page_title: Battle of Vukovar
section_title: Opposing forces
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Vukovar / Opposing forces
caption_attribution_description: Vukovar, Croatia; Serbia, Sheet 2885 I, 1:50,000
context_page_description: The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army, supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats, Serbs and other ethnic groups. As Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbia's President Slobodan Milošević and Croatia's President Franjo Tuđman began pursuing nationalist politics. In 1990, an armed insurrection was started by Croatian Serb militias, supported by the Serbian government and paramilitary groups, who seized control of Serb-populated areas of Croatia. The JNA began to intervene in favour of the rebellion, and conflict broke out in the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia in May 1991. In August, the JNA launched a full-scale attack against Croatian-held territory in eastern Slavonia, including Vukovar.
  Vukovar was defended by around 1,800 lightly armed soldiers of the Croatian National Guard and civilian volunteers, against as many as 36,000 JNA soldiers and Serb paramilitaries equipped with heavy armour and artillery.
context_section_description: By the end of July 1991, an improvised Croatian defence force in Vukovar was almost surrounded by Serbian militias in the neighbouring villages. Paramilitaries, JNA soldiers and Serbian Territorial Defence (TO) conscripts were present in Serb-inhabited areas. There was a small JNA barracks in Vukovar's Sajmište district, surrounded by Croatian-controlled territory. Although the two sides were commonly referred to as "Croatian" and "Serbian" or "Yugoslav", Serbs and Croats as well as many other of Yugoslavia's national groups fought on both sides. The first commander of the attacking force was Macedonian. Serbs and members of other ethnicities made up a substantial portion of the Croatian defenders.
caption: Map of Vukovar and the surrounding area.
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