Yugoslav Civil War

Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Bulgaria

Kingdom of Albania

Kingdom of Greece

The **Yugoslav Civil War** was a major Southern European conflict that lasted from October 30th, 1939 to June 5th, 1940.

The Yugoslav Civil War was the result of rising ethnic tensions in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between Roman Catholic Croatians and Eastern Orthodox Serbians.

Many consider the Yugoslav Civil War to be a secondary front of the Versailles War as it occurred concurrently and was manipulated by Axis and Allied Powers alike. As such many Roman Bloc members supported the Allied Powers by proxy as the Balkan Entente was mostly a proxy for the Axis Powers

The Yugoslav Civil War was a major conflict October 30th, 1939 to June 5th, 1940

## Participants

**Roman Bloc Powers:**

* Kingdom of Italy: Benito Mussolini
* Illyria: Slavko Kvaternik
* Kingdom of Albania: Shefqet Vërlaci
* Kingdom of Greece: Ioannis Metaxas
* Spanish State: Francisco Franco (supporter)
* Portuguese Republic: António de Oliveira Salazar (supporter)

**Balkan Entente Powers:**

* Kingdom of Serbia: Milan Nedić
* Kingdom of Romania: Ion Antonescu
* Kingdom of Hungary: Ferenc Szálasi
* Kingdom of Bulgaria: Aleksandar Tsankov
* Nazi Germany: Adolf Hitler (supporter)

## Pre-War Events

On October 17th, 1939, Nazi Germany sends an ultimatum to Regent Prince Paul of
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia demanding they join the Axis. With Italy now neutral,
Germany needed the ports of Croatia to gain access to the Mediterranean as they
hoped to potential stage a naval invasion of the southern coast of France which
remained relatively unprotected. On October 24th, Regent Prince Paul of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins
the Axis Powers due to his pro-German history and a hope to use the war as a
unifying force for Yugoslavia. This proved to be extremely unpopular with the
Croatian population of Yugoslavia who began rioting against this ethnic Serbian
prince dragging Yugoslavia into the war. This ethnic tension between the Croatians (backed by the Slovenians) and the Serbians explodes on October 30th when Regent Prince Paul is shot and killed by a Croatian
nationalist. Croatian Politician Vladko Maček declares
the independence of the Republic of Croatia from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The
Federation of Illyria consisted of the Yugoslav Banates of Drava, Sava and
Littoral. Ethnic Slovenes sided with the Croatians over the Serbians and
supported the new republic having equal rights among their Croatian
counterparts.

## October 1939

-October
17th, 1939: Nazi Germany sends an ultimatum to Regent Prince Paul of
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia demanding they join the Axis. With Italy now neutral,
Germany needed the ports of Croatia to gain access to the Mediterranean as they
hoped to potential stage a naval invasion of the southern coast of France which
remained relatively unprotected.

-October
24th, 1939: Regent Prince Paul of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins
the Axis Powers due to his pro-German history and a hope to use the war as a
unifying force for Yugoslavia. This proved to be extremely unpopular with the
Croatian population of Yugoslavia who began rioting against this ethnic Serbian
prince dragging Yugoslavia into the war.

-October
30th, 1939: Regent Prince Paul is shot and killed by a Croatian
nationalist. Croatian Politician Vladko Maček declares
the independence of the Republic of Croatia from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

-October
31st, 1939: Serbian General Milan Nedić, declares Peter II of age
and the rightful heir to the Yugoslav throne. Peter II is crowned the King of
the new Kingdom of Serbia.

## November 1939

-November
1st, 1939: The Kingdom of Serbia joins the Axis Powers.

-November
2nd, 1939: While Mussolini had declared his neutrality, he feared an
invasion of northern Italy (which was Italy’s industrial heart) and begins
funding the Croatians and supplying it with arms (albeit
outdated ones). Mussolini calls for the militarization of the Italy’s northern
border.

-November 5th, 1939: While Germany
had wanted to personally invade Italy for its betrayal they were already stretched
too thin in France, Scandinavia and Poland and were cut off by the Alps between
Austria and Northern Italy as such they ordered their ally’s Romania and
Hungary to send troops to support the Kingdom of Serbia. This alliance of
Romania, Hungary and Serbia would be known as the Balkan Entente. Hitler hoped
the Balkan Entente would be able to rapidly defeat Croatia and then take
northern Italy where a majority of Italy’s industry resided essentially
preventing them from ever entering the war. Ironically the Balkan Entente would
take precious resources away from fighting the Soviets as they both attempted
to hold the line as well as defeat the Italians and their allies. Hungary and
Romania were hesitant about supporting Serbia as they both desired land currently
held by the Serbians, the Hungarians desiring the Vojvodina region of Serbia
and the Romanians desiring the Banat region of Serbia. Tensions were also high
between Romania and Hungary as Hungary desired the Szeklerlands of Romania as
such there was great infighting between Romanian, Hungarian and Serbian forces.

-November
20th, 1939: With many of the Crotians being beaten back by Balkan
Entente forces in Yugoslavia, the Balkan Entente Army and begin an invasion of
the Croatian city of Osijek.

-November
30th, 1939: The Balkan Entente captures Osijek and eastern parts of
the Sava Province of Croatia. The Serbians in the region of Krajina declare
their independence from Illyria and join the Serbian Army. Croatian General
Slavko Kvaternik leads a coup against the more moderate leader of Crotia,
Vladko Maček. Kvaternik was aided by both Catholic Slovenian Nationalists and Croatian Nationalists. The coup was successful and Kvaternik united the Republic of Croatia and the Slovenian territories to form the Illyrian Republic or
officially the Illyrian Republic of Croatia and Slovenia. He worked on creating
greater unity between Croatians and Slovenians to better support the war
effort.

## December 1939

-December
1st, 1939: Prime Minister Shefqet Vërlaci of the Italian controlled
Kingdom of Albania publicly declares war on the Balkan Entente citing the
protection of ethnic Albanians in Serbian controlled Kosovo. Vërlaci did so
without prior Italian consent which would result in his ousting after the war.

-December
3rd, 1939: Mussolini unwilling to lose his foothold in the Balkans,
Albania, declares war on the Balkan Entente. This also served to gain favor
with the Albanians.

-December
4th, 1939: Hitler officially declares war on Italy. Mussolini sends
an ambassador to Portugal and Spain, asking them to ally with the Italians
against the Germans. Mussolini recognized Italy was nowhere near ready to fight
a full war and as such called upon support from Spain who Italy had aided
during the Spanish Civil War and Portugal who were hesitant to join the war but
accepted after Mussolini agreeing to help Portugal expands its colonial
possessions after the war. Spain and Portugal begin sending resources, troops
and resources to Italy. These troops would become known as the Iberian
Volunteer Corps. Illyria joins the Latin Bloc now renamed to the Roman Bloc as
it contained the territory of the Roman Empire.

-December
5th, 1939: Albania and Illyria officially join the Roman Bloc.

-December
7th, 1939: Pope Pius XII who had been relatively quiet on the war
steps forward to support the Catholic brotherhood and alliance between Illyria
and Italy

-December
9th, 1939: The Balkan Entente issues an ultimatum to Prime Minister
Georgi Kyoseivanov of Bulgaria demanding that Bulgaria join the Balkan Entente.

-December
10th, 1939: Italian Ambassador to France, Raffaele Guariglia is sent
by Benito Mussolini to Marseille to meet with President Albert François Lebrun
of France. Guariglia offers a war time treaty between the Italians and French
allowing French access to Italian ports in exchange for free access through the
Suez Canal until the war was over. France accepts and while they still
distrusted the Italians and the Roman Bloc for their Totalist authoritarian
ideologies they recognized that Italy would be keeping Germany’s allies busy,
so France would deal with Germany alone. This would become known as the
Guariglia Agreement.

-December 15th, 1939: Serbian
forces quickly take Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria while Romanian forces take
Varna. They establish a puppet fascist government with Bulgarian fascist,
Aleksandar Tsankov as its leader. Roma living in Bulgaria flee to East Poland
to join up with the Slobozîmos Vojska.

-December
15th, 1939: Italy begins mobilizing massive amounts of troops and
colonial subjects in its East African colonies and begins shipping them up
north through the Suez Canal and landing them on Italian controlled Rhodes
before mobilizing them to the Balkans or to the Italian peninsula.

-December
20th, 1939: Roman Bloc forces are directed to the Albanian city of
Shkodër as well as to the Italian city of Trieste and Metković, a Croatian
coastal city.

-December
21st, 1939: Ioannis Metaxas of Greece fearing an invasion from
fascist Bulgaria or Serbia sends an ambassador to Mussolini requesting an
alliance.

-December
22nd, 1939: In a very controversial move, Mussolini commands his
forces still stationed in Italian East Africa to invade French Djibouti citing
it as a potential 5th column due to the emergence of French
fascists. Djibouti is quickly annexed and is renamed Tagiura after the Gulf of
Tadjoura. The Free French government condemns this but has no forces available
to retake it.

-December
24th, 1939: The Kingdom of Greece declares war on the Balkan Entente
and joins the Roman Bloc.

-December
25th, 1939:  The Battle of
Christmas takes place with Roman Bloc forces stationed in Metković and Shkodër
stage an invasion of the Serbian province of Zeta and within the night manage
to take Cetinje, the capital of the province. The Balkan Entente were
completely surprised by this as they expected the Roman Catholic Italians to
delay their invasion until after Christmas and as such hadn’t protected the
city as well.

-December
26th, 1939: Roman Bloc forces take Dubrovnik and Podgorica.

## January 1940

-January
10th, 1940: The Roman Bloc fully captures the Serbian province of
Zeta leaving the Kingdom of Serbia officially land-locked and cut off from the
Mediterranean.

-January
20th, 1940: Italian forces begin Cavalletta di Operazione (Operation
Grasshopper). While they greatly lacked in equipment and resources (only being
bolstered by their Portuguese, Greek and Spanish allies), Cavalletta worked to
negate that by spreading the Balkan Entente extremely thin by causing multiple
battles to spring up all over the Balkans sending Balkan Entente forces in all
directions to deal with the insurrections allowing the smaller less equipped
Roman Bloc forces to handle them.

-January
21st, 1940: Operation Cavalletta goes into effect with the Greek
invasion of Bulgaria, the Albanian invasion of Serbian controlled Vardar
Banovina and Illyrian-Italian invasion of the Serbian controlled Banovinas of
Drina and Vrbas.

-January30th, 1940: Just as Italian Field Marshal, Giovanni Messe had planned,
in reaction to the multiple incursions the Balkan Entente fractured with
Hungarian forces attempting to invade northern Illyria while Serbian forces are
split combatting Illyrian-Italian forces in Bosnia while also dealing with
Albanian and Greek forces in Vardar, Bulgaria is dealing with the Greek
invasion and is supported by Romania.

## February 1940

-February
13th, 1940: Albanian forces manage to take Skopje, the capital of
the Vardar Banovina.

-February
14th, 1940: Prime Minister Milan Nedić of the Kingdom of Serbia in
response to the loss of Serbian Krajina and Skopje calls for the ethnic
cleansing of all Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

-February
17th, 1940: Illyrian forces manage to retake Serbian Krajina and its
eastern territory.

-February
28th, 1940: Greek forces finally manage to push through the Rhodopes
Mountains separating southern Bulgaria from Greece and take the cities of
Smolyan and Kardzhali.

## March 1940

-March
3rd, 1940: Illyrian forces begin Operation Krokodil (Crocodile)
using the Croatian city of Županja and Bosniak city of Bugojno as jumping off
points for a two-pronged pincer attack to encircle to Serbian majority province
of Vrbas.

-March 5th, 1940: Greek forces are
met by Bulgarian Partisans who join up with them to help overthrow the fascist
government of Bulgaria.

-March 9th, 1940: Ethnic Serbs in
Kosovo kill thousands of Muslim Kosovars in the city of Pristina in what would
become known as the Kosovar Genocide.

-March
11th, 1940: Bosnian Partisan forces manage to retake the city of
Sarajevo from Serbian control.

-March
19th, 1940: In response to the Kosovar Genocide, Albanian, Illyrian
and Macedonian Partisan forces stationed in Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania
initiate a three-pronged assault on Serbian controlled Kosovo.

-March
24th, 1940: Albanian, Illyrian and Macedonian Partisans defeat the
Serbian forces stationed in Kosovo.

-March
25th, 1940: Despite Romanian forces bolstering the Bulgarians, the
Greek-Bulgarian Partisan forces manage to take Plovdiv.

## April 1940

-April
1st, 1940: Hungary begins to question the validity of the Balkan
Entente seeing as how it had supplied thousands of troops to Serbia just to be
defeated.

-April
3rd, 1940: Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi of Hungary declares war on
the Kingdom of Serbia and invades the Serbian region of Vojvodina which had a
predominant ethnic Hungarian minority. This came as a large surprise to both
Axis and Allies alike and highlighted the problem of the Balkan Entente as
fascism emboldens revanchist ideals which is problematic when your supposed
allies control land you view as rightfully yours.

-April
5th, 1940: Albanian-Illyrian-Italian forces take advantage of the
chaos from Szálasi’s declaration of war and manages to retake the Banovina of
Drina completely encircling the Serbian Banovina of Vrbas.

-April
30th, 1940: Italian-Illyrian forces take the Serbian Banovina of
Vrbas and the city of Banja Luca.

## May 1940

-May
5th, 1940: Illyrian Prime Minister Slavko Kvaternik preparing for
the post-war period began the systematic expulsion of Ethnic Serbs from
Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo (with the support of the Albanian government).
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs were uprooted and deported and ethnic
Croatians, Slovenes, Bosniaks or Albanians settled in their homes. Orthodox
Churches were demolished, and Serbian cultural centers were desecrated. This
would later become known to the Serbian community as the Uništenje or
Destruction.

-May
18th, 1940: With Romanian forces diverted to the east, the Greek
forces manage to take Sofia the capital of Bulgaria.

-May
19th, 1940: Bulgarian fascist, Aleksandar Tsankov is captured and imprisoned back in Thessaloniki, Greece.
The Greeks had hoped to use him as a bargaining chip if they needed to later
on.

-May
24th, 1940: Italian, Illyrian, Albanian and Bosnian forces supported
by Macedonian and Bulgarian partisans begin the invasion of mainland Serbia
heading for Belgrade.

-May
30th, 1940: Romani Slobozîmos Vojska forces begin a full uprising in
the Bessarabia region of the Kingdom of Romania in an attempt to liberate the
Roma Concentration Camps in Transnistria. Commander Vinzenz Rose leads a
partisan effort in destroying railroads, supply lines and extremely important
Romanian oil refineries. He would be awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union Award
by the USSR after the war. This immediately cripples the Romanian supply line
causing their forces near Crimea to be cut off and flanked

## June 1940

-June
5th, 1940: Roman Bloc forces capture Belgrade and defeat the Kingdom of
Serbia thus ending the Yugoslav Civil War despite Romania and Hungary remaining active (they were already dealing with the heavy Soviet forces in the east).

## Romania and Hungary Post-Civil War

-June
9th, 1940: Milan Nedić is executed by Illyrian-Italian forces.

-June
10th, 1940: With a majority of the Romanian fascist army destroyed
and their supply lines crippled by Slobozîmos Vojska forces and the Hungarian
army being stretched thin between Poland, Ukraine, Romania and its own borders,
the Soviets meet up with Roma forces in Odessa and begin and invasion of
Romania.

-June
12th, 1940: The Tiraspol Concentration Camp is liberated by
Slobozîmos Vojska forces, most of its prisoners were Roma who quickly joined
the brigade.

-June
15th, 1940: Joint Soviet-Slobozîmos Vojska forces capture Chișinău
in Romania.

-June
17th, 1940: Joint Soviet-Slobozîmos Vojska forces capture Bucharest.
Romania had been greatly weakened by its conflict in the Yugoslav Civil War,
the work of Romani partisans and being stretching too thinly. The fascist
leader of Romania, Ion Antonescu, is executed and the Romanian communist,
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, is installed as the new leader of the Socialist
Republic of Romania. Many Roma living in Romania would go on to join the
Slobozîmos Vojska and join with the Soviets.

-June
26th, 1940: Soviet forces invade Hungary which had already been
greatly weakened by the Yugoslav Civil War.

-July
1st, 1940: Soviet forces take Budapest and liberate Hungary. Ferenc
Szálasi, the fascist leader of Hungary commits suicide in a Hungarian bunker.

## Aftermath

Prime Minister Shefqet Vërlaci of the Kingdom of Albania
is deposed for subordination to the Kingdom of Italy and the more loyal Mustafa
Merlika-Kruja is appointed as the new Prime Minister.

Benito Mussolini calls a meeting of
the Roman Bloc in the Italian City of Trieste following the end of the Yugoslav
Civil War despite the Versailles War still raging on. It is attended by Benito
Mussolini of the Kingdom of Italy, António de Oliveira Salazar of the Portuguese Republic, Francisco Franco of the Spanish State, Slavko Kvaternik of the
Illyrian Republic, Ioannis Metaxas of the Kingdom of Greece and Mustafa
Merlika-Kruja of the Kingdom of Albania at what would become known as the
Trieste Conference.

**Trieste Conference:**

-The Kingdom of Serbia will be partitioned with Albania annexing Kosovo and
northwestern Macedonia, Illyria annexing southern parts of Bosnia, Greece annexing parts of southern Macedonian and southern Bulgaria.

-The Ex-Yugoslav/Serbian Monarchy will be sent into exile in Sardinia.
Serbia will be reconstructed as a Totalist Country known as the Serbian Free
State.

-Bosnia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Macedonia will be established as independent states
with a Totalist government that was favorable to the Roman Bloc.

-Ethnic Serbs will be deported from the Illyrian Republic, Bosnian Free
State and the Kingdom of Montenegro.

-The Kingdom of Italy shall gain control over the Islands of Dalmatia.
While Mussolini had wanted to expand his reaches into Croatia he didn’t want to
start another war just yet.

On August 10th, 1940, Muhamed Hadžiefendić is appointed as the Prime Minister
of Bosnia, Krsto Popović is appointed as the Prime Minister of Montenegro,
Dimitrije Ljotić is appointed as the Prime Minister of Serbia, Ivan Mihailov is
appointed as the Prime Minister of Macedonia and Bogdan Filov is appointed the
Prime Minister of Bulgaria.