans now that the dominoes had begun falling nothing could stop them furthest to the east the red army had reached the borders of bulgaria which promptly switched sides and declared itself an allied power this gave tito direct access to soviet military support and on the 8th of october a combined bulgarian soviet offensive stormed across yugoslavia's southern border and pushed north all the way to belgrade in less than three weeks as winter gripped the land tito found himself in unchallenged control over the entire eastern half of the country while the remaining axis forces were frantically redeploying in syria during the winter of 1944-45 tito took the offensive and threw wave after wave of partisans against the sirmian front but was repulsed by the entrenched enemy armies he also expanded operations in central serbia and began laying the groundwork for a communist regime in yugoslavia no longer the underdog the partisans now began conducting their own reprisals against native germans serbians croatians and hungarians executing or imprisoning them in the tens of thousands seeing they would get no mercy from the communists the fascist croatians abandoned the sermian front and surrendered to the western allies as the croatians wavered the remaining chetniks made a last-ditch attempt to win recognition by engaging them in the battle on liev jeff field where they were promptly defeated with their supply lines in ruins from constant partisan raids the remaining germans holding syrimia knew the end was in sight in april tito's forces launched their final offensive seizing sarajevo and dismantling what remained of the independent state of croatia the last axis defensive lines collapsed just a few days later and the germans began a full-scale retreat out of yugoslavia not content with simply letting them go tito's forces pursued and engaged a column of nearly 30 000 german soldiers at the battle of polana which actually took place days after the official nazi surrender on may 8th this final battle between partisan and axis forces ended when british tanks arrived on scene whereupon the germans surrendered and allowed the remaining collaborators among their ranks to be delivered back to tito's forces for judgment with this last enemy force disarmed tito's communists were at last the unchallenged masters of yugoslavia the liberation of yugoslavia was one of the most remarkable feats of the second world war the partisans had grown to outnumber their occupiers and were in control of huge swathes of territory governed by a communist bureaucracy not even the vaunted french resistance accomplished even a quarter of what yoseptido did but the cost was immeasurable yugoslavia was left a ruined nation with at least a million dead and millions more displaced by the brutal ethnic conflicts the end of the war brought no relief as tito's partisans conducted a ruthless purge of the remaining fascist and nationalist elements in yugoslavia known as the blyburg repatriations these reprisals added at least thirty thousand corpses to the pile and would leave deep scars in the national psyche that linger on to this day for all his support of the partisans king peter ii would die in exile in denver colorado mikhailovic would be hunted down in 1946 and executed for his collaboration with the nazis while tito would go on to found the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia which lasted until 1992 with the collapse of the entire country

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 868,826

Keywords: Grammarly, second world war, yugoslavia in ww2, croatia in ww2, serbia in ww2, bosnia in ww2, Josip Broz Tito, chetniks

Id: -2sSoBHhvro

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 29 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Beurua]

I find it annoying how these videos always include Slovenes as mostly passively supporting the invaders. We didn't, because unlike the Croatians, we actually had nothing to gain. We knew that the Italians, Germans and Hungarians wanted all of our land, we wouldn't gain anything from collaborating with them.

[u/rakijautd]

Yup, pretty accurate.

[u/Komandant357]

Pretty accurate. What are your thoughts, was the sacrifice of hundred civillian Serbs for every German killed worth it in the grand sheme of things?

[u/Stunning_Variation_9]

I don't know about the other parts of Yugoslavia, but for Macedonia it is a bit more difficult to say that it was liberated by itself, i.e. by Macedonian (Yugoslav) partisans. The Bulgarian army participated in the liberation after 9 September 1944. The Macedonian partisan movement did not have many members until 1944, and in the movement itself there were people from Bulgaria, for example the Goce Delchev brigade, formed in Sofia, which had more than 10,000 members.

The partisan movement itself achieved its first successes in western Macedonia, where, after the Italian withdrawal in September 1943, the Macedonian partisans settled down with the locals and "liberated" the towns. The first town the Macedonian partisans entered was Kicevo. In the "liberated" town of Kicevo, two flags were flown, one communist and the other Albanian. Outside the area that Italy had left, successes were minor.

[u/Dzontra95]

Yes

[u/[deleted]]

It most likely did yes and that's one of the main reasons why it had to be 'destroyed'. You see..sadly, our biggest enemies are always those who pretend to be our allies.