Kosta Pećanac (1879–1944) was a Serbian Chetnik commander during both of the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II. Pećanac (pictured, second from left) fought on the Serbian side in the Balkan Wars and World War I, joining the Toplica uprising of 1917. After the war he was an important leader of Chetnik veteran associations, known for his strong hostility to the Yugoslav Communist Party, which made him popular with conservatives. As president of the Chetnik Association, he transformed the association during the 1930s into an aggressively partisan Serb political organisation with over half a million members. During World War II, Pećanac collaborated with the German military administration and with their Serbian puppet government in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. In July 1942, rival Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović arranged for the Yugoslav government-in-exile to denounce Pećanac as a traitor, and his continuing collaboration with the Germans ruined what remained of the reputation he had developed in the Balkan Wars and World War I. By March 1943, the Germans saw Pećanac's Chetniks as inefficient and unreliable, and disbanded them. He was interned, then killed in May or June 1944 by agents of Mihailović. (Full article...)
