Chetniks

This article is about the World War II movement led by Draža Mihailović. For other uses of this and similar terms, see Chetniks (disambiguation).

Chetniks
Leaders
Dates of operation1941–1945
Allegiance Yugoslav government-in-exile (until August 1944)
HeadquartersRavna Gora near Suvobor
Active regionsOccupied Yugoslavia
IdeologySee Ideology section
AlliesAllies of World War II

Axis powers

OpponentsAllies of World War II

Yugoslav Partisans Partisans (October 1941 – May 1945)

Axis powers

Battles and wars
Organization(s)See formations

The Chetniks,[a] formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland[b] and informally colloquially the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force[2][3][4] in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. Although it was not a homogeneous movement,[5] it was led by Draža Mihailović. While it was anti-Axis in its long-term goals and engaged in marginal resistance activities for limited periods,[6] it also engaged in tactical or selective collaboration with Axis forces for almost all of the war.[7] The Chetnik movement[8] adopted a policy of collaboration[9] with regard to the Axis, and engaged in cooperation to one degree or another by both establishing a modus vivendi and operating as "legalised" auxiliary forces under Axis control.[10] Over a period of time, and in different parts of the country, the movement was progressively[11] drawn into collaboration agreements: first with the puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia,[12] then with the Italians in occupied Dalmatia and Montenegro, with some of the Ustaše forces in northern Bosnia, and, after the Italian capitulation in September 1943, with the Germans directly.[13]

The Chetniks were active in the uprising in the German-occupied territory of Serbia from July to December 1941. Following the initial success of the uprising, the German occupiers enacted Adolf Hitler's formula for suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe, a ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every soldier wounded. In October 1941, German soldiers and Serbian collaborators perpetrated two massacres against civilians in Kraljevo and Kragujevac, with a combined death toll reaching over 4,500 civilians, most of whom were Serbs. This convinced Mihailović that killing German troops would only result in further unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Serbs. As a result, he decided to scale back Chetnik guerrilla attacks and wait for an Allied landing in the Balkans.[14] While Chetnik collaboration reached "extensive and systematic" proportions,[15] the Chetniks themselves referred to their policy of collaboration[9] as "using the enemy".[13] The political scientist Sabrina Ramet has observed, "[b]oth the Chetniks' political program and the extent of their collaboration have been amply, even voluminously, documented; it is more than a bit disappointing, thus, that people can still be found who believe that the Chetniks were doing anything besides attempting to realize a vision of an ethnically homogeneous Greater Serbian state, which they intended to advance, in the short run, by a policy of collaboration with the Axis forces".[9]

The Chetniks were partners in the pattern of terror and counter-terror that developed in Yugoslavia during World War II. They used terror tactics against Croats in areas where Serbs and Croats were intermixed, against the Muslim population in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Sandžak, and against the Communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and their supporters in all areas. These tactics included the killing of civilians, burning of villages, assassinations and destruction of property, and exacerbating existing ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs.[16] The terror tactics against the non-Serb population in the NDH were, at least to an extent, a reaction to the massacres of Serbs carried out by the Ustaše,[17] however the largest Chetnik massacres took place in eastern Bosnia where they preceded any significant Ustaše operations.[18] Croats and Bosniaks living in areas intended to be part of Greater Serbia were to be cleansed of non-Serbs regardless, in accordance with Mihailović's directive of 20 December 1941.[19] The terror against the communist Partisans and their supporters was ideologically driven.[20] Several historians regard Chetnik actions during this period as constituting genocide.[21][22][23] Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the Chetniks in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina range from 50,000 to 68,000, while more than 5,000 victims are registered in the region of Sandžak alone. About 300 villages and small towns were destroyed, along with a large number of mosques and Catholic churches.

  1. ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 214–216.
  2. ^ "Chetnik". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  3. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 410–412.
  4. ^ Hoare 2006.
  5. ^ Milazzo 1975, p. 140.
  6. ^ Milazzo 1975, pp. 103–105.
  7. ^ Milazzo 1975, p. 182.
  8. ^ Milazzo 1975, pp. 185–186.
  9. ^ a b c Ramet 2006, p. 145.
  10. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 147, Tomasevich 1975, pp. 224–225, MacDonald 2002, pp. 140–142, Pavlowitch 2007, pp. 65–67
  11. ^ Milazzo 1975, preface.
  12. ^ Hehn 1971, p. 350, Pavlowitch 2002, p. 141
  13. ^ a b Tomasevich 1975, p. 196.
  14. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 146, Milazzo 1975, p. 31, Pavlowitch 2007, p. 63
  15. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 246.
  16. ^ Djokic, Dejan. "Coming To Terms With The Past: Former Yugoslavia." History Today 54.6 (2004): 17–19. History Reference Center.
  17. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 173.
  18. ^ Hoare 2006, p. 143.
  19. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 259.
  20. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 256–261.
  21. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 747.
  22. ^ Redžić 2005, p. 155.
  23. ^ Hoare 2006, p. 386.


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