Gori More, Tope Se Planine (Sea Is Burning, Mountains Are Melting)
Messerschmidt fighter-plane of the Zrakoplovsto Nezavisne Države Hrvatske (ZNDH), the air force of the Independent State of Croatia. Despite having a fair number of excellent pilots, the scarcity of modern designs and numerical inferiority vis-a-vis the British and Commonwealth forces meant such aircraft posed little threat to Allied air supremacy
The clear August sky buzzed with the sounds of aircraft engines, as swarms of warplanes flew over the sparkling waters of the Adriatic. Reaching the rugged coasts, the aircraft dived, strafing and bombing the various makeshift German fortifications that looked out upon the blue waters. Soon the aeroplanes were assisted in their task by the formidable naval armada buoyed menacingly off of the shore. A cacophony roared forth from the guns of the various cruisers, the thunder to the lightning that blasted the pillboxes and wire fortifications that overlooked the landing site. After an hour and a half of constant shelling, landing craft beached in the bay, where the British soldiers disembarked. Token resistance by the small German garrison was swept aside with minimal effort. Compared to the campaign in Italy, this had been a walk in the park, at least thus far. The Americans had strongly opposed this invasion, refusing to contribute anything more than the requisite supplies and shipping, but Churchill and “Jumbo” Wilson, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean were strongly in favour of the invasion. They believed that an invasion of the Balkans would allow the Allies to cut off German forces positioned further south and open the Danube plain as a potential invasion route into the heart of Germany.
In this country the German presence was vulnerable. Multiple resistance organisations existed, most notably the Communist Partisans led by Josip Broz ‘Tito’ and the Serb royalist/nationalist Četnik guerrillas headed by Dragoljub ‘Draža’ Mihailović. The British had also been in clandestine communication with elements within the Croatian puppet state who opposed the leadership of the brutal Ustaše quislings. These elements guaranteed assistance against the Wehrmacht and the
Ustaška Vojnica, the ‘party army’ of the Ustaše. As the British forces secured the coastal cities of Trieste, Rijeka (formerly Fiume), Split and Dubrovnik, the
Hrvatsko Domobranstvo (Croatian Home Guard) rose up against the Ustaše in a coup led by Interior Minister Mladen Lorković and Minister of the Armed Forces Ante Vokić. A number of German units were captured and disarmed by the
Domobran, often acting in unison with anti-fascist elements such as the Partisans and (less frequently) the Četniks, who sought vengeance for their persecution by the Ustaše. In many cases, however, the activities of the Domobran were relatively limited in their abilities to do more than pin down the better-equipped and determined Ustaše and Wehrmacht forces, particularly the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division ‘Prinz Eugen’, comprised of local
Volksdeutsche, and the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS ‘
Handschar’ (1st Croatian), comprised largely of Bosnian Muslims. The Wehrmacht response was confused by the position of Edmund Glaise-Horstenau, the German plenipotentiary-general in the NDH, who sympathised with the putschists. In Dalmatia, the hostile forces were unable to mount an effective defense under crippling bombardment from British air and naval firepower. Nevertheless, the rapid advance inland would soon meet with difficulties as British lines of supply lengthened and the fascist forces regrouped.
Domobran soldiers set up improvised roadblocks to inconvenience Axis troops
The Allied advance ran into its greatest difficulty in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the bulk of the fascist forces were deployed, and where the rugged and often heavily-forested terrain slowed the British and Domobran offensives. Fighting from often-concealed positions, the aerial advantage of the British was largely negated, leaving the Allies vulnerable to ambush by the fanatical Ustaše militia and SS divisions. A joint Wehrmacht-Ustaše offensive, Operation
Jaeger, inflicted heavy losses on the Allies as they advanced into the Vrbas river valley. A complete rout was only prevented by the delaying actions of Partisan and Četnik bands, allowing a strategic retreat by British forces, at the cost of virtually annihilating the Partisan manpower within the region. With the failure of that offensive, and the subsequent loss of heavy equipment by the Axis forces, the Ustaše and local SS divisions shifted to a purely defensive focus. Meanwhile, Tito ordered a general uprising of Partisan bands throughout Yugoslavia. The intensified Communist insurgency overstretched the Ustaše forces. The British slowly but steadily continued their advance, wary of running into another trap akin to the Vrbas pocket. The Ustaše and SS forces, aware of their ability to inflict significant casualties on the British advance but incapable of turning the strategic situation in their favour, began to focus their attention on villages suspected of harbouring Communist forces, seeking to annihilate the Partisans to preclude a potential post-war Communist takeover of Croatia. The cautious British forces were aware of the atrocities meted out on local communities, but were often unwilling to risk their forces by intervening. Such a policy fed the post-war Communist narrative that the NDH had simply exchanged a fascist overlord for an imperialist one, and that the NDH was merely a front for the global reactionary counter-revolutionary struggle.
Soldiers of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS ‘Handschar’ (1st Croatian), at parade and before prayer
Some of the toughest fighting of the campaign was localised within the Tuzla-Zvornik-Bijeljina-Brčko-Gradačac-Gračanica “security zone” under the control of the
Handschar SS Division. This division, comprised largely of Bosnian Muslims, had already ferociously suppressed Partisan activity in the sector. The British were supported by the
Zeleni Kadar (“Green Cadres”), a Muslim paramilitary group that assisted the British in keeping law and order in the region whilst the British Army and the Domobran engaged the Handschar Division. Despite British frustrations at the Zeleni Kadar’s refusal to engage in combat with fellow Muslims, the group provided valuable security and logistical support which allowed the British to focus on combating the Handschar in their area of operations. Nevertheless, the British found themselves incapable of pinning down and destroying the Handschar Division in the hills of north-eastern Bosnia. Initially refusing offers of surrender in exchange for clemency from the
Volksdeutsche commander of the Handschar Division,
SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Desiderius Hampel. Eventually, as the Soviets broke through the fascist defenses in Hungary, the British accepted Hampel’s terms.
Having pushed through the mountains of northern Dalmatia and Bosnia, the British forces came across
Logor Jasenovac, the first death camp yet encountered by the Western Allies. The camp supervisors, aware of the approach of British and Domobran forces, operated the camp at full capacity in order to erase traces of the atrocities. As the British moved to liberate the camp, they were set upon aggressively by Ustaše militia, including the infamous Black Legion (
Crna Legija). Despite the ferocity of the Croatian forces, their relatively unorganised attacks were rebuffed by the British and Commonwealth forces, with Australian soldiers bearing the brunt of the attacks. As battles raged in the surrounding countryside, the Picilli Furnace at Jasenovac spewed forth ash. The furnaces operated at full capacity as the Ustaše guards disposed of the bodies of hundreds of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Communists. A revolt by the prisoners was forcibly put down, but around 80 prisoners escaped to the Allied lines. By the time Australian forces had captured the camp, there was little more left but ruins, soot and the remains of murdered prisoners.
Ustaše prepare to brutally execute a prisoner with an axe at Jasenovac death camp
As reports about Jasenovac piled up on his desk, and as Soviet forces burst through Vojvodina and into Serbia, Jumbo Wilson pushed for a rapid advance towards Zagreb and a concurrent thrust into Slovenia. Managing to encircle the Croatian capital, the allied forces were quickly bogged down in brutal urban fighting with fanatical Ustaše troops. Eventually, they managed to seize the city, but Ante Pavelić and a number of other high-ranking Ustaše had managed to escape. In the following few weeks, the British and Commonwealth forces pushed into Slovenia in their drive towards Austria and southern Germany. Meanwhile, Communist forces reached the Bay of Kotor, seizing Montenegro for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Whilst the major military threat of the Croatian fascist state was ended, some die-hard Ustaše forces nevertheless roamed the countryside, as did Communist Partisans. Both of these forces would threaten Croatia’s fragile and embryonic democracy.
