Shipbucket

German Advance Into Yugoslavia

Germany had privately counselled Italy against making moves in the Balkans, aware that its position with regards to the Entente and the post-Armistice negotiations meant it could not be entangled in a new military conflict. But with the declaration of Croatian independence and calls for protection from the Volksdeutsche minorities in Drava and Danube Banates, Germany saw that it had to move to protect its interests at least in the northern border regions of Yugoslavia before the whole of Yugoslavia descended into anarchy. Urgent messages were relayed from Berlin to London in an attempt to secure British support for a German advance to secure the borderlands of Drava Banate to protect the Slovene and German residents from the depredations of Italian and Hungarian troops and Croat militias with the withdrawal of the Yugoslav military.
Britain and Greece were so far not involved in the conflict, but the situation at the Greco-Yugoslav border was becoming concerning with refugees streaming south into Greece. The thought of approving German troops goosestepping into Yugoslavia was galling to the British government, but the obvious schism between Italian and German interests was worth exploiting under the humanitarian rationale of supporting the former Slovenian Province from Italian aggression. On the evening of the 1st May the British government relayed an approval to the German Imperial government to safeguard and protect the territory and citizens of the Yugoslavian banate of Drava for the duration of the crisis in Yugoslavia.
German troops pre-positioned along the Yugoslav border received their orders, and at dawn on the 2nd May crossed the frontier into Yugoslavia. Their engagement orders were very specific; Italian and Hungarian troops were a friendly force but were to be halted and prevented from any further advances into territory allocated to Germany, while Croat militia and Yugoslav troops were to be repulsed.
Germany applied the lessons learned in the West, and as the ground troops advanced the sky was filled with a continuous top-cover of Messerschmitt’s wearing bright yellow recognition bands. Resistance was minimal as Yugoslav forces had pulled back to the south and Croat militias were engaged in their own territory. The civilian populations in general welcomed and greeted the Germans as they arrived, seeing them as protectors from the oppression of Serbs, Croats or now Italians, and in many areas ethnic Germans militias had already seized control expediting the German advance.



The principal advance was south from Leibnitz, into Maribor and towards Celje. A secondary thrust was towards Murska Sobota down the Mur River valley. Facing no military opposition, by the the evening of the 2nd May Germany had achieved its goals and halted to consolidate.
When advised of the German advance into north-eastern Yugoslavia Mussolini was furious. The conquest of Yugoslavia was to be a demonstration of Italian military might and Italian leadership of a multinational alliance. The post-war handling of the German ethnic minorities had been a major consideration, and Mussolini had planned to award the Germanic areas of the Drava Banate as a gift to Germany from the magnanimous all-conquering Caesar. Germany had now pre-empted Mussolini and even more embarrassingly, blocked Italian troops and prevented their advance. In a fit of pique Mussolini decided that the fate of the Danube Swabians would not be in their own post-Yugoslav ethnic state. Mussolini wanted nothing to do with the potential problems of future Germanic agitation, and with Hungary’s territorial claims to the area Mussolini allocated the Banat to Hungary and washed his hands of Yugoslavian ethnic Germans.

Yugoslav Collapse

While the land battles in the east and south remained primarily a struggle between armies, in the west and north civil disorder, armed militias and rebellion led to a growing anarchy. The Ustaše rallied Croat independence, but also that of other Yugoslav ethnicities. Mutinies amongst Yugoslav army units spread, with battles breaking out between separatist and loyalist troops. The most significant of these battles occurred near Mostar on the 1st May, where an attack by Ustaše on the airfield at Jasenica resulted in damage to several of the remaining Yugoslav Dornier Do 17K and Savoia Marchetti SM-79 K bombers.
Even before the arrival of Italian or Hungarian troops in the western half of Yugoslavia the authority of Belgrade had vanished, and Ustaše and Ustaše-inspired local militias arose in the vacuum to protect individual villages. But in a portent of events to come, the ethnic tensions that Italy had fed to destabilise Yugoslavia came straight to the forefront and that need for local protection became widely expressed in civil violence against other ethnic groups.
For the most part the Italian troops moving through inland Yugoslavia found themselves moving through already pacified countryside, and greeted with garlands more often than bullets, as the remaining Yugoslav loyalist troops melted into the countryside.

The Government Of Yugoslav

The Italian strategy to isolate and destroy the ability of the Yugoslav government to control the country had been very successful. Central control had vanished with the first bombing raid on Belgrade, and had not been able to be re-established since. A steady flood of refugees had left the city for the safety of the neighbouring towns and villages, and the government and military command had done the same as Belgrade was pounded into rubble, setting themselves up in the town of Požarevac.
Pre-war relations between Britain and Yugoslavia had been good, even though Yugoslavia had rejected a British offer of military protection, not willing to accept a British military presence like their Greek neighbours. In mid-1939 Yugoslavia had already transferred 92 tonnes of its gold reserves to the Bank of England in the UK for safekeeping, as the Yugoslavian government considered Britain to be friends and expected British support in the event of foreign attack, regardless of no formal alliance. But while the Yugoslav government waited for British intervention, as the forces of the Tripartite Pact had not violated the integrity of Greece Britain was not willing to commit itself to another European war.
Aerial communications with Britain, through Greece, had been established on the day after the invasion commenced. In the morning of 28th April a Lockheed Electra impressed from the Yugoslav airline Aeroput departed from a battered Belgrade for Athens, bearing mail and a British envoy, narrowly avoiding being shot down by Italian fighters who only broke off their attacks when the civil identification stripes were spotted.



Additional flights over coming days kept a communications line between the two governments open.

Evacuation Of The Yugoslav Government

Communications with the Yugoslav military commands was patchy at best and no coherent response was made to the invasion, to the extent that with news of Hungary’s entry into the conflict Dušan Simović, who was both the Prime Minister and Yugoslav Chief of the General Staff, had issued a final order to the Yugoslavian military: “All troops must engage the enemy wherever encountered and with every means at their disposal. Don't wait for direct orders from above, but act on your own and be guided by your judgement, initiative, and conscience”. The overall situation in Yugoslavia was now obviously unwinnable. Belgrade had been pounded to rubble, half the country was in open rebellion and foreign troops were rapidly advancing on all fronts.
Senior government members and the Yugoslav royal family now made the choice to evacuate the country and attempt to continue the resistance to the invaders from exile in Britain. On the morning of the 4th May the remaining serviceable Yugoslav large aircraft were dispatched on a last mission of the war, taking Yugoslav leadership and the country’s remaining gold reserves and national treasures south into Greece.



Catching the Italian air force flatfooted, the Yugoslav bombers successfully navigated the battlespace to the south of the country and reached Greece without being intercepted. Escorted by waiting RAF fighters once they crossed the border, the rag-tag Yugoslav fleet were refuelled by New Zealand troops before continuing to take their cargos to Athens in preparation for being taken into exile by the Royal Navy.

Yugoslav Surrender

With the departure of the Royal family, the Yugoslav High Command accepted the inevitable and authorised the commanders of the various armies to dispatch negotiators to the invading forces to arrange the surrender of the individual armies. However this piecemeal approach was rejected as the Italian war aim was the unconditional surrender of the entire Yugoslav Army. On the evening of the 4th May the senior remaining member of the Yugoslav government, Foreign Minister Aleksandar Cincar-Marković, requested an immediate ceasefire.
Italian representatives arrived in Belgrade the following day and started drawing up the conditions for an armistice based on the unconditional surrender of all Yugoslav forces. With no room to negotiate, Cincar-Marković and General Milojko Yankovic signed the surrender document for the Yugoslavs, with an armistice effective at 1200 on 5th May. Although accepted by Rome as the complete surrender of Yugoslavia, the surrender of the Yugoslav military was effective at the hand of General Yankovic, but Cincar-Marković did not have the power to surrender civil authority, and so the government-in-exile was still the de jure government of Yugoslavia.

Dismemberment Of Yugoslavia

With the Yugoslavian surrender Italy and her allies set about formally dividing the country.
Italy’s possession of Albania expanded her borders to the north and east absorbing the cities of Prizren and Pristina, while the Italian Governate of Montenegro was formed in preparation of future independence.
On the 14th May Bulgaria announced the formal annexation of the south east of the Yugoslavia. The populace initially welcomed the forced reunion with Bulgaria, as since the Great War and the transfer of the territory to Yugoslavia the Bulgarian language and culture had been forbidden in public life and a policy of enforced Serbianisation was in place. This policy was now flipped into Bulgarisation, but with an inflow of Bulgarian administrators and even clerics displacing native Macedonians.
Likewise Hungary had regained her loses from the Great War, and found a populace generally accepting of the change of administration. Hungary was not as ready as the Bulgarians to rush to annex the territories, especially with the thorny issue of the Banate, and instead implemented a military occupation. While the majority of civilians within the captured territories were either ethnic Hungarians or Germans, one third were ethnic Serbs and Croats, whose presence now became undesirable. Even as the ink from the Yugoslav surrender was drying, Hungarian military and local militias started rounding up and deporting Serbs and Croats to Serbia, Independent Croatia and Montenegro.
In the northeast the Drava Banate and its Slovene population presented a big problem for the Italians. While Hungary had taken the exteme east of the province, Germany had “stolen” the centre from Italy, and the Slovenes of the west expected to be given their independence as a sovereign Slovenian Republic. A state of Croatia was a part of the Italian plan, but the Slovene lands had been slated for annexation by Italy. On the 11th May the territory was incorporated into Italy as the Provincia di Lubiana, and in response disparate political elements within the territory formed the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation and its armed wing, the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia.
The rump state of Serbia remained in Italian military control, as the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. Serbia held the majority of the industrial capacity, valuable resources of non-ferrous metals, and the key rail and riverine transport routes, and so was the economic heartland of the captured territory and its control was vital to provide the economic reward to the Italian invasion. As the surrender had became imminent workers at Serbian factories had conducted small acts of sabotage that ended up crippling Italy’s hoped for industrial war prizes. The Italian military and civil leadership considered the Slavic people in general as “inferior and barbarians”, and treated the conquered Serbs in exactly that manner. Italian troops mounted reprisals against Serbian civilians and a decree was issued on 19th May, ordering that 100 Serbs were to be shot for every Italian soldier that was harmed in any Serb attack.
On the day of the declaration of Croatian Independence, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Belgrade had appointed Josip Broz “Tito” to form an underground military network in preparation for nationwide revolt, its guiding policy being "the unity and brotherhood among all peoples of Yugoslavia, and relentless struggle against the foreign enemies and their domestic helpers as a matter of sheer survival". Meanwhile Colonel Draža Mihailović and a detachment of troops who had not followed the accepted the order to surrender entered Serbia from Croatia established his men in the Serbian hill country at Ravna Gora on the western slopes of Mount Suvobor, and reformed themselves as the "Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army".

The Independent State of Croatia

With the call of the independence of Croatia from Bjelovar on the 29th, in the morning of the 30th April the most senior Yugoslavian Ustaše official, Slavko Kvaternik, took control of Zagreb and issued a radio broadcast proclaiming the formation of the Independent State of Croatia and creating an interim national government. Vladko Maček, the leader of the alternate Croat nationalist party, the more moderate (and more popular) Croatian Peasant Party, then put out a radio announcement calling for all peoples of all groups to cooperate with this new authority. As Yugoslavian control collapsed the military arm of the Croatian Peasant Party, the Croatian Peasant Defence, and the Ustaše worked together disarming Royal Yugoslav Army units and imposing control throughout Croatia.
On the 2nd May Pavelić entered Zagreb and was proclaimed as "Poglavnik", or leader, of the the Independent State of Croatia . As the whole of Yugoslavia was in turmoil Pavelić declared the expansive boundaries of the new state to be based on Croatian "ethnic and historical territory".
Unfortunately for the dreams of unlimited Croat nationalism, Italy’s support was predicated on Mussolini’s dream of the Adriatic being an Italian sea, and as such Italy had significant demands for territories along the whole of the Croatian coast. Italy delayed the recognition of the independence of Croatia as a negotiating tool as Pavelić undertook negotiations on Croatia’s future. On 7th May, Pavelić and Ciano met in Ljubljana where the choice was given between Italian annexation of the whole Croatian coast and territories as far inland as Karlovac, or a lessor but still significant loss of coast and maritime cities but with closer ties with Italy, including a monetary, customs and imperial personal union. Neither choice was appealing to the Croats, but finally on 18th May Pavelić and his delegation signed a treaty in Rome with Mussolini, surrendering sovereignty over most of the Croatian coast and becoming effectively a vassal state to Italy.
Even with the nationalists they had supported and encouraged for the destruction of the Yugoslav state, Italy had created a new state born of resentment to Italy
Before the borders were finalised Pavelić started issuing decrees asserting ethnic Croatian supremacy in the new Independent State. Property transactions were annulled, actions deemed “causing harm to the honour or vital interests of the state” were punishable by death, and effectively all Jews, Serbs and Yugoslav-oriented Croats found themselves prohibited from government employ and their movement and residency restricted. Decrees went as far as banning the Cyrillic alphabet of Serbian, restricting the functioning of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Very rapidly the Independent State of Croatia descended into ethnic tyranny.

Anglo-Italian Relations

With the change of British leadership from the Chamberlain/Churchill premiership to that of Viscount Halifax, British policy had become more focussed on supporting the Empire, and the nations that had been granted Imperial protection. While the Armistice negotiations had been deadlocked as relations with France had chilled over the betrayal of Poland, Britain now committed itself to never make the mistake of not supporting its righteous commitments.
The British government had believed that peace in Europe could be maintained by ensuring cordial Anglo-Italian relations, keeping Mussolini from joining Hitler in a collective pursuit of expansion. This had been successful up until the Stresa Conference of April 1935 when Britain, France and Italy had condemned German rearmament. However from there relations deteriorated dramatically with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935, while Italy started drifting towards co-operation with Germany, cemented in the Italo-German Pact of Steel of May 1939. But even with this new dynamic Mussolini had not allowed Italy to be drawn into Hitler’s War.
With the German coup toppling Hitler’s regime, Mussolini saw himself as being able to fill the power vacuum in central Europe creating his Blocco Latino under the leadership of a strong imperial Rome. Noting how Britain and France had not rallied to the defence of other nations, only reacting militarily when they had been attacked themselves, he saw that Italian territorial expansion in Europe would only face international resistance where other Powers were directly threatened. While Greece had aligned with Britain and accepted a British military presence, Yugoslavia was isolated and ripe for conquest.
The Italian invasion of Yugoslavia had come as a shock to the British public, who had thought the threat of European war had been lifted with the removal of Hitler, and public opinion now turned vehemently against Italy. All aspect of Italian influence and culture now became distasteful with even a public campaign to ban gelato. In this political climate the RAF maintaining a fleet of Italian aircraft, even if they were manufactured in Portugal, became untenable.
Meanwhile the British government became concerned for defence of the Mediterranean and Near East from a resurgent and belligerent Italian Empire, as Italy sought to undermine Britain’s position with political intrigue and machination.

Portuguese Falcons

The British government approached the Portuguese government and advised that they would no longer be able to purchase the Portuguese assembled Reggianne Falcon fighters if Italian interests in the factory remained, and that instead alternate aircraft would be sourced from the United States. The Caproni/Sociedade Aero Portuguesa factory in Alverca had become a major industrial asset to Portugal and Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar saw that maintaining the Italian presence there was not in his nation’s favour. Buoyed by British inducements Salazar announced the nationalisation of the facility on the 30th April, with all Italian personnel being given just 48 hours to leave the country.
British support was immediate, and engineers from Bristol started arriving while Italian engineers were still packing up. With the shortcomings of the Falcon, Bristol had been working in Britain on solutions that were now to be implemented in to an improved Falcon Mk.II. The most important modification was the replacement of the unreliable Piaggio P.XI engine by a Bristol Hercules engine. By June the new OGMA Falcon Mk.II had replaced the Reggianne Falcon Mk.I on the production line and the first aircraft were soon entering service in the RAF, forming a new squadron on the island of Malta.



Portugal’s military alliance with Britain dated back to 1373, and was the world’s longest standing alliance. As a defensive partner Britain had promised to provide new aircraft to Portugal to maintain the defence of her Atlantic island territories, a promise that came in to effect with the nationalisation of the Caproni/Sociedade Aero Portuguesa factory. Following through on the promise, the final 24 Falcon Mk.I aircraft from the RAF order were instead provided from the production line to the Portuguese Aeronáutica Militar and thence deployed to the Azores.

New Fighters For Greece

Before the start of hostilities Greece had joined Britain and France in ordering Grumman Wildcat fighters from the US. The first shipment of an order for 30 F4F-3A aircraft arrived in Athens the day before the Italians attacked Yugoslavia, and by the time that the Yugoslav King had arrived in exile in Greece all the aircraft had been landed and were being put into service to replace the cancelled order for Bloch MB.151’s.



The new Wildcats entered service, with the Greek airmen training on the high performance fighters with the pilots of RAF 80 Squadron. With the potential of the Yugoslav war spilling across the border there was no room for the Greek leadership to relax their military readiness, and so the now tired Gladiators also remained in front line service.