page_title: World War II in Yugoslavia
section_title: Allied advances in Romania and Bulgaria
hierarchical_section_title: World War II in Yugoslavia / 1944 / Allied advances in Romania and Bulgaria
caption_attribution_description: Balkan Front 31.08.-30.11.1944 (week by week map of the german retreat in the South-Eastern theatre in autumn 1944)
context_page_description: World War II military operations in Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and client regimes. Subsequently, a guerrilla liberation war was fought against the Axis occupying forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the fascist Independent State of Croatia and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, by the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Croatian fascist Ustashe and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, as well as Slovene Home Guard troops.
  Both the Yugoslav Partisans and the Chetnik movement initially resisted the occupation. However, after 1941, Chetniks extensively and systematically collaborated with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation, and thereon also with German and Ustashe forces.
context_section_description: In August 1944 after the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive overwhelmed the front line of Germany's Army Group South Ukraine, King Michael I of Romania staged a coup, Romania quit the war, and the Romanian army was placed under the command of the Red Army. Romanian forces, fighting against Germany, participated in the Prague Offensive. Bulgaria quit as well and, on 10 September, declared war on Germany and its remaining allies. The weak divisions sent by the Axis powers to invade Bulgaria were easily driven back. In Macedonia, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces and betrayed by high-ranking military commanders, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. In late September 1944 three Bulgarian armies, some 455,000 strong in total led by General Georgi Marinov Mandjev from the village of Goliamo Sharkovo – Elhovo, entered Yugoslavia with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Southern and eastern Serbia and Macedonia were liberated within two months and the 130,000-strong Bulgarian First Army continued to Hungary.
  On 10 September 1944, Bulgaria changed sides and declared war on Germany as an Allied Power. The Germans swiftly disarmed the 1st Occupation Corps of 5 divisions and the 5th Army, despite short-lived resistance by the latter. Survivors retreated to the old borders of Bulgaria. After the occupation of Bulgaria by the Soviet army negotiations between Tito and the Bulgarian Communist leaders were organised, resulting in a military alliance between them. The new Bulgarian People's Army and the Red Army 3rd Ukrainian Front troops were concentrated at the old Bulgarian-Yugoslav border. On 8 October, they entered Yugoslavia. The First and Fourth Bulgarian Armies invaded Vardar Macedonia, and the Second Army south-eastern Serbia. The First Army then swung north with the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front, through eastern Yugoslavia and south-western Hungary, before linking up with the British 8th Army in Austria in May 1945.
caption: Map of German retreat in autumn 1944 (week by week)
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