After the Fall of France in WW2, many pondered what direction the Axis powers would strike
next.
Germany was in a tentative alliance with the Soviet Union, allied with Italy, and no major
power stood on the continent to contain their power.
Britain feared, that its homeland would be the next to be striked, and possibly even
occupied.
Yet, the British homeland never got occupied, sort of.
The next nation to face the wrath of the Axis powers, tends to not be discussed much during
the telling of WW2 and it's fact during the war has largely been forgotten.
But, not today.
In today's video, we will be covering the invasion, of Yugoslavia.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, formed in 1918 under the name of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes, incorporated diverse national and religious groups with varied historical
backgrounds.
With three religions dominating certain regions and cultures of the state those being Orthodox
in the North-east, Catholic in the North-west, and Islam in the south.
Yugoslavia was politically weak from the moment of its creation and remained so during the
interwar period.
This was mainly due to a rigid system of centralism imposed by the Vidovdan Constitution, the
first Constitution of the state.
The aforementioned strong association between each national group and its dominant religion,
and uneven economic development only worsened matters.
The Democratic government in the state was plagued by party opposition, and many bills
would be blocked from being passed on the floor, merely in opposition of one ethnic
group or another.
This opposition, would nearly boil over into Civil War, when one of the Croat representatives,
Stjepan Radi?, was shot dead during deliberation by another member of the legislation.
In response to the crisis triggered by the assassination of Radi?, King Alexander abolished
the Constitution on 6 January 1929, prorogued the Parliament and introduced a dictatorship
over the nation.
One of the first acts of the new regime was to carry out a purge of the civil service,
with upwards of one-third being fired by May of the same year.
All supposedly, in an attempt to address complaints about rampant corruption in the bureaucracy.
He officially changed the nations name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and compressed
the governing districts of the kingdom, compacting it from 33 separate divisions, down to only
nine, with six, being a Serbian majority.
Both internal and external pressure, forced Alexander to establish a new Constitution
in 1931, but, the power of the public government had been weakened heavily, as he was able
to place over half of the upper house without public support, had the ability to by-pass
a chamber if he supported a bill, and transferred heavy amounts of executive power to the king,
which was himself.
The King.
Good ol democracy, eh.
By 1933, Alexander had started to become worried about Germany and he worked to build up a
Balkan alliance to act as a bulwark against the Germans.
The main reason for this, was that Italy and Yugoslavia wanted to prevent the German annexation
of Austria, something that both nations at the time heavily opposed.
During the 1933 Pusch attempt in Austria.
Both nations pledged a guarantee of war against Germany, if German troops should enter Austria.
However, Alexanders life would come to a quick end.
As a result of the previous deaths of three family members on Tuesdays, Alexander refused
to undertake any public functions on that day of the week.
On Tuesday, 9 October 1934, however, he had no choice, as he was arriving in France, to
strengthen the two countries' alliance in the Little Entente.
Lo and Behold.
He had a right to be concerned.
As while Alexander was being slowly driven in a car through the streets along with the
French Foreign Minister, a gunman, by the name of Vlado Chernozemski, stepped from the
street and shot the King twice, with a Mauser C96 pistol.
Alexander died in the car, slumped backwards in the seat, with his eyes wide open.
With Foreign Minister Barthou also being killed by a stray bullet during the scuffle.
The death of Alexander was one of the first assassinations captured on film; the shooting
occurred in front of the cameraman, who was only metres away at the time.
While the exact moment of the shot was not captured, the events leading to the assassination
and the immediate aftermath were, as shown here.
The assassination, heavily worsened relations between Yugoslavia and France, and both the
Balkan Pact, and the Little Entente, lost a lot of importance and influence following
this.
Paul Kara?or?evi?, acted as regent for Paul the second, and would until 1941.
Paul would see the nation through the start of WW2.
It was worried, that due to the Italian failure in the invasion of Greece, a topic that I
have a video uploaded on the channel already, that Germany would need to aid the Italians,
and Yugoslavia was directly in the way.
Germany had pressured the nation to join onto the Tripapartite Pact, the Axis alliance on
March 23rd of 1941, much to the dismay of the British.
But, they did have a plan in the advent that such a thing would happen.
A faction of the Yugoslavian officer class was pro-allied, and they staged a coup against
Paul, putting in place the younger Peter the 2nd.
The coup went off with no bloodshed, and Peter ascended officially to the throne with a massive
swell of popularity across the nation, and the ratifying of the alliance treaty with
the axis was postponed.
This was met with a massive amount of anger from Hilter, who brought his military officers
together, to draw up a plan to invade the nation without any delay.
Drawing the Hungarians, Italians, and Bulgarians to aid in the invasion.
While Peter's government attempted to keep things peaceful, it wasn't to be, and Yugoslavia
would be invaded, on April the sixth of 1941.
At the start of the invasion.
Yugoslavia, fully mobilized, was able to put onto the field 28 infantry divisions, three
cavalry divisions, and 35 independent regiments.
Of the independent regiments, 16 were in the frontier fortifications and 19 were organized
as combined detachments, around the size of a reinforced brigade each.
The nation also had about 4,000 artillery pieces, many of which were aged and horse-drawn,
however, around 1,700 of these were relatively modern, including 812 Czech 37mm and 47mm
anti-tank guns.
They also had about 2,300 mortars, including 1,600 modern 81 millimetres pieces, as well
as twenty-four 220 millimetres and 305 millimetres pieces each.
The mechanized units were a bit more bare bones though, as they were limited to 6 motorized
infantry battalions in the three cavalry divisions, six motorized artillery regiments, two tank
battalions which were equipped with 110 tanks.
One of these battalions had Renault FT models of World War I origin and the other, 54 modern
French Renault R35 tanks, which out-performed Panzer III's to a large extent, plus an independent
tank company with eight Czech SI-D tank destroyers.
The Yugoslav navy, consisted of around 3 destroyers, four submarines, and a dozen patrol boat craft.
The Axis invasion would come along five fronts, with Germany, Italy, and Hungary sending forces
into the nation.
The German formations committed to the invasion of Yugoslavia included over 337,000 men, 875
tanks, and 740 other armored vehicles.
Of the tanks, around half of them were of the 38T variety, with a handful of Panzer
one's and Two's in the mix as well.
For an air contingent, the Germans fielded 296 fighters, 89 light bombers, 26 medium
bombers and around 500 of various other craft.
The Italian forces amounted to around 22 divisions, numbering some 300,000 men, supplemented by
around 100 various tanks, and 700 aircraft.
In addition, the Italian navy, levied around three destroyers to contain the Yugoslavian
Navy, but limited action occurred on the sea.
The Hungarian forces, numbered around nine brigades, but the exact numbers are not known.
The invasion would start on April the sixth, largely from Romanian territory, with German
forces marching towards Belgrade.
German bombing runs were also conducted on the capital, which heavily paralyzed and slowed
down Yugoslav military command and movements.
The first main battle, took place at Nis on the sixth, with the Yugoslav army, being quickly
removed from their defenses, and did what they could, to slow down the advancing Germans.
The Germans also invaded from Austrian territory, as well as Hungarian territory, with those
two columns making quick gains on ground towards Belgrade.
As the vast majority of the Yugoslav army, was either ill organized, or not raised, in
those regions.
On the seventh, the Italians launched their own invasion from Italian held Albania, and
from the Slovenen border, quickly capturing towns in mainland Slovenia, as well as heavy
gains along the Adriatic coast.
On April the 12th, the Hungarians would invade, facing once again, limited resistance outside
of the Frontier Detachments.
Also on the 12th of April, The Germans would officially occupy Belgrade, defeating the
bulk of the Yugoslav army that was in their way.
From that point, German forces would spread out occupational control in Northern and Central
Yugoslavia, facing little in the way of resistance.
The Yugoslavians did have a plan in place for this style of invasion.
They had planned to retreat on all fronts, and move the forces that they could to the
south.
Once in position, they were to do a combined invasion of Italian held Albania with Greek
forces, linking up with them and British forces that were moving in.
It was hoped, that such a feat would re-create something similar to the Salonika front during
the first World War, where the Axis forces, would not be able to dislodge an allied foothold
in Southern Europe.
But even well laid plans, always run into difficulties.
One of the main aspects needed for the Yugoslavians was time, and time was something that they
did not have.
A large section of the military, rebelled against the government, especially Croat and
Slovene units, this allowed the invasions from the north and North-east, to face little
in the way of organized resistance.
The reason for these ethnic rebellions, was due to the over-bearing control that the Serbs
had in both the government, and in the military.
Out of around 180 officers in the Yugoslav army, all but four of them were Serbs, and
we already talked a little bit, about the government problems that faced the nation
earlier.
They did manage to make some progress into Albania, but after only two days, they needed
to halt their advance, being surrounded by enemy units, and no escape route in site.
The Axis victory was swift and complete, On April the 14th, the Yugoslav high command
had decided to seek an armistice, with it being ratified by the 18th.
The nation would have large swaths of territory annexed by the invading powers, and three
puppet states would be left in it's wake.
Yet, the people, would not stop fighting.
Two rebel factions, the Partisans, a largely communist leaning group supported by the Soviets
and the Chetniks, a royalist and right-wing faction, that was largely supported by the
British, American, and Serbian populations, and these forces, would play a major role
in shaping the narrative and direction of Yugoslavia, after the end of WW2.
But that is a tale, for another time.